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Research at MIT
The Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) is a partnership among MIT, the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The first five years of SMA, denoted SMA-1, will soon conclude; the second five-year stage, SMA-2, will commence in 2005. In this article we discuss the current SMA program and the plans for the second phase.
A Snapshot of SMA-1
SMA-1 (and SMA-2) is funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education, by NUS and NTU, and by the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry through the Economic Development Board and the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR).
SMA-1 comprises five academic programs:
SMA-1 students receive degrees from NUS or NTU, and certificates from SMA. A typical program has at any given time 35 professional Masters students, and on average five Ph.D students.
The SMA students, 459 to date, come primarily from Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. China and Singapore account for 39% and 28% of the SMA students, respectively.
The SMA professional Masters students spend 2-3 weeks at MIT when they first enter the program; subsequently they reside at NUS or (for IMST) at NTU. Most of the SMA professional Masters courses are taught synchronously from MIT by MIT faculty via high quality videoconferencing. In addition, a few courses and project classes are taught wholly or partially by Singapore faculty in Singapore. SMA Ph.D students spend an additional semester at MIT as tuition-paying Special Students who take regular MIT graduate courses.
The process of teaching synchronously and interactively via point-to-point videoconferencing is known colloquially within SMA as "beaming." The beamed sessions are held in the 7 a.m.-10 a.m. and 7 p.m.-10 p.m. time slots, periods during which both MIT and Singaporean participants should arguably be awake. In a typical day, SMA beams 3 or 4 classes each morning and each evening.
The SMA videoconference technology supports two-way audio and video. Visual materials are sent through shared applications, electronic whiteboards, and document cameras; the necessary bandwidth is provided by Internet-2. Synchronous interactions are complemented by asynchronous technology. For example, all beamed class sessions are digitized and posted to the SMA Website within 24 hours of delivery.
About 45 MIT faculty from across the Institute are involved in SMA (roughly the same number of NUS/NTU faculty participate in SMA from the Singapore side). Roughly three-quarters of the MIT faculty participants are "SMA Fellows"; the remainder are "SMA Associates" – a slightly lower level of commitment. In addition to the distance interactions, most Fellows spend from two-to-four weeks each year in Singapore. Most of the Fellows will also spend one extended-stay period in Singapore, typically between eight weeks and a full semester in duration.
The Objectives of SMA
From the MIT perspective, the main objectives of SMA-1, and to a certain extent SMA-2, are to:
Furthermore, SMA is informed by a vision of how distance interaction technology might transform MIT. There is a hope that SMA will be not only a strategic vehicle by which to explore a distance presence, but also a pillar of a permanent MIT distance presence. However, all parties know that any long-term commitment depends critically on success in the shorter term - and success as defined by each of the participating institutions and their respective objectives.
Some Successes (We Think) of SMA-1
We believe that, even in the short period that SMA-1 has been in existence, there have been several benefits to MIT.
1. SMA-1 funds are responsible for the development and maintenance of many new distance-enabled classrooms that are now available to the entire MIT community.2. SMA-1 has co-sponsored and/or served as a beta test site for many software and hardware developments that are now generally available to MIT faculty and students across the Institute.
3. SMA-1 has stimulated interdisciplinary curriculum development and research activities within MIT: several SMA-1 programs involve four departments/schools.
4. Several of the SMA-1 programs have introduced new MIT courses that are now open to all at MIT. In addition, SMA funds roughly 20 Teaching Assistants at MIT every year.
5. SMA-1 has enhanced the 25 SMA subjects that are also offered as MIT subjects to MIT students. Survey results indicate that most MIT students find these SMA-MIT courses, on balance, as good as – or better than – non-SMA MIT courses.
6. SMA-1 has sponsored 77 MIT graduate student visits to Singapore during the past four years.
7. SMA-1 has provided over $30 million in research funds to 45 MIT faculty (SMA Fellows and Associates) over the past four years.
8. SMA-1 has brought faculty in several SMA-1 programs new resources. IMST benefits from Singapore's very dense technopolis; and AMMNS faculty have enjoyed access to A*STAR's Institute for Microelectronics semiconductor fabrication line.
9. SMA-1, at completion, will have financed five new endowed chairs in areas and departments related to the SMA-1 programmatic thrusts.
10. SMA-1 has sponsored many activities to bring "distance technology" to a broader cross-section of the MIT campus across all five schools.
Does Distance Education Work (in SMA-1)?
One of the key questions is whether distance education (SMA-style) really works. We address this here primarily in the context of coursework, since research interactions perforce take longer to develop.
Our assessment of this question is largely through circumstantial evidence. First, good students find the SMA programs very attractive. The average GRE scores for the incoming SMA class of 2002 is 2159, certainly commensurate with the scores of MIT students in participating departments. SMA selectivity is also very high – only 16% of those who apply are admitted; and SMA yield is very high – over 62% of those admitted choose to enroll in SMA programs. Second, once in the SMA programs, SMA students do as well in MIT classes as their residential MIT counterparts; the statistical evidence is unambiguous.
