Knowledge and university09
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The document discusses challenges facing universities in the 21st century due to increased competition, changing student demographics, and evolving nature of knowledge. It notes competition from for-profit universities, corporate universities, and open universities. Today's "Millennial" students expect more interactive, collaborative and mobile learning compared to traditional lectures. The future of knowledge is also challenged as most major transformations in the past developed outside universities. Universities must adapt to preserve valuable knowledge while understanding and disseminating new knowledge in our digital global environment. How universities can remain central to this process is the greatest challenge.
Knowledge and university09
- 1. Knowledge, the University, and the LibraryA 21st Century PerspectiveJames W. Marcum, Ph.D.January 2010
- 2. I: CompetitionII: Millennial GenerationIII: The Future of KnowledgeCONTEMPORARY CHALLENGESFor the University
- 3. Higher education in America is a major industry and is viewed as ‘fertile ground’ and opportunity for:For-profit universitiesCorporate universities (Becton Dickinson)Global universities (including ‘rising’ powers)Open universities and Open EducationComplacency is a high-risk attitudeI: COMPETITION
- 4. Readiness to Compete?The university does not “come to the table” with a clear strategy and purpose (beyond “protecting what exists”)
- 5. Consider technology indispensableLearnBy doingFrom each otherDifferently from eldersVisually engagedLike multitaskingFind many courses “obsolete” II: NEW STUDENT GENERATION"Millennials"
- 6. Millennial Generation“Our call phones often serve as web browsers, digital phones,and game consoles” - “Net gen”Gadgets Rule onCollege CampusesBy Paul Davidson, CHAPEL HILL, N.C. —The American college campus, long an oasis of scholarship and coming-of-age, is now being transformed by an armada of laptops, cell phones and perpetual connectivity. “I store a lot of knowledge in my friends”
- 7. Challenges (con’t):University and ‘Net Gen’Critics: the University lives in a “time warp,” locked in to:Agriculture age seasons“seat time as learning equivalent”Lectures as “solo performances”Disciplinary silos of declining influenceStudents: Perceive low levels of technological competence of many faculty and staff Is the University ‘out of step’ with the times?
- 8. University vs. Net Gen 2While “millennial” generation expects:Interactive, collaborative activityInstantaneous, mobile communicationFlexible, comfortable spacesCurricula geared to new realities, professions, challengesThey also expect traditional learning … but tire quickly if not engaged in the processCarole Barone, The New Academy, in Educating the Net Generation (Educause 2005)
- 9. In their career, today’s college student will:experience repeated career changesface problems never experienced beforehave to develop expertise that we cannot imagine.Ergo: they must develop inquiry and lifelong learning skills*; we cannot teach them what they will have to know….*(includes learning and creating knowledge socially)We must keep in mind…
- 10. Nature and Future of KnowledgeThe Biggest Challenge
- 11. III: THE FUTURE OF KNOWLEDGEPerhaps the gravest, if subtle, danger the university faces is the future status, creation, transmission, and uses of knowledge Long considered the ‘turf’ and arena for the university . . .We now face unprecedented challenges
- 12. We must remember that most major transformational revolutions:Scientific(17th Century)Enlightenment(18th Century)the Industrial(19th Century) all developed outside the universityWill the same be said of today’s “networked learning and knowledge revolution”?Knowledge vs. Academia?
- 13. Communicated effectively via prices -HayekBringing forth the world through the process of living itself -Maturana and VarelaGenealogy of discourses of practice producing power relationships -FoucaultMost ‘research’ reports are false -IonnidisIncreasingly interdisciplinary -J. T. KleinSocial and developmental –Valsiner & van der VeerFrom reason to agency and meaning -Kauffman… we can go on and on…Seeking to explain knowledge
- 14. Explaining knowledge (con’t)With fundamental “criticisms”:Socially constructed - RortyWith occasional major, “paradigmatic” revolutions - KuhnSuggesting many ways of knowing the world have “equal validity,” Supporting the relativism of post-modernism… and many other fashionable but false “isms” - Baghossian, Fear of Knowledge
- 15. We have moved from knowledge in the individual mind (I think…)To socially constructed knowledge (I participate…)To knowledge as connections (I am networked….)But we should talk about how we know?A CHANGE of great consequence…
- 16. Cogito, ergo sum- Descartes
- 17. Modern/Western Intellectual AchievementAdamSmithgreat minds, working alone…DescartesNewtonMachiavelliEinstein
- 18. Library = Books = Organized Knowledge
- 19. But now…“We participate, therefore we are”- John Seely Brown (Educom, 2001)
- 20. To CONNECTIVITY“I am a part of the electronic universe. I am visible to Google. I link, therefore, I am.”William L. Mitchell. Me++. MIT, 2003.
