|
Van Dusen, Gerald C. (1997). The Virtual Campus:
Technology and Reform in Higher Education. ASHE-ERIC
Higher Education Report 25, No. 5. Washington, DC: The
George Washington University, Graduate School of
Education and Human Development.
185 pp.
ISBN 1-878380-77-X
Reviewed by James JF Forest
National Center
for Urban Partnerships and
Boston College
April 24, 1998
Introduction
The attention paid to the role of technology in higher
education seems to grow by the week, the topic of an endless sea
of conferences and institutes, publications, courses, and
political speeches. Clearly, there is much to talk about. In a
new ERIC monograph, The Virtual Campus (1997), Gerald Van Dusen
provides a useful review of the literature on the relationship
between technology and higher education, in addition to focusing
our attention on several key dimensions of this relationship. The
term "virtual campus" is put forward by the author as a metaphor
for the electronic teaching, learning and research environment
created by information technology. However, throughout the book,
technology is seen as a means to an end, not an end in of itself,
which indicates that the author is not your typical departmental
technology enthusiast on a rant. This approach allows Van Dusen
to provide an analysis of the relationship between technology and
higher education which is both insightful and accessible to a
broad audience.
Additionally, a common complaint one hears about
publications on technology is that they are difficult to read
unless one is already somewhat familiar with the terminology. As
relatively few people can carry on a meaningful conversation
about bandwidth, Java, or the importance of firewalls in
electronic commerce, a wide range of current magazines, articles
and books inspire a relatively small readership. Perhaps owing to
his background as an English professor, as opposed to information
technology professional, Van Dusen's monograph provides a more
accessible discussion of these issues than one may find most
elsewhere. Instead of jargon and confusing acronyms, the author
provides a valuable service in making a discussion on technology
accessible even to those respected colleagues who inadvertently
post private e-mail messages to public Listserv discussion
groups.
The monograph itself is well-organized and a good read. The
author is to be commended for avoiding another common pitfall in
these sorts of publications - trying to say too much within a
limited number of pages. Instead, Van Dusen focuses his remarks
on the connections between technology and three primary areas:
teaching and learning, scholarship, and organizational change in
higher education.
Technology and Issues of Teaching and Learning
Within the time it takes you to read this sentence, a hundred new
websites have just become available online, and another hundred
will go online seconds later. The amount and range of information
resources available on the Internet are increasing at a dizzying
pace. The technologies which provide access to this information
are also multiplying rapidly and becoming more sophisticated. By
some accounts, the Internet has doubled in size every year for
the past six years (Cerf, 1997).
The Internet can provide access to essentially unlimited
sources of information, organized in increasingly useful ways.
Just as there are phone books and information directory services
in every city, there are a wide variety of Internet directories
and search engines with which you can find online resources
concerning an area of particular interest. However, flexibility
and ease of providing information on the Internet has led to
quality control issues. The resources one finds on the Internet
are of varying quality, from highly sophisticated scholarly
research journals to forums for the distribution of the most vile
propaganda. While a good deal of information available on the
Internet is useful and timely, individuals in various corners of
the world are taking advantage of this new, relatively free
medium to promote their own views, however falsely based.
Teachers of all educational levels are thus faced with a new and
daunting challenge of "dis-information damage control." For
example, how does a teacher respond to a student who, upon
viewing a few select websites, declares with strong conviction
that there is no way the Holocaust ever took place.
Most college and university faculty pride themselves on
their "critical thinking" skills, as evidenced by occasionally
dramatic debates in departmental faculty meetings. And yet, one
of the most common criticisms of higher education today is that
we have done a poor job of equipping our students with these
skills, which are sorely needed in the workforce. It has always
been paramount in higher education that we teach our students to
critically evaluate the merits of any source of information. With
the emergence of the Internet, we must re-commit to our
responsibility of teaching students how to judge analytically the
sources of their information, and to seek multiple perspectives
on issues before deciding for themselves what is fact and what is
fantasy.
