B. Tecnologías del conocimiento para la transformación social

Jan Philipp Schmidt

Researcher

United Nations University MERIT

University of the Western Cape

South Africa

Abstract

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education has been touted as the solution to many of the challenges faced by higher education. ICTs were expected to revolutionise the way we teach and learn, increase access to higher education for all, and improve quality – while greatly reducing cost. As a result public and private institutions have been under pressure to integrate ICTs in their activities, and new virtual institutions were created to offer online teaching and degrees.

Since these early days of technology-supported teaching and learning, numerous failed projects have shown that the expectations and hopes, especially with regard to increasing access and quality of higher education in developing countries, were unrealistic. Technology dissidents have felt their predictions confirmed and returned to the comfortable conviction that the traditional ways of teaching and conducting research remain the most effective way for universities to provide social welfare.

This paper argues that the reason for failure can be traced not to fundamental problems inherent in the technology, but rather institutional resistance to change (including technological change) and an inability to innovate the university's social role in a networked world. It posits a user/student-centric open innovation model enabled by ICTs as a possible solution to transform higher education.

The slow pace of innovative responses to global technological, legal, and social developments is endangering the traditional role of higher education institutions, and threatens the justification of public support. Considering the experience of industries that have recently undergone significant changes as a result of similar pressures, such as the software and entertainment industries, we identify areas of friction, and describe the possible consequences of resisting change and adaptation.

We explore the university's process of knowledge creation and diffusion through the lens of basic Economic models of innovation, and draw on practical experience from case-studies of student-driven open education projects. This allows us to reaffirm ICT's potential to drive deep changes in all areas of higher education. Whereas the traditional model of innovation positions the user on the receiving end of a linear trajectory (GODIN, 2006), the recent literature on technological change has identified the “user” as an important and central source of innovation (von Hippel, 2005). For example, the mountain bike was created by amateurs who were frustrated by the industry's failure to develop bicycles that were suitable for the mountain paths of California. These cyclists simply combined parts from existing bicycle models with stronger parts from motorcycles to create a new hybrid product. The mountain bike has since become the most successful recent innovation in the bicycle industry and now accounts for the majority of bicycles sold by corporate manufacturers.

Enabled by computer networks, similar innovative users have begun forming open collaborative projects in other areas (Benkler, 2002). In some industries these communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) successfully compete with traditional firms. For example, free and open source software (FOSS) projects have created the most popular web server (Apache), a widely used web-browser (Firefox), and most of the basic infrastructure that makes up the Internet itself. Beyond software, the online Wikipedia has become the largest encyclopaedia in the world and despite its self-regulated community-based quality control the accuracy of its entries was found to be comparable to that of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica (NATURE, 2005).

In higher education, the current approach to knowledge creation and diffusion (mainly through teaching and publication) mirrors the traditional linear model of innovation. However, social networking technologies, in combination with less restrictive approaches to intellectual property protection, and an affirmation of the digital commons, have enabled large-scale and distributed collaborative innovation processes that are challenging many aspects of such a traditional university: the institutional unity of research and teaching; the bundling of teaching, assessment, and accreditation services; the top-down hierarchical approach to knowledge creation and diffusion; and the strict differentiation between student and teacher roles that limit students' ability to participate in innovation of the educational experience.

Applying more recent open collaborative innovation models to higher education suggests a new social role for universities. Lessons from practical experience allow us to identify how universities can leverage the potential of open collaborative networks in order to drive innovation in teaching and learning. The empirical data used stems mainly from two case-studies of Open Courseware projects (at the United Nations University and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa), in addition to anecdotal impressions from other open education projects around the world. Most open courseware projects focus on the lecturer as the source of knowledge and are modelled after the original MIT Open Courseware Project. However, this model has proven problematic for many smaller universities, especially in developing countries, and efforts to move towards a student-focused publishing model are showing first positive results.

The combination of user-centric innovation models with affordable means of production and communication in the form of computers and the Internet provides tremendous opportunities to innovate the ways we teach and learn at the university level. In a (truly) open university participants create and share knowledge regardless of their institutional affiliation, age, degree, or demographic characteristics. We use open courseware and open educational resources project to exemplify this point. Yet, the higher education environment seems hesitant to embrace the opportunities of “opening up” and creating space for their students to drive academic innovation. Innovative open courseware projects illustrate the potential for transforming traditional approaches to teaching and learning in universities.

This content is published under a Creative Commons 3.0 licence

Este contenido está publicado bajo una licencia Creative Commons 3.0. 

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