We can not, however, read too much into these results. First, most students who have been part of both MIT (classes) at a distance and MIT (classes and other activities) on campus clearly prefer the on-campus experience. Second, most MIT faculty still find it easier to interact with students in the classroom (and beyond) in the old-fashioned way. Third, the communications technology can be, on occasion, intrusive, not only to the distance students, but also to those participating in SMA-MIT classes on the MIT campus. And fourth, for doctoral-level research, preliminary evidence confirms that considerable face-to-face interactions are a prerequisite for subsequent successful faculty-student mentorship relationships.
However, on balance, we believe that the SMA-1 evidence supports the premise that parts of an MIT education can be gainfully pursued at a distance.
SMA-1 Issues and SMA-2 "Remedies"
SMA-2 should improve upon SMA-1. We focus here on two key challenges for SMA-2: alignment of mission, and collaborative research.
One associated hidden (or not so hidden) aspect of SMA-1 is the opportunity cost of the diversion of MIT faculty from other MIT activities. There are many possible manifestations: a faculty member may be teaching non-MIT SMA courses and students rather than our own MIT courses and students; a faculty member may be supervising non-MIT students rather than our own MIT students; or a faculty member may be in Singapore, and hence less available for on-campus students and colleagues.
This problem was identified early on in SMA-1, and partial corrections have been in place for some time. For example, we have strongly encouraged all programs to align their subjects with existing or new MIT subject offerings. At present, of the 34 SMA-1 subjects in which MIT faculty are involved, 75% are also cross-listed MIT courses with "local" MIT students in attendance.
Further measures will be instituted within SMA-2. For example, in SMA-2, the extended-stay requirement has been eliminated. SMA-2 will still require face-to-face research interactions, but at a reduced scale: collaborating faculty will now meet face-to-face four weeks/year, typically two weeks in Singapore and two weeks here at MIT.
However, MIT is about MIT students, and any activity in which MIT students do not play a central role will remain marginalized. To remedy this situation, in SMA-2, we will offer dual, or "double" – not joint – Masters degrees. (Dual Ph.D degrees are not precluded, but also not anticipated in the shorter term; in most SMA-2 programs, the Ph.D will remain of the SMA-1 "SMA certificate" variety.) In a dual degree program, the student will receive two degrees: a degree from MIT, and a degree from NUS or NTU. The student must satisfy the admission and degree requirements at each University as defined and approved by the respective faculties in accordance with standard institutional policies and procedures. In short, the dual degree student is no longer an SMA student; he or she is a full MIT student, as well as an NUS/NTU student.
This dual degree student will receive financial support through a Singapore-sponsored and Singapore-administered SMA Graduate Fellowship. Students must be admitted by both MIT and NUS/NTU separately in order to be eligible for consideration for SMA Graduate Fellowships. Just as in many other fellowships held by MIT students, the SMA Graduate Fellowship will impose several short-term residency and/or service conditions that the student must satisfy if the loan is to be forgiven. However, unlike most fellowships at MIT, the SMA Graduate Fellows will be asked to spend considerable time during their fellowship period in Singapore rather than at MIT. While in Singapore, the students will still take MIT courses with residential MIT students via distance education technologies.
Of course, there are very many, very real dangers associated with these proposed dual degrees. Will MIT degrees offered as part of SMA be exempt from some of the usual MIT requirements in recognition of the "dual" or "double" component? Will the sponsor expect that a certain number of students "put forward" every year for SMA Fellowships will automatically be accepted into MIT degree programs? Will our partners expect that NUS or NTU faculty shall automatically participate in teaching certain MIT courses? The answer in all cases is no. To safeguard what all faculty consider the MIT core values, we will require that all aspects of SMA-2 honor all the standard MIT rules and regulations.
First, the MIT degree associated with the double degree must either be an existing MIT degree, or a new degree approved by all the usual MIT processes; we expect that most will be of the former variety. The degree must satisfy all MIT requirements, including our one-semester residency requirement for a Masters degree. Second, admissions must be done by MIT departmental committees as currently practiced; potential SMA Fellowships should not bias the proceedings any more than any other potential source of funding. And third, any NUS or NTU faculty participating in activities for our SMA students must obtain Visiting Professor or Visiting Research Scientist positions at MIT through the usual departmental channels. This is in the long-term best interests of both MIT and our Singaporean partners.
We turn now to research collaboration. There have already been several collaborative research successes in SMA-1, but we can do better. The primary impediment to research collaboration in SMA-1 has been the difficulty in establishing faculty-to-faculty – or more generally, peer-to-peer – links where none have existed before.
First, the SMA-2 areas of interest are both more numerous and of greater breadth than in SMA-1, and thus the pool of potential collaborators is much larger. Second, the SMA-2 selection process will strongly weight commitment to, and track record for, strong collaboration. Third, in SMA-2, different faculty can be involved in teaching and research even within a single program. We can thus focus on research quality and common interests, rather than solely on curricular compatibility. Fourth, the SMA-2 open competition for new academic programs should be able to identify the very best opportunities. Fifth, and finally, in SMA-2 there will be special provisions for shared post-doctoral fellows who will hopefully form a bridge between MIT and Singapore research groups.
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