THE ROLE AND RELEVANCE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
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THE ROLE AND RELEVANCE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
Exploring the opportunities and risks arising from MOOCs, big data and cyber security
in contemporary higher education
AUTHOR: BRAD DAVIES, DIRECTOR DANDOLOPARTNERS INTERNATIONAL, FEBRUARY 2014Contents Foreword
Foreword ........................................................................................................................................................................................01 A question often asked of higher education leaders is “will universities still be here in 50 years?” The answer, to the best of our collective
knowledge, is that they will be here although they will take fundamentally different forms. Given the rate of change that is occurring, it is
conceivable that universities will change more in the coming 50 years than they have in the previous 100, or even 200 years.
Summary .......................................................................................................................................................................................02
The new global knowledge economy – one powered by information and communication technology (ICT) – is by no means restricted
01 The Conversation and Conclusions Arising ...............................................................................................................05 to universities. One understated aspect of the Internet’s impact has been the erosion of universities’ effective monopoly on knowledge
creation and curation. Contemporary sources of knowledge are broader and more open today than ever before. No longer is the
1.1 Why the digital economy demands a conversation among university leaders ..............................................................05 academic approach — based on reflection, lengthy research, peer-reviewed publication in learned journals or scholarly monographs
— the dominant mode of knowledge creation (let alone dissemination). Corporations and professional service firms, along with
1.2 Major Conclusions from the Conversation ..................................................................................................................07 insightful individuals with access to knowledge, can and do produce challenging and high quality research. The power of universities
as creators of knowledge remains formidable, but new sources of data and wisdom will need to permeate the university discourse if
02 MOOCs 2.0: from broadcast to multi-cast ................................................................................................................11 universities are to remain relevant.
2.1 Observations About First Generation MOOCs and Lessons Learned .............................................................................11 The dispersed generation and curation of knowledge has potentially adverse consequences. The web contains millions of factually
untrue or distorted sources of ‘information’, often appearing in the form of unsynthesised and uncontextualised ‘junk’, or even more
2.2 Opportunities presented by MOOCs ...........................................................................................................................12 disturbingly masquerading as authoritative. The university will continue to have a role in providing context, validation and meaning
to knowledge but it will not have this role exclusively. The discussions at San Jose State University (SJSU) around cyber-security,
big data, MOOCs and the Internet of Everything were excellent examples of productive sharing between universities and a corporation
03 The art of cyber-security: creating an ‘inside out’ defence ..................................................................................15 with relevant expertise. An important reason for universities and corporations like Cisco to engage in deep and open conversation is
to enable a sense of authority to begin to emerge from the myriad facts (and fictions), particularly in areas that have significant public
3.1 Moving from Perimeter to Cellular Based Defence ......................................................................................................16
policy implications.
3.2 Challenges and costs associated with cyber-security .................................................................................................17
Our reasons for being involved in the inaugural Presidents’ Conversation were as varied as the institutions we represent, but can be
traced back to a single factor. We recognise that university leaders who can understand the major trends that are occurring - and who
3.3 Opportunities ............................................................................................................................................................17
can effectively convey that understanding to their own communities – will help position our institutions for necessary transformation.
By collaborating effectively and openly we will adapt as institutions, supply better education offerings in new, more flexible ways and
04 Data as the ‘new oil’ ......................................................................................................................................................18 achieve better research outcomes. The Presidents’ Conversation, appropriately, had a global membership. It reflects the fact that the
digital economy is increasingly borderless and sources of knowledge are broadening.
4.1 The role of data in big decisions ................................................................................................................................18
The inaugural Presidents’ Conversation signals the start of a collaborative dialogue that will help to ensure that higher education
4.2 Big data is being applied to the broad range of university functions ............................................................................18
institutions generally – and the universities we represent specifically – are better prepared for the challenges ahead.