- 21. The tacit knowledgeof the virtuoso, the scholar, the expert, is of value to the extent of their individual performance and persuasion The explicit knowledgearticulated by the ‘master,’ the expert, can be shared (website) and preserved (book) and recognized for its importance over timeThe shared knowledgeof the team, the lab, (as it is verified) becomes the new theory, the ideology, the paradigm… that can shape a history, a science, or a nation The Social Power of Knowledge
- 22. Since the emergence of ‘intellectual capital’ as the key to innovation in the 1990s, corporations have jumped into ‘knowledge creation’ and ‘knowledge management’ in pursuit of competitive advantage in global competitionIs the focus of knowledge creation shifting from the campus to the laboratory?… and what would be the implications of that for the university?Knowledge as Intellectual Capital
- 23. Library (300 BC–500 CE)Monastery (100–1100)University (1100–1500)Republic of Letters (1500–1800)Disciplines (1700–1900)Laboratory (1870–1970)McNeely and Wolverton, Reinventing Knowledge (Norton, 2008)What form will it take next? What institutions will represent it?Knowledge: “Reinvented” 6 times
- 24. We won’t presume to define what philosophers have debated for millenniaNonaka and Takeuchi, The Knowledge Creating Company (1995).We should take cue from two wise men…
- 25. The New Knowledge of the DayBig Bang Theory Stem-cell Genomesequencing ParallelcomputingField ResearchWikiSCloud computing
- 26. The search for today’s knowledge requires searching:DatabasesLaboratory findings; research reportsNewslettersConference proceedingsDeep WebSocial Web (twitter, facebook, etc.)Blogs, listservs, media news archives and features, institutional repositories, etc., etc.In addition to the traditional print materials collected by libraries.
- 27. Levels of Knowledge: An emerging approach…Cognitive (know-what) book learningCompetence (know-how) implementationUnderstanding (know-why) meaningJ. B. Quinn, et al., “Managing Professional Intellect,” Harvard Business Review, (March 1996); People (know who) expertise Positioning (know where) contextTiming (know when) strategyDonald Norris, et al. “A Revolution in Knowledge Sharing,” Educause Review(Sept. 2003); K. E. Sveiby, The New Organizational Wealth (1997)Innovation (change how) engagementProblem solving (try how) teams, socialForecast (consider if) scenariosskillsnetworknaviga-tion
- 28. Knowledge: emergent, dynamic, and shared -Eisenstadt and Vincent, Knowledge Web (1998)Digital wisdom: digital enhancement of human thought-Marc Prensky, Innovate, 3/09A Google monopoly? -ABC News, 7/12/08Shotgun (gene sequencing) - J. Craig VentnerFrom reason to agency and meaning–S.A. Kauffman, Reconstructing the SacredEnd of Theory: petabytes of data and cloud computing make scientific method obsolete –C. Anderson/Wired, 8/09ALERT: PROPOSALS EMERGINGFor the ‘New Knowledge’
- 29. COMPLEXITYInformation gatheringGrowth produces complexity (and some redundancy)Cope with systems and hierarchy (can understand processes)Herbert SimonWe must lift our perspective from…
- 30. To focus on…COMPLEXITYCope with systems and hierarchy (can understand processes)Herbert SimonInformation gatheringGrowth produces complexity (and some redundancy)SUPERCOMPLEXITYAccelerating changeBorders & disciplines crossed and smudgedUncertainty and unpredictabilityConcepts, systems, theories overloaded, undependableRon Barnett
- 31. Preserving existing knowledge of value while coming to understand, participate in, and disseminate to future generations the new knowledge generated (diffused) by a LARGE number of educated people from many cultures interacting in a new global and digital information ecology.Can—and should—we endeavor to be certain that the university continues to play a central role in this process?How do we proceed?Greatest challenge?
- 32. Let’s talk about it ….