Wed, 3 Jun 1998 00:11:42 -0700 (PDT) Wed, 3 Jun 1998 00:06:10 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 00:06:10 -0700 (PDT) To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: [PEN-L:382] More on digital diploma mills *** Report from the Digital Diploma Mills Conference (372 lines) >From Langdon Winner TECH KNOWLEDGE REVUE 1.1 June 2, 1998 It was billed as "a second look at information technology and higher education," a gathering of students, professors, administrators, and union leaders concerned about the effects of computer-based learning in our colleges and universities. Organized by historian and social critic David Noble, the conference on "Digital Diploma Mills?" took place in late April at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and featured some of the most intense, personally moving discussions I have ever heard in a scholarly setting. While descriptions and diagnoses ranged across a broad spectrum, there was a widely shared sense that a crisis in higher education is now at hand. At one level the question had to do with how well the new media of computerized instruction compare to conventional, classroom-centered methods of teaching. As students connect to new networks of "distance learning," what exactly are they getting? How does their experience compare to that gained on traditional college campuses? Almost all speakers at the conference took care to recognize that there are some definite advantages in what the new technologies and digital institutions offer. Several professors described ingenious attempts to use the Internet and Web in their teaching, for example, a seminar in global political economy that links teachers and students across several continents. Many acknowledged that, for great numbers of students today, sources of electronic information and occasions for on-line instruction are actually superior to what would have been available to them otherwise. Especially for non-traditional learners -- those who have jobs and families and want to return to college to expand their learning and earn new credentials -- computerized settings offer varieties of access and flexibility that traditional campuses do not provide. This is no small accomplishment. Weighing the Costs ------------------ Enthusiasm about the success stories, however, was countered by reports that distance learning is often a counterfeit of education, replacing well recognized essentials of teaching with glitzy software and shoddy pedagogy. Most sobering in this regard was the conference keynote, "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Colder," by Mary Burgan, General Secretary of the American Association of University Professors. Burgan argued that the methods of distance learning often lead teachers "to abandon our students to their own devices at exactly that stage in their learning when they most need guidance, exhortation and demanding critique from us." She noted that distance instruction tends to amplify some of the worst habits of today's students: an inability to concentrate in a sustained way, a tendency to read uncritically and a willingness to believe that one interpretation of a text or topic is just as good as the next. Particularly troubling, Burgan observed, is the way that computerized methods sever personal bonds between students and teachers. Speaking of participants in her own classes, she noted that "their intellectual difficulties are very personal," often tied to troubles with family, friends, lovers, substance abuse and the like. It is difficult enough to spot these problems in direct, face-to-face classroom encounters. If teaching increasingly takes place in the abstract realms of cyberspace, will teachers be able to respond to students' highly individual needs? Burgan's thoughts gave focus to a dispute that erupted repeatedly during the gathering: how to weigh the benefits and costs of on-line learning. For some vocal techno-optimists in the crowd, the central promise seemed to be that of "content." Content, they explained, is the crucial substance of any field of knowledge -- physics, math, history, etc. -- such that it can be "delivered" through a set of institutions, practices and technical equipment. Content plus delivery equals "access." From this standpoint, computerized education looks like a godsend. As Casey Green, Director of Campus Computing for the Claremont Colleges, exclaimed about the new technology, This stuff is great. This stuff is fantastic. This stuff is wonderful. This stuff offers tremendous opportunities for me as a scholar ... and tremendous opportunities for engagement for me and my students focused on the issue of content: what we teach, what we bring into the classroom and what we bring into the syllabus. Some in the group, however, balked at the enthusiasm over "content", wondering whether coming generations of students were fated to be taught by machines rather than living human beings. Mary Burgan acknowledged that knowledge of a certain complexion can be transferred via the new media. But she asked, "What happens to people who get their knowledge and then don't have to interact with other people in other settings?" Throughout the discussions there was a gnawing sense that even the most exquisite applications of distance learning run roughshod over crucial, social dimensions of learning. Gathering Forces of Change -------------------------- As the debate continued, it became clear that the pros and cons about the computer and Net were just the tip of an iceberg, one that the Titanic of higher education seems destined to ram. Enormous economic, demographic and political forces are gathering in ways that now promise (or is it threaten?) to transform higher education from top to bottom. How education is offered, by whom, for what audience, at what cost, and with what consequences for society -- all of that, conference participants agreed, is up for grabs. Among the most powerful forces are those in the corporate sector that see education as a huge, largely untapped market for new goods and services. If one totals all the money spent on education and training in every setting and every institution, public and private, in the United States each year, the amount comes to perhaps $600 billion. Several speakers pointed to the expanding reach of corporate innovations aimed at capturing markets that traditional colleges and universities now serve. New firms, the University of Phoenix and the Home Education Network, for example, have already taken a substantial bite of the growing market for distance learning and look forward to huge profits in the future. As the emerging Wal-Mart in this field, the University of Phoenix has some 31,000 students enrolled. Meanwhile, conventional institutions are scrambling to find a role, sometimes renting their reputations and even some of their faculty to cyberspace business concerns. Rick Worthington, professor of