4.3 Revenue opportunities for universities around big data ...............................................................................................19
05 Building a resilient university .......................................................................................................................................20
5.1 Resilience involves bouncing forward not just bouncing back.....................................................................................20
06 Moving from conversation to action ...........................................................................................................................23
6.1 Burning platform .......................................................................................................................................................23
6.2 Taking the conversation forward .................................................................................................................................24 MOHAMMAD QAYOUMI, PRESIDENT SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY MICHAEL BARBER, VICE CHANCELLOR FLINDERS UNIVERSITY
01Summary
Universities play a significant role in shaping economies and societies. They create and disseminate knowledge, develop human capital Identifying a number of practical opportunities, through joint projects and other collaboration, that could be pursued
and increasingly commercialize intellectual property. The business models, pedagogies and infrastructure that have underpinned these to create a joint response.
functions have been remarkably consistent over time. But there is a sense that these are changing. The higher education sector is
undergoing immense change, and incremental improvement may not be a sufficient response. The emergence of Massive Open Online This report is a record of those discussions, with a Foreword by President Qayoumi and Flinders University Vice Chancellor Professor
Courses (MOOCs) – and their potential to disintermediate content – and a range of other factors are causing universities in the United Michael Barber who were significant contributors to the agenda for Conversation. It also provides the basis for planning the next phase
States, United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere to ask fundamental questions, including: in the conversations, starting with meetings in Australia in February 2014.
How do universities survive, thrive and prosper in the digital economy? The nature of the Conversation
Technology pervades every aspect of higher education, from teaching and learning, to administration and research. Three technology
How does a university differentiate itself, if it is not through content?
domains were selected for deeper analysis as part of the inaugural meeting.
Where will future demand come from when being proximate to local demand may no longer be a sufficient advantage? The first major discussion item was MOOCs, in part because its long-term impact on universities is potentially profound and in part
because SJSU – the host of the Conversation – is recognised as a pioneer in this area. While some argue that MOOCs’ impact will
remain limited without a viable underpinning business model, others are less sure. All agree, however, that the immediate impact and
What business models will drive new funds when traditional revenue sources dry up?
the longer-term potential threat of MOOCs have caused universities to fundamentally re-evaluate their student and campus experience
and pedagogy.
Technology is a cause of, and an inescapable part of the response to some major challenges being faced by the higher education
sector. There is a growing recognition that to remain relevant in contemporary economies and societies universities will need to fully The second major discussion item was cyber security, which is perhaps less obvious as a major strategic business issue but
embrace technology in all aspects of their operations: in administration, teaching / learning and research. The power of technology is equally critical. Security has historically been dealt with as an operational information technology issue. Cyber-security has not
also having an impact beyond universities’ physical boundaries, enabling them to engage more regularly, broadly and meaningfully with necessarily had visibility with university Vice Chancellors and Presidents, in part because it was treated as a compliance and risk
the communities they serve. The power of technology to facilitate more productive partnerships with industry, in particular, will not only management exercise. Given universities’ current and growing reliance on information and communication technology (ICT), and
assist universities in their quest for ongoing relevance but also help to generate new sources of competitive advantage and revenue. therefore what’s at stake if mission critical applications and systems fail, including intellectual property, the institutions attending the
Conversation insisted on its inclusion.
Some university leaders have recognised the risks and opportunities presented by the changing landscape, and are taking on the role
of change agents in their own institutions. A group of university leaders from Australia, the US and the UK met in an initial “Presidents’ The third major discussion item – big data – is recognised as potentially transformative but poorly understood. Universities, perhaps
Conversation” to share ideas, experiences and ambitions about the best way for their institutions, and the higher education sector more more than other institutions, trade on the collection, analysis and dissemination of data. The evolution of technology has created
generally, to respond to these unsettling but exciting questions. The initial meeting, hosted by SJSU President Mohammed Qayoumi fundamental change in the way data is captured, analysed and disseminated. The application of big data is as broad as it is exciting,
with the support of Cisco, had three objectives: with implications for teaching and learning (learning analytics), performance monitoring (business analytics) and research (everything
from genome sequencing to analysis of unexpected correlations to inform the world’s ‘wicked’ policy decisions).
Providing Presidents/Vice Chancellors with an opportunity to discuss/debate issues with likeminded peers. The discussion topics were also selected on the basis that all of them offered both opportunities and risks for universities. Figure 1
depicts the contrasting dimensions of these issues through the eyes of a contemporary institution.
Distilling the major challenges: current and emerging.
02 03Opportunity?
Growing the total market
Improved educational outcomes
Capacity for real time MOOCs
Risk?
Substituting speed for quality
Erodes price of education
Creates a substitute for university provision
01 The Conversation and Conclusions Arising
experiments Disruption from ‘unbundling’ of university functions
Democratising learning Added complexity for staff & faculty to manage
1.1 Why the digital economy demands a conversation among university leaders
New models of teaching and
learning
The assumptions, values, and practices of higher education around the world are all being tested by the rise of the digital economy.
