This presentation uses history and a number of stories to imagine the near and medium-term futures of higher education. A call to action for faculty and administrators to engage in policy reform around open access to research and teaching and learning materials.
Modular Monolith - a Practical Alternative to Microservices @ Devoxx UK 2024
The Disaggregation of Higher Education
1. The Disaggregated Future of Educa3on
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet
David Wiley, PhD
Department of Instruc3onal Psychology & Technology
Brigham Young University
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Friday, June 12, 2009
2. The Trucker Tale
A parable of ingenuity and despair
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3. CC BY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/farleyj/2768941171/
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8. CC BY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flissphil/245158736/
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9. Terms of Distribu3on
Surrender rights to the product
Truckers keep 100% of all sales
Perpetual deal, no review or modifica3on
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11. The Moral of the Story
This is a tale about faculty and their
research
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12. • Come up with ideas for research,
• Find grant funding for the research,
• Iden3fy and hire graduate students
and other professionals,
• Conduct the research,
• Write up the results of the research in
a clear and concise manner, and
• Surrender all rights to the wriPen
results of the research to a publisher.
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Friday, June 12, 2009
23. “The Faculty of the MassachusePs Ins3tute of
Technology is commiPed to dissemina3ng the
fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as
possible. In keeping with that commitment, the
Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty
member grants to the MassachusePs Ins3tute of
Technology nonexclusive permission to make
available his or her scholarly ar3cles and to
exercise the copyright in those ar3cles for the
purpose of open dissemina3on.”
MIT Faculty Open‐Access Policy
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27. 11th Century
Vernacular transla3ons of the Bible
forbidden
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28. 12th Century
Possession or memoriza3on of
scriptures forbidden
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29. 14th Century
Wycliffe finishes English transla3on
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30. 15th Century
Anyone caught reading the English Bible
will quot;Forfeit land, caPle, life, and goods
from their heirs forever.quot;
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31. A Kinder, Gentler DMCA
And all this before publishers even
came into existence!
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32. 15th Century
Gutenberg, the prin3ng press, and
metallic movable type
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33. 15th Century
The church leverages technology to
print indulgences at scale for a
frac3on of the cost
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34. 16th Century
English and German Bibles are mass‐
produced and pirate Bibles are smuggled
in flour sacks and coPon bales
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35. 16th Century
Empowered with access, people
won’t tolerate foolishness
(indulgences)
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36. 16th Century
Luther’s 95 theses
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37. quot;They preach only human doctrines who say
that as soon as the money clinks into the
money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory...
Any truly repentant Chris3an has a right to
full remission of penalty and guilt, even
without indulgence lePers.quot;
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38. 16th Century
Luther and others work to reform
from the inside, but #fail
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39. 16th Century
Protestant sects form and the Church
loses membership and revenue
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40. 17th Century
30 Years War ends Pope's pan‐European
poli3cal power
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41. 17th Century
Popular reforms carried out
(too liPle too late for most)
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42. The Morals of the Story
‐ Don’t bet against the transforma3ve
power of informa3on technology
‐ You’re going to end up adap3ng anyway,
why not do it on your own terms?
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51. Generic ⇒ Personal
Cars, Computers, Mobile Phones
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52. Consuming ⇒ Crea3ng
Radio / Podcas3ng, Newspapers / Blogs
Movies / Vodcas3ng
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53. Closed ⇒ Open
Souware (OSs, Applica3ons),
Data (Weather, GIS),
Content (Blogs, Wikis)
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54. Then vs Now
Analog ⇒ Digital
Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Isolated ⇒ Connected
Generic ⇒ Personal
Consump3on ⇒ Crea3ng
Closed ⇒ Open
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55. Educa/on vs Everyday
Analog ⇒ Digital
Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Isolated ⇒ Connected
Generic ⇒ Personal
Consump3on ⇒ Crea3ng
Closed ⇒ Open
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56. “Daily Divide” Is a Huge Threat
And the wider the disconnect,
the bigger the threat to higher
educa3on
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57. But Wait! We’re Educa4on!
Our historic monopoly is (gratefully)
being challenged on almost every
front
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58. Why Do Students Come?
Content, Support Services
Social Life, Degrees
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59. Content
MIT OpenCourseWare, Wikipedia,
Flat World Knowledge, etc.
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60. Research
Public Library of Science, Arxiv.org,
Google Scholar, etc.
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61. Support Services
ChaCha, Yahoo! Answers,
RateMyProfessor, Email, Instant
Messaging, TwiPer, etc.
