Diversity

Thorp and Goldstein note: “Addressing complex problems requires diverse points of view, a deep level of practical implementation and openness to fundamental change.”  Open resources contribute to diversity in that they are created in smaller pieces than entire courses and may be compiled in multiple ways allowing an individual to create their own understanding, interpretation, and mediation of ideas.  The creation of diverse ideas is critical, Irish language poet Nuala ni Dhomnaill in the New York Times Book Review argued that linguistic diversity (and its resulting diversity of thought) is as important as bio-diversity (1995).   Similarly, T. S. Eliot argued that the very way in which pieces of knowledge are placed together create entirely different educations.  As he notes in his essay “The Perfect Critic”: “ the true generalization is not something superposed upon an accumulation of perceptions; the perceptions do not, in a really appreciative mind, accumulate as a mass, but form themselves as structure” (Eliot 1920).  

Diversity must be by culture, as culture defines the background an individual learner brings with them that they can apply to the intellectual material.  Diversity must also be by intellectual ideals, philosophies, ideologies, social class, aesthetic taste; in short, the diversity must make the university what it claims to be—a place where ideas can come together freely.  If a university is to teach civil and thoughtful discourse, it must model it.

The organizational architecture of an open university finds ways :to leverage the disparate knowledge assets of people who see the world quite differently and use tools and methods foreign to those we’re familiar with” (Chesbrough).  It is in this way that intellectual diversity is achieved.

Interdisciplinary

An open university is very careful to avoid what Ortega (1930) calls “The Barbarism of ‘Specialisation.’”  While a learner does need depth of learning in their specific discipline, they also need a wide breadth of knowledge, and an open university with its abilities to deliver in multiple modes and variability of faculty in alternative structures, can best deliver such.  Interdisciplinary study does not simply refer to offering general education courses. Interdisciplinary requires modeling interdisciplinary thinking at an institutional level.  It features courses team taught across disciplines as well as programs of study that cross lines and siloes.  This is not only an academic advantage, but in this millennium, a requirement. As John Kao (2007) notes in Innovation Nation, the world today faces “Wicked Problems.”  These are problems which require the thinking and approach of multiple disciplines.  An issue like world population is social, political, scientific, agricultural; in short, virtually every discipline has a place in confronting the challenge.  A student locked into one discipline may not be able to understand the relationships of complex solutions, or be able to participate in their development.  Multiple thinkers cited over the course of this work, ranging from Thorp and Goldstein, Kao and James Duderstadt (2002), all agree that the higher educational institution of this millenium must be interdisciplinary.

Werner Hirsch sees interdisciplinarity as being a key to higher education assuming its appropriate place in the world; however, they will have to take the appropriate actions and make the appropriate cultural modifications to make that happen.  He writes: “Universities will have to perfect new mechanisms, at times even to adjust their structures to become effective participants and even more pivotal key players.  Particularly they must provide incentives to facilitate and nourish creative collaboration in teaching and provide opportunities for cross-fertilization.  At the same time, they must create an understanding among their students of the merits and efficacy of an interdisciplinary education” (Hirsch 2002).  The State University of New York already has this mechanism in the form of Empire State College.  The college facilitates and nourishes creative collaboration in teaching.  The School for Graduate Studies, in its program development has focused specifically on cross fertilization by developing in regions of overlap to build on faculty strength, and then hiring into those cross-fertilized areas allowing a further step in development and evolution to build on those strengths and then to gradually expand and continue into new areas and follow new paths.

The interdisciplinarity which Hirsch addresses ties back to Kao’s ideas on wicked problems and innovation noted at the start of this section; Hirsch writes: “as challenges facing society become increasingly complex, multidimensional, and multi-faceted, education must stimulate horizontal, thematic thinking and exploration.  Emphasis on interdisciplinary curricula and research is thus in order.”  

EdX

Find the largest, most vicious Great White Shark that exists-you can even tell him that I said bad things about his family.  Regardless, I will gladly defend myself against this attack with nothing but my bare hands,…. as long as the encounter happens in a parking lot across the street from the beach. Ridiculous?  Very much so.  The ability of participants in any action should be determined not by their abilities in their indigenous environment, but in the environment of the encounter.

For the past week, my mail box has been filled with messages of concern which include forwarded articles about EdX—the new venture by Harvard and MIT to provide free online courses.  My comments here, however, are about environment , not about specie.  Sharks are beautiful creatures who dominate their indigenous environment.  Harvard and MIT are “beautiful” institutions who dominate their indigenous environment.  They do premier work (at a premier price); however, research institutions are vital to our world and make it possible for the remainder of higher education to be able to perform their missions.  However, the world also needs open institutions, and serving as a dean in an open institution, I welcome this venture and any institutions willing to support the effort to universally provide education.  To those of us working in the openness movement, EdX is not a threat but a resource.

