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50 Global Education: Out of the Ivory Tower Robin Mason The British Open University r.d.mason@open.ac.uk

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Every day there are announcements of new companies being formed to market online and distance courses, or new partnerships among existing institutions to broker courses and programs both nationally and internationally. Just like airline companies, universities around the world are partnering up. The World Education Market held in Vancouver in May 2000 was a timely sign: The fair was expressly organized to help universities, training providers, software companies, and representatives from countries with large education needs to meet and form alliances, and it attracted participants from over 60 countries. As the race to form global alliances gathers momentum, a number of academics and commentators on the higher education scene have begun to investigate the reality behind the globalization fever. A number of research studies have already appeared that analyze current trends, applications, and emerging models.

Until this globalizing trend began to take hold, most people viewed education as a charitable activity, which required large inputs of cash from governments and large inputs of thought from academics locked away from the harsh realities of life. The advent of a consumer approach to higher education threatens to abandon the undoubted benefits of the old order in the haste to topple its ivory tower unreality. It is now quite common to hear education policymakers and senior university faculty talking about “market share,” and in some cases, making profits or more alarmingly, staying in business.

What exactly does the term globalization mean in relation to higher education? Not surprisingly, the concept is used differently by different constituents and other words such as borderless education, and virtual, online, distributed, and international education all have somewhat similar designation. Within this family of concepts, at least some of the following

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elements are usually implied:

r international communications based on telecommunications, information, and media technologies, which facilitate transnational circulation of text, images, and artifacts,

r international movement of students to study in other countries as well as a demand for online courses without a residency requirement in another country,

r increasing multicultural learning environment whether online or on campus, r increasing global circulation of ideas and particularly Western pedagogical systems and values,

r rise of international and virtual organizations offering Web-based education and training.

In practice, online courses and programs are increasingly attracting students from around the world, and some are even being designed specifically for a global market.

Accreditation One area in which educational globalization lags behind economic globalization is that of crossborder regulations. While economic globalization is supported by increasing deregulation of financial markets and reductions in tariffs allowing an easy flow of goods and services, the educational counterpart of this—credit transfer—is undeveloped even at a national level in most countries outside the United States, let alone at an international level. If an international system of transferring credit from one university to another were in place, the full floodgates of global higher education would be opened.

What is more likely is that the monopoly on accreditation that universities have enjoyed for centuries will simply be sidestepped by organizations offering courses, information, resources, and educational opportunities that the market is demanding. This is already the case in the area of IT accreditation, where Microsoft certification is valued more highly than a BSC in computing.

Access Without a doubt, the issue about globalized education that arouses most concern and discussion is access. Those who believe that education is a basic right think that commercialization carries acute risks.

They argue that education must not only train workers, but also citizens and responsible individuals. Therefore they question not only the effects liberalization will have, which would lead to discrimination against the most disadvantaged countries, groups and individuals, but also the impact a commercial approach will have on the spread of “common values” or respect for the indispensable diversity of learning content and methods, which take into account the language, culture and teaching traditions of the people for whom they are intended. (Hallak, 2000, p. 17)

There are two aspects to the concern about access:

r that those without an IT infrastructure will be disenfranchised, putting higher education even further out of reach and

r that in countries, cities, and wealthy enclaves where access to global online courses is possible, the status of degrees from prestigious Western universities will undermine local and national universities and lead to cultural homogeneity with all the consequent loss of diversity so marked in the plant and animal worlds.

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Student Readiness We know that the technologies are already in place to manage teaching on a global scale—at least for those who have access to electricity, computers, and the Internet. However, the social and psychological fabric needed to underpin education online lags much further behind mere technical provision. Are the potential students of global education ready to be self-directed, self-motivated, and resourceful e-learners?

This chapter looks at the research underpinning these interconnected issues: the drivers behind globalization, the implications of the commercialization of education, the models used by the early adopter programs, and the reaction of those not yet involved. While America is leading the practice of global education, a good deal of the research about the phenomenon comes from those countries most likely to be affected by American domination of a global market in education: Canada, Australia, and the UK.

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE? The Destruction of the Ivory Tower Many critics and observers of the higher education scene in the United States are predicting the death of the university. Brown and Duguid in their influential analysis, The Social Life of Information, say, “universities are one of the few institutions that have been around throughout the last millennium . . . some doubt whether they will make it very far into the next” (2000, p. 208). One of the greatest threats to the traditional university is the rise of other educational providers: corporate universities, private for-profit universities, virtual universities, and a wide range of education brokers. Most of these new providers are businesses and the focus of a business is profit, while the focus of a university is knowledge.

These companies are in the knowledge business—knowledge for profit—and they are revolutionizing the way we learn at the same time as they are creating a powerful new opportunity for growth in business. . . . Behind it all looms a gargantuan government-run education system incapable of handling a doubling of knowledge about every seven years. The knowledge revolution will power the new global economy, reshape many of our institutions—particularly education—and touch every aspect of our lives. Business sees the opportunity, and it is driving ahead full speed to realize this vision to adapt to, and profit from, the realities of the new information economy. (Davis & Botkin, 1995, pp. 14–15)

Davis and Botkin’s (1995) enchantingly titled book, The Monster under the Bed: How Business is Mastering the Opportunity of Knowledge for Profit, sounded one of the early alarm bells for the university sector. Reductions in the funding of public universities, the changing nature of those wanting access to higher education, and above all, the larger social phenomena of consumerization and commodification of knowledge have all contributed to a profound questioning of the role and place of the university in a global economy. Those who have studied the higher education scene in the United States tend to fall into two camps: enthusiasts (e.g., Margolis, 1998) and alarmists (e.g., Luke, 1996). In addition to the fundamental debate over whether the university has a future and indeed, what higher education genuinely should be about, they differ in their conclusions about whether access will be increased or not by technology-mediated delivery.

Van Weigel (2000) argues that e-learning can increase the reach of higher education, but usually does this at the expense of quality. Rich approaches to learning—such as cognitive apprenticeship, collaborative research, critical reflection, and problem-based learning could

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be readily adapted to undergraduate contexts through Internet-based technologies. He goes on to say: Some may contend that undergraduate students are simply not ready for this. To that I respond, How would we know?. . . By the time they reach college, students have been socialized to expect less and less from education. The adventure of learning has been collapsed to what one gets on the final exam. . . . Intellectual risk-taking is only rarely rewarded. (Weigel, 2000, p. 13)

In short, the globalization of education is exacerbating problems in higher education, which have roots much deeper than recent trends of consumerization and Internet technologies.

However, the fear is that the focus of change in higher education is too much focused on short-term gain and maximizing revenue at the expense of the longer-term purposes of higher education.

Globalization and Education One area of serious research is concerned with the way in which global education is a reflection or extension of society’s increasing understanding of the interrelatedness and interdependence of the physical world. The development of this global consciousness has been heightened by the spread of global communication systems and particularly the entertainment media.

One researcher to study the relationship between global consciousness and education is John Field: Distance open learning appears to be uniquely suited to the emerging world order. As borders open up across the globe to traffic of almost every kind, so distance open learning flows increasingly across national frontiers. Once an essential element in nation-building, education is increasingly a commodity, most readily exportable in the form of distance open learning. (Field, 1995, p. 270)

He documents the ways in which, as with other social and political trends, education is increasingly being thought of as a commodity to be shaped according to consumer demand.

Other researchers of the rise of “student-as-consumer” are more positive about its effects— particularly the way in which it is changing the worst aspects of the ivory tower practices of the university. Early studies of the use of computer conferencing note that teachers and course developers are being forced to consider the needs and requirements of learners, and online communication allows students’ opinions to be embedded into the learning environment. A British researcher, Richard Edwards, concludes that the globalization of education through the use of telecommunications technologies will empower the learner and force the providers of education to concern themselves with students’ real needs, rather than with the transmission of a preestablished canon of knowledge.

Technologically-mediated knowledge provides the basis for individualising learning in a more complete and active way. . . . Here distance is subservient to the discourse of open learning and “educative” processes are displaced and reconstituted as relationships between producers and consumers in which knowledge is exchanged on the basis of the usefulness it has to the consumer.

