Peder Saether Symposium (March 9-10, 2000)

Professor Sarah Guri-Rosenblit Presentation

Home | About | Background | Program & Proceedings | Participants | Readings

CSHE > Events > Peder Saether Symposium > Program & Proceedings > Professor Sarah Guri-Rosenblit Presentation

Prof. Sarah Guri-Rosenblit, Head of Education and Psychology Department, Open University of Israel

Virtual Study Environments: Academic Functions and Organizational Models

Brief Proceedings

Good morning, dear colleagues and friends. The topic of my presentation is entitled "Virtual Study Environments: Academic Functions and Organizational Models". Obviously, time is a most precious commodity, particularly in such face-to-face meetings when we presenters are given a very strict time limit. This is why I decided to start my presentation the other way around. First, I am going to present the main conclusions of a quite broad overview on how information technologies are used by different higher education sectors and in different higher education systems. Then in the time left, I shall try to support and substantiate these conclusions as far as I can.

Main Conclusions

• There are very few, if any, "virtual universities" that reflect in their totality a virtual reality. However, there are many "virtual study environments", operated mainly by campus universities and colleges.
• The actual and potential impact of information technologies (IT) on different higher education sectors varies greatly (re: elite research sector, mass-oriented universities, and full-fledged distance teaching institutions).
• Elite research universities are better equipped for utilizing and harnessing the IT to serve their academic goals and the interests of their target populations, as compared to mass-oriented and distance teaching universities.
• Most "grand scenarios" of the IT’s impact represent more wishful thinking than clearly articulated end-products.
• The effective and efficient use of IT usually costs more than other distance teaching methods, and even more than traditional face-to-face interaction.
• The leading model of distance education is likely to be the "mixed mode", i.e., combining both traditional and distance-teaching forms of courses.
• The IT are more widely used in postgraduate and graduate studies (both for academic degrees and short diplomas) than in undergraduate studies.
• The growing utilization of IT in higher education will also lead to a growing collaboration between the business sector and the academic world.

The IT have a differential impact on various higher education sectors. The research universities have a favourable ratio of students to faculty, have strong links with the industry and corporate world and usually have rich financial resources. In many respects, they are in a better position to utilize the new IT for the benefit of their target populations than are the mass-oriented and distance teaching universities (DTUs). Historically, distance education was justified partly by its cost effectiveness and by its ability to provide economies of scale. This is not the case with the new IT. Most evidence so far suggests that it costs more, not less, than face-to-face classroom interaction. The personal contact and mentoring between students and teachers is essential in the "electronic interaction". Thus, universities that have large numbers of faculty and small numbers of students can obviously exploit the interactivity of the IT much better than mass-oriented universities or distance teaching universities that have tens of thousands of students and a handful of academic faculty can. If we look at the main functions of the IT, we can see that different functions differentially fit various higher education institutes.

Functions of Information Technologies

• Broaden access to higher education - this is definitely a major goal of mass-oriented and DTUs, but not a cardinal aim of the research universities. They will always be for the well-to-do and elite portion of candidates. They do not have any problem recruiting more students, but their very essence is to stay selective and elite-oriented.
• Increase interactivity - this is an important goal for all teaching institutes, but more specifically of the distance teaching institutions. Interactivity is not a real problem in the elite research sector. The IT add an important new dimension to distance education, where students usually study in isolation. They enable the students to interact both with professors and peer students. Social and academic interaction are of tremendous importance in any study process.
• Facilitate the creation of researchers’ communities - an important goal for all academic institutes, but utilized broadly by research universities. The research function is less strong in DTUs and mass-oriented universities.
• Access remote resources - an important goal of all academic institutes. IT enable reaching out to diverse and rich resources outside the boundaries of any given establishment.
• Enable ongoing professional training - a trend that is likely to intensify in all higher education institutes. However, multi-national companies and businesses prefer to cooperate with well-known and highly prestigious universities.
• Enrich learning/teaching processes - IT enable the creation of simulations, lab experiments, and a colourful plethora of multi-media study materials. Such learning packages are very expensive to produce. The research universities have greater resources to develop such packages.
• Reduce costs - though part of the rhetoric in the relevant literature discusses its potential cost effectiveness, most studies indicate contrary results. The effective and efficient use of IT costs more than other distance education methods, and even more than face-to-face encounters.
• Enhance life-long-learning - IT will assist in enhancing the LLL philosophy that was adopted in the last decade by most higher education systems throughout the world.

