Universities will be 'irrelevant' by 2020

Not sure if this has been posted yet (Mods delete?)... I got the link from IC.

PROVO — Last fall, David Wiley stood in front of a room full of professors and university administrators and delivered a prediction that made them squirm: "Your institutions will be irrelevant by 2020."

Wiley is one part Nostradamus and nine parts revolutionary, an educational evangelist who preaches about a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free.

Institutions that don't adapt, he says, risk losing students to institutions that do. The warning applies to community colleges and ivy-covered universities, says Wiley, who is a professor of psychology and instructional technology at Brigham Young University.

America's colleges and universities, says Wiley, have been acting as if what they offer — access to educational materials, a venue for socializing, the awarding of a credential — can't be obtained anywhere else. By and large, campus-based universities haven't been innovative, he says, because they've been a monopoly.

But Google, Facebook, free online access to university lectures, after-hours institutions such as the University of Phoenix, and virtual institutions such as Western Governors University have changed that. Many of today's students, he says, aren't satisfied with the old model that expects them to go to a lecture hall at a prescribed time and sit still while a professor talks for an hour...


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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705298649/Universities-will-be-irrelevant.html?pg=2

 

Interesting and it is certainly a sign of the times.

 

I think it's definitely happening.

IT paved the way for this with its certification over degree mindset. We're only a few similar happenings in other business fields away from this as well.

For instance, the CPA state societies have kept the lid on their profession by mandating 150 hours. They can do that because CPAs serve the public good.

But marketing? Increasingly, I'm seeing certifications in fields such as search engine marketing and optimization. Armed with a stack of those from societies such as the Direct Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association and the right experience, could a candidate be ignored? Human resources may be moving in the same direction with their SPHR and CEBS certifications.

If there is an alternate route to show competence, and it's more cost-effective, people are going to find it and take it.

 

Degrees in IT already became irrelevant. Anything above a BS is really irrelevant in IT.

Graduate degrees in IT seem to be there as upgrades for people without IT background or for those looking to teach.

It is by far more cost effective to do a BS from a cheap DETC school and then complete it with some good IT certifications rather than investing 100K for a traditional BS degree. In the real world, skills are more relevant than having a brand name degree on your CV.

 

I'm guessing that B&M universities will always exist because some people will always prefer that mode of education. Also, for some courses of study, like the hardcore lab-oriented sciences, it may always be preferred.

 

I don't think B&M universities are going to disappear or become irrelevant, and I do think many of them will adopt distance learning technologies to complement what they are doing on campus. The prestigious "name" universities will always have students interested in attending.

 

I REALLY like the idea of peer reviewed open source textbooks:

http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/

 

I don't think the good professor is very convincing. While the new media certainly provide exciting new channels of distribution of knowledge, they are hardly the greatest revolution that ever happened to higher education.

Example? The modern university has been around for over a thousand years. In the mid 1400s, Gutenberg invented the printing press, allowing the production of cheap printed books that people could (gasp!) own and study at home rather than in the professor's library. Did it make universities obsolete? Hardly.

And one more thing...

...in the US. In most developed countries I am aware of, textbooks cost a fragment of the US prices. Example? Check out the prices in my search for "Introduction to Linguistics" on

Amazon.de: http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_ss_w?__mk_de_DE=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=introduction+to+linguistics&x=13&y=17

and on

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_20?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=introduction+to+linguistics&x=0&y=0&sprefix=introduction+to+ling

Note that the price differences can be even true for the very same book titles, such as search hit 5 in both searches.

 

(Wow, I wish users could edit their posts a little longer...)

Just wanted to add that I am not saying that universities won't change and adapt. They have and they will. But they will not become less relevant. Today in many countries, a university education is more important than ever, and the world has a huge demand for institutionalized education.

I think it's funny that the guy says universities have failed to adapt when any university on the planet seems to be working on non-traditional programs like crazy.

 

Its really great thread here. I really like this discussion. It shows the power of time.

 

I think that this guy is a future-nut, a tech-evangelist. They inhabit the fringes of places like silicon valley, fired with the burning faith that the next new development is going to change... everything. It's not unlike medieval apocalypticism, I guess.

Occasionally we do see it. The advent of the automobile 100 years ago really did do a number on an age-old equine industry.

But I like Gofishy's analogy better. The invention of manufactured books and their becoming ubiquitous didn't spell the end for medieval universities. Just the opposite. Free libraries didn't replace universities in the 18'th and 19'th centuries either.

I do see some possible trends.

People are going to have to update their skills much more often than in the past, so that life long learning will become the norm. The days are gone when a person's education is over when they graduate from college.

DL will continue to grow.

More and more B&M classes will adopt hybrid formats where lectures, readings, illustrations, worked examples and what-not are online and physical classes are increasingly devoted to laboratories, hands-on practice and interactive discussion.

The day might eventually come, a lot further out than 11 years though, when voice and text-based subjects like history, philosophy, mathematics and literature (any subject that's conducted in lecture sections as opposed to labs) migrate increasingly online, while physical university campuses increasingly emphasize hands-on scientific research. That will probably be more likely to happen on the graduate level, particularly in more exotic specialties.

Associated with that, we will probably be seeing more graduate programs hosted by scientific research and professional practice organizations rather than by conventional universities. That distinction might start to break down. Memorial Sloan Kettering's new NY Regents accredited PhD program is an example, as is the Burnham Institute's PhD, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's PhD and the American Conservatory Theater's MFA.

On the undergraduate level there's always going to be a market for the finishing school model, the elite highly-selective full-immersion liberal-arts college exemplified in places like Amherst.

