Some Roles for Higher Education in Shaping a National Information Infrastructure


Copyright 1993 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 16, Number 3, Fall 1993. 
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                SOME ROLES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION IN SHAPING
                   A NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
                           by Charles R. Blunt

ABSTRACT: Higher education is well positioned to not only benefit from 
the planned "super digital highway" systemhelp others--especially in the 
public sector--explore and use this emerging infrastructure.


Several years ago, the higher education community focused 
considerablethought and energy, through national organizations such as 
EDUCOM, the Coalition for Networked Information, and others, in 
support of Federal initiatives to capitalize on the momentum created 
by the development of NSFNET/Internet and create a National Research 
and Education Network (NREN). Much of the initial interest was to 
advance the computational-intensive research efforts in some of the 
"Grand Challenges" confronting society, and to improve public access 
to public information. Before many of us had fully comprehended the 
potential impact of the High Performance Computing and Communications 
Act of 1991, the new Clinton/Gore administration paved the way for new 
legislation[1] to apply high-performance computing and the NREN to 
increase access for all citizens to information and to provide 
economic and social benefits to the nation.

Now the popular press--Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, 
Washington Post, and many more (see endnote A)--alert us that the 
"super digital highways" are coming and a lot faster than we think!

Stimulated by the potential of a "zillion-dollar" information 
marketplace, new coalitions are being formed among the giants of cable 
TV, the telephone, publishing, and entertainment industries to bring 
us
... movies on demand
... home shopping through electronic catalogues
... sports viewing where you choose the camera angle and determine 
what plays to freeze or view in slow motion
... a global telecommunications system that overcomes time and 
distance, allowing industries to "network" with a broad range of new 
clients and suppliers to expand their markets yet customize products 
and services for a more competitive marketplace.

While the accelerating convergence of computing and 
telecommunications excites us by the profound opportunities presented 
to harness information technology for the benefit of society, history 
reminds us that technical innovation and market forces alone may not 
unlock this potential fully for the public good. In the 1950s, we in 
education were excited by the power of television to reach more 
children with greater impact than could be achieved in the average 
classroom. In the 1960s, there was gnawing awareness that a "vast 
wasteland" had been created that often pulled our attention away from 
more fruitful activities. Now, as we approach the 21st Century, we are 
mindful that even more time is spent by our youth with television, and 
concerns are being raised that many programs may even be harmful and 
distort the views and values that each generation needs to cultivate 
and pass on to the next (see endnote B).

Thus it may be with some trepidation that educators approach the 
possibility that " ... every home will soon have access to hundreds of 
channels of television and that the world's VCR library will be at 
your fingertips on the remote control unit."

Within the private sector, competition in the marketplace often 
stimulates innovation and lowers unit costs. Both of these attributes 
are valued by higher education institutions that constantly tackle new 
challenges with very constrained budgets.

Within the public sector, where the emphasis is on the "public 
good," the information age holds special significance in a democracy 
that has established a system of public education, public libraries, 
public radio and television, and an open government to ensure that its 
citizens have every opportunity to be educated and informed, and to 
participate in establishing the rules that govern our society. One can 
now envision greater access for all citizens to quality education, 
health information, music, literature, and the information needed to 
manage businesses, government, and the challenges of living in these 
changing times. There is, however, a great need to find an acceptable 
balance between technological advances that foster needed private gain 
(economic development) with opportunities to improve the public good 
(see endnote C).

Higher education leadership at
the state and local level

In New York, the higher education community has forged an 
alliance with state and local government to establish a vision and a 
strategy to evolve an infrastructure for telecommunications that can 
provide this balance. Last year, Governor Mario M. Cuomo established 
the Telecommunications Exchange " ... to explore ways in which 
advanced telecommunications can be employed to strengthen New York's 
competitive position in the global economy, foster economic 
development, enhance the quality of life, and expand opportunity for 
all New Yorkers." This group consists of state policy makers, business 
and industry leaders, and telecommunications users, as well as members 
of the academic community.