I admire, respect, and appreciate what EdX is trying to do [except rhyming with TedX which feels cheesy].  This venture by two premiere institutions is a validation of the academic legitimacy of open education.  Those who for generations, or so it seems, now base their argument only on the fact that these institutions do not give credit or degrees for the work.   However, it reflects a greater irony—those institutions and individuals who most oppose open education usually cite the model of the research institution as the measure of all legitimacy.  Thus, the sad part is that the opposition by many to open education reflects a lack of confidence in themselves to validate and move into new untried circles of activity and new modalities.  Higher education is, as all of the literature now attests, is in deep trouble—deeper than any of us care to admit—the mold of the 18^th century institution does not work in the 21^st century.  The mold does not need to be modified or patched or shimmed, it needs to be broken, and we need to start from scratch.

Why then are “the masters of the mold” moving into this area?  Despite what some may argue, it does not make sense for these institutions to try to keep others out.  They really do not need to worry about someone competing with someone on their own level.  (They have no worries as it is inconceivable to think of the resources it would take not only to be able to compete with those two institutions but to remain competitive.)  It is more reasonable to assume that their motivation emerges from seeing the problems in the mold as it currently functions, and this action represents their way of contributing to improving higher education.  Harvard’s own Clayton Christensen, in his concept of disruption theory shows that it is the old stalwarts who dominate an industry.  However, these old stalwarts seem to be trying to do so.  Doing so is possible, as the history of IBM will attest to, when an organization is innovative, open and agile—in short, these actions represent the best of what a research institution does.

For those who are within open education and worry about the effect that this will have, you need not worry.  This is where environment comes in.  Other schools cannot compete with those stalwarts as stalwarts, but in the realm of openness, both for the environment as well as the nature of the business (open education and traditional education are as different as water and air), all things are equal and their dominance in the traditional sphere is no longer at play.

If we look at openness and its values, the emergence of EdX benefits on many fronts.  Just as the open movement is trying to unbundle higher ed, separating content from credit moves in that direction.  As open moves in new directions of certification such as badging, the idea of a certificate from these entities supports it.  If we accept that open is about collaboration rather than competition, then all collaborators should be welcome.  It is hard to write about openness (for me anyway) without invoking Sun Microsystem’s  “it’s not the computer; it’s the network.”  Open education is about the network of shared resources and EdX makes a great contribution to that network.  EdX is not a reason to fear but a reason to celebrate.

Welcome EdX, the entire open movement is bettered by your presence.  My only request is that you get a better name. 

   

Entrepreneurial

An entrepreneurial institution is a must.  If we look at the technology industry as a model where rapid shifts are happening, companies are at the top and gone in a matter of a few years.  The same thing is beginning in Higher Education where the rise of for profits willing to deliver in an open means that traditional institutions for the most part resisted, or where existing approval processes caused it to arrive late.  [see OPEN INNOVATION]  The major reason for this was explained by Sir John Daniel during the 2011 Boyer lecture when he noted that disruptive technologies rarely favor existing providers. An open university must be entrepreneurial in that it must remain one step ahead.  To do so, risk must be assumed [see OPEN LEADERSHIP]. 

An Open University must practice entrepreneurial science, which Thorp and Goldstein (2010) define as: “a high impact, problem-based approach to the world's biggest problems that produces measurable results in terms of public benefit.”  Most important about this definition is that it does not apply simply to research, but also includes developing needed programs to produce appropriately trained teachers or Health Care workers to meet emerging needs—especially new programs which can be developed quickly to meet the needs as they develop.

A great deal of this depends on the architecture of an organization.  As Chesbrough notes: “a valuable architecture not only reduces and resolves technical interdependencies, but also creates opportunities for others to contribute their expertise to the system being built.”  An open university must have an architecture which allows it to be entrepreneurial, as well as a leadership comprised of entrepreneurs.  The characteristics of an entrepreneur, according to Thorp and Goldstein, are:

• ·         Willing to live with risk and uncertainty as the world they live in is uncertain;
• ·         Not afraid to fail;
• ·         Willing to venture outside of their comfort zone;
• ·         Are lifelong learners;
• ·         Willing to “make it up as they go along;” and
• ·         Comfortable with ambiguity.

While the future of higher education in general faces the challenge of developing such a leadership, but while traditional higher education is designed to resist ambiguity and change, an open university is designed to embrace and build upon it.  The current Empire State College fits within this framework, in embracing the principles of entrepreneurship.