The "DISTANCEducation" section of the Georgia Center Quarterly is designed to provide a forum for discourse and comment about the practice of distance education -- its administration, operation, programs, and activities.
by Jerry L. Hargis
Georgia Center Associate Director for Communication Services
Those of you who are familiar with the Georgia Center know of the long-term practice of Environmental Scanning and strategic planning used here.
In the past year or so, Scanning has identified a significant shift in the literature of higher education that speaks to the need for institutions to again reevaluate missions and role statements. What will be/is the impact of technology on the academy?
This shift may be characterized by three notions: a sense of public dissatisfaction with higher education generally, especially with regard to use of resources; a rising expectation that institutions should respond in new and different ways to the educational needs and desires of the various publics; and a growing realization that the traditional "academy" is no longer the "only game in town."
No lesser light than Peter Drucker has recently suggested that the major universities may not exist in the next 20 to 30 years. The cost of maintaining a major center of higher learning in the physical sense may have passed what the public feels is an acceptable level. Eli Noam from Columbia University has also suggested that the growth of knowledge, increased costs and the impact of technology may reduce the university of tomorrow to a sort of "office park" attended to by part-time, telecommuting staff.
The advent of such things as the Western Governors Virtual University, the IBM Global Campus, and other new developments will impact the traditional institutions in ways that can only be imagined. When learners find that needs for specific information, educational access, or training are available in a variety of formats, at a range of costs, the decision-making focus shifts from the institutions who for so long have chosen who is to teach, learn, and pay to the learner or "consumer." Increasingly the consumer is becoming a wise shopper for information as for other necessary life commodities.
None of these comments is meant to suggest that the modern institution of higher education is not worth what is invested to maintain it. Nor is the current criticism, for the most part, mean-spirited in its commentary on perceived "shortfalls" of the academy. What is noted as significant is the unparalleled availability of access to information and learning experiences, the greatly expanded range of learning needs, the shift in the balance of decision-making from the teaching model to the learning model, and the increased gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" with regard to technology that "translates" as access to informational resources.
In the age of "the electronic moment" where seeing is no longer believing--when Forrest Gump can speak to President Kennedy, when the smallest whisper can be heard worldwide, when those who control the medium can also control the message--a new paradigm is developing. That is the capability for self-directed, mass customization by the individual "learner" from an almost inexhaustible supply of information/education providers.
For institutions of higher education to be true to their fundamental missions of teaching, research, and service, and to be efficient and cost-effective in those missions, a new portfolio of activities may need to be created that rebalances the resource allocations between the functions to assure that continuing and distance education methodologies, that have been so effective in meeting diverse educational needs of a variety of constituents in the past, are utilized throughout the academy for an expanded audience.
The demands for learning placed on all citizens of a dynamic, democratic society will in turn place increasing demands on the academy for responses that are economical, convenient, timely, relevant, and efficient. The numbers of (perhaps increasingly privileged) traditional, resident campus students may decline due to economic pressures, and the evolving, new primary role for institutions may be in service to society's agendas of economic development, workforce training, social problem-solving, and, perhaps, national survival.
Institutions should undertake serious research and planning to prepare for an examination of their missions and capabilities to develop this new portfolio. This view is echoed by a distinguished panel of 25 current and former presidents of land-grant institutions. The panel prepared a special report for the recent National Association State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges' Kellogg Commission titled "Returning to Our Roots: The Student Experience." The executive summary of this report states, "...unless public colleges and universities become the architects of change, they will be its victims." And also, "In the next century, a new kind of university will be in place. Most of us are already in the process of inventing it. A university without walls, it will retain the best of our heritage. But it will also be open, accessible, and flexible in ways that can barely be imagined today. In this new university, the emphasis will be on delivering instruction anywhere, anytime, and to practically anyone who seeks it."
Institutions with programs of excellence in continuing and distance education should have a headstart on the new paradigm for redesigning their programmatic portfolio.
For more information about "DISTANCEducation" or if you'd like to submit an article for consideration, contact Editorial Services, Georgia Center for Continuing Education, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-3603, 706-542-1223, FAX: 706-542-5990.
Web administrator: webmaster@gactr.uga.edu All contents copyright © 1997 University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education. All rights reserved. Last revised: Tue, Jul 8, 1997, 3:40:31 PM URL: http://www.gactr.uga.edu/GCQ/gcqspr97/de.html