Joe's Jottings
Jottings Number 56, Reply A (Addendum), by Joe Podolsky:
From: uunet!HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com!JOE_PODOLSKY
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 14:55:44 -0700
Subject: The Learning Process (addendum)
This is the first time I've issued an "addendum" to a jottings, but here it is. Over the weekend, I read the article, "Will the Internet Revolutionize Business Education and Research" by Professors Blake Ives and Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, in the Spring 1996 issue of _Sloan Management Review_. The authors feel that business education will significantly and rapidly change business education and that traditional institutions are falling far behind. That opinion is very much in line with the ideas in Jottings #56. Ives and Jarvenpaa assume that these factors will be significant parts of future of business education environments (and I, somewhat presumptuously, contend that these could apply to _all_ future education environments): - Virtual learning communities. Electronic communities will replace physical classrooms. - Pull rather than push. Students will personalize learning rather than using set curricula. - Lifelong learning. Basic education will be designed to build skills for lifelong learning. - Just-in-time versus just-in-case education. "Institutions" will provide education-on-demand." - Demonstrated skills versus certification (degrees). Actual achievement will be evaluated by simulations and virtual reality. - Nonuniversity certification. For-profit organizations will evaluate and certify specific skills. - Global disaggregation. Education consumers and suppliers will be distributed globally. - Global collaboration. Both students and faculty will work with peers throughout the world. - Open competition. Students, faculty, and potential employers will be able to track progress at various institutions worldwide. - Visual rather than textual. Much more education will involve images rather than words. - Simulation. Students will learn less by reading and memorizing and more by doing in computer-based labs. - University and business together. Lines between the two types of institutions will blur for both students and faculty (and, in fact, the lines between students and faculty will be blurred). - Context and concept. Concepts can quickly be applied to real-world examples. Some of these ideas will come true; others will not. But, in any case, significant changes are on their way. How will information technology affect and be affected by these predicted assumptions? What is our role as both change agent and consumer within the learning process? The authors recognize that the modern university is at least as much a research institution as a teaching place. So they also offer a set of assumptions for this environment: - An open process for journal submissions. The peer review process will be more visible to authors. - Articles, not journals. All on-line, of course. - Access rather than citation. References will be retrievable via hypertext links. - Living scholarship. Researchers will be expected to maintain their work. Articles will be updated as new information becomes available. - Research on live data. Studies can occur on real transactions and data. - Library as distributor. Libraries will change from "global collectors and local distributors" to "local collectors" and "global distributors." Again, the impacts on and by information technology on these processes are profound. Learning and research are two sides of the same coin. Incidentally, Ives and Jarvenpaa list several barriers between the current business school and the future described here. They say that one, the current promotion and tenure system, is "almost insurmountable." Given the greater flexibility that exists in industry, how do you think we should prepare for and help enable the learning process of the (very near) future? Best regards, Joe