Every dimension of the work and life of a university is being disrupted, including teaching, learning, student experience, administration
Data driven decision-making More data, no capacity to turn into information and operations, and relationships with industry, government and the not-for-profit sector. This disruption is also taking place within
Big data as a service Privacy and data integrity
and across the societies that universities serve, driven by the extent and pace of change in technology platforms and tools and the
Training data scientists Big Data Culture shift from intuitive to data driven decisions
Lifting data/analytics workforce Disconnect between available data and strategic
associated cultural changes they drive.
capabilities decisions
Challenges skills, attitudes, confidence of staff Broadly, higher education institutions that have traditionally been relatively closed, elite, and distant are being challenged to become
and faculty
more open, collaborative, and engaging. They are also expected to demonstrate their value to a much more discerning cohort of
learners. As it is in pretty much every other sphere of social, economic, civic, and political life, this transition is proving to be difficult
New market for security Vulnerability to attacks and risks to critical research
specialists assets and demanding but full of potential for renewal and growth.
Research and innovation in cyber Cyber Security Threats to teaching and administration infrastructure
security products and services Challenges securing university stakeholders’
Cyber security as a service and personal data The Perfect Storm in Higher Education
consulting opportunity Potential disruption to administrative and student
services The impact of technology on traditional industry sectors such as retail, manufacturing and banking is widely reported and
acknowledged. But higher education, it could be argued, is even more profoundly impacted given the nature of the service it provides,
Figure 1: Major opportunities and risks arising from the Conversation
the demography of its learner base and the myriad extraneous factors that are simultaneously touching universities. Examples of major
shifts occurring in higher education and society more generally include:
The implications of the Conversation
The gradual evaporation of traditional funding sources, particularly from government.
Exploiting the opportunities and minimising the risks presented by MOOCs, cyber-security and big data represent one cluster of rising
challenges to the future relevance and performance of universities. The Presidents’ Conversation focused on the need for universities to
The rise of the ‘millennial’ cohort which is characterised by early adoption of technology and consequently high
be resilient in the face of change, but not defensive. Truly resilient universities will not just bounce back from technology shocks – but expectations that the institutions with which they interact will harness the potential of technology to personalise and
bounce forward, using these potentially major disruptions to evolve stronger foundations for, and responses to, the demands of the enrich their services and engagement.
digital economy. Building a resilient university is a multi-dimensional exercise. It includes the creation of resilient cultures, commercial
models and flexible infrastructures.
Transformation of economies and the changing needs of the labour market, driven by global competitiveness and
companies’ desire to be agile.
Obviously three days of conversation were never going to solve these intractable problems, but they did allow the participants to share
their perspectives. To this end, the Conversation between global pioneers in higher education is just starting and is set to continue and
grow. SJSU and the other progressive universities represented at this first Presidents’ Conversation have clearly grasped the implication Globalisation of higher education beyond the traditional international student market focus.
of the demanding paradox. The discussions in San Jose proved to be both productive and practical. The question is how to keep the
discussions going, to grow them and to turn them increasingly not just into new stocks of shared knowledge but also into a growing Rapid urbanisation where the top 600 cities in the world are forecast to contain 25% of the global population, and
number of collaborative projects between the universities that take the ideas and insights and put them to work. generate 60% of GDP by 2025.1
1 McKinsey Global Institute, Urban World: Cities and the rise of the consuming class, June 2012, available at:
04 05These issues – combined with the impact of technology – are posing fundamental questions about the role that universities play in 1.2 Major Conclusions from the Conversation
contemporary society. For some, the very relevance of universities is under threat, driven by the perceived disconnect between the way
that institutions have traditionally operated and the world in which they now exist. The implications of that disconnect between institutions The Presidents’ Conversation was designed as a starting point, rather than an end in itself or as a one-off event. Three major
conclusions were drawn by participants and serve as a useful structure for the remainder of this document:
and the learners they serve are particularly stark, as observed in a recent global study in education to employment transitions.
“Employers, education providers and youths live in parallel universes.2” 1. The ‘unbundling’ of universities;
2. The rising premium for adaptive institutions; and
The need for a global conversation in higher education
3. The rapid emergence of the ‘connected’ university as an emerging business model for sustainable growth and
It is not unusual for the response to some of these big disruptions to be led initially by a relatively small group of pioneering and
rising performance.
progressive institutions. They tend to take an early lead in confronting the implications and opportunities of these kinds of big, shape-
shifting transitions. They may do this because they see the implications of these changes more clearly than others, or because these
The conclusions were based on the collective experience and insights from experts both inside and outside universities that contributed
changes may affect their own institutions more dramatically.
to the discussion in San Jose.
