We urgently need a university 2.0

(New Technologies and Educational innovation in our universities )

14 th Toulon - Verona Conference . Annual International Meeting. A think-tank on

Excellence in Services)

Andrés Pedreño Muñoz

Instituto de Economía Internacional

Universidad de Alicante

Introduction

I want to share with you all a relief staff on how to see the university at this

time. It is my humble view. It is not intended nothing more. I will mention

a well-known topics. Some years ago, when I used to talk about this kind of

issues I believed that I was very original. However, today I am just one of

many voices that defend that universities must change very quickly and

with the utmost ambition. Let me, however, join my voice to this type of

revindication.

XXI century society has new demands, new needs, new aspirations,

everything is renewed, everything changes quickly.

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Our universities do not seem to be as sensitive to change ...We have a 1.0

university. In contrast, we have a 2.0 society that is feeling comfortable

with a new digital identity, with new tools to define a new social

framework, new ways of doing business, interpreting information,

communicating, requiring governments... ...

Our students get to university with very powerful tools. They are very

familiarized with them. They use this ICT tools for pictures, movies, music,

to meet friends, to have fun, But they don’t understand why in our

universities do not use these kind of tools for theirs studies.

Teachers, professors, talk about knowledge, but they use very rudimentary

tools to manage it, learn it and transmit it. Even when we share and debate

our scientifical resources, our tools are less advanced than those that

students use in their everyday life.

Many companies and professionals have also been very efficient in taking

advantage of these kind of tools.

The society as a whole is learning to organize itself in a political way. We

have a lot of representative and very well-known international examples:

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● The oppressed citizens in the arab world take advantage of Internet

in order to defeat tyrants and injustices. They use information not

only to organize demonstrations, but even to design a real revolution.

● The recent developments in Spain -known as 15M- is another very

well-known fact, reported worldwide.

● Even, as you all know, the current president of the most powerful

country in the world, Barack Obama won the presidential elections

thanks to an intelligent and very active presence in social networks.

● Meanwhile thousands of people, even anonymously, write in one of

the most complete, updated and useful encyclopaedia, you all know,

Wikipedia, free access, collaborative world, without payments,

without scientific authority…

● Nowadays in Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Youtube… you can find

more professional, or leisure information than all general and

conventional media. More than seven hundred million people

participate in this social phenomenon.

● In Internet, people working in Wikipedia, Youtube, etcetera, defend

a way of distributing intellectual property “Creative Commons”, that

is more rational and better adapted to the features of the new ICT

tools.

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● People share ideas, open minds and knowledge. The phenomenon of

open source and its spectacular results must make us question old

research methods and our limited productivity.

Meanwhile …

● We persist in the old economy generated because of the paper, or

Guttenberg era. Our concept of intellectual property is not adapted to

the digital era. In the battle between Google and publishers,

universities didn´t support enough the initiative of digitalization of

intellectual heritage. Why was that? For me, it is difficult to find a

satisfactory answer.

● We still distribute and report our research with “smoke signals”. We

have not adapted our resources to the new tools.

● Our teaching activity is far from using tools that help it to renew

itself; our teaching methods use these new tools in order to change

ways but not substance.

● The collaborative work in our universities is far from achieving the

ambitious challenges that online society has met with wikipedia. We

have yet to accomplish in a satisfactory way the challenge of sharing,

and doing a interdisciplinary and internationally work in order to

achieve satisfactory goals. Sometimes our networks seem more like

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a group of interest or lobby in order to increase influence or

European funds.

● We communicate our ideas and contributions on paper …even if we

don’t have too much to say, we use thousands of characters. But

why? Especially when we find it almost impossible to summarise

the main idea in a simple abstract… Whereas young people use only

140 characters and, at least they don’t lose time any more.

● We patent thousand of ideas with the only objective of making it

more difficult for our competitors. Google buys Motorola because

this company has thousands of patents that help Google to defend its

positions and achievements in software, with respect to Apple..

● It is time to ask whether we are complicit in maintaining an obsolete

concept just to protect intellectual property. But we don’t even

debate it, even at the risk of delaying progress.

In general, there seems to be more debate and exchange of ideas in the

streets, in social networks than in our classrooms, libraries or seminars.

The role of universities in the information society

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Perhaps universities must aspire to adopting a new role in modern day

society.

The information society has changed peoples ideas and habits, and is

changing the very rhythm of change.

The current economic crisis is changing many things ... and has exposed

inconsistencies and injustices that a more collaborative society, conscious,

is still not willing to allow.

The information society is rapidly changing individuals and their social

environment. Their virtualization enables enrichment ...

It cannot be understood that universities are not leading knowledge society

in all its forms ...

Perhaps this question is still interesting ... what do universities need to

become a fundamental piece of the knowledge society?

