CNI REPORT: Competition in Higher Education? Copyright 1995 CAUSE. From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ magazine, Volume 18, Number 1, Spring 1995. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information technology in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact Julia Rudy at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: jrudy@CAUSE.colorado.edu CNI REPORT: COMPETITION IN HIGHER EDUCATION? by Richard P. West Whether or not the perception is justified, higher education costs are widely viewed to be out of control. The perspective has been that costs have been passed through to those who pay, rather than that higher education has made any attempts to control costs. It is increasingly clear that the pass- through approach has run its course. The call for productivity improvements is heard as the way to provide better value for dollar paid, for students as well as other benefactors of higher education services. If other sectors of the American economy have responded as needed to similar cost and productivity pressures, why can't higher education? As higher education accepts the challenge to improve productivity, technology is most often mentioned as a primary means to achieving more output for the resources invested. CNI, at its first task force meeting in the fall of 1990, identified instructional delivery via networked resources as one of several areas the CNI program would encompass. Educom has also had as a major focus the use of IT as a way of improving the quality and reducing the cost of higher education instructional delivery. For years, Educom supported the Educational Uses of Instructional Technology (EUIT) project, and now its National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) will concentrate on ways that new forms of information technology can help the learning process. While the NLII has a primary objective to create partnerships with faculty, academic discipline societies, and universities to encourage different approaches to providing instruction, CNI has focused on the "early adopters" of these networked technologies--identifying them, synergizing them, capturing and disseminating their lessons, and giving voice to their needs--as well as the importance of faculty, library, and computer center collaboration as the key factor in making sustainable progress. CNI has hosted a session at the last three annual Educom conferences where the winners of a CNI- sponsored national competition of the best examples of technologically assisted pedagogy have demonstrated their instructional techniques. In addition, last summer CNI sponsored a retreat for "new learning community" teams of faculty members, information technologists, and librarians drawn from ten competitively selected projects, and plans to do the same again this summer. Educom's and CNI's efforts have provided good examples of how productivity in higher education might be improved. But is this enough? Will the demonstration of technology and pedagogy be sufficient to meet the productivity improvements that are being demanded from higher education? Probably not! Technology, particularly networked technology, is necessary but not sufficient to improve higher education's productivity. Actually, information technology will be the means to create productivity improvements but, I suggest, in an indirect way, rather than the direct way demonstrated by exemplary projects on how to use technology effectively. The limits of pedagogical innovation with the aid of technology is only bounded by our imagination. My sense is that we are on the verge of a revolution in the use of networked technology in providing education in cost-effective ways. This has been a vision of all of us who are excited and stimulated by the potential of networked delivery of information. Besides improving the learner's productivity by more participation in the interactive learning process, information technology resources remove the constraint of space and time--no longer do teacher and student have to be in the same place at the same time. Therein lies the breakthrough required to change the cost structures for higher education. No longer do students have to come to campus to learn. Institutions of higher education which can effectively use networked technology will be able to deliver quality instruction any place at any time. Traditional regional restrictions on who can attend which institutions will be removed. A more competitive environment for instructional delivery is being created. With a more competitive environment, more cost-effective and higher quality educational methods can be provided nationally. Students will have more choices of how and from whom to obtain their education. With competition, higher education will have the incentive and mandate to lower costs, since survival will be at risk. We will not only compete within the traditional higher education marketplace, but also with new purveyors of advanced educational content--many of which will not have the sunk costs of higher education institutions. Only with competition will networked technology be employed in higher education to lower costs and improve educational quality. The marketplace for education will change forever once technology is used effectively and competition is created. Just as we once believed the Internet "belonged" to higher education, so we have viewed the delivery of instruction in a certain way to a certain market as higher education's "right." But no one has an exclusive franchise in a technology-enabled environment; there are no financial or market entitlements in a competitive world. ------------------------------------------------------------ CNI Report is a regular _CAUSE/EFFECT_ department that provides reports about the activities of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), formed by the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, and Educom in 1990 to promote the creation of and access to information resources in networked environments. ************************************************************* Richard P. West is Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance for The California State University System. He has chaired the steering committee of the Coalition for Networked Information since its establishment in 1990. ************************************************************* CNI REPORT: Competition in Higher Education? 2 // r/Hxp/NX2>/ HnNVWord Work File D 3502TEXTMSTEXTMSWDBJg /,N XOHxp// N}O (nN^NuNV=m=m;n ;n .N^NuNV0-H2-H/0-H2-H/N-@N Jeff Hansen22STR