European-American University™

The advent of the World Wide Web has caused fundamental change to affect the way in which information is disseminated worldwide. In this paper, we shall look at the way in which this change has brought about a redefinition of the role and nature of the university, such that we may expect a seismic shift in educational provision and its take-up in the medium-term future.

Historically, dissemination of information within higher education has depended on bringing scholars and learners together in a single location, where a variety of learning techniques can be employed (such as tutorials, supervisions, research seminars etc.) The expansion of numbers within the university has caused the lecture to be increasingly employed as a keynote of academic practise, but whilst cost-effective, the mass nature of the lecture is often considered to be an inefficient means of learning when compared to more personally-directed alternatives. Few would argue with the assertion that dissemination of information is at its most effective when directed one-to-one or in small groups, for this enables levels of understanding to be easily ascertained and intellectual debate to take place. The Oxbridge tutorial model of individual or small group mentoring is rightly held up as a supremely effective means of university teaching, and given that in itself it represents a direct continuation of the learning techniques bequeathed to us by classical antiquity, it may fairly be regarded as tried and tested. As a result, we would suggest that teaching in subjects that are not substantially practical in nature (such as the clinical stages of medicine, or fine art) could take the tutorial system, coupled with small-group seminars, as a worthy learning paradigm from undergraduate study up to the doctoral level.

The coming of the Internet poses us with an interesting set of circumstances. One function of a university is to provide an environment in which ideas are shared and scholars brought together in productive interaction. We can see immediately that the World Wide Web has as one of its chief benefits the ability to bring about the virtual meeting of scholars from many different countries and backgrounds and to encourage their collaboration. Software now exists to enable virtually any kind of document, image, sound or video file to be shared directly with anyone who has an email account, or for it to be placed on a website; chatroom and bulletin board software enables real-time debate and academic interaction, often (because of its written nature and capacity for archiving as a reference source) of a much greater use than mere verbal communication. Because the participants in such dialog are judged simply on their opinions in writing, rather than necessarily from personal knowledge or any other aspect of their presentation, the use of the Web for academic interchange is a much greater spur towards equality of opportunity and concentration on the message being conveyed. The ability to draw upon sources for the support of an argument by the simple means of hyperlinking puts the power of an ever-growing academic library a click of a mouse away, rather than being lost in a maze of footnotes.

The proven need for the personalisation of educational experience at university level finds a natural home in electronic communication. Not merely can communication be personalised, but the very educational experience itself becomes increasingly one without boundaries. It is perfectly possible to encounter the products of academic scholarship in a conventional library, but few scholars nowadays choose to live cut off from electronic communication, and thus they themselves can, if they wish, participate in a global continuum of intellectual investigation in which print media are increasingly becoming a less effective means of disseminating ideas than placing them on the Web. To publish an academic work in print is to see it reach thousands at best (unless it achieves widespread popularity), whilst the Web has a reach of tens or hundreds of thousands, many of whom will offer immediate feedback and comment via their particular channels. If the aim is to further scholarship, rather than to make money for the author and publisher, web publication is surely the natural choice, not least because its costs are minimal, thus placing such a means within the reach of most if not all. Nothing in the print medium cannot be conveyed electronically, and indeed the electronic medium can enhance a printed message by use of video, animation and other techniques. Indeed, the author may well, through blogging or participating in forum discussion, choose to participate in the ongoing evolution of academic ideals through progressive reflection or debate with a far wider circle of individuals than would ever be encountered at a conference.

Teaching online means that, in an economic, time-efficient and resources-efficient manner, the benefits of the tutorial system can be realised. The skills required of faculty are more than merely operating software and marking work; there is a need to comprehend the needs of the environment of distance learning and to respond to it with understanding. It is here that the experience of faculty who have themselves studied via distance learning and who are aware of its challenges is valuable.

Examination by electronic means is sometimes said to pose difficulties because of the risk of collusion or unfair practices. This problem can be solved by requiring an online examination to take place at a proctored workstation in a specialised testing center. However, given that many mainstream institutions now advocate open-book unproctored examinations and examine knowledge principally through coursework and the completion of supervised projects, it is inevitably worth asking how pertinent testing memorisation rather than the application of knowledge actually is. Examining orally via videoconference (as can easily be achieved with something as simple as a messaging program and a webcam) will also be of help in verifying the knowledge of candidates.

It is evident that a course of higher education not requiring intensive practical activity can be delivered wholly through electronic means, and indeed there are many such degree courses available at the time of writing in a vast range of disciplines and from institutions of all types. The assessment function of the university through AP(E)L means that practical work such as art or music that is capable of being presented in a finite form may be presented for examination through video or audio recording. The only area in which electronic means fall short is in the teaching of practical skill; for example, one can learn a good deal about becoming a physician through watching videotapes and learning medical theory, but practical study under the guidance of skilled mentors is essential to develop medical practise to a professional standard. However, there are medical schools, principally in the Caribbean, that operate via distance learning in which the theory is taught intensively en bloc online, and then a practicum period follows in an approved hospital elsewhere, leading in due course to licensing as a physician in the USA or the UK. Elsewhere, for example in applied arts, it would be quite possible for the student to choose an appropriate university-approved mentor in his/her area to study under, then submitting their work and mentor's reports for assessment by the university in due course when a given stage in the learning contract had been reached and could be signed off for credit.

