Educational Technology Council Report, 1997

Table of Contents | Summary | Vision | Context | Purpose | Recommendations | Appendices


3. CONTEXT

3.1 Charge from the President

President Vest charged the Council on Educational Technology to consider the potential benefits that MIT's educational mission might derive over the next decade from effective application of emerging computer and telecommunication technologies, to explore alternative strategies for achieving the most important of these benefits, to describe a vision for the future, and to make a concise, concrete set of recommendations for action.

The council was asked to take a comprehensive view that encompasses on-campus and distance learning activities, the educational implications of global networking, the role of shared information technology resources (in particular, Athena), and the roles of departmental and individual resources (including student-owned machines). It was asked to explore proven, promising, and speculative approaches to technologically supported education, and to consider possible alliances with other organizations.

3.2 Relation to Other Councils and Task Forces

Three additional MIT Presidential Councils—on the environment, international relationships, and industrial relationships—are preparing our institution to enter the twenty-first century. In addition, there is a Task Force on Student Life and Learning charged with developing a comprehensive vision. We believe that all these domains are tightly linked and that the recommendations should be dovetailed together. Ideally the four councils can meet and coordinate their drafts before finally releasing them.

The work of this council builds on the work of the earlier Penfield Committee, the report of which is available online.

3.3 A Context of Global Change

Our work coincides with several worldwide transitions that may profoundly affect the manner in which MIT operates in the twenty-first century. These are well known and much discussed, but worth mentioning briefly to set the scene for our task. The Cold War is over and many countries are joining the world economy. Increasingly, corporations operate on a global rather than national basis. New developments in telecommunications have diminished the importance of distance as a limitation on human interactions. Technology is fueling much of the growth in both mature and emerging economies.

Education is increasingly important in this new world, where a shortage of well-educated people is the key barrier to growth and prosperity. Today, economic prosperity requires professionals who can function creatively in a world of increasing technological complexity, professionals who are literate in science and engineering and who later in their careers can manage and work within complex organizations.

Concurrently, we are experiencing an explosion in computer and communications technologies. They affect us through the World Wide Web, digital satellite television, fiber-optic networks, various forms of communications, and desktop computers that have capabilities unimagined two decades ago. Acknowledging the roles of these technologies, The Economist recently ran a cover story entitled "Distance Is Dead."

The new technologies are affecting how organizations operate. An increasingly large fraction of corporations deal with Internet addresses, fax and phone numbers, and physical street addresses. Telecommuting, teleconferencing, and virtual professional meetings are also increasing in popularity.

Governments are redefining themselves. In the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, federal governments are reducing their roles, dismantling bureaucracies and reducing tax levies while focusing on balancing budgets. As a result of these moves, U.S. federal support for university-based research is expected to decline 20 percent in real dollars by the end of the century. To sustain their research support, research universities like MIT will have to look to the private sector for research funding. At the same time, in this era of increased international competition, corporations are demanding true and measurable value from university partnerships: they are no longer content with philanthropic and expectation-based relationships. Protecting and leveraging an organization's intellectual capital in this global, information-technology-intensive environment is a growing challenge, as is maintaining a well-trained, up-to-date workforce.

3.4 Particular Challenges to Universities

Historically, universities have grown up around great libraries and other centralized stores of recorded knowledge, creating scholarly communities and attracting students and new generations of mature scholars to them. The following trends are now challenging the viability of this venerable model.

As a result of these trends, we expect that the MIT of the twenty-first century will operate in a highly competitive environment, where "business as usual" strategies will not suffice for maintaining its leading position. Pervasive use of advanced information technology may reduce some of the advantages of being at a leading institution, and institutions with particularly attractive locations and climates may become increasingly competitive as other considerations become less important. Nontraditional institutions, such as the projected Western Governors University, are likely to use distance education technology to deliver forms of vocational and professional education to large numbers of students at very low cost. Groups of colleges and universities (particularly smaller ones), and state university systems, may expand their capabilities by forming electronically supported alliances and sharing resources—much as the Claremont colleges have done by colocating their campuses—and thus may become more attractive to the best undergraduates. In addition, various combinations of residential and distance learning experiences will emerge to compete with traditionally structured, on-campus, academic-year residence programs.

3.5 New Opportunities for Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

We observe that some of the most interesting and exciting research and teaching at MIT is crossing traditional disciplinary barriers, and we expect this trend to continue.

In the future, for example, pharmaceuticals will likely be developed by interdisciplinary teams of synthetic organic chemists, X-ray crystallographers, NMR spectroscopists, medicinal chemists, molecular modelers, and biochemists. Today, such collaborations are often difficult, because not all team members communicate and describe their field using the same symbol systems; and frequently mathematics introduces additional barriers. But by employing advanced visualization and simulation technology to provide a fundamental grounding in the physical principles needed for understanding and design in molecular systems, and by doing so in a manner accessible to all students in the molecular sciences, we anticipate that MIT will produce students who can function effectively in these research teams.

Similar approaches and benefits can be identified in many domains. By using visualization and simulation to provide a common language for cross-disciplinary collaborative efforts, and by using the power of fast and inexpensive computation to remove the drudgery from exploration of ideas, we can open up exciting new educational vistas.

3.6 Relating Technological Innovation to Educational Goals

Some take the view that technological innovation will drive educational change—perhaps forgetting that, in practice new technologies often have unintended adverse consequences. Others suggest that strategies for implementing new educational technology should be guided by educational first principles—perhaps equally guilty of forgetting that these are not as well known as we would like and that the required technological means do not necessarily appear conveniently on demand.

Maybe this is just a version of the old argument between technological determinists and social constructionists (which will not be settled by the deliberations of this council). We raise it here because it is often the focus of discussions about changes such as the ones we propose. In developing our recommendations, we have not succumbed to either extreme, believing that both forces should be considered together.

After all, MIT encompasses many different motivations for pursuing advanced educational technology, and many different styles for doing so. Some faculty members have immediate, pressing instructional problems that they need to solve. Some feel a responsibility to be sure that we are getting the best possible payoffs from the large ongoing investments that we make in hardware, software, and telecommunications. Some see opportunities to pursue new educational markets and generate revenue by doing so. Some have promising new technologies that they want to apply. And some have broad educational visions that they believe can be advanced by the appropriate application of new technology. We will be best served by respecting this diversity and harnessing the energies that emerge in these different ways.


Table of Contents | Summary | Vision | Context | Purpose | Recommendations | Appendices