A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

High Tech vs. High Touch (continued)

Infrastructure and Innovation

Technology represents an innovation in higher education. Indeed, technology presents several categories of innovations involving pedagogy and content. The literature on the diffusion of innovations suggests that in many instances, infrastructure fosters innovation and the integration of innovation into daily practice.²³ That seems to be the case in academe.

Viewed in this context, the slow integration of technology resources (both digital content and digital delivery) represents a significant innovation for higher education. Most faculty have had little training on the effective use of IT as a scholarly resource or instructional tool. Beyond word-processing, e-mail, and some use of the WWW, the inferential and anecdotal data suggest still low, if admittedly growing rates of technology integration. Indeed, technology integration into instruction looms as the "single most important issue confronting institutional IT efforts over the next 2–3 years" (see figure 1).²⁴

Figure 1.—Key issues for information technology in traditional postsecondary education

As for instructional integration, 1997 Campus Computing Report reveals that while rising in recent years, the percentage of classes using various kinds of IT resources remains low, generally below 25 percent. E-mail, word processing, and presentation handouts (e.g., PowerPoint or Persuasion) are the most commonly used IT resources; in contrast, IT interventions that require infrastructure, training, and money such as simulations and commercial courseware are used in less than 10 percent of all college classes (figure 2).

Figure 2.—Percent of college courses using IT resources, 1994—97

These data, and others from the Campus Computing Project, ultimately reinforce the perspective that infrastructure fosters instructional innovation and, subsequently, the instructional integration of information technology. As a resource to supplement instruction (e.g., resources on the WWW) or to supplant the traditional role of teacher and book and become the primary means of both content delivery and assessment, the successful integration and adaptation of IT as an instructional resource will depend on the IT infrastructure on campus, and availability to the individual learner either on or off-campus.

What are key components of an effective IT infrastructure in higher education? Some elements are easy to identify: hardware and software, campus networks, student and faculty access to e-mail; the Internet, the WWW and digital libraries. These top the priorities at most institutions, both elite research universities as well as small community colleges.

Classroom and campus access to IT resources also are critical issues. Few college classrooms have Internet connections; most do not have the kind of computerized projection resources commonly found in bowling alleys across the United States.

But the experience of the past decade points to other key elements. Training is critical: as noted, most faculty have had little training on how to make effective use of IT resources in their instructional and scholarly work. Moreover, the few faculty who invest time, effort, and energy into attempting to develop IT resources to support their classroom work seldom receive any reward or recognition for their efforts. Indeed, too often they are implicitly penalized for their "adventures in instructional technology" when it comes time for review and promotion decisions.²⁵ Consequently, within academe, recognition and reward are also critical barriers to the broader experimentation with and wider use of IT resources in instruction and learning.

As for the commercial efforts to bring IT to the classroom and learning experience, here too much also depends on faculty. As noted, training and user support are critical issues. But so, too, will be faculty acceptance of IT resources and interventions. Many faculty who see potential in IT as an instructional resource nonetheless may view administrative efforts (or public mandates) to transfer some instructional tasks from teacher to technology as part of "management's" efforts to reduce costs absent any concern for broader issues of the learning context or student-faculty interaction. Others may fear new work rules that affect ways institutions "count" enrollment and determine teaching loads in traditional and online classes (e.g., three classes of thirty vs. one cyberspaced class with some seventy students at remote location).²⁶

Beyond issues of content and (the learning) context, there is the very major issue of certification. Just as employers look to institutions for certification of student performance and mastery, so too do professors look closely at one another on the issue of "certification:" "will the students from my class do well in the one that follows?" "The students who took the intro course last fall were not well prepared for the spring term materials;" "Students from that undergraduate program do well in our graduate program." Faculty confidence in IT-based instruction and certification will also (ultimately) affect confidence in these resources and acceptance in both academe and the labor market.

To date, however, certification remains a very weak link in IT-based instruction. Many faculty will provide testimony about the role of technology in enhancing the content in their classrooms or the context of the learning experience. However, few have direct experience developing or using technology resources for assessment and certification. Ample prior experience indicates that the postsecondary market demands much more than digitized multiple-choice tests that are easily imbedded as review modules in IT-based instruction. Indeed, conversations with faculty and administrators about key challenges in this area often move quickly to assessment issues: while many will acknowledge the potential of IT-based resources to deliver and enhance instruction, few feel that current IT-based assessment tools begin to approach the sophistication and complexity reflected in the tests and exams that are a common part of the (traditional) college course experience.

Here, perhaps, many will watch closely the competency-based efforts of Western Governors' University. Both academic and corporate observers will monitor carefully WGU's efforts to develop new kinds of IT-based assessment modules and the accompanying response of both institutions and employers to the first "graduates" of WGU's programs. For WGU and other IT-based virtual programs and institutions (both for profit and non-profit), the true market test is simple: the market test is not how well (very) good students can learn under any circumstances, but if the underlying technology that will permeate WGU's instructional delivery and assessment strategies will find acceptance among a broad student clientele and support among a wide range of employers. Indeed, the market test focuses on the "value added" by the WGU instructional and learning experience.

