tnc 2008 brugges, belgium the tower and the cloud: tomorrow’s network for tomorrow’s university...

TNC 2008 Brugges, Belgium

The Tower and the Cloud:

Tomorrow’s Network for Tomorrow’s University

Richard N. Katz Vice President EDUCAUSE


Our Concern, Since 1969


Our Magnificent Success:Importance of the Network

4.32

3.643.34 3.35

4.52

3.96 3.963.78

4.39

3.93

3.57 3.50

1

2

3

4

5

Research in Scienceand Engineering

Research in OtherDisciplines

Creative Activity Teaching andLearning

Mea

n C

hang

e in

Impo

rtanc

e

United States (N=112) Europe (N=27) Australia/New Zealand (N=28)

Scale: 1=no importance, 2=minor importance, 3=moderate importance, 4=high importance, 5=very high importance


Our Concern, Starting Now?

Human Psychology

The Economy

Society


Accelerating Change “We live in a moment of

history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.”

R.D. Laing


Question

Are we building tomorrow’s technology for yesterday’s world? (or yesterday’s university?)


The World, c. 2008

• Flat• Accelerating Change

– Radically Changing Demographics

– Geopolitics– Rise of Personal Power– Knowledge-driven Era– Information Wars


Higher Education, c. 2008

• Shift from public good to private investment

• Rising costs• Increasing pressures on

revenues• Increasing pressures to

account for student success and institutional performance



• Democratization of access to university and its resources

• Increasing competition for– talent (staff and students)– funds– influence

• Balkanization– private v. public– elite v. mass education– research v. all others



• Increasing importance of higher education– Wealth of nations– Mobility of citizens


The Cloud, c. 2008• Continued improvement

in price-performance• 1,000,000,000 on the

network• Widespread access to

broadband networks• Much content is digital

and is reasonably accessible** But a war is brewing over

IP rights* Not if you are a humanities

scholar!


The Cloud, c. 2008

• The network really is the computer

• Emergence of the Net Gen collegiate– Some continue to be shut

out

• Web 2.0 is a social phenomenon

• Digital environments begin to simulate real ones

• A real revolution in scientific research


Questions

How is the (Internet) cloud growing to envelop the University?

How is the University using the cloud to extend its presence?

How does ‘cloudiness’ alter the form of our social institutions?


Shifting Balance of Power

– politics of (information)

scarcity v. politics of abundance

– from individual to collective?

– from teacher to learner?– from expert to amateur?– from institution to ???

Trends


Rising Consumerism• Flattening enrollments

mean rising choice for some

• ‘Net Gen’ Students/

‘Helicopter’ parents • Club ‘Mid’• Jobs, jobs, jobs• The real and the

virtual

Trends


The Rise of ‘Truthiness’

• Moral anchor is missing• Partially solvable in

middleware• Partially solvable in tools• Partially solvable in the

evolution and transmission of scholarly values and skills in the digital context

Trends


Emergence of the Collective

• Wikipedia• Seti@home• TASS

– Mapping the night sky

• Citizen journalism• Social tagging• ‘American Idolization’ of

Everything• Wikiversity

Trends


And Technology Keeps Rollin’

“Exponential growth looks like nothing is happening, until it explodes.”

Trends

Ray Kurzweil


• we do not serve all who can learn• we have not made higher education more efficient• we have not yet transformed learning

Dilemmas

The context of IT ≠ the context of higher education

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

TNC 2008 Brugges, Belgium Dilemmas

Really Neat IT ≠ Student Engagement and Success

• High rates of attrition• Evidence of declining

engagement• High needs for

remediation (USA)• Equivocal evidence about

the economic benefits of postsecondary education

• The vanishing male student

• The vanishing student


Everything Digital, Everyone Online, ≠ Privatizing Knowledge

• Consolidating media

conglomerates• DMCA in USA• Googlization of the

academic library

Dilemmas


Really Neat IT ≠ Great Teaching

Dilemmas


And Yet Great IT = Great Research!

• In silico simulation has become the 3rd leg of scientific research

• Research productivity has demonstrably improved

• Research has been truly globalized

Possibilities


Question

What vision, metaphor, or vision will define our boundaries and inspire our reach?


Cloudy FutureSchool of Athens?

Guiding Metaphor


Cloudy FutureThe Log College?

Guiding Metaphor


Cloudy FutureThe Student Free University?

Guiding Metaphor


Cloudy FutureMurdoch University?

Guiding Metaphor


Cloudy FutureThe Library without Walls?

Guiding Metaphor


Cloudy FutureThe Co-Laboratory?

University of Melbourne-UC San Diego OptiportalGuiding Metaphor


Cloudy FutureVirtual U?

Guiding Metaphor


Questions to Frame our Next Steps

What is the ‘idea’ of the university?

What is the institution really trying to do?

What does the institution really need to do well to manifest its intent?

What are the information infrastructure, environment, and services that will enable (or drive) this?


More Specifically• Do we have a strategy and an infrastructure to manage

(discover, engage, attract, develop …) talent?• How do we re-think scholarly collections to promote

scholarly literacy, engagement, communication, and citizenship?

• What kind of influence does the university wish to exert on world affairs? How will IT influence ‘presence’?

• How do we construct collaborative environments that extend the university’s footprint?

• Can we create and maintain the web of robust networks (to people, to data, to instruments, etc)? Can we share services in ways that can truly lower the cost of education?

• Do our policies and incentives reinforce what our infrastructure, services and resources enable?


In Sum

IT has gotten better. So good in fact, it

allows us to change things. Profoundly.

IT allows others to change things as well,

making our task more urgent and more

complex. In the next decade, the modern

university is likely to be less a place, than an

idea instantiated in architecture – real and

virtual.


In Sum

Our challenge is less technical and more oneof institutional purpose, adaptability, and will. The needs of our stakeholders are changing. Soon virtual environments to support learningand discovery will rival and surpass ‘built’ ones, in certain cases. The successful university of the future will know its values, have clarity of purpose,and an IT capacity to reflect and extend thosevalues and purposes globally.


A Concluding Question (that is prologue)

“Information technology is embedded in, and used by, institutions that have a history… IT will cut its own channels, leading to the creation of institutions that differ from those of today; institutions where the weight of historydoes not condition and constrain IT’s use.”

Martin Trow, inDaedelus, Fall, 1997

“...technology is not something that happens to us.It is something we create. We must not confuse a tool with a goal. We must, therefore, be sure that technology serves the fundamental purposes of higher education."

Stanley N. Katz, in "In IT, Don't Mistake a Tool for a Goal"

tnc 2008 brugges, belgium the tower and the cloud: tomorrow’s network for tomorrow’s university...

Documents

context of higher education

moderate importance

minor importance

tomorrows network

internet cloud

yesterdays university

mass education research

tomorrows technology