(On Engaging Emergence, 2nd Posting)
Higher education’s basic principles are eroding. Just check the Chronicle of Higher Education’s map of major players and connections in the MOOC space (thanks @BryanAlexander). This is already an old debate, but the map of MOOC players is a profound indicator of just how deeply and quickly this new educational industry has taken root.
Private corporations are making big bets that they can make money here, and the intellectuals could cede control to profiteers if they aren’t careful.
Not of course, that private educational firms are greedy–but faculty and other academic leaders don’t want to loose a seat at the head table. That’s the danger when institutions reject MOOCs wholesale.
Again, these service providers aren’t all bad actors and there are plenty of non-profit and open-everything advocates involved.
I mentioned the three types of change in systems from Holman’s book in a previous post. traditional higher education institutions are facing emergence. Heck, we all are. It’s called the internet, and we are still figuring out what the internet does.
When it comes to education, the big gorillas are getting into the action. MIT, Standford, the long line of institutions signing up for Coursera.
But what about the smaller colleges? The public regional liberal arts colleges and universities? These institutions are bedrocks of community and social justice around the nation. These places are special–they tend to focus more on the student experience than on faculty research. Often lacking large endowments, they are the most vulnerable to state budget cuts.
The big institutions can diversify their way out of trouble. They can launch a MOOC solution, quality online and hybrid programs, world-class mobile solutions for web and devices, implement in-depth (and expensive) analytics systems. They can do all of these things and still maintain traditional high-quality brick-and-mortar college experiences.
But what’s a small college to do? With limited resources and influence? They can’t hedge their bets by doing it all, like the big universities. They might have to pick something. Everyone is starting to think about betting on new models for credit hours, promotion and tenure, graduation requirements, and so on. But the smaller schools might have to bet on one particular model to emerge as a player in the new higher ed market.
But small colleges might feel they are risking it all on adopting something untried. Colleges are steeped in tradition and averse to risk. Decision-making processes in academia move slowly, if at all. Shifting resources into new and untried territory in an effort to compete in a new arena is incredibly risky. Holman gives and example about the journalism industry–and I think it applies to higher education:
Yet their need for assurance is understandable, given the number of lives affected by their decisions. A publishing executive said to me, “We have plenty of ideas. There simply aren’t the resources to pursue them all. We know we need to act. How do we choose among the options?” (Holman, 2010).
I don’t think traditional higher ed needs convincing. I think we need strong collaboration from the business, legal, and technological sides of our colleges.