Bringing Convenience and Open Source Methods To Higher Education 165
Business Week has a piece discussing the effects internet-based technology and open sharing are having on the standards of higher education. The author says every product's success or failure depends on its fidelity — the overall quality of experience — and convenience. Since the internet has made the sharing of even expert-level knowledge convenient, he wonders how long it will be until some school or company raises the fidelity enough to have their degrees accepted alongside those of professional-grade colleges. Quoting:
"Once in a while, a market gets completely out of balance. Forces conspire to prevent either a high-fidelity or high-convenience player from emerging. All the offerings crowd around one end or the other. Eventually, someone nails a disruptive approach. Customers and competitors rush in and the marketplace wonders why that great idea didn't come sooner. The higher education market is a lot like that. For centuries the university model dominated because nothing else worked. No technology existed that might deliver an interactive, engaging educational experience without gathering students and teachers in the same physical space. ... These days broadband Internet, video games, social networks, and other developments could combine to create an online, inexpensive, super-convenient model for higher education. You wouldn't get the sights and sounds of a campus, personal contact with professors, or beer-soaked frat parties, but you'd end up with the knowledge you need and the degree to prove it."
The purpose of all these "innovations" (Score:0, Interesting)
Is to further the transformation of professors from a collegial model supported by tenure and academic freedom to an underpaid, no-job-security "information transmission technician" temp job to facilitate the extraction of tuition from McStudents.
Re:Erm.... Labs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Several of hte instructors at the community college I worked at developed kitchen labs, all safe, but demonstrative. There's even a company out there (forget the name at the moment) that has a chem lab pre-created, and they even will accept liability for all experiments therein. Granted, no cesium in a fish tank, but still educational.
Re:tests? (Score:4, Interesting)
I completed a degree program online. Took me three years to do it. The way they (sort of) got around this was to have actual sittings for exams in various places throughout the country for each semester. These exams covered bits from the entire previous semester and would be difficult to just waltz in and take without actually doing the coursework.
Re:Consider Star Trek... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Conferences are another similar situation. I've attended and been involved in organizing numerous conferences. The one next month is 14 timezones away. Hundreds of people will still make the trip because of the value of talking to people face-to-face, and especially the value of talking to many people simultaneously face-to-face. Video links are also terrible at providing lucky chances for unplanned conversations. I can't count the number of productive partnerships that have germinated over a stale lunch and a cold beer in between sessions.
It's precisely this fact that makes me discourage students from online distance education whenever possible. Both in undergrad and grad school, I learned way more from random discussions, be they with other students or professors, than I ever did during the official class time. So much of an education is had by being around others who are also interested in the same things and eager to talk about it.
The Open University (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One sentence discredits the whole article (Score:4, Interesting)
Actuall, UofP is VERY good for certain types of degrees. Computer Science being one of them. While I don't have a degree from UofP, I have worked with IT people who do, and they were smart, motivated, well educated people.
Let's face it, you DO NOT need to physically be in a classroom to learn computer science. Hell, most old line universities are so far behind the IT curve that it's become a bit of a joke in the IT field.
Yes, there are some courses where you really do still need a physical location. Most of the physical sciences and medicine fall into that category. But for most other courses, there are no "labs" to go to. Why not virtualize them? Assuming it is done well (and like physical schools, there would be good and bad ones) there isn't any good reason why we shouldn't be able to it.
Unless of course you are a stodgy, dusty, moldy old Prof who can't change his or her ways and just want to rail against market forces performing the creative destruction they always do. In that case, all I can say is that it sucks to be you.
Re:Erm.... Labs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really..
Chemistry degree here. I've yet to see a 'timmy tries chemisty' set that has a rotovap, access to a nmr, mass-spec or X-ray crystallography. I had hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment at my disposal, and this was a univ with a chem department of about 60 people, including students and faculty. The standard equipment that each student was issued in Organic cost well over a thousand.
Get real.
Re:The Open University (Score:1, Interesting)
The Open University has certainly been making in-roads against the perceived "noddy" degree idea. There are lots of courses that would not be suitable. Such as Chemistry mentioned above, however CS, Maths, English, History, Business Studies, Economics can all be learnt by well structured and well delivered course.
I took my choose my degree course becaus I was genuinely interested in the subject. I find that going to university and studying a degree because of career prospects put you in the wrong mind frame, and I have seen many people be unhappy or even drop out because they hated what they did. Deep down we all choose a subject we enjoy (if we choose well) because we know that we'd hate to do a boring subject for 3-4 years just because I could get a decent career.
That choosing to study for fun somehow degrades the accomplishment of those who took part is a sad and petty reason to not like the OU.
Distance learning institutions need to maintain a certain level of checks and balances in order to gain a reputation that they don't let people cheat or coast. This still applies to a bricks and mortar institution.
Re:One sentence discredits the whole article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Open University (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you would imagine a degree from here carries at least some weight in academics and business, but unfortunately that's not the case
No, it has a higher weight than a degree from any of the former polytechnics (at least, with all of the employers I've spoken to - I don't have a degree from either, so I can't comment first-hand).
it is a sad fact that OU degrees are sneered upon in britain today.
Are they? 'OU degrees' covers a broad spectrum. OU degrees in academic subjects tend to be respected; they indicate that the person is sufficiently motivated to learn on their own time, and that they have been assessed as actually having done so. OU degrees in fluffy subjects are subject to the same derision as those subjects at 'real' universities.
Re:Erm.... Labs? (Score:1, Interesting)
And how many undergrad classes use those things?
As for access.. The GAVRT is an example of a remotely accessible radio telescope for educational purposes. It's not like you need to go out and turn the handwheels to point the thing these days. The STM or MRI, you have a point, but OTOH, I doubt most undergrad (or grad) level folks ever have access to such things.
Re:tests? (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly, most reputable on-line schools have you take tests at a third party location.
I am currently taking classes on-line for my masters degree though Western Governor's University. I take the course exams at the same place I took my exams for my bachelors degree, at the Brigham Young University testing center. There isn't too much different. I keep in contact with my professors by e-mail. I have a syllabus and course material. I read the text books. I have an on-line community of people (students and teachers) that I converse with. On-line schools have come a long way in the last few years and are getting better.
Re:Yes - and? (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things I learned in college is that if you show up in class, you can pretty much postpone the reading until the exam preparation, and even then you can use your book as a reference rather than reading it pages 1-n.
YMMV.
(one example: the compiler class had the entire Java Language Specification, ~800 pages, as the curriculum. I read ~ten pages, and got the best grade.)