Finally, instructional integration of IT must address the payment issue: who pays for these resources? Are these institutional expenditures, similar to hardware, software, and personnel? Will these costs be passed through to students, who will buy IT modules the way they currently purchase textbooks? These

issues are also important in the broad discussion, especially as some of the commercial offerings involve significant per-student costs, perhaps $100 per student per instructional module.

Looking Ahead

It has been 30 years since Patrick Suppes articulated his vision statement for the role of computers and technology in education. Perhaps we may (again) return to Suppe's vision 30 years from now to assess how far we have come and the distance yet to go. While we will have made significant gains by 2028 (as we have since 1968), we in academe (and elsewhere) will still likely be engaged in continuing research and heated debate about "high touch" ("Mark Hopkins and the log") vs. "high tech" (computer/IT based instruction) as the appropriate link to the past, and also as a path to the future of technology.

Notes

1. Suppes, Patrick. The Role of Computers in Education. Scientific American (October 1967).

2. Defending Williams College from the attacks of some unhappy alumni more than a century ago, Wiliams graduate (and future U.S. President) James Garfield, is reported to have responded that "the ideal college is Mark Hopkins [William's president] on one end of a log and a student on the other." Rudolph, Frederick, The American College and University: A History (Athens, GA, Univ. of Georgia Press, 1990), p. 243.

3. Historian David F. Noble of York University (Canada), argues that "in this new age of higher education, the lines have already been drawn in the struggle …. On one side [are the] university administrators and their myriad commercial partners, on the other those who constitute the core relation of education: students and faculty. Noble, David F., "Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education." First Monday, an Internet journal, http://outreach.lib.uic.edu/; (January 1998).

4. See, for example, Astin, A. W., Four Critical Years (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1978), and What Matters in College (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993). See also Pascarella, E. T. and Terenzini, P. T., How College Affects Students (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991).

5. Van Dusen, Gerald, The Virtual Campus: Technology and Reform in Higher Education. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Volume 25, No. 5. (Washington, DC: The George Washington University), 1997, p. 38.

6. Clark, Richard, "Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media." Review of Educational Research (53, 4), (1983): 445.

7. Russell, Thomas L. "The `No Significant Difference' Phenomenon as Reported in Research Reports, Summaries, and Papers. (Raleigh: North Carolina State University Office of Instructional Telecommunications), 1993, p. 2.

8. See, for example, McCullum, Kelly, "In Test, Students Taught On-Line Outdo Those Taught in Class." The Chronicle of Higher Education, (12 February 1997), A-23). At California State University Northridge, a political science professor randomly assigned students to two sections of his quantitative methods class: one section was classroom-based, the second "cyber-spaced," and conducted over the Internet and WWW. Students in the "wired" section outperformed students in the traditional classroom section by roughly 20 percent on both the mid-term and final exams. The professor who offered the class and studied the academic performance of both groups concluded that the differential was due, in part, to the fact that "students formed study groups to compensate for their lack of face-to-face contact with a professor. [The] collaboration …helped the students to learn more effectively."

9. Robert Kozma and Jerome Johnston, "The Computer Revolution Comes to the Classroom." Change (January-February) 1991. Their Change paper summarizes a major research report prepared for the U.S. Department of Education in 1991.

10. Kozma and Johnston, pp. 16-18.

11. Begun in the mid-1980s, the EDUCOM-NCRIPTAL program was a national initiative intended to encourage faculty to develop instructional software. Winners received cash prizes for their work. The 5 year evaluation study by Kozma and Johnson of the National Center for the Research in Postsecondary Teaching and Learning at the University of Michigan was one of the largest evaluation projects to assess the impact of these efforts on student learning, IT integration, and curriculum change.

12. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reveal that the number of high school graduates in the United States increased from 2.2 million to 2.6 million between 1991 and 1996, below the peak of 3.16 million in 1978, but clearing rising nonetheless. Concurrently, between 1991 and 1996, the percentage of high school graduates entering college within a year of high school graduation rose from 62.4 percent to 65.0 percent, up from 50.1 percent in 1978. National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 1997, Table 184. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1997). The annual Digest of Education Statistics is also available online at: http://nces.ed.gov.

13. Fall 1995 data from NCES reveal that enrollments of individuals aged 19 and under totaled 3.17 million (22.2 percent of total headcount enrollment.) In contrast, enrollment of individuals aged 30 and over totaled 4.091 million students (28.7 pct of 1995 headcount enrollment). Digest of Education Statistics, 1997, Table 176.