I. Where to begin? The university 2.0 model

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To address this question I think we should describe the university model

minimally desirable and even required, socially speaking.

I would like to make clear that the University 2.0 is not an option for our

universities, but it is actually something more important. It may sound

exaggerated, but the university 2.0 is a key resource for our survival.

The construction of the European Higher Education Area (Bologna

Process) was a missed opportunity to address the fundamental changes that

our institutions needed.

Universities with resistance to change

First of all I think we should be self-critical in order to progress. Many

observers have the feeling that the universities are reluctant to major

structural changes. Society often talks about university endogamy or even

generational crisis. I think our university structures make any change

difficult and complex. Perhaps because we have established a model of

conservative University not sufficiently sensitive to innovative practices

and changes in general. This is what we should probably change urgent and

priority.

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We live in times of great convulsions induced by the exhaustion of a

historical pattern of economic growth and the introduction of new ways to

compete, work, progress, in short, to live. In this economic and social

framework, new technologies, information technologies are shaking up

social skills and promoting a gap between a new economy (linked to

knowledge) as opposed to an 'old economy', linked to not only traditional

industries but also work and life shapes and styles that are increasingly

outdated.

To all this must be added the requirements of competitiveness associated

with globalization and the new rules set by the knowledge society. All this

calls for increasingly more urgently, a new model of university.

I'll try to summarize it in four very simple features:

● A global and internationalized university. Our companies, our work

and welfare depend on us accepting the demands resulting from

internationalization and economic globalization. If universities do

not think globally and take on the demands of competition arising

from it, they are not fulfilling their social mission. Globalization has

increased innovative pressure, change and the ability to create and

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grow. It is essential to build networks and become integrated into the

wider circles. ... We have mentioned the need for competitiveness

and this leads to the next point.

● A university radically different in terms of quality and

competitiveness. If companies are required to be competitive to

survive... what about our universities? Should they accept the

challenge of being competitive?.This issue has reopened discussions

as interesting as the measurement of the quality and competitiveness.

In this regard, we can not admit endogenous indicator and settle into

complacency. Maybe we should use indicators such as, for example,

our capacity to export high technology goods. Such indicators reveal

a great technological weakness for a country like Spain. And

universities must be aware that we are indispensable to achieving

economic competitiveness.

● Universities must take radical initiatives to increase our

competitiveness in teaching and research. We must be more

ambitious in our goals and reforms. For example, should two or

more universities be able to merge in a country like Spain ?.

Businesses do this when seeking new advantages and strengths, new

niches .. Why not universities? In Finland, for example, there has

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been a smart move on the matter. Universities have to lose the

aversion to change to be competitive. And these changes may be

encouraged by public authorities.

● An open university, committed to the goal of combating cloused

compartments . Closed models are stagnant, outdated and lacking

competitiveness.This is what happens to the old economy sectors and

many of its businesses. I would argue that if universities do not open

up without restrictions, we run the risk of ending up belonging to the

"old economy": low innovation capacity, weak demand... And some

of these indicators we're already receiving today.

● A socially committed university that leads the knowledge society,

innovation and development of new technologies. It would be

paradoxical if in the context of the knowledge society, universities

did not assume ownership and leadership they deserve. All

economists agree that the knowledge economy is the main source of

competitiveness of enterprises (especially in advanced economies).

Universities must take advantage of this great opportunity which

makes us leaders of the future.

In short, our countries need quality universities,competitive and

internationalized universities , also open, innovative and able to assume

leadership in the knowledge society.

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With these ideas in mind, if we persue these goals, talking about university

1.0 and university 2.0 makes a lot of sense.

Ideas for a University 2.0

Create and encourage in our universities an open mind to change. Perhaps

this is the most important thing. And without this, none of what I say will

make sense.

Innovation, entrepreneurship, professional networks, human capital of the

century. That does not make much sense if universities do not realize they

have to be part of an ecosystem of innovation. The most known and studied

innovation ecosystem in the world is the Silicon Valley. Here the reference

companies are Apple, Google, and social networks with next IPO. There is

talk already of the Semantic Web 3.0. ICT are studied and developed but

keeping an eye on nanotechnology ....Google digitalizes 13 million books

in the Library at Stanford. And MIT, on the east coast, responds with a

global project: OCW. All MIT professors put their educational resources in

an open internet and invite the rest of the world to do the same.

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If our universities want to get somewhere they can not look back. The

changes are so fast that even if we look ahead and react positively, we may

find ourselves a few steps behind.

And the question is: Are our universities a part of an ecosystem of

innovation?. Many countries in Asia (India -Bangalore- or China) struggle

to reproduce their innovation ecosystem. The results are evident: India is a

global software power. The weight of the hi-tech Chinese exports in total

exports is double that of Spain.