It is therefore a discourse of open learning which might be said to more fully govern the practices of those operating at a distance in the postmodern moment, as increased marketisation is introduced into the provision of learning opportunities and mass markets fragment and become more volatile across the globe. (Edwards, 1995, p. 251)

Educators, just like businesses, will have to become more flexible—in their staffing ratios, in their approach to students, and in their considerations of the curriculum. Various structural

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rigidities of traditional universities will have to be overcome: constraints on what constitutes the academic year, on where credits can be accumulated, and on how courses can be modularized.

The kinds of courses that the global consumer is demanding are flexible, adaptable, portable, and interactive (Mason, 1998, p. 7).

Unbundling the Education Process Many researchers in the field have noted and documented the ways in which universities, in the face of virtual and global expansion, are outsourcing functions and processes that are no longer considered core business.

Until recently, the university was a self-contained society. Faculty members developed courses and course materials, offered those courses, and assessed student performance. The university provided pre-enrolment, enrolment, financial aid, record-keeping, and transcription services. It also provided instructional support services such as a library, computer labs, bookstore, and student union, complete with clubhouses, dining rooms, and restaurants, and meeting places. Many provided complete housing services. (Dirr, 1999, p. 27)

While few mourn the outsourcing of the food service or even the bookstore and other business and administrative operations, alarm sets in when universities consider unbundling student support and assessment. This is all part of a larger movement toward specialization of function, and for universities it may mean that one supplies content and curriculum design, another supplies assessment or awarding, and a company supplies the marketing, technology expertise, and perhaps capital. As part of an education consortium, this model of focusing on core areas of expertise can be seen as a strength and even a benefit for learners. For global programs, this disaggregation is a necessity.

Studies of Global Education The United States is the undisputed leader in the field of online education and hence of institutional change. This has prompted governments in the UK, Canada and Australia to commission hefty studies on the danger of their national universities being eroded by U.S. globalized education. Each of these reports is based on extensive research of American activity, literature, and attitudes. All three come to similar conclusions: that their national universities are under threat and that joining the global bandwagon is the only way to survive.

The UK study was entitled The Business of Borderless Education (CVCP, 2000) and runs to two volumes. It investigates current policy and practice of noncampus higher education worldwide, but particularly in the United States. A wide range of regulatory issues as well as a number of the leading exemplars of global education are studied in some detail. An extensive list of recommendations covers advice to UK universities, government agencies, research and funding bodies, and quality assurance agencies. U. S. case studies include various corporate universities, for-profit universities, and media and software giants that have education initiatives.

Regarding the success of U.S. globalization, the CVCP study asks: Why then has borderless higher education taken off in the United States to a greater extent than in the UK (and elsewhere)? Three key reasons appear to be: a strong tradition of private higher education; devolved accreditation arrangements; and high student fees at mainstream institutions.

(2000, p. 84)

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It goes on to note that: Most for-profit providers, even if not primarily online focused as yet (for example, the University of Phoenix), are not oriented around the residential model (or indeed research model) of the university and thus are not concerned to support a range of subjects or the host of infrastructural, social and recreational facilities common at traditional institutions. . . . Innovative, non-traditional providers stress their commitment to the adult learner, point to pedagogically sound and professionally relevant curricula and exemplary student services. The charge is made that much traditional higher education largely falls on these counts. (CVCP, 2000, pp. 86–87)

Other issues related to global or borderless education are copyright and intellectual property, technology infrastructure, and governance, and these are also investigated in some depth in this UK research. The team of eight researchers, mainly UK academics, was advised by a steering group of representatives of UK Vice Chancellors and Principals. It is no coincidence that, at the same time as the findings from this study were published, the UK government announced that it was funding an e-university initiative to allow British universities to enter the global e-learning business.

The Australian study entitled, New Media and Borderless Education, was the first of the three and concluded that: There is evidence of a major segmentation of the market, with new providers targeting the lifelong learning cohort (25 years and up). This includes corporate training/education, a domain only partially catered for by traditional universities and a profitable market—being largely self-funded and employer-funded. Continuing and professional education is a component of lifelong learning for those in the workforce. There is a widespread perception that traditional institutions are not meeting the needs of the lifelong learning cohort and that the field is open for new providers to meet market demands. One obvious, and problematic, outcome of this segmentation is that traditional institutions may be left serving the less profitable traditional undergraduate market (18-24), which is largely government-funded or family-funded, in a time when governments are increasingly endeavouring to cut public outlays. Looking further into the future than the mediumterm prospects, this arguably represents one of the most significant challenges to, and opportunities for, established higher education providers. (Cunningham et al., 1998, p. xv)

A follow-up study in 2000 conducted by the same team took the most prominent area to emerge from their first report and tackled it in much more depth: Corporate providers were considered to be one of the major emerging alternatives to the traditional higher education sector, able to capture profitable niche markets in lifelong learning and vocational training through their ability to deliver more flexible and tailored programmes, and their ability to generate future employment opportunities for their “students.” (Cunningham et al., 2000)

The team approached 13 U.S. institutions from among a list of corporate universities, forprofit providers, and virtual universities. Nine on-site visits took place and interviews with various personnel were conducted over several days at each site. In addition, more than a dozen other organizations were the subject of a contextual study, the purpose being to establish a wide range of perceptions about the “business” of education in the United States. Interview protocols were constructed with a view to determining types of learners targeted, use of technology in teaching and learning, governance and staffing issues, courses offered, curricular approaches, challenges faced by the organization and plans for expansion, particularly into overseas markets.

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The extent and seriousness of the UK and Australian studies are an indication of the importance with which globalization is viewed by the higher education sector.

The Canadian study was conducted by a firm of consultants for the Council of Presidents of the Public Universities, Colleges and Institutes of Alberta (COP, 2000). While not as extensive a study of the U.S. scene as the UK and Australian reports, it was conducted after them and therefore built on their findings. A particularly valuable part of the study is a taxonomy of business models that encapsulates current distributed learning activity worldwide. The models are based upon the distribution channels used and the nature of collaboration between the partners, as these are two of the key challenges in offering Web-based learning. Six distinct approaches are identified, although the researchers point out that many providers combine elements from several models.

1. Direct Sales/Virtual Universities This is the most common but also the most varied model. University of Phoenix and Jones University International are two examples as they offer online learning courses directly to the learner or corporations.

2. Partnership/Joint Venture The researchers explain the advantage of partnerships in this way: Although this model is similar to consortia models with collaboration being the attraction of the model, partnerships and joint ventures typically have less cultural drag than do consortia.

The effort spent on collaboration between the multiple members in consortia is high while partnerships are more straightforward—members are fewer and roles are typically clearer.

(COP, 2000, p. 16)

3. Brand Broker In this model an independent broker offers courses designed or delivered from brandname learning providers. Typically there is an exclusivity agreement that restricts memberships so that the brand is not diluted. Unext.com and Cardean.com are two exemplars.

4. Mall/Aggregator Broker This model is primarily a broker’s information portal where learners can find appropriate courses—an online yellow pages. The researchers note that so-called mall brokers are realizing that they must provide more than mere listings and leading examples are adding new features to keep browsers returning to the site.

5. Regional Consortia/Associations A consortium of multiple providing institutions, sometimes regionally based but increasingly international, share activities, staff, technology infrastructure, and so on to improve efficiency and gain market share. There are many U.S. examples, but two international examples are Universitas 21 and Next Ed. 6. Channel Supplier This model takes the form of an individual institution using an existing Web marketing channel to offer courses to a well-defined market. The researchers acknowledge that this is a very new model and only in the developing stage. However, they consider that it is potentially one of the largest growth areas for online learning.

The conclusions of the report are in line with the UK and Australian studies. Two items from the executive summary are: Strategy will make the difference. Providers need to position themselves strategically in the marketplace—making conscious choices and trade-offs based upon their missions and abilities.

They must clarify what value they offer customers and what their core competencies are.

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Collaboration is essential. Collaboration and partnerships are necessary to compete. This is true for regional markets and for international markets. Around the world, business partnerships are occurring between regional institutions, consortia of international institutions, and between the public and private sector. (COP, 2000, pp. 1–2)

The evidence from these three studies points to the same conclusion: that getting into the globalized arena or at least the e-learning business is necessary for survival, and existing universities ignore the trend at their peril. Concerns about the creation of a “have-not” underclass, about which institution accredits the students, and about whether the courses are commodities or learning opportunities are seen as problems to tackle along the way, not as signs that this trend can or should be resisted.

