The excerpts below are from a multimedia presentation at McGill this week by the University of British Columbia's Dr. Anthony Bates, an expert on the use of technology in teaching. Bates warned that "the widespread introduction of technology-based teaching will require such fundamental changes to an institution that its use should not be embarked upon lightly." He outlined specific strategies for change, emphasizing that adopting technology may not lead to any significant cost savings. However, Bates said, the investment of time and effort is necessary "if universities are to meet the needs of students and society at large in the 21st century." PHOTO: OWEN EGAN

Restructuring the university for technological change

Technology infrastructure It is absolutely essential of course to have a strategy for developing the technology infrastructure of a university. Priorities must be set on both the level of investment and the areas of investment. Large research universities such as UBC may need to spend up to $20 million to develop the necessary campus technology infrastructure: high speed networks that will link every building, and within every building, every classroom and office. Many universities have old buildings without adequate conduits for wiring, or asbestos fillings within walls that need to be removed before modern cabling can be installed. Many faculty and staff will not have a computer or know how to use one. Servers will need to be installed within each department, and networked to other servers on campus. Internet connections with the outside world will need to be established, and ports and other communications facilities installed to enable students in residences or off-campus to access the main university campus, or other institutions to be linked. While such a technology infrastructure strategy is absolutely essential, unfortunately it is often the first -- and sometimes the only -- strategy adopted by universities: build it and they will come. However the technology infrastructure plan should be driven by, not lead, the university's overall vision and strategy for its teaching. People infrastructure Just as important as the physical infrastructure are the people required to make the physical infrastructure work. There are in fact three levels of support required to fully exploit technology. The most obvious is the technical support, the people who make the networks operate and service the computers and telecommunications. At the second level are media production and services, those who produce educational products or supply educational technology service, such as interface designers, graphics designers, video-conferencing managers, or graduate students who do HTML mark-up. At the third level are those who provide educational services, such as instructional design, faculty development, project management and evaluation. The major part of physical infrastructure, such as networks and major equipment purchases, is usually funded from capital budgets, and as such is less likely to compete for funds that impact directly on teaching. The cost of the human support does compete directly with funds for teaching and research. Furthermore the human cost of infrastructure support has to be found each year, whereas physical infrastructure is often seen as a once-only investment, although rapid advances in technology and hence the need continually to replace or update networks and equipment make this a dangerous assumption. As a consequence, the human support side is often underfunded. Probably the most consistent complaint from those responsible for technology applications is the inadequacy of resources for technical support. Even so, the further down the chain, from technological support to educational support, the more difficult it becomes to secure adequate resources. If the network crashed, its impact is obvious; the value of an instructional designer is much harder to sell when funds are tight. Nevertheless from a teaching and learning perspective, it is critical that faculty receive the training and educational support needed. Faculty training Teaching with technology is not something that can easily be picked up along the way, as something to be done off the side of the desk while engaged in more important or time consuming activities such as research. The most common form of training given to faculty is to show them how to use the technology. This though is starting at the wrong place. Many faculty need to understand why it is important to use technology for teaching in the first place. It has to be related to the changing environment in which universities find themselves, and in particular to the changing needs of learners. Secondly, some basic understanding of the teaching and learning process, and in particular the different kinds of teaching approaches, and the goals they are meant to achieve, need to be understood. Thirdly, faculty need to understand the different roles that technology can play in teaching, and how this alters the way that teaching needs to be organized. Only then does it make much sense to train faculty in how to use a particular piece of technology. While this sequence may be logical, it is unlikely to be the most effective way to help faculty develop skills in using technology; "show and tell' and hands-on experience are most likely to lead to this full range of understanding. Nevertheless, all four aspects need to be deliberately targeted in faculty development. University teaching is probably the last craft- or guild-based profession. However, the changing nature and variety of learners, the growing complexity and volume of knowledge, and the impact of technology on teaching now really require that university teachers should have formal training and qualifications in instructional methods. This should eventually become a condition for tenure. Even more fundamental than faculty training is the need to change the reward system for faculty. While many universities have statements that equate teaching with research for tenure and promotion, the reality in most research universities is quite different -- the only criterion that really matters is research. Thus there is no point in pouring millions of dollars into infrastructure and computers and multimedia unless the faculty reward system is changed. Teaching ability must become in practice at least equal to research for promotion and tenure. The good news though is that technology-based teaching is usually more public, more observable, and hence more easily evaluated than classroom methods. Furthermore, multimedia technologies provide an excellent means to convert research knowledge directly into teaching and into promotional material for the research itself. Another way to reward faculty is to ensure that revenues generated by the use of technology by a department flow back into that department, and do not get swallowed by the central bureaucracy. Innovative mechanisms need to be developed for faculty (and other creative staff) to share in rights and royalties from the development of generic educational software and learning materials. Lastly the very sensitive issue of faculty agreements needs to be addressed. There are short-term advantages in leaving things loose, but technological innovation will become unsustainable as faculty become more experienced, suffer from increased workloads and find that they are still unrewarded. Dr. Bates was Professor of Educational Media at Britain's Open University, where he worked for 20 years as a founding member of staff. He next served as Executive Director, Strategic Planning, Research and Information Technology for British Columbia's Open Learning Agency from 1990 to 1995. Currently responsible for distance education programs and flexible delivery of courses at UBC, he has worked as a consultant on implementing technology in 30 countries.