Van Dusen's monograph explores these issues by first
describing technology's role in a shift in modern approaches to
classroom teaching and learning, from an instruction paradigm -
with its focus on the teacher - to a learning paradigm, where the
focus is on the student. This paradigm shift is to some degree a
result of information technology and is vital to the improvement
of learning in higher education. To this end, he argues, we must
further exploit the potential of new technologies in ways that
improve the interaction and intellectual engagement between
teachers and students. Van Dusen refers to the predominance of
lectures in higher education classrooms, and suggests that
"attempts to change the classroom focus from "sage on the stage"
to collaborative learning are likely to fail without a
substantial commitment to professional development. His view is
that advances in learning theory and instructional technology
have helped define learning in terms of how we construct
knowledge. While some faculty prefer to transmit the canon to the
students--the "empty vessel" perspective of teaching and learning,
others view learning as an act of internal growth--or knowledge
construction--guided by activities that strive to "shape" or
"grow" the student's cognitive abilities (Fox, 1983).
Many of Van Dusen's observations and recommendations are
supported by his implicit assertion that this philosophy of
constructivism is superior to other approaches to learning, and
thus we should strive to create learning environments in which
allow students to most effectively interpret and make meaning of
the world around them. To be sure, construction is an important
part of learning, but it is not the only part. Learning involves
complex interactions between a variety of activities, including
the presentation ideas and the construction of meaning. However,
for the purposes of this author's discussion, constructivism
blends nicely with the form and structure of the Internet-related
technologies.
The Internet provides teachers and students the opportunity
to design their own learning environment. However, while online
technology provides a certain amount of freedom and flexibility,
this places new responsibilities on the learners. Technology can
be used to aid students in constructing their own meaning of the
ideas presented, by enabling certain forms of information
exploration and linkages. Frameworks must be created to guide and
structure the learner's progress, but the learner must also be
allowed to create associations and follow related pathways and
ideas - in essence, there must be embedded into any technology-
related exercise enough flexibility to allow a student to create
his or her own meaning.
The two primary activities most faculty and students engage
in are lecture and discussion. Technology has a significant
history and a promising future in both of them.
Lecture
The roots of technology's relationship with lectures run deep.
From the expansive distance learning enterprise at the University
of the West Indies (Fergus, 1998) to the local cable access
channel at De Anza Community College, technology has been used
for decades to deliver lectures beyond the classroom walls.
Recent years have seen the development of ambitious new
initiatives in this area, such as the Western Governors
University, which Van Dusen refers to as a "true virtual
university." (p. 87) Technology has also played an important role
within the classroom for decades, where faculty have come to rely
on tools such as overhead projectors and wireless microphones.
The author describes how new technologies can further enhance the
traditional lecture, through integrating presentation software,
video, graphics, animation, and computer simulation.
Computer simulations are particularly useful, as they allow
the teacher to focus students' attention on critical aspects of a
demonstration, even allowing for a dramatic pause-and-repeat
effect to drive home a particular message. For example, I recall
several years ago in graduate school, a professor made use of a
video laser disk to show social structure in a seemingly chaotic
1st grade classroom. When viewed at normal speed, our group
seemed to agree that anarchy reigned supreme in the classroom.
Yet, when viewed at a single frame per second, it became clear
that several social arrangements governed how the children
interacted with the teacher, as well as how they interacted with
each other. Through the use of this technology, our class was
able to clearly see how young girls, particularly those from
lower income families, consistently deferred to the young boys,
and how the teacher unwittingly facilitated these repeated
interactions. Clearly, technology offers lecturers a variety of
ways to create powerful presentations for their students.
However, technology's potential for improving learning rests more
squarely in the ability to facilitate discussion across time and
distance.
Discussion
Drawing on several studies of teaching and learning higher
education, Van Dusen observes that discussion--and particularly
small group interchange--has greater potential than lectures for
developing skills that require students to integrate knowledge
into existing frames of reference and to apply conceptual
knowledge to situation-specific problems (p. 35). Through
technology, and particularly the Internet, students are now
empowered to "determine the venue of their learning." (p. 33) Not
only can students and the teacher carry on a dialogue far beyond
the classroom walls and scheduled meeting hours, but student can
explore their ideas with faculty and students at other
institutions, even in other countries. Technology can facilitate
educational "field trips" to places that teachers have never
before been able to take their classes. Through their computers,
children can engage in conversations with members of an
archeological dig in Egypt, the leader of an expedition in
Antarctica, or astronauts aboard the space shuttle.