Related Fields of Research It would be difficult to claim that the globalization of education is a distinct research field— at least not yet. Other, more developed areas of research feed into the studies that do exist and researchers bring varied perspectives and research literature to bear on their analysis and comment on the globalization issue. Related areas of particular significance (some of which are covered in this volume) include:

r institutional change and business reengineering, r management studies about models of partnerships and consortia, r approaches to staff development, especially the training of online teachers, r the pedagogy of online learning, and r technology and software development to support global course delivery.

WHAT FURTHER RESEARCH IS NEEDED? There are many aspects of the design and delivery of global education that would benefit from further research. However two stand out as being especially relevant for global education.

The first of these is the issue of student readiness for learning where there is no face-to-face component to the course provision. While this is questionable among American students, it is a much more complex issue when considering students from other countries. There are many variables: age, academic level, previous study, style of learning, and access to the technology of delivery. Early indications are that students who are older, studying at postgraduate level with easy access to a PC, self-confident, and willing to interact with their peers online will be much more successful on global courses than those who begin without these advantages (Macdonald & Mason, 1998). While many local and national online courses have some provision for face-toface tutorials, courses offered to students all over the world rarely do. Even real-time events online are difficult for a global student body.

Trials and experiments in how to help students become more self-directed as learners are also needed. What works for different types of learner—mentoring, preparatory material, computerbased self-testing exercises, carefully scaffolded learning materials, or combinations of these?

Studies need to be carried out across a range of curriculum areas. Students from science backgrounds have different skills, approaches to learning, and habits of studying by the time they reach postgraduate level than their fellow students who have pursued arts subjects. This may mean they have different levels of readiness to engage in online interaction, collaboration, and group work or to sustain motivation without any face-to-face support.

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The second issue is closely related to student readiness for online learning. It involves the cultural differences that inevitably arise in online courses with students from many countries, educational backgrounds, and mother tongues. While cultural differences are not unique to global courses or even to online courses, they are much more evident and more difficult to address without the benefit of face-to-face interaction. Two American researchers who have begun to investigate the effect of global courses on students from other cultures are Gayol and Schied. They note: Content selection, visual design, central planning, language, teaching-learning routines, accreditation, academic prestige of the originating site, are all centralized textualities which might work together as an assimilationist or exclusionary pedagogy. (Gayol & Schied, 1997, p. 12)

Edwards and Usher’s new book, Globalisation and Pedagogy, establishes a firm research base for the study of the significance of globalizing processes for education and pedagogy: At a time when learners are themselves subject to great changes in their sense of identity under the influence of economic, political and cultural change, there is therefore a question as to whether, for instance, the humanistic notions of learner-centredness provides us with the categories to “make sense” of learners. As with learners, so with learning. If identity is becoming subject to different forms of experiencing with the influence of globalising processes, then the ways in which learners are engaged may also need re-evaluating. (Edwards & Usher, 2000, p. 53)

Among the very earliest research studies of cultural issues in online courses is a special issue of the journal, Distance Education, May 2001. One of the articles in this issue explains the background to this new research area: We believe that because we are responsible for delivering courses to a global population we need to endeavour a) to ensure that those students who bring other, non-UK, cultural and linguistic experiences to our courses should not be disadvantaged, and b) to explore ways in which we may transform the cultural basis of these courses so that they more fairly reflect the plurality of backgrounds of the participants. (Goodfellow, Lea, Gonzalez, & Mason, 2001, p. 67)

Many of the studies in the special issue are written by practitioners who base their research on interviews with students, analysis of conference interactions, experiments with cross-cultural online collaborations, and feedback from tutors who teach global student groups. Designing courses for a global student body is an area that has received very little attention, and most practitioners are operating in a research vacuum.

Related questions that need addressing across a range of disciplines, levels, and institutions are:

r How can courses prepared for students of one culture and educational paradigm work successfully for students unfamiliar with the language and educational practices of another country? r How can the support mechanisms developed by one institution be spread globally and still offer all students an equal education? r How can online technologies produce the same quality of learning environment for students from a range of cultural backgrounds as that of the cherished campus experience?

In short, apart from the profound implications that global education is having on the evolution of the university, there is the more practical question of “Does it work?” Quality assurance,

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student support, and agreement about best practice on global courses are areas that need to be underpinned by research on the new phenomenon of global education.

Researching the future is not as easy as studying the past. Scare mongering and sales talk often substitute for careful analysis in this debate about the university in the global Information Age. Nevertheless, there are researchers who are tackling specific aspects of the problem. If it is an irresistible direction for universities, it is better that we understand it than that we merely decry it.

REFERENCES Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2000). The social life of information. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

COP. (2000). Business models of distributed learning. An interim report to the council of presidents. Available at: http://www.standing-stones.com/e-cave/links by business models.htm.

Cunningham, S., Tapsall, S., Ryan, Y., Stedman, L., Bagdon, K., & Flew, T. (1998). New media and borderless education: A review of the convergence between global media networks and higher education provisions, 97/22.

Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Cunningham, S., Ryan, Y., Stedman, L., Tapsall, S., Bagdon, K., Flew, T., & Coaldrake, P. (2000). The business of borderless education. Draft final report. Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

CVCP. (2000). The business of borderless education: UK perspectives. Available at: http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/ bookshop/ Davis, S., & Botkin J. (1995). The monster under the bed: How business is mastering the opportunity of knowledge for profit. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Dirr, P. (1999). Distance and virtual learning in the United States. In G. Farrell (Ed.), The development of virtual education: A global perspective. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.

Edwards, R. (1995). Different discourses, discourses of difference: Globalisation, distance education and open learning.

Distance Education, 16(2), 241–255.

Edwards, R., & Usher, R. (2000). Globalisation and pedagogy. Space, place and identity. London: Routledge/Falmer.

Field, J. (1995). Globalisation, consumption and the learning business. Distance Education, 16(2), 270–283.

Gayol, Y., & Schied, F. (1997). Cultural imperialism in the virtual classroom: Critical pedagogy in transnational distance education. Presented at the 18th ICDE World Conference, The new learning environment: A global perspective, June 2–6, 1997, Pennsylvania State University, USA. Goodfellow, R., Lea, M., Gonzalez, F., & Mason, R. (2001). Opportunity and e-quality: Intercultural and linguistic issues in global online education. Distance Education, 22(1), pp. 65–84.

Hallak, J. (2000). Guarding the common interest, education: The last frontier for profit. The Unesco Courier, November.

Luke, T. (1996). The politics of cyberschooling at the virtual university. Available at: http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/ virtu/luke.htm.

Macdonald, J., & Mason, R. (1998). Information handling skills and resource based learning. Open Learning, 13(1), 38–42.

Margolis, M. (1998). Brave new universities. First Monday, 3. Available at: http://www.131.193.153.231/issues/ issue3 5/margolis/index.html.

Mason, R. (1998). Globalising education. Trends and applications. London: Routledge.

Weigel, V. (2000 Sept/Oct). E-learning and the tradeoff between richness and reach in higher education. Change, 33(5), 8–13.

54 Leading ODL Futures in the Eternal Triangle: The Mega-University Response to the Greatest Moral Challenge of Our Age John Daniel UNESCO j.daniel@unesco.org

Wayne Mackintosh University ofAuckland w.mackintosh@auckland.ac.nz

This chapter concentrates on one particularly successful manifestation of open distance learning (ODL), namely the large-scale single-mode providers, which have been called the megauniversities (see Daniel, 1996). Within the context of leading strategic futures in higher education, we argue, ďŹ rst, that the principles of open learning will continue to be the guiding vision for the future of the university and, second, that the large open learning systems of the mega-universities are an important model for the university of the future.

In order to achieve the objectives stated above, the structure of this chapter is based on three main areas of focus that are derived from the following questions:

r What is the state of tertiary education provision around the world? When examining the imbalances between global supply of tertiary education and the magnitude of the moral demand for access, it is clear that the imperative of providing a decent education for all is the greatest moral challenge of our age. Thus, distance education will have to play an important role in helping to resolve this crisis. r Why have the large open learning systems used by the mega-universities been so successful? A clearer understanding of the drivers underpinning the success of the megauniversities in conjunction with an extrapolation of what this may tell us about ODL futures will provide insights into how we can start to tackle the looming higher education crisis on our planet. r What have we learned from the mega-university experience regarding the future of the university? Innovations that have the potential for radical transformation in society also very often include the potential for great risks for society. This section draws on the megauniversity experience with particular reference to technology futures for the university.