The move to online learning changes the nature of what a university is quite fundamentally from its commonly-encountered manifestation; although in the true sense that we define a university as a meeting-place of scholars and students with both graduate and undergraduate provision, the essential nature of the concept has remained constant. However, one might ask what use is there now for the enormously costly dinosaur mechanism of buildings, equipment and people that constitutes the modern university when a large part of its role can be largely fulfilled through the more efficient means of e-learning? Not only this, e-learning, because of its lower costs and non-geographical specificity, reaches more people, costs less, has minimal environmental impact, does not require the uprooting of home and family, is available no matter what the age of the student and above all can be combined with a career and paced flexibly to suit the individual - in credit-based systems, studies can be banked once a credit unit is completed and then used later or even transferred to another institution. The student gets a good deal more personal attention in most distance learning programs, particularly in those that use an individual mentoring system, than they would at the back of a lecture hall listening to an academic whose skills in research may very well exceed their skills in public speaking.

It may be argued that the three or four years of undergraduate life form a valuable rite of passage for the young, but with increasing numbers of young people unable to afford the costs of university easily and combining their academic studies with increasing amounts of low-grade employment, one is tempted to ask what they are gaining through physical attendance at university rather than by choosing distance learning; apart from the social aspect of their life on campus (for those who can afford to live there), which should not be discounted, the answer is not a great deal. Indeed, the online delivery of a course is by its nature capable of being considerably more compressed than on-campus study; just as a few universities compress a three-year first degree into two years and a four-year degree into three (on-campus) through shortening the holidays and using an intensively-structured year, so through online learning study can similarly become more intensive and more efficient. The key is that things move at the student's pace and according to their ability, not according to the demands of large classes or the complex scheduling of a campus university. Not only this, the advent of e-learning means that those who are ready for university-level study below the normal age need not be held back for social reasons, nor will those who choose to work after leaving school be prevented from returning to learning later or indeed combining their degree course with their career.

In practise, there will always be some kind of role for the physical university. Distance learning, requiring determination, motivation and at times being an isolated activity, does not suit everyone any more than campus-based learning does, and there are some activities, such as laboratory-based research, that have no virtual substitute. There will also continue to be those who seek the cachet of a top-ranking university for its own sake and for its professional and academic value. In reality, the biggest market for distance learning will lie with those who cannot afford campus-based study to begin with, and with those who are seeking to combine study with the demands of career and/or family. It is mid-career adults who form distance learning's most hotly contested clientele.

But we do foresee that the role of the campus will diminish substantially in years to come. At present, the academic world at once senses the potential of the Web and the threat that it poses to the establishment. American university faculty are being made to put their courses online; they are then seeing redundancies amongst their ranks and the re-hiring of staff at reduced rates to teach the virtual courses. This process is described well by an American author whose views on these issues are diametrically opposed to ours, David F. Noble, whose series "Digital Diploma Mills" describes his opposition to the move to online learning and to the commercial focus that universities are now adopting (which we would say constitutes a major reality check for them).

It is no surprise that distance learning is viewed by many whose jobs depend on the academic establishment as the enemy; thus frequently attempts are made to denigrate degrees earned at a distance as the supposed inferior of their campus-based counterparts, even when their requirements are clearly directly comparable, and there is a clear offensive by the large and well-heeled campus-based schools against smaller specialist institutions, especially those that have escaped to some extent the shackles of state regulation, that threaten their control of the e-learning market. The truth is that, just like the Web itself, e-learning, being a global phenomenon, is seen as a threat because it is not capable of being controlled and subjected to the same political and academic restrictions as learning on the campus. British students, for example, do not only have the choice of British providers of learning, but those from Europe, with its long tradition of private higher education, the U.S.A. and even South Africa, India and countries beyond. The means to experience the educational culture of another continent without so much as leaving one's living-room is a truly astounding innovation.

But why should the new e-learning market only be open to those already providing campus-based learning? The phenomenon of the specialist e-university, existing without a campus and with only an office for its physical facilities, with the rest of its activities occurring entirely online, is already here. Jones International University is a good example of such an institution; it offers high-level instruction from a diverse and well-qualified faculty, as does Western Governors' University, also without a campus and specialising in experiential assessment. Smaller institutions exist in abundance, often focussing on a particular area, philosophy or learning style. It is self-evident that starting an e-university, particularly one offering a limited range of programmes, is a significantly less expensive and difficult undertaking than its physical counterpart, thus enabling a wide range of potential providers, including notably corporate e-learning programmes, to seek to take a share of what is an extremely large and lucrative market. The nature of distance learning means also that the university offices may be located according to the optimum financial and regulatory conditions for their establishment, rather than necessarily needing to be near their clients, and that the client base is not merely national but potentially global. It is even possible to use open-source software for course delivery, such as Moodle®. The University of Phoenix, started by history professor John Sperling, is a prime example of a privately-owned American e-university (now the world's largest) that delivers a deeply market-oriented product in a commercially astute and aggressive manner. In an article from Business 2.0, Paul Keegan writes,


More traditional state-sponsored institutions, being mostly wedded to the physical campus, are of necessity slower movers in adapting to the new market of distance education than University of Phoenix has proved to be, but some are already producing highly innovative responses to the situation. The extensive regulatory environment in which many state-sponsored universities operate means that it is more difficult for them to adapt to a client base that expects flexibility, personal focus, professional relevance and the assessment of experiential credit to be combined with academic rigor and efficient customer service. One answer, which we advocate, is the removal of much of the regulatory environment of higher education and the return of universities to their original status of self-governing and independent entities free from state control over their programs and competing in a free market.

The prospect of an educational utopia is now coming to be realised, whereby one can study almost anything one wishes at one's own time and pace, choosing between both state and private, established and new, traditional and progressive institutions. Thereby one may seek the university education that most closely harmonises with one's own ideals and beliefs. For years it has been the academic establishment that has been in control of university education; now it is the student. There is something out there for nearly everyone, and the scene is set for a population that is better-educated, more professionally-focused and free to explore its own intellectual curiosity to the full.