The death of the University?

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Death of the university? Knowledge Production and Distribution in the Disintermediation Era.

http://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/cobo/?p=179

by Cristobal Cobo

Posted on April 17th, 2011

The next 23rd, 24th and 25th of May will be the Conference McLuhan Galaxy:Understanding Media Today in the maditerranean city of Barcelona. This event, organized by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) will count on a series of experts not only to review McLuhan’s contributions but also to update them in relation to our contemporary society of knowledge. Among the names of Keynote Speakers areManuel Castells, Derrick de Kerckhove, Ursula Heise and Bob Logan (open the full program,pdf).

Answering the call of this conference: Carlos Scolari, Hugo Pardo (both editors of digitalismo) and I, submitted a paper that analyze the “end of universities” in the time of disintermediation of academic knowledge (generation and distribution). Despite that this paper suggests challenging questions about the future of the education (particularly regarding the university in the 21st century), our proposal was approved by a double blind review process. Enclosed the abstract of our paper.

“The disintermediation based on the digital technology has transformed different environments, from banking to media, education and sales. This paper explores a new kind of disintermediation or re-intermediation; also calledcyberintermediation. The paper analyses how the revolution of information and communication technologies provides new alternatives of disintermediation in the generation and distribution of knowledge. The authors raise questions such as: To what extent is this phenomenon reshaping the traditional role of the university? Will it cause a crisis in the educational institutions? Will this disintermediation of the education evolve towards the disappearance of institutions like schools and universities? The researchers propose a table that integrates and recombines the knowledge generation and knowledge distribution dimensions with Boyer’s key functions of scholarship. Finally, the concept of knowledge broker is introduced to enrich the discussion about reintermediation. Beyond the prophecies, which announce the “death of the university”, the authors discuss and suggest new agents, actions and transactions that are useful to think about the educational institution of the new century”.

Within this text we try to better understand how well prepared are the universities to face the fast evolution of knowledge generation and distribution, as can be seen en the transformation of what has been called socially accepted knowledge is moving fast and in a non-predictable way:

1. Encyclopædia Britannica (closed, analogue and then partially digital) >
2. Encarta (closed, digital)>
3. Nupedia or Knol (partially open, digital)>
4. Wikipedia (primarily open, digital).
5. …

We look forward to the discussion that we will have then!

Suggested text: Readings, Bill (1996). The university in ruins. Harvard University Press.

Posted in Education and ICT, Research |

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Is This the Death of the University?

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Category: Social Media, Networks and Digital Culture

26 Jan 2012

Written by Hugo Pardo Kuklinski, Cristóbal Cobo, Carlos A. Scolari

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H. P. KUKLINSKI, C. COBO, C. A. SCOLARI

Is This the Death of the University? Knowledge Production and Distribution in the Disintermediation Era. In the 21st Century, an increasing number of citizens have access to Higher Education. However, the imbalance between free contents available on the Internet and expensive enrolment fees, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon universities, could cause long term problems for the Higher Education system. If the on-line experience is reasonably similar in activities and quality to the teaching provided in the classroom, why not consider a disintermediation of Higher Education, as has occurred in other business models such as the culture industry. What would happen if citizens and governments rejected university degrees that certify these institutions as a unique source of learning and professional legitimation? It is well known that there is currently an active debate in the European Union about recognition and validation of informal learning (Council of the European Union, 2009). The aim of this debate is to design new accreditation methods that are not limited by the constraints imposed by formal education institutions. In this context the analysis of and reflection on disintermediation practices in Higher Education is more an academic necessity than an intellectual game. All the communication and cultural industries have already debated this phenomenon: Why should Higher Education avoid the discussion on disintermediation? This article explores questions such as: To what extent is this phenomenon reshaping the traditional role of the university? Will it cause a crisis in the educational institutions? Will this disintermediation of education evolve towards the disappearance of institutions like schools and universities? In the following pages we reflect on these topics and propose new categories for understanding them.