One of the five task forces established[2] focuses on public 
sector applications and is co-chaired by the Chancellor of the State 
University, and the Commissioner of the New York State Office of 
General Services. This task force began its efforts based on the 
foundation laid by the New York State Forum for Information Resource 
Management's report--"Telecommunications: a Vital Infrastructure for 
the _New_ New York."[3] This prior study raises a convincing argument 
that the public sector of New York--e.g., state and local government, 
education, health and social services, etc.--need not wait for the 
unpredictable results of a chaotic marketplace. Government could 
exercise leadership and pull the public sector together to become a 
single-minded customer in the evolving information market--and by its 
size and its reach into every community of the state, exercise 
influence on the evolution of telecommunications products and 
services. The public sector could establish standards that remove 
incompatible technology as a barrier to its ability to collaborate on 
common objectives and share information and resources to improve its 
effectiveness and/or reduce costs of operation. We have proposed that 
this state adopt the protocols of the NREN as our standards for open 
data communications across the public sector (see endnote D). 
Moreover, we have recommended that education and government form 
partnerships in extending the "open" network and new networking 
services into the local communities throughout the state (see endnote 
E).

Role for higher education institutions

It is also apparent that all changes are not for the good. In the 
metaphor of the "super digital highway," we can expect traffic jams, 
air pollution, and the threat of bypassing small towns with our new 
expressways. Two continuing roles of higher education are (1) to 
thoughtfully explore proposed policies and examine their consequences 
in scholarly debate, and (2) focus R & D efforts with careful 
assessment on the new applications of technology in areas such as 
distance learning, self-paced instruction, the electronic library, 
telemedicine, etc. By combining higher education's "test-bed" programs 
with the developing new "open" digital highway system, it should be 
possible to accelerate the awareness of the public sector to 
innovations and evaluation results, thus increase the rate of adoption 
of sound changes that improve education, health care, and the 
effectiveness of government operations at all levels.

Most important, this country's higher education community is a 
major source of intellectual capital within our states/nation. The 
most significant aspect of the envisioned telecommunications 
infrastructure is not found within a small number of "application 
drivers," but lies in its strength to be an open architecture that 
allows any information or information service to be available to 
anyone anywhere on any physical network (i.e., the public-switched 
telephone network, cable TV, cellular services, etc.). This has 
profound implications for improving access among and to higher 
education to facilitate the advancement of research and scholarly 
efforts throughout the nation's higher education community. As others 
join us on the new open digital highway, we can help bring these 
advances to bear on societal issues, to accelerate the transfer of 
technologies into the private sector that help create the new 
"information marketplace," and to reduce the problems (e.g., labor 
dislocation in corporate downsizing) encountered in our transition to 
an information-intensive and global economy.

The planned NREN creates a foundation for a National Information 
Infrastructure and will provide an important upgrade of the capacity 
and functionality of this country's "backbone" network in a way that 
will allow new applications (such as remote medical diagnosis, sharing 
library resources electronically, and extension of high-quality 
education into the inner cities and rural America) to become cost-
effective.

Although technology in the classroom is not a new topic, nor is 
the ability to use the power of television to extend educational 
presentation across distances, there is renewed awareness that the 
NREN holds significant promise to improve the cost-effectiveness of 
instruction. Some of the critical educational outcomes that can be 
found within the potential of the NREN include:

  *  Transforming education from predominantly time-and-place-bound to 
more learner-oriented and time-distance-insensitive. This promotes the 
life-long-learning society. It can foster collaboration and 
development of team approaches to discovery and problem-solving and 
has great potential to provide equity in educational delivery and 
narrow the seams between K-12, higher education, and employer-provided 
training.

  *  Accelerating the incorporation of emerging, sophisticated 
technologies (e.g., simulation, visualization, and interactive 
multimedia presentation) into an effective educational process. This 
creates an unprecedented opportunity to extend the learning of complex 
ideas to a broader segment of our expanding and changing population. 
It can improve the cost-performance of education by leveraging the 
abilities of both the instructor and the students in the learning 
process.

These advanced networking capabilities, combined with the 
development of sound educational methodology and technology, create an 
ability to access and incorporate the most effective materials and 
processes to meet the distinctive educational needs of individuals.