 

While I agree that for labs and more technical degrees we will always have B&M schools, I think that my children in 10 or so years will be attending online. Depending of the cost they may do their first two years at a community college and then transfering to online. I understand and remember myself that you learn new and different social skills at B&M colleges. Of course I learned to drink and party my way into dropping out for a couple of years before going back and getting serious. I just do not see me paying for dorms, transportation (wear and tear, gas, etc.), and possibly out of state tuition, since we live in a state border town. While I do not want to put them in a bubble I think that they would be safer going online with all the increase in campus crime (around here anyway), driving back and forth, not knowing where they are, etc. which also saves a little time not driving, walking to class, etc. I think that alot of parents are going to be thinking along these same lines, and we are going to be seeing a shift in the years to come. Especially from the parents that have done online schooling. My wife got her masters online and got me interested. She and I think it is the sensible way to go. Also, the generation that is growing up now is so "plugged in" that they may not even consider anything but online. B&M may seem as outdated to them as typewriters, CD players, or their parent's fashion sense. They are growing up in such a fast paced society that sitting in a classroom will not even be mentally possible by the time they reach college age.

 

The lecture-based humanities may well follow this trend. I think TCord is right that there will always be residential prestige schools, and Bill D. also correctly identifies a major caveat – disciplines that rely on laboratory work will likely remain largely immune to this trend.

I think there is another discipline that will partially resist the trend - seminaries. That may sound odd, since there are a growing number of entirely online divinity programs. However, some schools in that field are not just held back by ATS’ limitations on DL, but have their own rationale for not allowing a full degree through DL. Many believe that the seminarian is not only supposed to be learning from the professor as a subject matter expert, but modeling themselves on that professor as a practitioner of faith. I have seen articles on this from Christian seminaries, and imagine the same perspective is frequently shared by non-Christian religions as well. While I think research-only doctorates are well-suited to religious studies, I think there will always be some residential-only enclaves for first degree practitioner (meaning M.Div./B.D. or equivalent) programs.

 

2020 seems a bit early to me. 2030 or 2040, though. . .

 

Ironically, the only fields that may survive the technological revolution are the technological studies. Programs in the trades and apprenticeships will always require hands-on lab facilities and practical testing. Engineering courses will always require access to real robotics, fluid power labs, wind tunnels, prototyping equipment.

The courses that might not survive in the universities are the degrees in history, sociology, literature... these programs can be migrated online easily. If we look at current DL offerings we can see this already happening. It is relatively easy to find a DL offering in business, religious studies, history, etc... Less easy finding an accredited engineering degree, electricians certification or architecture program.

It is already happening.

 

I'm not convinced that DL will impact full-time humanities programs, undergraduate or graduate, quite as much as some people hope/fear it might. Certainly not at the high-end, the prestige programs, where the full-immersion community-of-scholars academic-apprenticeship aspects are key. Whatever DL we are likely to see at that level will probably tend to be hybrid, introduced as a supplement to physical presence, not as a total replacement for it.

DL's going to have its greatest impact on part-time programs and on various kinds of continuing education. Fully-DL classes are basically the next evolution of night-school classes and they will probably appeal to the same demographic.

 

It is probably going to be an interesting blend. Distance learning is going to be more than sideline event. The FBI in the 1900s published a forecast and predicted that most law enforcement training will be online in the 21 st century. Our department does most of its inservice training online.

Distance learning at college level has been widely accepted in Australia for decades. We have had the school of the air for about seventy years for outback children who interact with their teacher over radio;"teacher, the answer is.. Over"

The 21st century will utilise technologies to deliver training product as cheaply as possible to consumers who will be cost and work focussed. The 21st century lifestyle and worldview is considerably different. The old icons are being swept away at a developing pace.

I suspect that competency based training will be the first to move into this concept heavily. Certainly, the police have moved towards it. The Australian Government has setup the NTIS to establish industry standards for competency packages and awards. Training organizations wishing to deliver these packages have to be registered with NTIS and meet their standards. Most of these awards can be obtained by recognized prior learning so learning on the job can convert into a diploma.

These diplomas are starting to challenge degrees in the job stakes. It may be that even degrees are under threat in the longer term. Is it the case that industry is starting to gain control over training to suit its needs, like it initially did, and the university, as we know it, is being edged out?
http://www.ntis.gov.au/

 

I agree. A real science degree can not be done over the web. For example, I can not see how one can earn a PhD in Behavioral Ecology (my field) without being in a B&M school.
So yes, some programs might change, but Sciences are fine the way they are.
Finally, I agree with BillDayson "I think that this guy is a future-nut".

 

I think the universities will stick closer to their knitting and not go as far into competency based training which really do not require a degree. In this country at least, we have found universities expanding their base into areas which were the province of technical colleges and industry programs. They will retreat from these "acquired" areas.

Competency based training is not about research and higher conceptual thinking. These areas will remain, as they should, in the university. Technical colleges and industry can do competency based programs a lot cheaper and more effectively.

An interesting hybrid that is developing here is the Post Graduate Vocational Diploma. The degree holder goes to a technical college to develop the entry level skills for an industry. The higher conceptual thinking is developed at the university and competency skills necessary for entry to the industry are obtained at tech after the degree is obtained

 

I think it's going to be complimentary, say for engineering, about 90% academics online while 10% for lab/workshops(undergraduate) but for graduate(MS), it can be totally online. Business courses could be totally online which already is by now(11 years earlier).

1. aeroplane reduced water transport greatly in international route but no total eradication
2. With email, we still post physical letter through DHL/Fedex, etc when the need arises

But personally, I think the ivy schools were reluctant about online due to the organised monopoly/oligopoly they were enjoying and of a truth like the poster said, they lack innovation. They hate a new school with passion. It must be in their own way or you are simply inferior. But somehow, they have not always turn out the best graduates.

Online is the future of education to the minimum of 90% for engineering/science and 100% for other courses not requiring test and experiments.

The wave is on.