The premise for the inaugural Presidents’ Conversation was that like-minded, influential individuals could draw insight and support
from each other in helping to understand and respond to some of the shifts occurring in higher education. It was designed to harness
The ‘unbundling’ of universities
collective perspectives by providing a forum for sharing, collaborating, testing, and evolving ideas about the role and relevance of
Universities have traditionally offered a holistic education experience. To borrow a concept from the commercial sector, universities
universities in the digital economy, with three initial technology anchors:
have tended to offer a fully ‘bundled service’ where all aspects of the teaching and learning process have been designed and delivered
in-house. The rise of MOOCs, where the course content itself is being increasingly thought of as a discrete component, is forcing
1. Massive online open courses (MOOCs); universities to question whether a fully integrated approach is appropriate or sustainable. For example, it was suggested that many
aspects of teaching and learning are already being disintermediated in some jurisdictions, as depicted in Figure 2.
2. Cyber-security; and
3. Big data. Course Course Course
Student
support Assessment Credentialing
design content delivery
services
“Pioneers will always be able to adopt the technologies; we need to be thoughtful about how to bring the rest Traditional MOOC providers Content
Emerging
along in terms of skillsets to operate in and compete in that new world of the Internet of Everything” delivery MOOC 2.0 providers
aggregators/
joint ventures
options
VAN TON-QUINLIVAN, ePortfolios
Vice Chancellor (Workforce and Economic Development Program) California Community Colleges
Examples
Figure 2: Emerging examples of disintermediation occurring in higher education
2 McKinsey Center for Government, Education to Employment: Designing a system that works, accessed at:
06 07This unbundling process brings major opportunities as well as significant risks. It insists on new business models, and will force The massive ‘connectedness’ of universities
universities to make decisions about which components could (and should) be `out-sourced’ rather than provided in-house. The airline
industry was identified as potentially analogous, where customers are charged on the basis of which bundles of service they want and The profound changes forecast for higher education will, at least in part, be fuelled by the rapid convergence of data, connected
not necessarily simply on a standard set of services that get them from one place to an end point. people and physical objects, new business processes and the implications this has for institutions. Cisco reported work on a powerful
phenomenon – the “Internet of Everything” or IoE – which emerges as people, data, things or objects and underlying business
The emergence of adaptive universities processes become both more connected and interdependent.
The institutional processes of education have remained remarkably consistent for centuries. Even in the past decade, and in the face of The Internet has evolved from connecting people with videos, photos and text to a greater focus on connection to physical objects.
significant changes posed by technology, many of those processes have remained virtually unchanged. It was observed by participants In a higher education context, these objects are likely to include physical assets such as devices including audio-visual equipment,
in the President’s Conversation that universities have traditionally expected learners to adapt to the university as an institution. This has buildings, inventory and machines through to the data ‘exhaust’ from mobile phones and others mobile devices that offer a window
historically been the experience for most institutions in finance, government or business which were used to their stakeholders broadly into patterns of use and engagement by students and staff across a university campus. Cisco’s research suggests that 99% of physical
adapting to them. objects that may one day be part of IoE are currently not connected3. So while it feels like we are in a completely ‘connected’ society,
the reality is that we have connected only 1% of objects that may ultimately be connected. That means more data, more applications
That is changing, and changing fast. In the future universities, like other institutions, will increasingly be expected to adapt their core and more value running over network infrastructure.
functions and processes to the behaviour and preferences of the communities they serve, primarily the students who will increasingly
be paying for certain expected value. The reason for this shift is complex, but it is partly driven by the fact that learners now have higher The 2013 Horizon Report predicts that smart objects will become ubiquitous in higher education by 2017. As things and people
expectations of all institutions that they come into contact with and they can more easily exercise choice in the higher education market become more connected, and as new business and operational processes evolve to take advantage of new streams of data and analytics,
than ever before. In many important ways, often driven by new technologies, students (as with other consumers) can access a wide these objects become integrated into larger social networks. In this way, the value of such objects will increase for both research and
array of cheap and simple tools and platforms to create the value they feel they are not getting from traditional institutions. In a simple learning. This level and complexity of ‘connectedness’ will present massive challenges for universities from an infrastructure, culture
sense, if institutions are getting in the way, consumers and citizens may find a way to circumvent them to get what they want in other, and economic perspective. It will also provide an exponential opportunity to collect and creatively use new intelligence with big data
less expensive and easier ways. This has already started to happen, to a degree, with MOOCs where learners have been attracted to applications. For example, data about how people learn will be much broader and deeper, creating the potential to examine unexpected
models that allow them to learn at their own pace which is not always possible in a traditional delivery context. correlations about the times of day where people are most effective, the type of content that is most engaging and the personal
characteristics of individuals that provide the greatest indicators of likely success in a particular field of study.
