The Tower and the Cloud:Higher Education in theAge of Cloud Computing

EDUCAUSE Live!

November 13, 2009

Richard N. Katz Vice President EDUCAUSE

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What do we Believe about Technology?

“...technology is not something that happens to us.It is something we create. We must not confuse a tool with a goal. We must, therefore, be sure that technology serves the fundamental purposes of higher education."

Stanley Katz,In IT, Don’t Mistake a Tool

For a Goal

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What do we Believe about Technology?

“Information technology is embedded in, and used by, institutions that have a history…

IT will cut its own channels, leading to the creation of institutions that differ from those of today; institutions where the weight of history does not condition and constrain IT’s use.”

Martin TrowDaedelus, 1999

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What do we Believe about Technology?

“The history of IT is a tale of accidental revolutions. We are like the frog that has been placed into a pot of cold water and slowly heated up. The frog stays put - and cooks. By the time the frog realizes its predicament, it's too late. Like the frog, we think we’re in control.”

Richard Katz

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Higher Education, c. 2009

• Shift from Public good to private investment

• Rising costs• Revenue pressures • Pressures to account for

student success and institutional performance

• Rising Competition

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Higher Education, c. 2009

• Increasing importance of education to:– Wealth of nations– Mobility of citizens

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The Cloud, c. 2009• Continued improvement

in price-performance• 1,300,000,000 on the

network• Widespread access to

broadband networks• Most content is digital

and is reasonably accessible– But a war is brewing over

intellectual property rights

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The Cloud, c. 2009• The network really is the

computer• Emergence of the Net

Gen collegiate– Some continue to be shut

out• Web 2.0 is a social

phenomenon– Mashup is a powerful idea

• Digital environments begin to simulate real ones

• A real revolution in scientific research

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Questions for This Time

How will the (Internet) cloud grow to envelop the University? The IT organization??

How is the University using the cloud to extend its presence?

How might ‘cloudiness’ alter the form of our social institutions?

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Shifts in Power

– politics of (information)

scarcity v. politics of abundance

– from individual to collective?

– from teacher to learner (and back to teacher)?

– from expert to amateur?– from institution to ???

Trends

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Rise of Consumerism

• Flattening enrollments mean rising choice for some

• ‘Net Gen’ Students• ‘Helicopter’ parents now

‘fighter-bombers’• Club ‘Mid’• Jobs, jobs, jobs• Rising competition for

scarce talent• The real and the virtual

Trends

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Rise of ‘Truthiness’

• Moral anchor is missing

• Search for scholarly literacy in the digital context

• The academy and the think tank

Trends

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Emergence of the Collective

• Wikipedia• Seti@home• TASS

– Mapping the night sky

• Citizen journalism• Social tagging• ‘American idolization’• Wikiversity

Trends

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Centrality of a Higher Education ≠Centrality of the University

Contradictions

Agree

Neutra

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Disa

gree

33%

36%

31%

Our traditional higher educationInstitutions are becoming more central to our political economy

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Centrality of innovation ≠Centrality of the University

• Declining “public” support as % of total cost

• Skepticism about university culture

• Pressures on universities to account for themselves

• Focus on outcomesDr. Anderson, May I be excused?My brain is full.

Contradictions

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Increasing Access to Knowledge ≠Increasing Literacy or Numeracy

• Record number of books published

• Compelling new publication media

• Libraries searching for new meaning

• 25% of Americans did not read a single book in 2008

• Newspapers are dying

Contradictions

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• We do not serve all who can learn• We have not made higher education more efficient• We have not yet transformed learning*

Contradictions

The context of IT ≠ the context of higher education

18Contradictions

Really Neat IT ≠ Student Engagement and Success

• High rates of attrition• Evidence of declining

engagement• High needs for

remediation (USA)• Equivocal evidence about

the economic benefits of postsecondary education

• The vanishing student

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Everything Digital, Everyone Online, ≠ Opening Knowledge

• Consolidating media

conglomerates• Extending copyrights• DMCA in USA• Balkanization of

discourse• Googlization of the

academic library

Contradictions

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Yet Great IT = Great Research!

• In silico simulation has become the 3rd leg of scientific research

• Research productivity has demonstrably improved

• Research has been truly globalized

Possibilities

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and Open Education is Surprising Us!

• Unsupervised use of computers can lead to accelerated learning

• More than 50 million people visit MIT open courseware site to date

• There are more than 60 ‘open’ universities in the world enrolling more than a million students

Possibilities

Professor Sugata Mitra andHole in the Wall Project

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What Must we Do?

• Galvanizing Metaphor• Operating Philosophy• Standards

• Incentives• Delivery System

• Network of Partners

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Questions to Consider

What is the ‘idea’ of the institution?

What vision, metaphors, and forces will define our boundaries and inspire our us?

What is the institution really trying to do?

What does the institution really need to dowell to manifest its intent?

What are the information infrastructure, environment, and services that will enable(or drive) this?