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The mega-university experience, as a particular form of distance education practice, has gained a rich and extensive experience in both the highly industrialized and the developing regions of our world. In many respects, the practice of distance education in the mega-university context is unique when compared to other forms of distance education and face-to-face higher education provision. Furthermore, the mega-university, as institution, has the most extensive experience in technology-mediated learning. It is a unique innovation in the higher education sphere with global relevance. The mega-university is consequently an important area of study with particular reference to leading the creation of new strategic futures for the university.

CONFRONTING THE GREATEST MORAL CHALLENGE OF OUR AGE Global access to tertiary education has grown from 6.5 million enrollments in 1950 to 88.2 million enrollments in 1997 (UNESCO, 2000a, p. 67). This represents a growth of more than 1200% in less than one generation. Although increases in the absolute capacity of higher education provision can partly be ascribed to population expansion, clearly there has also been a philosophical shift from “class to mass” (World Bank, 2000, Introduction).

Although in 1995 a little more than half of the students enrolled for higher education (47 million) were living in the developing world, it is disconcerting to note that only a few industrialized countries report a tertiary gross enrollment ratio in excess of 50%: for example Australia, Denmark, North America, Norway, New Zealand, and countries in Central and Western Europe. For most of the developing world the gross enrollment ratio is below 15% and the average for Sub-Saharan Africa in 1995 was distressingly below 3%. Using demographic projections of the 18–23-year-old cohort Saint (1999, p. 2) pointed out that at least 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will need to double current tertiary enrollments in the coming decade just to maintain the existing and unacceptably low gross enrollment ratio. What is more frightening is that the dismal performance of higher education in many parts of the developing world is limited to the traditional age cohort of tertiary education and does not begin to describe the severity of the problem. For instance, these figures do not reflect the blight inflicting the lives of billions of adults falling outside the parameters of the traditional cohort who, for whatever reason, were not able to benefit from a tertiary education. For the majority of these people, the contemporary prerequisites for lifelong learning in the modern economy are an unattainable aspiration.

Furthermore, as the tertiary education sector closes for business around the globe today: r one out of every 4 adults on our planet will still suffer from the bane of illiteracy, which translates to some 900 million people who may never have the privilege of a tertiary education;

r there are 250 million children in the world who will not receive or complete their basic education, which excludes them from the fundamental right of learning and they are destined to be barred from access to a tertiary education that nowadays is generally regarded as a prerequisite condition for gainful employment in our emerging knowledge economy.

Harnessing the forces of the global knowledge economy to ensure that all people of the world get a decent education is the greatest moral challenge of our age. In an ideal world, the university as institution, combined with its traditional values concerning the well-being of society, should be well positioned to assist in tackling the “Education for All” challenge that was articulated recently at UNESCO’s World Education Forum in Dakar in April 2000 (UNESCO, 2000b).

However, in the real world, universities are faced with the perplexing task of balancing the tensions of the eternal triangle. That is, to improve quality, cut their costs, and to serve more and more students.

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Open distance learning systems, particularly the large mass providers of distance education, have recorded notable successes in managing the dynamics of the eternal triangle. Clearly, distance education will have to play a pivotal role in this future. Complicating matters is the fact that distance education no longer has a distinct and definitive pedagogy and the concept includes a myriad of delivery alternatives capable of effective provision where teaching and learning behaviors are separated in time-space relationships. Today the concept of “distance education” for example, includes the dual-mode systems pioneered by Australia, the distributed classroom models using compressed video that have gained popularity in the United States, the large single-mode open learning systems perfected by the British Open University, and more recently Web-based and Web-enhanced delivery alternatives.

Apart from the rich variety of forms that are used nowadays for providing distance education, we have also experienced phenomenal growth in the use of distance education as method at traditional universities. In 1990 only a small proportion of traditional universities offered courses by distance. Today no self-respecting university president can admit to not offering courses online. If all universities are involved in distance education today, this raises the question whether open universities will be needed in the future. Alternatively stated, what do the open universities offer that is special?

Given the sheer magnitude of the tertiary education crisis, we desperately need mass providers like the mega-universities to operate within the tapestry of alternative forms of university-level provision. Traditional face-to-face delivery and the variety of other forms of distance education will simply not be able to scale up provision to the levels required of the global demand in a manner that is capable of maintaining a sustainable balance among the tensions of the eternal triangle.

Accordingly, this chapter’s focus on the mega-universities is considerably more than an intellectual and scholarly analysis of the characteristic features of mass ODL provision. It is also a justified proposal for an important delivery model that is capable of contributing significantly toward the resolution of the greatest moral challenge of our age.

THE DRIVERS UNDERPINNING THE SUCCESS OF THE MEGA-UNIVERSITIES The mega-university systems, as one of the most important innovations in higher education of the 20th century, have successfully combined the challenges of access and quality in an approach that can be scaled up in ways that reduce cost without compromising the core social values of the university: for example, promoting the development of the systematic skepticism and intellectual independence of its learners. Before analyzing the reasons underpinning the innovation associated with the mega-universities, it is useful to establish a frame of reference by comparing the learning systems of the mega-universities with the conventional campus model and dual-mode systems.

Under the conventional campus model, individual faculty members carry the responsibility for teaching. They have relative freedom to organize the learning environment regarding the implementation of the curriculum and have considerable latitude concerning how to teach in the classroom and how to assess learners. The campus model is a robust model and does not require too much organization from the part of the university. Quality of provision is therefore variable and this model is extremely difficult to scale up beyond the physical limitations of campus facilities and the threshold number of learners that an individual faculty member can realistically manage.

The dual-mode systems pioneered by the Australian universities have succeeded in expanding access to off-campus students by using distance education methods to augment face-to-face provision. Typically in dual-mode systems, the lecturer responsible for classroom teaching is

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also responsible for teaching the distance education students. Dual-mode systems have the advantage that learning resources designed for the distance education mode can also be used effectively in the classroom. Therefore, the pedagogical discipline associated with the design of effective distance education resources can have a positive impact on the quality of the pedagogy in the classroom. Furthermore, interaction in the classroom (for example, identifying areas where contact students are struggling), can be fed back into the distance education component of the course. Dual-mode systems do, however, require a more sophisticated organization system from the university. Furthermore, as with the campus model, it is also difficult to scale up the levels of access beyond that which an individual faculty member can cope with.

The distinguishing pedagogical feature of the mega-university is that, instead of giving individual faculty members the responsibility for teaching, they have developed sophisticated learning systems based on innovative divisions of labor where the responsibility for teaching is carried collectively by the organization. The differentiating feature of the large open learning systems is that the institution teaches, whereas in conventional forms of delivery, an individual teaches. This is a radical difference (Keegan, 1980, p. 19). By breaking the traditional lecturerstudent bond and designing a total teaching system where the functions of teaching are divided into a range of specializations, the mega-universities have been able to scale up the delivery of quality teaching to levels that are simply not possible in conventional campus-based or dual-mode models.

Who are the mega-universities? The mega-universities are large open universities found in various parts of the world that report enrollments of more the 100,000 students each. In 1999 there were 11 such institutions enrolling approximately 3 million students between them (Daniel, 1999, p. 30), and they are listed in Table 54.1. Today, it is likely that the number of mega-universities has grown and that they could collectively account for 4 million students.

The 100,000 enrollment criterion is an arbitrary cut-off classification. However, the interesting characteristic of these institutions is not primarily their size, but rather the fact that they are all distance education institutions. In other words, the mega-universities were not able to achieve these levels of access and provision using the traditional campus model. Hence, the

TABLE 54.1 Mega-Universities of the World Name of Institution China TV University System Centre National d’Enseignement a` Distance Indira Gandi National Open University Universitas Terbuka Payame Noor University Korea National Open University University of South Africa Universidad Nacional de Educaci´on a Distancia Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University Anadolu University The Open University

Country

Enrollment

China France India Indonesia Iran Korea South Africa Spain Thailand Turkey UK

530,0001 184,6141 242,0002 353,0002 117,0003 210,5782 130,0002 110,0002 216,8002 577,8042 157,4502

Budget $US Million

Unit Cost6

1.24 56 10 21 13.3 79 128 129 46 305 300

(Source: Daniel, 1999, pp. 30–31) Notes 1. 1994 figure.

2. 1995 figure.

3. 1996 figure.

