One small step for man

In the current issue of Watersheds Messenger, a publication of the Western Watersheds Project, Brian Ertz describes how conservationists have used the Internet to organize and share information. He goes on with a vision “Western Watershed’s Project is well known for its vital contribution to public-oversight…. What if we could wield the cohesion and organization we already practice online more directly toward that end?

Now imagine for a moment a nearly empty public hearing in Wells, Nevada; a couple of cowboys are sitting up front as some college kid walks through the door, pulls out a camera, a laptop, and a cord. Within ten minutes the agency personnel are sitting back in their chairs watching a live projected image of Jon Marvel warning against an ill-advised chaining of hundreds/thousands of acres of Pinyon Pines – all for the almighty cow. A few minutes later John Carter is in real-time giving one of his acclaimed power-point presentations citing real science. Whereas before agency folk might have been able to close up shop early, now they will be forced to burn every last minute watching and listening to a sophisticated demonstration of conservationists who care.”

Ertz has recognized the increasing bandwidth of the Internet and is extending the reach of the web to bring people to places in ad hoc ways. I’d understood Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs in terms of organizing social action, but had not seen projecting the social action into a remote location.

I also note in this edition of the Watersheds Messenger that one of the donors this quarter is my alma matter, Whitman College. I can only hope that Whitman is giving to WWP because they understand that the work of WWP can provide students with authentic experiences and global literacies in both science and public advocacy.

Washington State University’s new Vice President for Economic Development and WSU Extension, John Gardner writes,

“My sense at reading the expectations of Washingtonians, the Regents, and our students is an amazing amount of consensus. They want a state university that gives them a leg up in the new economy, knows the new rules, and will assist WA and the Pacific Northwest to be among the innovation leaders globally.”

and

“A common theme in them all is the clear responsibility we have to build our capacity for creativity and research. And – importantly – an obligation to couple that research with application in adding value to our students, businesses, the environment, government and the economy as a whole.”

Several of Gardner’s posts indicate that he is trying to re-think “Extension” in a land-grant university and connect its historic mission with the Web 2.0 realities. This is a very interesting direction.

Regarding the last quote, its worth looking at ThinkCycle which seems to be engaged in an Extension-like coupling of universities with creative capacity to people with real problems. They say:

“At the heart of the community is an evolving database of reasonably well-posed problems and ongoing design solutions contributed by universities, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), companies and the general public. The system is primarily aimed at, but in no way limited to, using the design and engineering skills of the students and researchers in universities worldwide. One scenario is for professors to assign challenges to their students, assist them in working collaboratively with communities and organizations in developing countries while encouraging peer review from domain experts of evolving design solutions archived on ThinkCycle. Motivated teams of students may also work on critical design challenges as independent study projects with their departments. The objective is to document all evolving design solutions, rationale, processes, peer reviews and contributions within a searchable and cross-referenced system.“

What strikes me about this approach is the global literacies that ThinkCycle is promoting which I marked in bold in the quotation above. Not only are students gaining experience on problems, they are building evidence of their competencies in what might be called a portfolio within the ThinkCycle system. Since the system is open for searching, one could imagine members of one team seeking out people in the system who have demonstrated expertise in a related area and enlisting their help.

What is important about this form of global university education is that it is authentic and open. Its not a closed couse in WebCT and the problems are not toys with right answers set by the instructor.

Elsewhere, Gardner says of Extension “Our faculty located in county offices across the state provide a network of local contacts, invaluable to knowing and responding to the needs of Washingtonians.” This knowing and responding could well involve students, as extension faculty bring problems into focus in the same way ThinkCycle does.

WSU has a new President, Elson Floyd and he has a vision to expand our distance education efforts.

“In order to realize this vision we must partner across the University to provide a full array of academic courses and degree programs and offerings for our current and prospective students in a robust electronic format. I envision a full menu of courses and programs that can be accessed by learners anytime and at any location.”

A decade ago, I would have found this vision exciting (I was naive and the Internet was young). Now I find it a daunting challenge. With a crowded field of other school’s online offerings, Western Governor’s University, MIT open courseware online, and the University of Phoenix, I have to wonder how to design WSU’s offering to make it unique and differentiated in the marketplace.

MIT describes its resource:

“a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.

MIT OCW:

• Is a publication of MIT course materials
• Does not require any registration
• Is not a degree-granting or certificate-granting activity
• Does not provide access to MIT faculty”

Which opens an interesting hole, create a program that advertises it takes advantage of MIT materials, but provides access to faculty and grants degrees or certificates.

But how to scale the “access to faculty” (presumably Floyd wants this program to have a large enrollment) and be able to advertise taking advantage of MIT’s materials without straightjacketing WSU programs to the scope of MIT offerings or WSU faculty to teaching with MIT-created materials?

Competing with University of Phoenix will involve working with returning learners, learners situated in the context of jobs and life experiences. How to appeal to them when a large fraction of WSU upperclassmen say their courses involve memorization and not application of information?

If this Global offering is so appealing, how should it be designed so that it does not cannibalize the enrollment of WSU-Pullman’s residential campus?

Can campus-based courses with small enrollments be augmented with distance learners such that the cost of hiring new faculty can be deferred until the program has a head of steam? If so, what implications does this have for the design of courses to meet the needs of both residential and distance learners?

In an era of “No College Left Behind” assessment, how will this offering differentiate itself, by competing on the NAICU or NASULGC measure? WSU is looking at the latter, but will that provide the product differentiation in the marketplace that this global initiative needs to succeed?

And finally, in an online world, the next university is only a click away, how to retain students once they are recruited and not end up with a large fraction of a student’s transcript being transferred in from other providers?