Developing the capacity for agility is not straightforward, particularly in institutions as complex, large and long-standing as universities.
It was argued by some Conversation participants that early adoption of technology was an important step towards becoming ‘adaptive’. The impact of the ‘Internet of Everything’ in education is forecast to offer a 10-year net present value of US$175 billion globally4. That
For example, the work being done at SJSU in the area of MOOCs not only offered the potential benefit for a higher quality and more value will be created through the financial benefits associated with streamlined and personalized instruction, and through the collection
efficiently delivered teaching and learning experience, it provided faculty staff with experience in how to adapt to change. This kind of data for better decisions and reduced expenditure on instructional resources. The focus of universities will quickly move from figuring
of experience and capability carries potential long-term benefits to the institutions, staff and students. Early adoption – in essence – out how to connect things to the Internet to benefits realization, which is often under-resourced as part of the technology adoption
creates the skillsets and organisational agility required to respond to impending seismic changes. process. Figure 3 shows developments and benefits that the shift to IoE will support in the next four years5.
3 Cisco, Embracing the Internet of Everything To Capture Your Share of $14.4 Trillion, 2013.
4 Education and the Internet of Everything How Ubiquitous Connectedness Can Help Transform Pedagogy, Cisco Consulting Services and
Cisco EMEAR Education Team, October 2013, page 7
5 Adapted from Cisco, The Internet of Things: How the Next Evolution of the Internet is Changing Everything, April 2011, page 5
08 0902 MOOCs 2.0: from broadcast to multi-cast
The New York Times declared 2012 as the “Year of the MOOC6” , but the rise of MOOCs has the higher education market divided. Some
Forecast for an Challenges
Current state
Internet of Everything World for Universities argue that MOOCs will fundamentally transform the teaching and learning process, along with the pedagogies and revenue models that
have underpinned universities for generations. Others suggest that MOOCs are a high profile, but potentially short-term phenomenon
Faculty training whose promise of long-term impact will eventually be undermined by the difficulty of discovering a sustainable business model.
Physical attendance Scale teachers and best quality
Culture change
with teachers of instruction: any device, anywhere
Infrastructure MOOCs are aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. Some of the world’s leading universities are
making their top professors available free of charge, and online forums that are linked to MOOCs will become spaces for new networks
Individualisation at scale to develop and grow, connecting people from all walks of life and giving education to those who do not have access to high-quality
Static, linear content Learn at your own pace, focus on relevant
Timetabling, planning
with low control content only, richer, interactive content content or instructors in their own locale7.
At home accessibility
Network infrastructure
The Presidents’ Conversation provided an opportunity to explore how MOOCs were impacting education institutions, and more
importantly what that impact might be in the future. There was consensus on many issues, including that the first generation MOOC
Quality assurance
Costly instructional resources Access to crowd-sourced content, implied by the definition above was already being superseded.
Permissions structures
‘one size fits all’ ability to customise curriculum
Enabling the student voice
Security and privacy
“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and
underestimate the effect in the long run.”
Establishing protocols
Ad hoc decision making Data-driven decision making Network infrastructure ROY AMARA
How to evaluate (an insight which is now known as Amara’s Law)
Figure 3: The implications of an Internet of Everything world for universities
The MOOC discussion at the Presidents’ Conversation was framed by global authority and serial entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun. As the
founder of Udacity – one of the world’s most prominent MOOC developers – Thrun acknowledged that the kind of infinitely-scalable,
broadcast-style content that had propelled MOOCs was already being challenged. The collaboration between Udacity and SJSU
had revealed, for example, that retention rates for this type of course were unsatisfactorily low and that investment in individualised
student support services was a necessary augmentation. This quest for the right balance between scalability and effective learning
outcomes continues.
2.1 Observations About First Generation MOOCs and Lessons Learned
A broad range of issues was discussed as part of the Conversation. These ranged from the overall poor understanding of what works
(and doesn’t) in education generally, to difficulties translating traditional pedagogies into a MOOC-rich environment and the complexity
presented by issues such as authentication and security. The challenges associated with automating (and therefore scaling) the
assessment and enrolment processes were also identified as issues that would need to be resolved.