public policy at Pomona College, called attention to the controversial link between U.C.L.A. and the strictly for-profit Home Education Network. "Why would this firm be interested in the university?" he asked. "The reason is clear: U.C.L.A. is a good brand!" Another arrangement between business and the university that drew considerable fire was the California Education Technology Initiative, a sweetheart deal announced in December 1997, linking the entire California State University system to a consortium of information technology firms -- Fujitsu, Hughes, Electronics, GTE and, of course, Microsoft in the group first announced. The plan involves a $300 million upgrade of the CSU digital "backbone" and the transfer of the $80 million a year that CSU budgets for computing services to the new CETI monopoly. University administrators see the plan as a convenient way to improve information technology services within the college system. But students and faculty at the Harvey Mudd conference blasted the scheme as a corruption of the fundamental purposes of a public university, renaming it the "Corporate Education Takeover Initiative." Several speakers voiced fears that CETI corporate partners would begin to control the content of courses, reducing professors to a distinctly secondary role. One faculty member from a CSU campus reported that in the original CETI contract, professors were expected to become members of an active sales force, hawking products of the corporate partners to the 365,000 students on CSU's twenty-two campuses. [It's worth noting that as campus protests about CETI roiled this spring, Microsoft and Hughes Electronics withdrew from the negotiations. University officials remain hopeful that a deal of some kind can be worked out.] Social Pressures and the Educational Paradox -------------------------------------------- The background for commercial innovations like CETI can be found in social pressures rapidly building in American society. First is a huge demographic bubble in which growing numbers of college age and returning students seek higher education, placing tremendous stress on existing institutions. At the same time state governments, facing tax revolts from angry voters, are far from eager to spend the funds needed to build new campuses and hire permanent faculty. The situation was depicted most vividly by Lev Gonick, University Dean for Academic Computing at California Polytechnic University, Pomona. We are facing `Tidal Wave II' -- an additional 110,000 to 125,000 students in the next fifteen years. That represents building an institution the size of Cal Poly Pomona with 20,000 students every year for the next seven years. That's not going to happen. The brick and mortar solution is not going to happen. What is going to happen, Gonick made clear, is that public universities will look for ways to stretch their present campus facilities and faculties through the use of digital communications. Whether or not this strategy will work was hotly debated. Several who spoke on the economics of information technology noted with bemusement that universities rushing to the game are largely clueless about how much the new equipment and services will actually cost. "I.T. is as much marketing phenomenon as it is scholarly tool," educational policy analyst Christopher Oberg observed. "It is as much about keeping up with the Joneses as it is about keeping up with research." Even the notion that information technologies bring increased efficiency seems suspect. There now appears to be an "education paradox" at least as puzzling as the "productivity paradox" oft-reported in the business literature. As Oberg put it, "In the literature searches I've done and research reviews I've conducted, I cannot find a single claim that I.T. has delivered an equal learning product at a reduced cost." David Noble chimed in on this point, recalling that his studies of industrial automation two decades ago had reached similar conclusions. In fact, the managers and engineers he talked to simply did not want to talk about matters of cost, efficiency and profit that ostensibly motivated them. "We hear all the time about the bottom line ... cost effectiveness, austerity. The reality is otherwise. Trying to identify gains in productivity or economic gains -- the results are always ambiguous and quite contrary to the assumptions." Studies of supposed "gains from the introduction of computers in the service sector," he added, "have thus far yielded no gains in productivity .... Now all of this is coming to the universities." Many in the room called attention to another feature of the brave new academic economy -- increasing reliance on a corps of contingent workers, the tens of thousands of poorly paid "adjunct" professors, "Roads Scholars" if you will, who now teach a growing share of courses offered on American campuses. Nearly 50% of all college classes nationwide are taught by non-tenure track, part-time teachers, a source of increasing distress among students and faculty alike. Ann-Marie Feenberg, Associate Dean at the University of Redlands, called attention to one disturbing aspect of this trend: the de-professionalization of a whole generation of scholars. "We see our junior colleagues becoming independent contractors," she lamented. As members of the new generation of PhDs move from one part-time slot to another, it is all but impossible for them to build coherent careers in teaching, research and collegial relations. This result, of course, has little to do with computers or high speed networks as such. But as the use of temporary academic workers spreads, the idea of building new "wired universities" around them is a temptation that academic administrators and entrepreneurs find difficult to resist. Welcome to the global economy and its lean, flexible, just-in-time work places. These days I often hear unemployed PhDs say how thankful they are for the $3,500 fee they receive for doing occasional, on-line courses. As they adapt to this new regime, deplorable conditions are accepted as normal. Who Controls Education? ----------------------- A spark of humor on these dreary trends was injected by Christine Maitland, Coordinator of Higher Education for the National Education Association, who sketched several fantasies of campuses of the future. One of them, McCollege, yellow arches and all, would offer a complete line of drive-through, fast-consumption educational products including "The Big Degree." A special attraction of "Wired U," would be occasional performances by "The Three Tenures," the last three tenured professors on the planet. On the walls of her projected E.M.O. -- Education Maintenance Organization -- were signs reading: "Truth is the best commodity," "Scholarship means dollarship," and "Money in the bank is the best tenure." Maitland's point, however, was a serious one. Whether they realize it or not, college teachers are now