4. Central (CCRTVU) unit only.

5. Open education faculty only.

6. Unit cost per student as a percentage of the average for other universities in the country (approximate).

40 50 35 15 25 5 50 40 30 10 50

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pursuit of scale requires the establishment of a learning system. Furthermore, it is not surprising that the largest student numbers and majority of mega-university institutions are working in the developing world, particularly when assessed against the moral challenge facing higher education that was articulated earlier in this chapter.

Strategy is enriched when it is informed by practice, therefore this chapter draws specifically from the experiences of two notable pioneers, namely the University of South Africa (UNISA) and the British Open University (UKOU). It is not possible within the limited scope of this chapter to cover adequately the experiences of each mega-university, and the specific choice of the two institutions is justified as follows:

r UNISA was the first single-mode, distance education university of the world and while breaking new ground in this field, the organization made fundamental errors in the design of components of its open learning system, which it is now steadily correcting. This attests to necessity of designing robust learning systems that fit the unique requirements of mass distance education provision. Furthermore, UNISA is the only mega-university on the African continent and, as a result, has first-hand experience of the unique challenges associated with Sub-Saharan Africa where the tertiary education crisis is rampant.

However, UNISA is also riddled with infrastructural complexities that are not replicated in the same magnitude elsewhere in the developing world. r Many judge the UKOU to be the most important innovation in higher education and open distance learning. Arguably, the most significant achievement of the UKOU is that it was designed as a total learning system from the student outward. Very few institutions have been able to achieve comparable levels of UKOU learner-centeredness. The UKOU also pioneered the first large-scale university system based on the principles of open learning and was instrumental in implementing the course team approach for the design and development of quality learning materials.

Notwithstanding the justifications for the inclusion of the experiences of the two institutions above, there are important links between the history of the two institutions and the lifework of an American visionary, Charles Wedemeyer, whose foresight concerning learner independence helped direct the realization of the principles of open learning in the mega-universities. This is an early example of globalization in distance education where the development of the megauniversities was linked by the thinking and experience from America, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

The drivers underpinning the success of the mega-universities will be discussed in terms of:

r the vision of open learning that has directed their strategic futures; r the practical experience gained by operating at scale concerning the key operational elements responsible for its accomplishments; and

r finally the proof in the pudding, by measuring output in terms of the elements of the eternal triangle.

The Compelling Vision of Open Learning The creation of the UKOU in 1969 was a significant milestone in the evolution of universitylevel provision. Supported by the political will to increase access to higher education for working adults in Britain and the desire to do this using new mass-media technology, the UKOU was designed as a totally new learning system. Its vision was ambitious. Walter Perry, the founding vice-chancellor of the UKOU, articulated this vision at the inaugural ceremony

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in 1969 as being “open as to people, open as to places, open as to methods and, finally open as to ideas” (cited in Daniel, 1995, p. 400). The principles of “open learning” do not only refer to the general aim of opening access to higher education more widely, but also refer to openness concerning methods and ideas. This mission statement still inspires the UKOU today and given recent technological developments, the vision could be amplified by adding: to be open as to time and open to the world.

The principles of open learning will continue to be the guiding vision for the future of the university. To illustrate the significance of this statement we return to the time of the creation of the UKOU. The vision of open learning at the UKOU evolved from the foresight of Charles Wedemeyer, who played a significant role in the planning of the new UKOU. Wedemeyer’s thinking was influenced by two other distance education prototypes:

r the Articulated Instructional Media (AIM) project that was steered by the vision of Charles Wedemeyer during the period 1964 to 1968; and

r Wedemeyer’s evaluation of the UNISA distance teaching system in 1967, which had already been in operation for two decades prior to the creation of the UKOU. The decisive characteristic of Wedemeyer’s interest in distance education is that it was driven by the vision of promoting the fundamental right of learning and was not a whimsical curiosity into the use of technology in education. Wedemeyer placed pedagogy above technology and held the belief that the learner should be the center of the educational endeavor as clearly expressed in the following statement: “Perhaps no tenet of education is more widely held or more frequently expressed than that education must be centred in the individual” (Wedemeyer & Childs, 1961, p. 13).

Deserving particular mention regarding the realization of the vision of open learning is the Articulated Instructional Media (AIM) project, which began in 1964 under Wedemeyer’s leadership at the University of Wisconsin. The goal of the AIM project was to find meaningful ways of connecting (i.e., articulating) a variety of communication media for teaching in a distance education setting.

During the period between 1965 and 1969, there were numerous contacts and visits by Wedemeyer to the United Kingdom with senior officials of the foundation team of the UKOU (see Moore & Kearsley, 1996, pp. 25–27). One of the founding director of studies at the UKOU, Walter James, wrote the following to Wedemeyer: You bear some responsibility for the emergence of the Open University in this country. It was your talk on Articulated Instructional Media (AIM) that stimulated us to produce at Nottingham the first university course in this country in which television broadcasts and correspondence instruction were integrated; and it was this experience which produced interest in the University of the Air idea. (Cited in Wedemeyer, 1982, p. 24)

Returning to the other mega-university example selected for this chapter, UNISA began teaching at a distance in 1946 and is therefore the oldest single-mode distance-teaching university in the world.

The UNISA prototype is distinctive because it was designed and created before the new epoch associated with the mass communication media. Consequently, the organization has gained valuable experience regarding the fundamental transformation associated with moving from one delivery epoch to the next.

Furthermore, UNISA was conceived and designed to be a university, and was not originally created as an open learning system (whereas the UKOU was designed from its inception to be an open learning system). Through its traditions as a university, combined with the appointment

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of reputable scholars, UNISA did pioneering work by gaining an academic reputation for the standards and quality of the distance education method, which in the early years was necessary to deconstruct misconceptions of the perceived superiority of the conventional university. The UNISA mega-university prototype was important because, according to Peters: Nowhere else was it possible to let correspondence studies mature over the years into an accepted method of university teaching. Nowhere else was it possible for distance-teaching pedagogical routine to be developed so early from a university-based pedagogical experiment. (1998, p. 158)

Wedemeyer’s vision concerning the fundamental right to learning, combined with his experiences of the AIM project and evaluation of the UNISA DE system, certainly helped to promote the practical implementation of the principles of open learning in the mega-university experience. Furthermore, Wedemeyer’s early work with the idea of a team of specialists used to develop learning resources for distance education was implemented with unprecedented success at the UKOU. Strategists working in the field of innovating new futures in the field of distance education would do well to gain an intellectual grip on the foresight of Wedemeyer’s philosophy because it still holds profound relevance today as we move into the digital epoch of educational provision. Accordingly, we argue that the principles of open learning will remain a guiding vision in the evolution of the future of the university.

Key Elements of Operational Success By providing distance teaching at scale, the mega-universities have established that success in this area must contain the following four elements:

r Excellent multimedia study materials that are designed and developed by multiskilled course teams to promote independent and autonomous learning;

r Individualized support provided to learners by faculty with special training in working with adults to complement the learning resources that are uniform for all learners;

r Good logistics and administration to ensure a high quality of service to the student; r Faculty members who remain actively involved in research to maintain the intellectual excitement that students find beneficial and attractive in their learning.

The discussion of the four elements listed above should be interpreted from the perspective of the relationship between technology and distance education. Hence, a few cursory remarks about this relationship and the corresponding pedagogical implications are necessary.

The mega-universities have learned that the quality of pedagogy is not necessarily determined by specific technology choices, rather, it is a function of the pedagogical design that the technology implements. Each technology has its own pedagogical requirements. Also when operating at scale, the division of labor is fundamental to the approach, and this produces a better result than having everyone do everything.

The mega-universities have been involved with technology-mediated learning since their inception—the practice of distance education is simply not possible without technical mediation, and traditionally this has been a differentiating feature of distance education when compared to face-to-face provision. The distance education process is a technology in its own right. Consequently, the mega-universities do not necessarily view the new digital technologies from the same foundational perspectives as conventional university counterparts. The experience is one of using technology at scale to provide quality learning and the mega-universities have developed distinct university structures, processes, and specializations effectively to manage the pedagogical applications of technology. However, what is clear with each wave of new

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technology—and this is particularly the case with emerging digital technologies—is that the levels of organizational complexity and corresponding demands for new areas of specialization are increasing by an unparalleled order of magnitude.