Let's start with the ideas ... And I will be more practical and less theoretical

than four years ago when I talked about these issues.

1. Assuming a digital culture.

In my opinion, it would be important for universities to lead processes of

innovation and social change and not to be placed at the end of the queue.

In other words: it would be interesting that the universities were good

references, useful case studies for society.

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The seed of Google was commissioned by Stanford University. The

University asked two of its students for search engine for its library.

Facebook began as a social network for Harvard students and today its

headquarter is in Palo Alto. The company is valued at billions of dollars.

We all know very well these cases, their history, their protagonists .... But

we do not take steps to help similar initiatives in our universities.

Our students need to feel a sense of university 2.0 that understands and

exceeds their status of digital native, a university that takes advantage of

their digital skills ...

How to do this? I'm sure if the rectors of the universities ask their experts

will arise many projects and ideas really challenging and interesting.

Ideas to bring about changes?

How about an e-government? Perhaps we need to redefine the way in

which we participate and make decisions in our universities. Shaking our

centers, departments, faculties, ...of old bureaucracy. The challenge of

anticipating the changes and the influence of ICT in our democracies in our

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participatory processes ... Open our universities to the opinions of our

teachers, administrators and students.

How about a paperless green college? and easy access in any format or

device: comfortable, open, easy ... All information and all administrative

tasks online ...

How about re-engineering processes, making simple, convenient, easy,

rational and fast all the paperwork and administrative management in our

universities ...?

Crazy or risky ideas. Why not?

Only if universities dare to move towards the future will they become

references to our society.

2. The importance of being open.

An open society needs open universities. Open innovation, open teaching,

open research . Be open, this the message ..

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When MIT OCW was launched ... it gave us a sample of a revolutionary

example. First, educational innovation is global. For this reason the MIT

invited the rest of the world's universities to join their cause. Second, the

message was simple: a university that closes its teaching runs the risk of

becoming poor and isolated in a world changing at breakneck speed ....

Open teaching was the only way to maintain leadership.

In parallel, open innovation is the response of companies like IBM to these

processes of rapid change ... More and more companies point to this trend,

it is no longer a few isolated cases ... How can they close their research

universities when companies are opening up their innovation and research

activity?

If universities want to lead change they must embrace the methodology of

Open Innovation. The software world is te one making fastest progress.

Currently it is the one that contribute the most social benefits. Open source

drives one of the largest economic and social revolutions known to date.

Governments are sensitive to the pressures of certain economic interests in

regulating intellectual property in a way outdated. Universities must help to

change radically the concept of intellectual property. We have to adapt it to

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the digital age. We must exploit the potential of new tools. We must be

aware of the speed of change and the benefits of sharing knowledge, an

open knowledge. The benefits should not come from a narrow focus of

knowledge. We must apply imagination to find new solutions.

Today we can talk about even a show in the world of patents. A game

reserved for companies which serves to win legal battles. Rarely used to

economically exploit the ideas and knowledge reflected in inventions. Its

legal and regulatory base game allows specialists to take up positions in

strategic sectors, and does nothing to protect hypothetically talent or

productive effort in R & D. Significantly, Google's largest investment has

been motivated by these issues ...

3. The need to build virtual university networks.

Professional networking is one of the key factors of innovation ecosystems.

Let me mention nanotechnology, a sector of maximum future, as we all

know. A map of nanotechnology research in the world today would give us

a complex result: China, India, Israel, South Korea ...Of course, besides the

United States, Germany, France or the UK ... Can a university afford to

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have researchers in a highly competitive field who are not integrated into

information networks, track work, knowledge sharing?

To be outside the social research network is to risk being stagnant,

regardless of the processes of innovation and state of the art progress. ... In

the world of ICT these processes are critical. Tools such as twitter,

facebook, linkedin, not designed primarily for professional use are

perfectly adapted to these purposes , but universities could improve them.

However we are not leading this process of innovation. Universities are not

producing sufficient responses, innovations with respect to the private

sector.

4. Communication and methods of working with digital natives, our

students.

This is a problem that worries me. The tools used by digital natives, our

students, encourages an advanced method of communication. These tools

change the way a profession is carried out: they enable quicker ways to

make decisions contrast ideas, knowledge etc.... All this quickly and

immediately ...

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In my opinion we should avoid a digital divide between teachers, digital

immigrants, and students.

Our virtual campus is closed, not very innovative and in general is less

efficient than the tools used by students in the free time....

These are just a few examples of how universities can be much more

proactive.

Perhaps my contribution may seen quite self-critical but I speak in the hope

that my university college and I will be capable of reacting and taking

controll of the information and knowledge society which really should be

our proper role.

Thank you

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