6 “The Year of the MOOC”, New York Times, 2 November 2012
7 Adapted from Cisco, The Internet of Things: How the Next Evolution of the Internet is Changing Everything, April 2011, page 6
10 11Perhaps the most significant challenges experienced by universities pioneering the integration of MOOCs related to faculty staff. This MOOCs can expand the learning market, and represent a solution to a range of business challenges
included the potential impact of MOOCs in re-defining faculty staff’s roles and responsibilities, particularly around course development.
The Udacity model, which has been implemented at SJSU, involves close collaboration between the MOOC provider and the institution. The initial hype surrounding MOOCs tended to focus on its potential to destroy bricks and mortar universities. The presumption was that
As an example, a jointly developed Udacity subject at SJSU typically involves up to 500 hours of faculty staff time to ensure that the MOOCs would be targeting the same students. As MOOCs have evolved there is evidence that the greatest potential value proposition
course is not only engaging and usable but also pedagogically sound. The cooperation and commitment of faculty staff is clearly a for MOOCs is their capacity to provide an attractive, affordable education alternative to people who would not otherwise want, or be
prerequisite for success. Discussion focused on a number of lessons learned from pioneering universities represented at the Presidents’ able, to access a traditional university in the first place. In essence, MOOCs’ greatest promise may be that it dramatically expands the
higher education market and makes learning accessible particularly, but not exclusively, to those members of the community currently
Conversation, including that:
under-served by the higher education market.
Motivation, not technology, is the key to learning. To be successful, MOOCs need to provide more than a platform The potential for growth is not limited to the countries represented in the inaugural Presidents’ Conversation. Perhaps not surprisingly,
for mass content distribution, they must find ways to better engage students in the learning process. This includes India, for example, has emerged as the largest market for MOOCs among students outside of the US8. This may reflect the fact that India
incorporating multi-disciplinary activities, problem-solving and collaboration opportunities into the learning process, as has the largest population of university-age students in the world (94 million and growing), while higher education in India is often
well as opportunities for increased ‘gamification’, or the use of ‘serious games’ to make learning fun and engaging, inadequate in quantity and sometimes in quality. With 17 million students already enrolled in higher education, India has one of the
as an integral part of higher education teaching. world’s lowest population to higher-education enrolment ratios, even among developing nations. The value of MOOCs, it is increasingly
acknowledged, may be to address the 95% of those not engaging with textbooks and create a basis for mass education.
Learners benefit from individualised support services that assist in the interpretation/application of content. Providing
content alone is often not sufficient to enable students to master content and the application of ideas and concepts.
“Let’s use technology as a weapon of mass instruction!”
To demonstrate, while the cost of MOOC content developed by Udacity was as little as USD$1 per student (based
on development costs amortised across a large population) the cost of student services to support a student in PRESIDENT MOHAMMAD QAYOUMI
completing a MOOC subject could be 100 times that figure. San Jose State University
One of the inherent values of MOOCs is the capacity for educators to learn and adapt, in real time. MOOCs’ online
platform offers the capacity to undertake real time experiments in different approaches to learning and teaching that MOOCs are an antidote to a range of business challenges
are virtually impossible to replicate in a traditional delivery context without having to resort to complex longitudinal
The promise of new enrolments – including learners from interstate or overseas – was the focus of early discussions about MOOCs.
studies. For example, the MOOCs platform allows universities to track how content is accessed and shared, and can
The promise of growth through unbounded scalability has attracted many institutions and companies to make significant investments
be used to inform the design of subsequent materials for that learner or future courses which can be introduced
in platforms, content and applications. SJSU’s focus was not scale, but rather the potential to resolve a range of other learning and
back into the teaching process very quickly to be further tested and refined.
operational challenges. For example MOOCs were considered to play a particularly important role in getting students through their
courses faster, more cost effectively and with greater success. Specific examples of business drivers for MOOCs reported during the
2.2 Opportunities presented by MOOCs Conversation included:
There are three major opportunities presented by contemporary MOOCs:
The capacity to reduce course bottlenecks by enabling students to take a MOOC course where a face-to-face or
1. Expanding the total market for learning; blended equivalent was not available.
2. Solving a range of business challenges; and Flexible scheduling to improve student satisfaction and drive workforce productivity
(for those involved in full-time work).