Van Dusen also argues that technology enhances learning by
supporting collaborative learning, "a pedagogical strategy
designed to give students direct experience with peer teaching,
peer learning, motivational feedback, and higher-order thinking.
Small groups work together in a structured process to enhance
their own and each other's learning and social skills" (p. 36)
Collaborative learning involves a great deal of interaction
between students and teachers on several dimensions, from setting
learning goals and expectations to designing, assessing, and
improving the course - activities not possible when the lecture
is the only method employed (Panitz & Panitz, 1998).
Summary
There is indeed a great deal of potential in new technologies to
alter the way we think, learn, remember, and communicate
information. The Internet demands that the user be an engaged
agent, searching for information and then managing or
manipulating whatever is found: solving problems, buttressing
arguments with evidence, and exploring new, unknown terrain.
Certainly, educators should be more accepting of Internet
technologies than with television, as it provides more
opportunity to fashion creative ways to present information to
students. Van Dusen joins a growing chorus of scholars who
recommend that teachers encourage their students to use the
Internet for their research. We should also encourage each other
to use these technologies for enhancing our own scholarship.
Technology and Issues of Scholarship
Following an exploration into current issues related to academic
research, including an eloquent discussion of Boyer's influential
Scholarship Reconsidered, the author spends an unfortunately
small amount of time examining the role technology plays in
promoting new approaches to scholarship. Van Dusen supports the
claim of other scholars that the Internet has the potential to
"substantially restructure the pursuit of knowledge" (p.60). Web
pages provide faculty with timely and useful information for
developing curricula and research agendas in virtually any field
of discipline. Online contact databases (for example, see the
American Educational Research Association's website, at
http://aera.net) help scholars make connections with other
faculty who share their research interests. E-mail discussion
groups and WebBoard conferences help faculty stay connected and
explore ideas collaboratively. Further, these online messages can
be archived, providing a searchable database for both ideas and
people engaged in scholarly work that meet your interests, as
well as providing a unique record of how ideas can evolve over
time.
Technology has already had a dramatic impact in the world of
academic research. Quantitative research studies used to require
the kinds of computes that filled a whole room; now, we can
conduct highly sophisticated statistical analyses on a laptop.
Over the past decade, the Internet has offered increasingly new
and greater opportunities for online scholarly communication and
collaboration (Silberger, 1995). Researchers now have access to
library resources, government document archives and online
databases 24 hours a day. New developments in technology and
telecommunications and the growing importance and accessibility
of information is influencing both the representation of
knowledge "content" and the facilitation of knowledge
"reproduction." Students no longer rely on text for their sources
of information. Indeed, we now have a generation of college-bound
students who have been exposed from birth to rapid, entertaining
video images. Obviously, this does not bode well for the makers
of college textbooks. Indeed, publishing houses throughout the
world face an alarming decline in the number of books they can
sell, and the resulting increases in book price (to meet the
bottom line of expenses at the publishing firm) have forced the
industry into a supply-cost-demand spiral which has already seen
several casualties. Smaller firms are being bought up or closed
altogether, the opportunities to publish one's work are growing
fewer, and there is a noticeable dissatisfaction from both
students and professors at the rising costs of items at their
local bookstore.
There are many important dimensions in the relationship
between new technology and scholarship, only some of which are
addressed in this monograph. However, rather than delve into all
these many dimensions, Van Dusen provides a comprehensive review
of the literature which points to the need for drastic changes in
our approach to academic research. Within this discussion, the
author addresses perhaps the most important current issue on this
topic--the need for collaborative forms of scholarship. Drawing
on the important work of Austin and Baldwin (1991) and others,
Van Dusen observes how collaborative scholarly communication and
collaboration can revolutionize our approach to scholarship.