involved in a fierce struggle over the control of the curriculum. The increasing use of technology in higher education raises persistent questions about what the curriculum will include and who decides. "It is the faculty that are the best judges of the content and quality of courses in their discipline," she insisted. With a "knowledge explosion" under way in all areas of learning, the idea that software developers can simply package lectures and lessons and pump them through digital pipes year after year is an illusion. Such knowledge would have a limited shelf-life. Hence, the best strategy is to allow those active in various fields of learning to oversee changes in the substance of courses. Maitland cited the example of the University of Maine, which attempted to institute distance education without including faculty in curriculum planning. Faculty fought back, eventually forcing the chancellor to resign. "The union won the right to have faculty review of distance education courses. There is now some very good distance education offered by the University of Maine and it is controlled by the faculty." This does not mean that college teachers should see themselves as protectors of traditional sinecures. Indeed, many at the meeting saw the true challenge of information technology as that of democratizing education, transforming deeply entrenched structures of prestige and privilege. Phil Agre, professor of communication at UCSD, observed that the very ideal of liberal education has long presupposed a distance between the educated person and the rest of society. A possible benefit of distance learning might be to overcome this distance. "The model of liberal education depended on a kind of leisure that our students mostly don't have and do not expect to have and can't identify with." Agre called for "a positive, democratic vision of what a liberal education is," one that would draw upon the power of digital technologies as an occasion for progressive social change. Andrew Feenberg, professor of philosophy at San Diego State University, chided college teachers for missing the boat on exactly this challenge. "University faculties have not been willing to address non-traditional learners. Because they haven't, those learners have been addressed by entrepreneurs and administrators who have created a whole parallel education system which they now control." In contrast to the kinds of high-cost pedagogy that now produce de-skilling and automation in education, Feenberg described some time-tested, inexpensive forms of computer-centered learning that bring students and teachers together around projects of shared inquiry. But he admitted that few have been willing to move forward with these approaches. And What about the Students? ---------------------------- As the conference wound to a conclusion, voices strangely absent from most discussions about technology and education announced themselves forcefully. A panel of students from the Claremont colleges and CSU system wondered openly how agendas for the corporatization, commercialization, and technological transformation in their learning environments had been launched without anyone bothering to ask them about their needs. While they appreciated the advantages that email and on-line information could provide, they were incensed at the mind-numbing foolishness that computer and media-centered presentations often involve. "We don't want edutainment," Maria Quintero exclaimed. "What we want is people to inspire or infuriate us." In a rambling monologue worthy of a stand up comic, Evan Blumberg described a fellow he'd noticed in a campus computer lab, one who would stare into his cathode ray tube for days on end, oblivious to the passage of time, the need for food or drink and the presence of people sitting right next to him. "Because these labs have no windows, you can't tell whether it's day or night. They're a lot like the casinos in Las Vegas. I think I know who `the house' is." Another of the students, Julia Baker, spoke as a leader of the revolt against CETI in the California State University system. Ms. Baker pointed to the destruction of the partnership between students and professors that systems of distance learning sometimes entail. Suggesting that the problem was ultimately one of corporate domination of education rather than technology itself, she announced that a "revolution in consciousness" is on the horizon, one quite different from the educational revolution corporate managers and university bean counters have in mind, an uprising that would bring students to renew their commitment to social justice and ecological principles. "When the revolt arrives," she asked, "will the faculty stand with us?" The event ended with no firm resolve other than a firm desire to keep the conversation moving. Evidently, there will be a second "Digital Diploma Mills" gathering in Wisconsin this fall. If it's anything like the first one, it will be well worth the journey to Madison. A Two-tiered Educational System? -------------------------------- I came away from the conference with several firm impressions: ** The extent of corporate penetration of higher education is even greater than I'd previously known and is spreading fast. ** State legislatures would now rather invest in digital bandwidth than spend money on conventional settings for teaching and learning. ** Most faculty of college and universities now seem unaware of or indifferent to changes slated for their ways of working in the years ahead. ** If professors ever do begin to squawk about the erosion of their scholarly autonomy, the general public probably won't care. ** In the coming decade, higher education seems likely to split into two distinctly different sectors: (1) two hundred or so institutions that deliver high quality, face-to-face teaching for those slated to become social elites; (2) several thousand semi-campus, semi-cyberspace, hybrid organizations -- colleges, universities and business firms -- ready to pump instruction and credentials to a flexible global workforce. ** The goal of shaping information technology to democratize education is highly appealing, but there are, at present, no strong, well-organized forces promoting that end. ** I plan to advise my sons to avoid college teaching as a profession, unless any of them demonstrates a taste for protracted conflict. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tech Knowledge Revue is produced at the Chatham Center for Advanced Study, P.O. Box 215, North Chatham, NY 12132. Langdon Winner can be reached at: winner@rpi.edu and at his Web page: http://www.rpi.edu/~winner . Copyright Langdon Winner 1998. Distributed as part of NETFUTURE: http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/. You may redistribute this article for noncommercial purposes, with this notice attached. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael@ecst.csuchico.edu