The fact that distance education is a technology in its own right has direct implications for the pedagogical structure of teaching and learning. In fact, the dominant modes of learning in classical distance education are different from conventional face-to-face instruction. This has resulted in the development of specialized distance education skills and a corresponding research base in the design of “interactive texts” as well as advances in the particular pedagogy of simulated communication such as Holmberg’s guided didactic conversation (Holmberg, 1995).

The demands for pedagogical specialization with particular reference to digital ICTs will increase in the future, and the organizational requirements for campus-based institutions moving into this field will, in many cases, be considerably more demanding than initially envisaged because of the changes in the fundamental structure of the pedagogy and resultant changes in learning behaviors. Conventional classroom pedagogy will not be able to deliver the goods, and the implementation of course-team development in these environments, incorporating an increasing variety of specializations, will become progressively more important for future success.

We now return to the discussion of the four critical elements of success based on the megauniversity experience. First, the innovation associated with the course team: the idea of teamwork in teaching outside the mega-university context is not widespread in university practice, even though many universities may purport to support the ideals of teamwork. Although the traditions of the academy espouse a collegial model, faculty members tend to work independently and institutional reward and incentive practices tend to promote individual scholarship.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Web-based teaching is being received so warmly by individual faculty because of the perception that it facilitates online teaching by academics working alone. However, the course-team is one of the critical success factors of the open universities. When Lord Perry, the founding vice-chancellor of the UKOU, is asked what he considers to be the key innovation of the organization’s success, he will unhesitatingly reply, “the course team.”

At the UKOU, the course team is considerably more than bringing together of a range of experts and specialists—it is a culture of scholarship. The course team makes the art of teaching intellectually challenging for members of the team, and this excitement is communicated to the students through the course materials. Teams may vary in size from 3 to 30 members, with faculty members serving as the core and they are joined by instructional designers, media experts, editors, TV producers, and other professionals.

The members of the team do not perform discrete functions, but collectively give meaning to the distinguishing characteristic of distance education namely that the “institution” and not “individuals” teach in open learning systems. This culture of scholarship means critical review.

At the UKOU, it is tradition that the first draft of each member of the team gets comprehensively criticized on both academic and pedagogical grounds.

Prior to the 1990s, UNISA did not use a course-team approach for the development of its courses and relied on the pedagogical skills of individual faculty members, not unlike the teaching practice of the campus-based professor. This strategy was not able to compete pedagogically because of the superiority of course-team approach and second, because of the inherent limitations of conventional classroom pedagogy, which was the dominant frame of reference for many UNISA academics.

In 1994, UNISA embarked on a process of fundamental pedagogical transformation, culminating in a revised tuition policy being approved by the university, which incorporates the principles of course-team development. UNISA underestimated the magnitude of the

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transformation to the team-approach, particularly with regards to changing existing organizational culture to a culture of team-based scholarship. The lesson learned is that universities that are commencing with the organizational transformation—that will be necessitated by shifts to e-learning of any scale—should not underestimate the magnitude of such change.

Furthermore the requirements for courseware to be more flexible and to change more rapidly in the future should also not be underrated.

The mega-universities have successfully learned how to carry out distance education at scale, and this is not merely a technological accomplishment. The innovation associated with proper implementation of the scholarship of course-team development has meant that the mega-university is capable of better quality teaching than conventional universities on both academic and pedagogical grounds.

These levels of academic and pedagogical quality require a huge investment, particularly in terms of expensive academic time. The mega-universities seek economies of scale that are needed to spread this substantial investment over large numbers of students. The significant levels of investment to maintain the quality as described here cannot be sustained unless economies of scale can be generated. Furthermore, it is important to remember the moral aspects relating to the fact that the open universities, despite mass-production, provide a quality tertiary education to millions of people, who otherwise may never have had the opportunity to study at a university.

This brings us to the second element responsible for success in open learning systems: the provision of individualized student support by means of a distributed tutor system to mediate the students’ study of the materials and providing individualized comments on students’ progress.

Student support in ODL refers to “the range of services both for individuals and for students in groups which complement the course materials or learning resources that are uniform for all learners” (Tait, 2000, p. 289). Student support covers the cognitive, affective, and administrative needs of the student.

It must be emphasized that the concept of “student support” as it is used here refers to individualized customization for a learner over and above the teaching contained in the massproduced materials. Therefore, for example, pedagogically innovative learning experiences, which form part of the learning materials, do not fall under the ambit of this definition even though these pedagogical interventions may “support” learners in their learning. The differentiating feature of student support is the individualized customization and consequently, per definition, it cannot be mass-produced in anticipation of the differentiated needs of students.

This is not to say that carefully designed learning materials should not cater for differentiated student needs, but, for purposes of this discussion such examples are the outcome of good instructional design and are not examples of student support.

At the UKOU, each student gets strong personal support. The UKOU makes extensive use of part-time faculty and every 20–25 learners are assigned to a dedicated tutor, who feels personally responsible for the progress of each student. Tutors are responsible for maintaining personal contact with their students, grading assignments, and mediating the learning experience. As in the case of good universities, tutors are not engaged to feed students with answers, but to support them in asking good questions and to promote autonomous learning by supporting the search for finding and evaluating the answers to these questions.

Prior to 1994, student support as defined here was not an integral component of the UNISA delivery system.

In response to criticisms regarding the shortcomings of student support in the UNISA system, in 1994 the University instituted a Department of Student Support, which, among other tasks, is also responsible for instituting face-to-face tutorials for UNISA students. In spite of the good work of the Department of Student Support at UNISA, resource constraints have limited the extent of the tutorial support program. Based on statistics reported by this

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department, the student support initiative has not been able to extend its access above 10% of the registered students of UNISA (Mackintosh, 1999, p. 9). Consequently, providing student support is still a significant challenge in the UNISA delivery system.

The third element underpinning the success of the mega-universities is that huge learning systems rely on good logistics and administration. The magnitude and efficiency required of logistics and administration in the mega-university context astounds visitors from conventional universities when visiting our institutions.

Consider, for example, that UNISA manages the administration of more than 400,000 individual course registrations from a choice of more than 2,000 individual courses. This means setting up and managing administration systems for course registrations and student finances and keeping records of student progress. UNISA uses a semester system, which means that course registrations take place twice a year. UNISA operates its own print-factory, which is said to be the largest under one roof in the southern hemisphere. The print factory prints some 515 million pages per year and is responsible for ensuring that study materials are available on time when students register. UNISA is responsible for warehousing and distributing study materials, printing and despatching tutorial letters during the course of the academic year, as well as managing the submission of assignments and returning these to students once they have been marked.

Clearly, the logistics and administration of mega-universities are of industrial proportions and necessitate division of labor and specialized industrial equipment. Individual faculty members will not be able to administer these levels in a coherent, efficient, and cost-effective way.

Furthermore, good logistics and administration relate directly to the levels and quality of service provided to students. As we move forward into the digital era, successful e-services will depend on getting the “services” as well as the “e” right.

Finally, it is important that faculty remain active in research. We have found that this helps to maintain the intellectual excitement in our teaching materials. It is interesting to note that UNISA, since its inception, engaged in the practice of academic research whereas this feature of the UKOU system developed as the organization matured. Furthermore research is a distinguishing feature of the university as institution when compared to some of the “for-profit” universities.

Universities, including the mega-universities, are confronted with a bewildering problem of maintaining the traditions of research as a contribution to society and the good of teaching while juggling the three balls of the triangle.

Measuring Success in Terms of the Eternal Triangle We have suggested that the perpetual challenge for universities is to effectively manage the tensions of the eternal triangle: to widen access, to improve quality, and to lower costs. Achieving success within the constraints of this straitjacket sounds impossible, but is nonetheless deliverable in varying degrees. We now evaluate the outputs of the mega-universities according to the corners of this eternal triangle.

The mega-universities have performed extremely well on the access dimension of the triangle. Following the values underpinning the philosophy of open learning, the UKOU has led the pack by becoming the first university of considerable size to waive the traditional academic prerequisites for undergraduate study. Although some mega-universities still apply prerequisite requirements (very often dictated by stipulations by the respective ministries of education for subsidy purposes), this opening of access constitutes a huge step forward in deconstructing controlled elitism in higher education.

The enrollment figures of the mega-universities speak for themselves. More than three million learners are studying through approximately a dozen institutions—numbers that would

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require more than 100 large campus-based institutions. The mega-universities are global institutions that have demonstrated the capacity to transcend national boundaries in the provision of tertiary education. The continued experience being generated by the mega-universities to deal with cultural diversity across national boundaries will become a significant resource when moving ahead with the global tertiary education crisis.