Changing the way we look at academic research to include a more
collective process - as opposed to work which is individually
produced and rewarded - significantly expands our opportunities
for developing and applying "original, discipline-specific,
analytic tools of research; to cultivate new working
relationships with scholars around the globe; and to explore
subjects of mutual scholarly interest beyond disciplinary and
institutional boundaries." (p. 65) The author then proceeds to
provide a sense of how organizations might change in ways that
would effectively address this important issue.
Technology and Issues of Organizational Change
Following the author's discussion of technology's role in three
critical areas of teaching, learning and research, the monograph
leads us on an exploration of the many possible contributions for
organizational change in higher education. Despite a brief
diversion into the merits of "academic TQM," the author provides
a useful analysis of how technology can aid efforts to assess and
improve the ways in which higher education institutions carry out
their individual missions. The main point that Van Dusen makes at
this point in his monograph is that technology can contribute to
a range of activities within both the bureaucratic sphere and the
academic sphere of our higher education institutions.
The Bureaucratic Sphere
Van Dusen's discussion on this topic melds nicely with the work
of other scholars, such as Kuepper's (1997) discussion on how
information systems and flexible management are necessary for the
transformation of universities, or Massy's (1997) essay on how
information technology will shape institutional futures. Indeed,
Van Dusen would surely endorse Massy's conclusion that
"information technology will improve colleges' and universities'
production processes and economic structure, and the quality of
faculty's work life." (p. 16)
However, there are several important issues related to
whether higher education institutions will rise to the challenge
of integrating technology into their work in meaningful and
useful ways. Van Dusen argues that administrators and governing
boards must focus considerable efforts in developing a strategic
planning process that address important issues of governance and
finance. Indeed, the author argues that "no aspect of educational
technology is more critical yet receives less attention in the
literature than budget and finance considerations." (p. 105) He
admonishes us to factor in issues of computer replacement, future
demand, and continual infrastructure development.
There are other issues related to cost management which,
while not mentioned in the monograph, are noteworthy. For
example, strategic financial plans must account for the cost of
security for all hardware and software investments. Theft can
happen with any piece of equipment, from the small (memory chips)
to the large (scanners, color laser printers, etc.), and illegal
software duplication is a widespread problem. There is also a
critical need to ensure the security of confidential record
databases. Another significant - and often overlooked - cost
management issue concerns the need for software upgrades. As the
clever folks at Microsoft, Apple, and elsewhere continue to
develop newer and more efficient ways of doing our work,
departments are annually faced with requests from their staff to
purchase the most recent office productivity software, operating
system upgrades, and much more. Clearly, there is a wide variety
of cost management issues concerning technology integration on
our campuses. It is no surprise, then, to find a booming market
in professional technology consulting, which many higher
education institutions have come to rely upon for guidance and
support. There is also a newer, and thus smaller, field of
consulting related to solving the many technology-related
dilemmas in the academic sphere. However, the issues here are no
less perplexing.
The Academic Sphere
Van Dusen reminds us that in developing our technology
integration plans, we must keep in mind the needs of the learner.
He also reminds us of the inherent complexities involved with the
widespread diversity of our students. "Colleges and universities
are serving a more heterogeneous clientele, with diverse
educational backgrounds and needs." (p. 45) Clearly, strategic
planning for technology integration must pay special attention to
the changing needs of higher education's clientele. These needs
place considerable demands on the faculty, and underscores the
need to improve our programs of professional preparation in
academe.
Among the many barriers to the adoption of technology in
educational organizations, one of the most common is lack of
training (Blurton, 1994). To make matters worse, the technology-
related demands placed on faculty are becoming increasingly
complex. In a recent essay on the role of information technology
in higher education, Massy (1997) advances the notion that
"technology will shift the professor's role from that of mainly a
content expert to a combination of content expert, designer,
manager, and mentor." (p. 16) If this is to be the case, then
clearly our current modes of professional preparation for future
academic generations are in dire need of reform, particularly in
terms of computer and technical skills proficiency.