Higher education institutions, as "anchor tenants" of an emerging 
National Information Infrastructure, provide a unique set of resources 
that can be leveraged to meet educational and research needs of 
government, public secondary education, health, and welfare as we seek 
new ways to reengineer the public sector to become more cost-
effective. Most important, the higher education community can 
facilitate new public-private partnerships in creating new 
information-age businesses that are built on intellectual capital and 
the new ability to network organizations to deliver goods and 
services.

When America entered the agrarian age, our nation created the 
land grant colleges that fostered research and developed the 
agricultural extension offices to accelerate the awareness of new 
farming practices and the application of innovations in farming. As we 
continue into the information age, small businesses, local government, 
and community organizations will need the same form of assistance from 
higher education that increased farm productivity ten-fold. Higher 
education is well positioned to not only benefit from the super 
digital highway system, but to be more accessible and help others 
explore and use this emerging infrastructure.

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Footnotes:

1 The National Information Infrastructure Act of 1993, Amendment in 
the Nature of a Substitute to H.R. 1757 offered by Representative 
Boucher.

2 The other four task forces are focusing on telecommunications-based 
industry, technology diffusion, regulatory options, and 
infrastructure, technology, and investment.

3 This report is available to CAUSE members from the Exchange Library 
(CSD-0711, $43.20 to cover photocopying, shipping, and handling). Send 
e-mail to orders@CAUSE.colorado.edu or phone 303-449-4430.

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Endnotes:

A See, for example, "Take a Trip into the Future on the Electronic 
Superhighway, Time, 12 April 1993, pp. 50-55; "Eyes on the Future" and 
"An Interactive Life" in Newsweek, 31 May 1993, pp. 39-41 and 42-44; 
"A Baby Bell Primed for the Big Fight," The New York Times, 21 
February 1993, Business Section; Frank Bajak, "Wiring the Planet," The 
Saratogian, 23 May 1993; George Gilder, "Into the Fibersphere," Forbes 
ASAP, a technology supplement to Forbes Magazine; and "NREN: Turning 
the Clock Ahead on Tomorrow's Networks, Data Communications, September 
1992, pp. 43-61.

B "In 1961 I worried that my children would not benefit much from 
television, but in 1991 I worry that my grandchildren will actually be 
harmed by it. One recent study shows that by the time a child is 19, 
he has seen 25,000 murders on television." Newton N. Minow, "The 
Wasteland Revisited: How Vast Is It Now?," The Aspen Institute 
Quarterly, Spring 1993, p. 21.

C To some extent, the educational community that played a significant 
role in developing the world's first "open digital highway," the 
Internet, has been moved to the sidelines as the telecommunications 
industries argue for government to step aside and let market forces 
build what consumers will buy. Higher education, through its numerous 
national organizations, is now engaging in the second round of a 
battle to get Senate Bill S-4, The National Competitiveness Act of 
1993, to adopt the language of the amended House Bill (H.R. 1757). 
See, for example, "Information Highways Speeding Ahead (But will 
Universities Keep Up?)," NASULGC Newsline, June 1993.

D The Telecommunications Exchange is presently advocating that the 
state foster the creation of a "Network of Networks," where all forms 
of telecommunications (e.g., cable TV, cellular communications, the 
public switched phone system, etc.) could be interconnected and made 
interoperable.

E Some of these initiatives, for example, could be to help the 
communities establish an "open roadway" such as the National Public 
Telecomputing Network, Free-Net(TM), in their area to establish 
communications among the local government entities, community-based 
service organizations, school districts, health organizations, public 
libraries, and the higher education campuses. These organizations and 
resources are then made available to the individuals and businesses of 
the community. By linking these community networks with state and 
national networks, we begin to further the infrastructure across the 
nation. Another opportunity for the higher education community is to 
develop materials for the government and education channels of the 
local cable television outlets. This would include broadcasting as 
well as preparing stored programs that could be pulled into individual 
homes and businesses as the evolving technology creates this 
capability.

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Charles R. Blunt is Associate Vice Chancellor for Information 
Technology Systems at the State University of New York. He is 
responsible for SUNY's architecture for information technology; 
SUNYNet, the University's statewide telecommunications network; SUNY 
Central Administration's computer operations; and the planning and 
development of institutional data systems for University-wide 
administration.

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