On the quality dimension we have explained that the mega-universities, by adopting the scholarship of the course-team approach, are capable of better and more consistent quality of teaching than conventional universities on both academic and pedagogical grounds. Quality is an illusive concept, and is best judged using independent assessments of quality. The United Kingdom has a fierce but comprehensive state-run assessment system for universities.

In terms of the UKOU’s research, it ranks in the top third of all UK universities and some of its research is world leading. In teaching, the UKOU ranks in the top 10%.

The important point here is that, independently rated, with judicious implementation of the four elements of success discussed in the previous section, the mega-universities are capable of providing quality teaching and research that compare with the best in the world. There are simply no grounds to argue that ODL is necessarily second rate education. The megauniversities, in particular the UKOU, have succeeded in breaking the historic—and insidious— link between quality and exclusivity in higher education. The exciting news, when measured against the magnitude of the global tertiary education crisis, is that mega-university technology is a transferable technology.

The third dimension of the eternal triangle concerns the objectives of cutting costs in higher education. The achievements of the mega-universities in cutting costs are, first, a result of the values underpinning open learning systems and second, a consequence of the strategy of operating at economies of scale. The core value of open universities is to be open to people and therefore these institutions are extremely reluctant to discriminate against disadvantaged people by increasing the financial barriers to study. There is a culture in these organizations to find innovative solutions when faced with the challenges of escalating costs. They are averse to passing increasing costs on to the students. Secondly, operating at scale, the mega-universities are able to teach at much lower costs than conventional universities.

Operating at scale does not necessarily mean that the absolute costs of mass provision are insignificant. In fact, the absolute cost of designing, developing, and teaching a quality distance education course with adequate levels of student support is considerable. However, by capitalizing on economies of scale and efficiencies achieved by the division of labor in large open learning systems, the mega-universities have achieved considerable cost advantages.

Despite the impressive cost savings associated with the mega-universities, it is important to emphasize that success is determined by the interplay among all the dimensions of the eternal triangle. This is particularly important for policymakers in higher education to note: although distance education is an attractive policy alternative because it can provide teaching at lower cost, unless quality and access are increased in parallel, the strategy will not succeed. Plainly, in the mega-university context, the three dimensions of the triangle are not discrete variables.

Without sufficient numbers (i.e., access), it will not be possible to build quality learning into the system, thus resulting in low success rates. This would translate into an inefficient and expensive system.

LEADING ODL FUTURES In concluding this chapter, we focus on selected issues pertaining to the future of the university in general and the mega-universities in particular. We propose that the large open learning systems of the mega-universities are an important model for the university of the future,

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hence we introduce some of the rationales underpinning our thinking within the contemporary dynamics of today’s university context.

We observe much controversy and uncertainty in the debate about the future of the university, particularly in the light of the pervasive advances in digital ICTs, and the potential impact of the global knowledge society on the prospects of the university. Some strategists, like Peter Drucker, have cautioned the university community that: “Thirty years from now big university campuses will be relics” (Drucker & Holden, 1997, p. 1745).

We hold a more optimistic view about the future of the university. From the perspective of the mega-university experience, we make four observations that we believe are critical for the future success of e-learning at the university:

r Conventional campuses will always be in demand and the way in which technology futures evolve at these institutions is likely to be different from that at the mega-university. Those planning to provide e-learning at scale will need to recognize these differences and plan accordingly; r The tensions of the eternal triangle will apply increasing pressure on all universities.

However, universities should not abandon their core values in the scurry for economic survival; otherwise, the future of the institution is at risk, despite existing capacity and foresight within the university to build meaningful futures for society; r Universities will need institution-wide technology strategies to realize the pedagogical potential of the pervasive advances in digital ICTs. If not, the social value of information may be compromized at the expense of the core values of the university; r With particular reference to technology futures in the developing society context, we must be watchful that solutions do not entrench the digital divide, or even worse widen it. We should also be particularly sensitive to the cultural relevance of imposing past successes of the industrialized world onto these contexts.

First, traditional university campuses will always be in demand. This model creates a protected environment where young people can come to terms with life, while acquiring the disciplines of scholarship and a critical disposition. Digital ICTs will provide opportunities for enriching the quality of the learning experience in ways that were previously not possible in this model. Arguably such a system may still be criticized as being elitist but will still fulfill an important function in society. However, given the principles of open learning, this is not the core market focus of the mega-university.

The mega-universities practice a form of delivery that is, per definition, technology-mediated learning. As a result, they have already had to develop new pedagogical structures and corresponding organizational structures to cater for the specific divisions of labor associated with providing learning at scale. Consequently, the challenges of the mega-universities with regard to digital ICTs are fundamentally different. For example, the mega-universities are not faced with questions of how to integrate traditional university structures and conventional pedagogy with emerging forms of distance education practice. Our challenges, rather, concern how best to integrate the power of digital ICTs when operating at scale. This is a different question.

Even though traditional university campuses will continue to be in demand, we envisage a significant global shift in the proportional composition of campus-based provision versus open learning systems, as the absolute numbers participating in higher education increase across the globe.

Second, entrepreneurial and corporate forces will place increasing pressures on the university as institution to manage the eternal triangle more effectively. Drucker’s predictions concerning the demise of the university as we know it are based on the analysis that student demand will not continue to support the increasing costs of conventional campus-based

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provision and that corporate providers will be able to do a better job in terms of value-for-money in the higher education market.

We believe that society would experience a catastrophic blow should there be any truth in the outcomes of Drucker’s prediction. At the same time, we recognize that the university of the future will have to work hard at effectively managing the tensions of the eternal triangle and argue that the mega-university experience is a model worth investigating for the future.

On the positive side, the university is one of society’s oldest institutions with origins that can be traced back to studia generalia, which were set up in the 12th century, culminating in the foundation of the famous models of Paris and Bologna and acquiring the term universitas toward the end of the Middle Ages (Minogue, 1973, p. 12). Despite the universal unifying idea that the concept “university” implies, the survival of the institution over time can be attributed to the evidence that the university “does not exist as a timeless concept, rather it is shaped and evolves in response to its environment” (Brown, 1996, p. 28). The university has survived, and in many respects has thrived, on sharp transformation in our world. The “educational” industrial revolution, as the most significant transformation of the 20th century, is a noteworthy case in point. The mega-university experience—considering for example, its mechanisation of the teaching-learning process, mass-production of learning materials, and high division of labor—clearly demonstrates that the large open learning systems are education’s best examples of successfully responding to the industrialization of society without compromising the core values of the university (see for example Peters, 1989, 1996, 1998).

Unfortunately, the foresight of Otto Peters’ thinking on the industrialization of education, first published in the 1960s, has become the topic of gross misinterpretation among numerous scholars in the field of education. Many have failed to see that Peters’ work was primarily a sociological analysis, which in effect placed large-scale distance education at the forefront of innovation. His work was not an attack on the sanctity of the “idea of the university,” by inappropriately linking the metaphor of smoking factories to reducing the core values of the university.

Fortunately, the mega-university experience has proved Peters’ critics hopelessly wrong.

The mega-university is an important model for the future because it was able effectively to respond to the challenges of industrialization without compromising the ethos and core values of the university. In fact, in many respects, the mega-universities have guaranteed the survival of the core ethos of the university. They still hold and promote the traditions of academic skepticism and encourage their learners to engage and acquire not only the spirit, but also the skills associated with this critical disposition. The open universities did not abolish the traditions of maintaining academic communities of learners and scholars. Instead, they found innovative ways of sustaining this critical feature of university learning.

Third, taking the pervasive advances of digital ICTs into account, universities will need institution-wide technology strategies because individual faculty and departments doing their own thing will not be able to deliver the goods.

The mega-university experience is founded on technology-mediated learning, and, based on our experience, we have found that it is far more important to concentrate on getting the “soft” technologies of people, institutional structures, and processes right, because the “hard” technologies will inevitably change before they are perfected within the system. In other words, university-wide technology strategies should be defined in terms of fundamental pedagogical processes with a clear understanding of how emerging technologies can support these processes. Having said this, we concede that the implementation of technology in higher education is a complicated business.