3. Driving and enabling change.
8 Financial Times, “Moocs might matter even more in emerging markets, 4 November 2013”, accessed at:
12 13Increasing throughput, primarily by reducing the proportion of courses that are conducted on-campus, thus enabling
more learners to be supported by the same physical infrastructure.
03 The art of cyber-security: creating an
‘inside out’ defence
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are embedded in every essential service, including education. Universities are
The capacity to differentiate in a competitive market.
providing nearly ubiquitous communications to their learners, faculty and stakeholders to ensure that they remain relevant institutions
in the digital economy. By doing so, universities are striving to increase their productivity while simultaneously driving innovation. That
means that the reliance of universities on the security of their systems, and the data held within them, is almost total. As a participant in
MOOCs are being treated as a major force for change in institutions and an opportunity for faculty and the Presidents’ Conversation acknowledged, the threat is not just of losing data, but that of compromising someone else’s: a student, a
administrators to change behaviours researcher or an industry collaborator. In that sense, cyber security has become much more than a set of complex technical challenges.
It has worked its way firmly onto the central strategic policy and planning agenda as a first order business priority.
MOOCs, as they stand, represent a force for change. The design, delivery, accreditation and charging models associated with MOOCs
have forced institutions to examine organisational constructs, habits and assumptions long considered almost sacrosanct. MOOCs The need for cyber-security has been described as one of technology’s ‘hidden curses’. At last count there were more than 10 million
are a force for change in a range of areas, informing contemporary thinking about the learning process itself and the role of faculty as known virus signatures, a figure that is rising exponentially. The need for better cyber hygiene has become a fundamental business
depicted in Figure 4 . It would be inaccurate to suggest that MOOCs alone were responsible for the changes mentioned. In many cases
9
challenge for public institutions, particularly in light of the speed with which technology is being integrated into universities. Consider,
MOOCs seems to have either attracted attention to existing challenges or accelerated significant structural and pedagogical changes for example, the following factors:
that were already in train. Despite this, in many institutions – including some of those represented in the Presidents’ Conversation –
MOOCs had become a powerful catalyst for change. The impact on faculty is particularly acute, with the need to accommodate the Device proliferation. It is estimated that up to 50 billion ‘things’ – including an increasing number of smart devices -
impact and potential of MOOCs representing a deep change in the work and culture of universities. will be connected to the Internet by the end of 202010.
Changing demographics and their impact on technology use. The Millennial cohort first came to prominence because
Historical cornerstones of universities Contemporary thinking
they were considered to be the first generation growing up with computers in their homes, and researchers began
pondering what this might mean for the way they interacted with society and institutions. Today, given the explosion
Content as the primary differentiator Experience as the primary differentiator
in the use of social media, a computer in one’s home barely begins to explain how technology has permeated this
new generation.
Learning an individual pursuit Learning as a collaborative experience
Summative assessment Formative assessment and intervention
The rapid transition to cloud-based technology. The rapid adoption of cloud-based technologies was described in the
Presidents’ Conversation as a counter to the ‘miracle of marginal costs’. In the same way that Einstein described the
‘miracle of compound interest’ as the eighth wonder of the world, cloud’s capacity to create massive economies of
Learning by listening/reading Learning by doing
scale enables marginal costs to be reduced by orders of magnitude greater than had been contemplated previously.
Instructor as subject matter expert Instructor as facilitator The Conversation explored two specific aspects of cyber-security for higher education. The first was the impact of cyber-security risks
for the operation of universities themselves. These risks include potential threats to systems that underpin teaching and learning,
Learning anchored by the campus Mobile/unbounded learning administration, physical safety and security, the quality of the student experience, and relationships with students before and after they
attend the institution. The second aspect covers the opportunities for universities to develop the courses and expertise that will help
Figure 4: Forces for change in universities with which MOOCs have been at least partly associated train the professionals with the capacity to anticipate and resolve threats, whose capabilities will be in demand on an unimaginably
more substantial scale than ever before. Universities can help to produce the successive cohorts of skilled and well-trained
professionals to deal with a challenge to which they themselves will be as vulnerable as anyone else.