14. NCES projections point to total (headcount) enrollments of 16.1 million by 2007 (Digest of Education Statistics, 1997, Table 174). However, the growing numbers of both traditional students and part-time adults could push total enrollments in accredited postsecondary institutions towards 20 million by 2010, a scenario first proposed by Howard Bowen in 1974 (Bowen, Howard R., "Higher Education: A Growth Industry?" Educational Record, 55, [Summer 1974 147-58]

15. Demographic factors are far more pressing in developing nations. For example, in his 1996 book, MegaUniversities and Knowledge Media (London: Kogan Page) Sir John Daniel, formerly vice rector of Britain's Open University, notes that "already 50 percent of the world's population is less than 20 years old. In developing countries, the proportion is much higher, rising to 70 percent in Palestine and 80 percent in South Africa" (p. 5). Although demographic factors may differ in individual nations, the competition for funds to support social service and infrastructure investments, including education, is keen in both developed and developing nations.

16. National Commission on the Costs of Higher Education, Straight Talk About College Costs and Prices. Final Report, January 28, 1998, GPO, Washington, DC.

17. Green, Kenneth C. Campus Computing, 1997: The National Survey of Information Technology in U.S. Higher Education. (Encino, CA: Campus Computing) December 1997.

18. Bowen, Howard R. The Costs of Higher Education. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass), 1980.

19. The 1997 Consumer Market Study of the Software Publishers Association (SPA) reports that 38 percent of U.S. households own a personal/desktop/notebook computer. Several other consumer market studies published during 1997 also reported household ownership at about 40 percent. As the SPA survey was conducted during January 1997, it is likely that ownership levels have risen a few points over the past year.

20. A.W. Astin, et. al. The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1995. (Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA), 1995.

21. The University of Phoenix's parent company is The Apollo Group, a publicly traded corporation (NASDAQ Symbol: APOL).

22. A lively, and compelling study of VC-burn is Jerry Kaplan's 1995 book, Start-Up: A Silicon Valley Adventure (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company). Kaplan details with insight and irony how his VC-funded start-up, Go Corporation, consumed $75 million in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to develop and market a pen-based computing system, similar to the technology now found in the Apple Newton.

23. Rogers, E.M., The Diffusion of Innovations, Fourth Edition (New York, Free Press), 1995. Indeed, referencing data from the 1996 Campus Computing Project, Rogers comments that "the dramatic gains in the rate of adoption of information technology [in instruction] are undoubtedly related to the growing public awareness of the Internet, as well as the expanding access to, and use of, personal computers across broad parts of American society." Rogers, "In Response," Change (March/April 1996), p. 29.

24. Green, Kenneth C. Campus Computing 1997. (Encino, CA: Campus Computing). Summary information about the 1996 report is also available via the AskERIC Web site: http://ericir.syr.edu/).

25. The 1997 Campus Computing Report reveals that more than 60 percent of U.S. campuses have some sort of IT-support center intended to help faculty identify and perhaps even develop IT interventions for their classes; however, less than 12 percent of U.S. campuses provide any type of formal "recognition or reward" for these efforts as part of review and promotion decisions.

26. Faculty unions in the United States are very concerned about the growing role of IT in collegiate instruction. Indeed, technology issues may emerge as a major point of confrontation in union contracts in coming years.

References

Astin, A. W., Four Critical Years. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1978.

Astin, A. W. What Matters in College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

Astin, A. W. et. al. The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1995. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 1995.

Bowen, H.R. "Higher Education: A Growth Industry?" Educational Record, 55, Summer 1974.

Bowen, H.R. The Costs of Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980.

Clark, R. "Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media." Review of Educational Research.Vol. 53, 4, 1983.

Daniel, J. MegaUniversities and Knowledge Media. London: Kogan Page, 1996.

Green, K. C. Campus Computing, 1997: The National Survey of Information Technology in US Higher Education. Encino, CA: Campus Computing, December 1997. (See also http://ericir.syr.edu/)

Kaplan, J. Start-Up: A Silicon Valley Adventure. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995

Kozma, R. and Johnston, J. "The Computer Revolution Comes to the Classroom." Change, January-February 1992.

McCullum, K. "In Test, Students Taught On-Line Outdo Those Taught in Class." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 February 1997.

National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 1997. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1997.

National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education. Straight Talk About College Costs and Prices Washington, DC: GPO, January,1997.

Noble, D. F. "Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education." First Monday(an Internet journal) (http://outreach.lib.uic.edu/; January 1998).

Pascarella, E. T. and Terenzini, P.T. How College Affects Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991.

Rogers, E.M. The Diffusion of Innovations, (Fourth Edition). New York, Free Press, 1995.

"In Response," Change, March/April 1996.

Rudolph, F. The American College and University: A History. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1990

Russell, T. L. "The `No Significant Difference' Phenomenon as Reported in Research Reports, Summaries, and Papers." Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State University Office of Instructional Telecommunications, 1993.

Software Publishers Association. Consumer Market Study, 1997. Washington, DC: Software Publishers Association, 1997.

Suppes, P. "The Role of Computers in Education." Scientific American, October, 1967.

Van Dusen, G. The Virtual Campus: Technology and Reform in Higher Education. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Volume 25, No. 5. Washington, DC: The George Washington University, 1997.

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