Peder Saether Symposium (March 9-10, 2000)

Professor Guy Neave Presentation

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Prof. Guy Neave, Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, Twente University, Netherlands; Director of Research, International Association of Universities, Paris, France

Future Research Questions: the rattle of a simple man.

Introduction.
There is nothing more delicate than suggesting what should be the future issues of research when, at the very least, we are in the presence of three very different interest groups or scholarly communities.  And three is a minimum estimate.  There may, conceivably, be more.  Each has its own hopes, fears, interests, and therefore priorities.  Each has its own particular perspectives on the significance and place of Information and Communication Technologies within the City of Intellect.

Territories and Tribes.
What are these three constituencies?  From my way of interpreting our tribal allegiance, there are:

• The Masters of Technology, those who invent, develop and refine it.
• The Experts in its application and implementation at the institutional level.
• The Observers of our Fate, those participants concerned with the impact  ICT is likely to have in shaping our institutions, disciplines and students.

If there is one thing I retain from the past two days of debate and discussion, it is that each of these three communities is immensely active within the bounds of its particular territory.  But each rarely spends much time trying to persuade others about what it is doing in terms that have resonance with the other two interested parties.  This, of course, reflects the speed of development.  It also reflects the impression that technical feats of arms and imagination are moving so fast that if we are to derive benefit from them we must suspend the principle of caution, trust in Microsoft, and throw our lot in with the virtual classroom.  In short, in true biblical fashion, the homily to which we are being treated is that we should cast our bread upon the waters in the hope - after not too many days - of hauling in a high-tech bakery!

Develop in Haste and Research at Leisure?
Maybe technology is moving vertiginously.  Maybe by the time our research, as it is usually conducted, is complete, the world of Information and Communication Technologies will have moved on.  But that is no reason to avoid the job.  True, what we will know as a result of what we have investigated may not necessarily be at the cutting edge of technical capabilities.  But it will have that certain advantage of lessening the degree of uncertainty which floats around the real and grounded consequences of ICT and which troubles many in higher education.

Research into the achievements and effects of ICT does not necessarily have to conform to the frenetic place set in the domain of Teknik.  There is another rhythm, which is the rhythm of the institution itself, of the university, although its reptilian pace is often seen by the Masters of Technology as condemnable in itself.

Scale and Scalability.
One task that research, inquiry, or investigation must address is to come up with a clear indication as to the scale of involvement in ICT activities.  We have all heard and seen the impressive capabilities that ICT holds out.  Iconic institutions are cited as manifestations of a process, world-girdling in its operation.  The Phoenix ­ legendary bird from Arizona and sometimes from Arabia Felix ­ is held up for our amazement or to refine our terror at not having already got aboard the train bound for ICT Heaven.  65,000 students is impressive when placed against the average-sized university. 580,000, the numbers quoted in connexion with a Turkish establishment, beggars the imagination.  But both statistics are small beer indeed when placed against the 86,000,000 students which, according to Unesco estimates, the world now boasts.  The multiplication of small scale experiments serves to add to the impression that in matters concerning ICT, the university is faced with the electronic counterpart of the Juggernaut, with a development so weighty that it can only yield or be crushed if it does not do so.  Research into scale just as it is in scalability is a requisite condition to restoring our sense of proportion, in all the meanings of that term.

Being fired with Enthusiasm.
There is a tendency to equate some developments ­ systemic differentiation, for instance ­ as being the outcome of ICT.  There is also the tendency ­ the fruit of enthusiasm for the cause, no doubt - to assert that ICT will amplify such a process.  It may well do so, but only as a third or fourth order variable.  In short, we need not just to examine how ICT affects learning outcomes, but to find an explanation for them as well.  We also need to set ICT firmly within the 'institutional saga' of that establishment ­ the university ­ which launched, upholds and refines it further.

The Driving Forces of ICT.
What are the driving forces behind ICT?  Of course, the reply to this is "globalisation of the economy", "employer demands", "student demands", etc. But these forces are unlikely to be present in the same way in different systems and countries.  Which interests use which type of arguments in favour of ICT?  How are these claims justified?  How are they infiltrated into higher education?  What are the interest groups at work to generate "the politics of acceptability"?  These are more than simply interesting questions.  If such changes alter the boundaries of outreach for the university, they may also alter significantly the channels of influence in and around academe.  At a time when stakeholder society is on the lips of many, so radical an area of change is clearly an interesting pointer to this particular development.  The multiplication of stakeholders is a particularly crucial issue in Europe as historic patterns of state control give way to what is sometimes known as state supervision. ICT is a pervasive development.  And despite all that can be done to persuade us that there is no alternative (and that therein lies our Salvation), we need to examine systematically which amongst the functions the university discharges have already been subject to sustained and major impacts from ICT. Certainly, we need to know what kind of educational experience best lends itself to ICT.  Professional upgrading is one of the more obvious. Furthermore, we need to know what the institutional concomitants are that accompany successful development.  Might ICT be more appropriate for some forms of education/training than others?  Such evaluation is a necessity, if only to reduce time and effort spent in licentious experimenting at the institutional level.

Best practice and Bench-marking.
One way of doing this involves that peche mignon of European school inspectorates ­ to wit, the identification of "best practice" and the selection of "best models".  What type of agency should assume this responsibility and where it ought to be located in the institutional fabric of the nation will, of course, vary depending on national circumstance and policy.  But on its creation depends the ability of ICT to move away from the periphery, where it dwells at present, towards a more substantial place in the affairs of higher learning. Bench-marking is often mentioned in this connection as a pragmatic solution.  It is probably better undertaken by universities than entrusted to the tender mercies of bodies of public purpose.  Either way, however, it is a key issue on the research agenda. But there is another reason to support the centrality of bench-marking and that is because the technology itself is unlikely to be stable for long ­ if ever.  If we do not have shared goals towards which to work, if we are unable assess how far we have come in our particular and specific efforts set against one another, the dynamic of development which underlines the technical dimension will surely contribute to further fragmentation of a movement already deplorably fragmented.

The Scarecrow of Social Class.
Finally, I find it particularly interesting that we should speak of consumers, customers, and clients as if they were somehow homogeneous with respect to their ability to consume, to purchase or to command the delivery of services.  We presume that students taught by or engaged in ICT-based education or training -- by contrast with, let us say, mainstream students-- are virtually the same in respect to origins, resources, and aptitudes.  Is this in fact so?  There are very good reasons for reviving the old scarecrow of social class and educational background in higher education, and not simply because it appears in the Brave New World of ICT to have suffered the fate of the man who met the Boojum.  That is, it has 'softly and silently vanished away'. It important to know whether distance education is reserved for the less advantaged, just as it is important to know how far face-to-face tuition is reserved for the elite or for those who can pay, which is not always the same thing.  As higher education caters to more than 50 percent of the age group, so it also becomes an instrument for determining relative deprivation, rather than, as was previously the case, providing a path to high benefits and yet higher preferment, to use a Victorian term.  We need to be convinced that new techniques are better than the old, that the university does not become a machine for social exclusion.  Above all, we need solid evidence that the emerging configurations of 'alternative provision' do not reproduce some of the socially less attractive feature that a global and interconnected economy carries with it, and of which we have perhaps heard rather less than is wise or advisable.