Unfortunately, a cursory review of departmental training
materials finds that most often they are focused on the
technology rather than on how to make meaningful use of it. As
Blurton (1994) observes, "there is a critical need for
instructional materials focused on the uses of the Internet for
specific disciplines. Instructional materials should include
discipline-specific examples of resources available on the
Internet that can be used within a faculty member's body of
skills, knowledge, and practice." (p. 206) Indeed, as stated
earlier, effective use of technology in higher learning can only
occur if faculty are prepared to see technology as a useful means
to an end, rather than an end to itself. The academic department
- as the hub for both teaching assignments and connections with
peers in your discipline - becomes the primary arena where
technology integration discussions must take place. Indeed, it is
widely suggested that only through effective collaboration and
cooperation between instructors, students, and administrators can
technology play an effective role in the future success of a
higher education institution.
Van Dusen wisely reminds us to recognize "the power of
collegial encouragement" (p.122). Where a community of trust
exists, technology can greatly enhance communication throughout
an academic department, if not the entire institution. Van Dusen
rightly points out the importance of bringing all stakeholders to
the table in deciding how to approach the integration of
technology into higher education institution, and recommends that
we encourage faculty collaboration in teaching and research.
The author makes a convincing argument that for technology
to play an increasingly effective role in enhancing higher
education, we must avoid pitting traditionalists against
technology enthusiasts, and instead focus on institution-wide
collaboration. Certainly, adoption of technology cannot come from
administrative edicts nor from faculty computing zealots. Efforts
driven by the entire community of faculty, administrators and
support staff of an institution are bound to achieve considerably
more success than any other approach. Taken further, it may be
that the most effective means for integrating technology into
classroom instruction must include a significant effort towards
building a real sense of community within our departments and
institutions.
Summary
Faculty worldwide are not very pleased with the available
technology for teaching. according to a recent international
study of the academic profession (Boyer, Altbach & Whitelaw,
1994). While no study has been conducted to date, it can fairly
safely be assumed that faculty worldwide are also not very
pleased with their available resources for learning how to make
the most effective use of their institution's technology
resources. Thus, institutions of higher learning face several
important challenges if they are to remain competitive in the
global marketplace. Investment must be made in infrastructure
development, equipment, software for learning and productivity,
and most importantly, faculty training for using these tools in
the most effective manner possible. Further, these investments
must be guided by a strategic plan that accounts for the changing
needs of today's learners, cost management issues both present
and future, and the effective engagement of all campus
constituencies to ensure proper integration of the technology
into the daily work of the institution. Van Dusen's monograph is
a recommended resource for grappling with these complex and
interwoven issues.
Concluding Remarks
In today's rapidly changing world, writing about technology often
carries a significant amount of risk. Due to editing and
publishing cycles, the technical aspects of a book can become
outdated before it even reaches the shelves, as the emergence of
new computers and programs can lead to an entirely new technology
paradigm. Van Dusen avoids a fair amount of this risk by
concentrating on how information technology in general provides a
tool for new approaches to pedagogy, scholarship, and
organizational change, rather than on the technical aspects of
the tool itself. The material presented in Van Dusen's monograph
is well-organized, and provides a fine introduction to many
important and timely issues concerning the impact of technology
on teaching, learning, scholarship, and organizational change. As
well, to his considerable credit, the author makes the issues of
technology accessible even to those faculty and administrators to
whom e-mail is still a mystery. Overall, the book would make a
fine addition to the shelves of scholars and students of higher
education, as well as institutional administrators and
policymakers.
However, there are several dimensions to the relationship
between higher education and technology which the author does not
address. To his credit, Van Dusen accepts the necessary
limitations of his monograph, and avoids the common mistake of
trying to do to much in too small a space. However, his arguments
could certainly be made stronger by addressing some of the issues
and doubts raised by our less technologically-enthusiastic
colleagues, including the protection of intellectual property
rights. Technology presents the classroom instructor with a new
twist on the old problem of cheating. Plagiarism has never been
easier - in fact, the selling and distribution of ‘college-level'
term papers through the Internet is a booming market. The amount
of information being offered on the World Wide Web, both academic
and otherwise, offers the unethical student a world of
opportunities. The information is in electronic form. No need to
photocopy or re-type the article out of some library journal—now
you can simple "cut-and-paste" right into your word processor,
slap your name on it, and in fifteen minutes you're ready to go
out on the town with your friends. Certainly, a college or
university professor who suspects plagiarism of their students
can call them out, challenge them to defend the argument in their
paper or to more thoroughly demonstrate that the product is truly
theirs. However, identifying one of these "cut-and-paste" jobs is
becoming increasingly difficult, as a simple visit to any of the
more sophisticated online term paper warehouses will demonstrate.