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62. Social Life
Facebook, MySpace, MMOG,
iPhone loca3on‐aware apps, etc.
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63. Degrees
MCSE, RHCE, CCNA
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73. Characteris/cs of E‐learning
Analog or Digital
Tethered or Mobile
Isolated or Connected
Generic or Personal
Consuming or Crea3ng
Closed or Open
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74. Openness is the Cornerstone
Openness underpins everything interes3ng
happening online and is “what they know”
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75. Why Make Such a Claim?
Let’s ask Alexa what the 50 most
popular sites on the web are…
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76. Sites Where Anyone Can:
Share a video, share a photo, share a blog
post, share their personal info, share their
ra3ngs, share their files, share their exper3se
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77. Characteris/cs of E‐learning
Analog or Digital
Tethered or Mobile
Isolated or Connected
Generic or Personal
Consump/on or Crea3ng
Closed or Open
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78. Connec3ng
You can’t connect to something if you
don’t have access to it
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79. Personalizing
You can’t adapt or localize something
if you don’t have the rights to modify it
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80. Crea3ng
You won’t be crea3ve if there’s no
outlet for your work
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81. How Might We Open Things?
Once again there is a demand for greater access
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82. The Open Access Movement
Providing access to the research created
at the university
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83. The Open Educa3on Movement
Providing access to the teaching and
learning materials created at the
university
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95. Character Classes
• Bard (Master of the lore, history, and poli3cs
of the field, know what's “out there”)
• Ar3san (Has materials produc3on skills in all
the necessary Web 1.0 and 2.0 tools like
HTML, video sharing, podcas3ng)
• Monk (Master of copyright and licensing
arcana and defender of the university brand)
• Merchant (Deals with short‐ and long‐term
sustainability issues)
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97. Educa3on Will Eventually Be Open
And involve connec3ng, personalizing, and
crea3ng ‐ just like everything else does
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98. Will Your University Be Open?
Can your school find the
ins3tu3onal will to change?
Or will you fight a 30 year war,
lose, and change anyway?
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99. Ins3tu3onal Disaggrega3on
MIT OpenCourseWare,
Western Governors University
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100. Value of Integra3on?
As compared to
“specialized pieces loosely joined”
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101. Not a Technology Problem
Look around the Internet – not only do the
technologies we need exist, they’re open source
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102. This Is a Policy Problem
Higher educa3on is behaving like
the recording and movie industries
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106. Student Learning May Suffer
The market will likely meet
students’ increasingly unmet needs
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107. Your Employment Will Suffer
When your ins3tu3on collapses
as Googlers find bePer alterna3ves
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108. “The last tempta4on
is the greatest treason,
To do the right deed
for the wrong reason.”
Archbishop Thomas BeckeP (T. S. Eliot)
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Friday, June 12, 2009
Not just experiences that take four, six, or eight years
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/10/5085n.htm
Not just experiences that take four, six, or eight years
No. We’re not talking about just putting more classes on the internet.
You can’t connect to / with things you can’t access. You can’t custom pull modules into an instructional experience when you don’t have access to the modules. And students certainly can’t participate when there is no mechanism for contribution of materials or a way to find and tutor one another.
You can’t connect to / with things you can’t access. You can’t custom pull modules into an instructional experience when you don’t have access to the modules. And students certainly can’t participate when there is no mechanism for contribution of materials or a way to find and tutor one another.
No. We’re not talking about just putting more classes on the internet.
You can’t connect to / with things you can’t access. You can’t custom pull modules into an instructional experience when you don’t have access to the modules. And students certainly can’t participate when there is no mechanism for contribution of materials or a way to find and tutor one another.
You can’t connect to / with things you can’t access. You can’t custom pull modules into an instructional experience when you don’t have access to the modules. And students certainly can’t participate when there is no mechanism for contribution of materials or a way to find and tutor one another.
You can’t connect to / with things you can’t access. You can’t custom pull modules into an instructional experience when you don’t have access to the modules. And students certainly can’t participate when there is no mechanism for contribution of materials or a way to find and tutor one another.
You can’t connect to / with things you can’t access. You can’t custom pull modules into an instructional experience when you don’t have access to the modules. And students certainly can’t participate when there is no mechanism for contribution of materials or a way to find and tutor one another.
You can’t connect to / with things you can’t access. You can’t custom pull modules into an instructional experience when you don’t have access to the modules. And students certainly can’t participate when there is no mechanism for contribution of materials or a way to find and tutor one another.
Not just experiences that take four, six, or eight years
Not just experiences that take four, six, or eight years
Not just experiences that take four, six, or eight years