A considerable component of this complexity can be attributed to the question of whether the emerging digital ICTs have the power to transform radically the landscape of educational provision. When speculating about the impact of each new technology on education, we find no clear-cut answers and we hesitate to provide a definitive answer. Rather, we would prefer to approach this question from the perspectives of both the radicals, who argue that digital ICTs

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will enable the radical transformation of the landscape of higher education provision around the world, and the sceptics, who ask why the new digital ICTs should be any different from previous postulated but unsuccessful educational technology revolutions.

Both the skeptics and the radicals refer to digital ICTs in their respective positions. Therefore, we must be clear about what we mean with this concept. Digital ICTs, according to Blurton (1999, p. 47) differ from previous ICTs because they are:

r capable of integrating multiple media into single applications; for example, voice, video, and text can be presented simultaneously on a Web-page;

r interactive in the sense that the information technology can control and manage the sequence of communication depending on user or other input, thus incorporating features of “intelligent” communication; r more open because digital formats can be interpreted by a variety of hardware platforms; for example, a digital audio clip can be heard over the Internet but can also be broadcast over analog or digital radio systems with relative ease.

Obviously, digital ICTs have inherent pedagogical potential, and if successfully implemented in a teaching system would undoubtedly change pedagogical structures and corresponding teaching and learning behaviors (see for example Peters, 1998). This characteristic relates directly to the quality dimension of the eternal triangle. With particular reference to the cost and access dimensions of the eternal triangle, Bond (1997) summarizes three powerful trends that are driving the information revolution:

r Cost of communicating. The transmission cost of sending digital data has decreased by a factor of 10,000 since 1975.

r Power of computing. Computing power per dollar invested has also increased by a factor of 10,000 since 1975.

r Convergence. Using a single binary code system, digital technology is capable of dealing with voice, video, and computer data over the same network; whereas, in the era before convergence, independent carrier technologies were necessary.

In less technical terms this convergence is summarized by a term that Eisenstadt (1995) calls the knowledge media. It refers to the convergence of computing and telecommunications, but is a useful concept because it also includes the convergence of recent developments in the learning sciences. The power of the concept is that when looking at convergence in this way, it is easier to see why we may have something that is qualitatively different than what has gone before.

Clearly the knowledge media represent a powerful transformation force in higher education; however, their potential will only be realized if we understand the social value of information.

Brown and Duguid (2000, p. 121) make an important point, emphasizing the social value of information, by stating that “knowledge lies less in databases than in its people.” Therefore if the knowledge media will succeed in revolutionising education, we will have to do a lot more work to understand how to socialize a technology.

This is not to contend that digital technologies will not make a difference. The UKOU already has more than 110,000 students online from home, as well as another 112,000 schoolteachers (in a separate program) who are using the technology to learn how to implement ICT successfully in the school. There are about 16,000 online conferences going on at any one time. The point being made is summarized by the profound advice, contained in Brown and Duguid’s own words:

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Our response is not to say that change is wrong or must not happen. We only say again that envisioned change will not happen or will not be fruitful until people look beyond the simplicities of information and individuals to the complexities of learning, knowledge, judgement, communities, organizations, and institutions. That way, it seems more likely that change will reorganize the higher education system, rather than simply disorganizing it. (2000, p. 213)

The research work of Clayton Christensen should also provide useful insights into resolving some of the tensions between the sceptics and the radicals regarding the dissention of whether or not digital ICTs will revolutionize education. Christensen (2000, p. xv–xvii) reveals that new technologies come in two types First there are sustaining technologies, which improve current practice in an incremental way. Then there are disruptive technologies, which are innovations that initially result in worse product performance but ultimately change the market in fundamental ways to become new mainstream markets. Disruptive technologies cannot be integrated into current operations in a straightforward way.

Considering the existing practice of the mega-universities, currently operating at scale, the new digital technologies are sustaining in some areas, and potentially disruptive in others.

They are sustaining where they reduce costs of open learning systems, for example, improved online administration, or where they improve quality of the distance learning experience, for example, improved communication and online learning resources. In other respects, the digital ICTs are potentially disruptive because they could permit distance learning systems to be reconceived from scratch. At this juncture of our experience, we do not have conclusive examples of a reconceived distance learning system, although we recognize that it is perfectly possible. After all, the large open learning systems were created in response to the disruptive technology of the combined effects of open learning and the provision of quality learning at scale.

Finally, the discussion of digital ICTs and the future of distance education may appear to be somewhat removed from the realities of the higher education crisis in developing society contexts. This is particularly evident when basic infrastructure, let alone reliable ICT infrastructure, is virtually nonexistent in many parts of the developing world. When we analyze the access figures to various communications technologies in the developing world, it is understandable why many distance education policy advisors usually recommend that future distance education strategies should be based on first-generation correspondence study (see Table 54.2).

Promoting first-generation correspondence study in developing society contexts is problematic for a number of reasons.

TABLE 54.2 Selected Information and Communications Technology Indicators

Estimated main lines per 100 inhabitants (1996) Estimated cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants (1996) No of radio receivers per 1000 inhabitants (1996) No of television receivers per 1000 inhabitants (1996) No of PC per 1000 inhabitants (1996) Estimated No of Internet users per 1000 inhabitants

Developing Countries

Industrial Countries

Sub-Saharan Africa

Southern Asia

4.5 0.58 185 145 6.5 0.5

42.4 9.17 1005 524 156.3 17.9

1.4 0.21 166 35 31 Na

1.8 0.04 88 55 1.2 na

(Source: UNESCO, 1999) 1. Independent estimate by Jensen (1999, p. 183) and should be used with caution. na: not available

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First, we have already explained that the provision of individualized tutorial support is a critical factor for ensuring the success of open learning systems. However, because of considerable geographical distances and the shortage of suitably qualified tutors in remote locations where the majority of the population of the developing world reside, correspondence study will not be able to achieve the successes reported by the UKOU. Conversely, digital ICTs provide the potential of effectively overcoming the problems associated with providing local tutors.

Second, policy strategies in ODL that use access to ICT infrastructure as a point of departure will not render impressive results. We have to change our policy approach if we are serious about finding sustainable and effective solutions to the educational crisis in developing countries. Rather we should find innovative ways of establishing and sustaining appropriate ICT infrastructure. The practical realities of limited connectivity in developing countries is a seductive policy trap because the magnitude of the problem blinds the vision concerning how the inherent power of digital ICTs can be used to overcome the chasm between restricted access and generating sufficient demand for rolling out sustainable connectivity.

Third, Braga points out that technological developments “are rapidly eroding economic and technical barriers to entry into communication networks. Developing countries can, for example, leapfrog stages of development by investing into fully digitized networks rather than continuing to expand their outdated analog-based infrastructure” (Braga, 1998). There is evidence that, with government commitment and determinism at policy level, developing countries can achieve the ideals of leapfrogging.

Fourth, developing societies should rather adopt a demand-push strategy. That is, create the demand for broad bandwidth applications—infrastructure will then follow because it can now be sustained by the large demand. The implicit capabilities and advantages of digital ICTs for distance learning should be used as a point of departure to ensure that sufficient demand is generated by the ODL applications of these technologies. In this way, sustainability of the new technologies can be promoted because of the economy-of-scale potential associated with mass-demand, rather than waiting for acceptable levels of connectivity before transforming the practice of distance education in these societies.

The critical point here is that the problems experienced in the developing society are significantly different from the experience of the industrialized world. From the outside, it is very easy to misinterpret the potential for digital solutions in distance education when analyzing absolute statistics. Using these approaches, it is very easy to miss pockets of indigenous innovation, which collectively may provide the foundation for culturally relevant solutions in the future. Global best practice must be interpreted within the contexts of local relevance.

The four observations made above, based on the mega-university experience regarding the future of ODL systems, may raise more questions than definitive answers. However, in the traditions of the academy, it is better to acquire the skills of asking the right questions than it is to repeat predetermined answers.

In conclusion, we have stated that we regard the mega-universities as being the most significant innovation in higher education of the 20th century. We agree with Brown’s (1998, p. 25) experience that to be effective, invention is not enough, and pioneering work requires inventionplus-implementation. In other words, innovation is invention successfully implemented. The inventions associated with digital ICTs have the potential of radically transforming higher education provision. However, this will require creative solutions, and by creativity we mean the art of designing within the constraints of the eternal triangle. The mega-university experience may provide strategists with a model that is capable of implementing the innovations associated with digital ICTs, but also of scaling-up their implementation so as to capitalize on further gains from successfully managing the tensions of the eternal triangle.

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