Unfortunately, if one were to hazard a guess, relatively few
college or university professors are Internet-savvy enough to
know where to locate potential sources of these kinds of papers,
although chances are some of their students are no stranger to
them.
Technology can provide students and faculty with a "public
voice." Indeed, perhaps the best thing about the Internet is its
enabling power. It can facilitate the sharing of knowledge across
a remarkable range of interests and it can enable group
interactions among geographically dispersed participants.
However, this power can also be used for less than noble
purposes. Take the instance at Cornell University a few years
ago, when a misogynistic e-mail message produced such a backlash
that new policies were developed at institutions across the
country for "appropriate online behavior." Strategic planning
must account for all these and other issues before launching full
steam down the technology integration path. As stated previously,
community and collaboration provide the kind of academic
environment in which these issues can most effectively be dealt
with.
Finally, if we have consistently learned any one thing from
the history of technological development, it is to never focus
solely on what is possible today. The paradigms and constructs of
our current technology-based activities must not constrict our
view of what's possible in the short-term and long-term future.
Room for imagination and flexibility must therefore be built into
any strategic planning efforts. Thus, as many have observed,
people are the most critical element in organizational change.
Indeed, it is not the computers or the wires that connect them,
but rather the people that allow technology to play a significant
role in our educational activities. In particular, the people
that design and control (to a considerable degree) the ways in
which students are introduced to technology have a particularly
important responsibility. Certainly, how university teachers and
administrators respond to the challenges and opportunities of new
technologies will have a considerable effect on the course of
higher education in the next decade.
References
Austin, A. & Baldwin, R. (1991). Faculty Collaboration: Enhancing
the Quality of Scholarship and Teaching. ASHE-ERIC Higher
Education Report, No. 7. Washington, DC: The George Washington
University, School of Education and Human Development.
Blurton, C. (1994). Using the Internet for Teaching, Learning,
and Research. In Halpern, D. and Associates, Changing College
Classrooms: New Teaching and Learning Strategies for an
Increasingly Complex World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p.
191-212.
Boyer, E., Altbach, P., & Whitelaw, M. (1994). The Academic
Profession: An International Perspective. Princeton, NJ: The
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Cerf, V. (1997). The Cerf Report. Web Week, 7/27/97.
(http://www.webweek.com)
Fergus, H. (1998). From Experiment to Enterprise: Distance
Teaching at the University of the West Indies. In Forest, J.
(ed.) University Teaching: International Perspectives. New
York: Garland Publishing, p. 345-360
Fox, D. (1983). Personal Theories of Teaching. Studies in Higher
Education, 8, p. 151-163.
Kupper, H. (1997). Management systems and structural changes in
universities. (in German). Beitraege zur Hochschulforschung, 2,
pp 123-149.
Massy, W. (1997). Life on the Wired Campus: How information
technology will shape institutional futures. (Publication
#6310-93). Stanford, CA: National Center for Postecondary
Improvement
Panitz, T. & Panitz, P. (1998). Encouraging the Use of
Collaborative Learning in Higher Education. In Forest, J.
(ed.) University Teaching: International Perspectives. New
York: Garland Publishing, p. 161-202
Silberger, K. (1995). The Higher Education Electronic
Infrastructure: The impact on libraries and computer centers.
In Berge, Z. and Collins, M. (eds.), Computer Mediated
Communication and the Online Classroom. Volume I: Overview and
Perspectives. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
About the Reviewer
James JF Forest is technology specialist for the National Center
for Urban Partnerships and research associate for the Boston
College Center for International Higher Education.
E-mail: forest@alumni.stanford.org
|
|
