Universities have historically been centers of knowledge creation and dissemination through research and teaching. However, the information revolution presents new challenges for universities. Universities must decide whether to continue traditional approaches or adapt to changes like virtual and borderless education. While new approaches may increase access, they also risk losing cultural diversity and treating knowledge as a commodity. As universities navigate these changes, their role should be to provide ethical and thoughtful solutions to ensure equal access to knowledge for all.

1. IAU Durban Conference, August 20-25, 2000
11th General Conference: Universities as Gateway to the Future
Plenary Panel II
Adnan Badran
President, Philadelphia University, Jordan
Introduction
The University really has always been the centre of knowledge in terms of creation of knowledge
through research and also through teaching, by disseminating knowledge through teaching and even
disseminating knowledge and applying this knowledge in some universities through out-reach and
access.
Even when we go back in history, although I do not want to go far in history, because of the limitation
of time, we find that universities, when they were created, as theological universities, were knowledge
creators. They disseminated theology through teaching and training. Then, with the revolutions we
had, the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, this brings me to the third wave, the
information revolution.
To the first two revolutions, universities reacted. Some were rigid. They did not react to the industrial
and agricultural revolutions. Some were flexible. They did react with what I call community
relevance; society relevance, industrial relevance, market economy relevance. They changed. But,
because many did not change, new universities were created to make the change. So, new venues of
higher learning were created. I think, if we go back in history to 1865, the Morell Act, which created
the North American
Land Grant Colleges and universities, boosted agriculture and agricultural engineering. They did
wonderfully according to those who know the history of agriculture in the state universities. If we turn
to the UK, thirty polytechnics were created, because the traditional university did not react quickly
enough, to the market economy.
The Third Wave
Many science and technological universities were created throughout the world for this reason. This
brings me to the Third Wave, the Knowledge Society. It is different from any wave we have
experienced. It is brain intensive. Human capital is the main and most important element. It is not
dependent on natural resources. It is not dependent on capital resources. It is dependent on educational
resources. Brain intensive, and at a high intellectual level, this is really what brings us to the
information revolution and to information technology.
There is no doubt that we are moving into a world of brain intensive technology. Whether we talk
about IT or whether we talk about BT, biotechnology and genetic engineering, this really opens a way
for the universities to think whether we go traditional, business as usual, or whether we mix the old
with the new or whether we create a new virtual university, borderless universities (sans frontièrse).
We reach out to include everybody, the global. One language, interactive learning, and genuine
distance education, will be the most important theme of those universities. Obviously, we have to
think deeply, particularly at our Conference, how really to cope with this change. I think we should
learn from history. If we do not cope with change, probably we will be marginalized. If we cope with
these changes quickly and without really taking note of traditional values, ethics and the preparation
for individual good citizenship, for democracy, human rights and freedom of expression, if we don't
take those values and use others, which could be taught through the screen, then we are dumping too
many of the values in our university system.
I think we have to follow yesterday's Speakers, who mentioned that the 21st Century would be a
century of spiritual capital. On the campus, Ethics will be the most important thing we have to arm our
students with.
The Challenges
This brings me to the challenges we face. Obviously, universities have to deal with life-long
education, distance education, with no age limitation and no time limitation. This has been really
mentioned yesterday by Professor Dhanajan. It involves the virtual library, online education,

2. interactive learning and the electronic library and mass education, which could be carried through
virtual university education. The certificates, the degrees and the assessment, have to really change.
Here students are measured on their outputs and on their fitness with the driven economy, for the
market economy, as human resources. Globalization brings a very competitive edge on human
resources. Hence, the outputs of the university will be for global needs, rather than being completely
oriented to community and local needs. Here again is a challenge: how to make a mix where graduates
could be oriented to a knowledge-based society locally and also could be marketable as a human
resources' capital, as a human capital to enter the global world of the multinational?
Delivery of Services and Loss of Diversity
The delivery obviously and the act of the delivery probably would be the same or probably would
involve different actors. The patterns of learning, pedagogy, curriculum, rules and regulations, which
prevail now in the universities' system, tenure, all this we have to rethink. In addition, we have to re-
think the cost of education, through online education. This we must do because we are addressing the
masses and we are addressing courses of different venues and different dimensions: a course of three
weeks, a course of three months, a course of three years, whether graduate or undergraduate. The
whole concept of training and education, and we have to face it is a challenge. We have to act
accordingly. Obviously, there are advantages in this. But if we talk about virtual education and online
education, do we lose diversity? Do we lose human identity? Do we lose diversity of cultures, because
again we are entering into a screen where online education does not recognize borders? Do we get into
a single language? Language is a mirror image of peoples' identity and the culture. Do we lose this
diversity once again, which is very rich and has been built over many years of cultural evolution?
Furthermore, there are problems where the university has to serve God, which should not be oriented
towards a market-driven economy where knowledge become contractual, secret, patented in its
application and sold in its innovative technologies. Universities always were free. Free in
disseminating knowledge and free in getting that knowledge. Is the free right over for developing
countries to have access to knowledge as we used once to have? Or will we have to pay for this
knowledge which is being contracted to multinationals, where knowledge becomes secret and
unavailable to the citizens of the world.
Again this is a challenge. There are so many challenges when we talk about globalization and no less
so we when we talk about online education and virtual universities. I think, this is where the role of the
university has to provide answers to such questions.