Let’s look now at the main organizational models through which distance education at university level is operated:

Distance Teaching: Organizational Frameworks

• Full-fledged distance teaching universities - there are around 40 such universities in various parts of the world. Many of the DTUs are based on the model of the British Open University that was established in 1969.
• Dual-mode/mixed-mode universities - mainly a model developed in Australia and Canada, currently it is going to be the leading model of distance education in most higher education systems.
• Extensions (mainly for non-degree students) - this is basically an American model. The extensions usually reach out to students outside the campus. Currently some of the studies conducted through the extensions might be considered for credit accumulation for undergraduate studies.
• Consortia-type ventures - a common model in Europe. A number of universities collaborate in order to provide distance education. It is likely that many ventures of IT in higher education will be offered in the future by consortia of universities and other parties outside the academic world.
• Electronic universities (web sites, mediators, fully accredited) - there are currently various types of electronic universities, ranging from mainly web sites that are not authorized to develop or grant their own degrees, as was the Virtual University of California; through mediators, like NTU, that mediate between some leading universities and the corporate worlds in offering several master-level engineering degrees; to fully accredited universities.

There are different models for organizing virtual study environments; I would just demonstrate some of them:

Virtual Study Environments

• Virtual classes on campus (on-line) - these are offered mainly to enable students on campus to reach out to wider and richer resources, and to communicate with faculty and students at other sites.
• Virtual classes on campus (videoconferencing: one- or two-way) - these classes mainly enable students to listen to expert lectures situated outside the campus, and also create a network of classes located at different universities and other locations.
• Virtual classes at a distance (at home, at work, at another institution) - these classes make it possible to broaden the boundaries of any university and to reach out to students outside the ones on campus, located at various places.
• Physical extensions/study centers (virtual settings) - many of the DTUs operate regional or local centers that operate like satellite classes. Some of these regional and local centers create a "mini campus".
• Virtual extensions (groups and individuals) - some of the regional/local centers are totally "virtual", and the communication is carried on through IT.

As I have said, there are at least 11 different pedagogical functions of technology in the service of teaching/learning processes in the academic world. Different media lend themselves to different purposes. Creating the real mix of media for any given teaching/learning situation is a most important task. For example, if we want an outstanding presenter like Sheldon Rothblatt to be exposed to many more students than is possible in room such as the one we are sitting in right now, the best way to do it is through teleconferencing, preferably through video conferencing. But if we want to have a seminar setting, then the best way to go about it is a small on-line discussion group. Building an on-line library is a totally different task that designing a simulation or a lab experiment. Briefly, here are some of the main functions in which technology can be harnessed to the benefit of teaching in academia.

Technologies in the Service of Different Academic/Pedagogical Goals

• Expert lectures in a large auditorium (audio/video teleconferencing)
• Seminar/workshop setting (small discussion groups on-line)
• Student-student interaction (chat groups, e-mail)
• Student-faculty interaction (e-mail)
• Data and resource retrieval (informatics, on-line libraries, and relevant sites)
• Experiments, simulations, demonstrations, modelling (multi-media programs)
• Drill and practice (programmed study materials)
• Examinations, assignments, papers (word processing, on-line quality-assured facilities)
• Course design (word processing, site construction and update)
• Research (knowledge retrieval though Internet sites, chat groups, and e-mail)
• Inter-institutional collaboration (audio/video teleconferencing, computer networks)