It’s the End of the University As We Know It (and I feel fine)" was presented as an "Ignite" session at the 9th Annual NJEDge.Net conference (November 2012, New Jersey). It comes out of my ideas about how the next ten years will transform universities in ways that will be frightening for anyone hoping to hold onto the university model that has existed for almost 900 years. It is very likely that, powered by technology, movements such as open educational resources, MOOCs, big data, non-degree programs and alternatives to a traditional university degree will lead to the end of University 1.0. What will be the tipping point that brings about not only University 2.0 but also a broader School 2.0?

2. It’s the End of the University As We Know It
(and I feel fine – but you might be scared)
1. Who Sets Curriculum
2. Big Data
3. Traditional Degrees
4. MOOCs
5. Funding
6. Open Everything

3. Who Sets the Curriculum

4. Cognitive theory will make learning analytics
systems more relevant and effective.
Students and instructors both benefit from
access to better information about the state of
learning.
Analytics is here is to stay. Higher education
cannot ignore it.
“Big Data is any data we don’t understand well enough to
computerize.” (George Strawn)
Big Data is fine-grained information about
student experiences, university processes & emergent trends
such as student learning, enrollment, course success,
lifestyle and tech use that is generated
as students and staff conduct normal business.

5. Who is
Not necessarily
Always in classrooms
On(line) or on campuses
or for degrees
24/7
Learning

6. xMOOCs (Coursera, Edx)
Formal (traditional) course
M assive (maybe) structure and flow and relationship
O pen (sort of) between teacher/learner
O nline (yep) Formal, structured
teaching/content provision.
C ourse (sort of) Learners expected to duplicate or
master what they are taught
cMOOCs Changed relationship between teacher/learner
Distributed, chaotic, emergent.
Learners expected to create, grow, expand domain and share
personal sense-making through artifact-creation
Centralized discussion forum support
Distributed, often blog-based, learner-created forums and
spaces

7. What about the personal
computer, Internet, online
learning, and software and tools
(open & commercial) that let
students create & explore &
collaborate & share?

8. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)
• Just last FALL 2011 Two Stanford computer science
faculty members started Coursera to offer classes
with the help of universities
• APRIL 2012 four universities signed on: Princeton,
University of Michigan, Stanford and Penn State
• JULY 2012 12 more universities signed agreements
with Coursera to provide courses California Institute
of Technology, Duke University, Ecole Polytechnique
Federale de Lausanne, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, UC San Francisco,
University of Edinburgh, University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, University of Toronto, University of Virginia
and University of Washington…

9. CIO
Constituent
Group
Funding
Strategies

10. The end of
replaced by ?
certificates, badges, corporate endorsements,
“just” a desire to simply learn,
competency-based degrees

11. Competency-Based Degrees
Lumina and the Gates Foundation Northern Arizona University, is
held a meeting with about 35 developing three competency-based
institutions that either do bachelor's degree programs, with
competency now or want to try it. Pearson as a partner.
Southern New Hampshire College has proposed a competency-based
Associate degree program by seeking to directly assess students’
competencies rather than mapping them to credit hours. They have
secured approval from their regional accreditor, the New England
Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Institutions of
Higher Education.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/01/competency-based-education-may-get-boost

12. Goddard’s low-residency semester format
comprises an intensive 8-day residency on campus,
& 16 weeks of independent work and self-reflection
in close collaboration with a faculty advisor.
Goddard College invented the low-residency model
in 1963 to meet the needs of adult students
with professional, family, and other obligations seeking
learning experiences with relevance
in real-world circumstances.

13. “During the next fifteen years, the way
we educate our children, and how we
think of education itself, will change in
fundamental ways.” ~ Tim Brady, co-founder
of Imagine K12, an incubator for tech companies focused on the K-12
market.
Big Ideas for K-12 Schools include reconsidering some
current fundamental assumptions:
o giving students grades
o partitioning them according to age
o proving competency
o high schools, and maybe even middle schools, will begin
to operate less like factories and more like colleges
o the ubiquity of high-technology will blur the distinction
between being in and out of school
bigthink.com/ideafeed/the-tech-ed-revolution-no-more-grades-or-division-by-age

14. Open: source - software - textbooks - courses - learning
OPEN

15. If you are not paying for the service,
It’s free!
then
YOU are the service

16. Exaggerated warnings?
• The “death” of the novel,
theater, movies, broadcast
television, newspapers, print,
libraries, record/music sales,
CDs, DVDs, software,
computers
• Going paperless
• Tele-commuting
• Face-to-face education
theconversation.edu.au/the-university-campus-of-the-future-what-will-it-look-like-9769

17. Into the Future
Get
students Access:
through traditional
faster & college is
get them for an elite
ready to group
work (again)
Replace the first 2 Gaps
years of college
with an &
online/hybrid or Divides
high school Return
initiative or
Emerge

18. Can we put out the fire?
Should we put out the fire?

19. THE
IVORY
TOWER
Ken Ronkowitz
kenneth.ronkowitz@njit.edu