9 Australian Study Tour to the US and Canada, 2013, authored by dandolopartners 10 http://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1208342
14 153.1 MOVING FROM PERIMETER TO CELLULAR BASED DEFENCE 3.2 Challenges and costs associated with cyber-security
Recognising that the reliance of universities on ICT systems is almost total, universities have no choice but to ensure that data and The major challenge for universities in responding to cyber-security threats was keeping ahead of attackers in what has become
systems are as available, uncompromised and secure as possible. The traditional approach to cyber-security in universities – and other effectively an arms race. Universities are now facing a “barrage” of attacks from a range of sources that are being launched using a
myriad of techniques and technologies. Perhaps even more concerning, universities are at risk of becoming “unwitting partners” in the
large organisations – was characterised as ‘perimeter-based defence’, focused on keeping threats from penetrating the organisation’s
growing number of distributed denial of services (DDOS) attacks where holes in university security are being exploited to attack other
firewalls. The sophistication of new cyber threats, and changes in the way that technology is being used and managed (for example the
individuals and organisations.
Bring Your Own Device phenomenon and the apparently unstoppable growth of mobile applications), has meant that a ‘fortress’ model
that seeks to keep threats outside the perimeter wall is now virtually impossible. So the focus has changed from ‘building a higher The costs of a successful attack are potentially devastating to a university, which is why the challenge of prevention and response is
wall’ to ‘defending the organisation from the inside’. To do this means embedding security measures within the cellular structure of becoming such a significant personal priority for Presidents and Vice Chancellors as the custodians of intellectual property and data
the organisation itself, in the same way that anti-virals are used in the human body. This cellular-based defence is therefore focused on held in the university environment.
creating the capacity to mitigate threats as soon as they emerge, rather than focusing on keeping them out.
The costs are broader than simply the cost of data that is compromised, dramatic though that can be in its own right. The functioning of
a university network is increasingly imperilled by cyber-security threats that are more frequent, sustained and voracious. Consider, for
example in 2013:
“The question is not whether we will be attacked, as we know it’s happening already.
The focus is on how to neutralise the attack not prevent it entirely.” The average attack demands 691% more bandwidth, up from 6.1 Gbps to 48.25 Gbps.
DON PROCTOR
Senior Vice President, Cyber Security, Office of the Chairman, Cisco The average duration of an attack has increased by 21%, from 28.5 hours to 34.5 hours.
The total number of infrastructure attacks has risen by 26.75%, outstripping the total number of application attacks
The Presidents’ Conversation focused on the need for cyber-security responses within universities to deliver on three key outcomes: which have increased by 8%11.
The challenge for universities is the creation of trusted processes, trusted systems and trusted services in an environment of rapid
Protect against potential threats. change. Rather than treating cyber-security as a compliance-driven exercise – where an organisation’s preparedness is assessed
against checklists – the issue needs to be dealt with in the spirit of continuous improvement. This recognises that the cyber-security
threat is dynamic, not static, and an innovation-based course of action is necessary to effectively anticipate and mitigate risk.
Detect an attack.
3.3 Opportunities
Remediate rapidly in the face of an (inevitable) attack.
There are teaching and curriculum opportunities for universities in responding to cyber-security challenges. Many universities are
Participants concluded that cyber security needs to be a strategic management responsibility, given the potentially catastrophic nature already gearing up teaching on the different facets of cyber-security strategy, investment, and execution. As concerns around cyber-
of the risks that were being mitigated. Critical to risk management is the creation of a trusted architecture. A common misnomer about security rise, and as new solutions and practices emerge as best — or at least as good practice, the demand for access to quality
cyber-security is that it is dealt with at the application layer of an institution’s technology architecture. In reality, the most effective teaching about cyber security from higher education institutions themselves will inevitably grow. And increasingly, these demands take
means of protecting, detecting and remediating threats involves cultural changes, new skills and work habits as well as deep resilience the cyber-security issue out of the hands of the technologists alone and place it firmly in the domain of university Presidents and Vice
Chancellors. So while universities may be potential victims of cyber-security threats that are impacting businesses in all other sectors,
at the infrastructure layer.
universities stand to benefit greatly from a whole new field of study, research, and training.
11 Egan, Matt, “Intensity of DDoS Cyber Attacks Explodes in 1Q; Avg. Bandwidth Surges 691%”, Fox Business, 17 April 2013, accessed at:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/04/17/intensity-ddos-attacks-explode-in-first-quarter-average-bandwith-surges-61/
16 1704 Data as the ‘new oil’ 4.2.2 Learning Analytics
Easier access to large stores of data for teaching and learning – and an increased body of knowledge about lead indicators of
4.1 The role of data in big decisions performance and retention – is fuelling the rise of learning analytics. This is allowing universities to explore in much greater depth the
factors leading to student engagement or disengagement, where best to intervene, when and how to maximise the learning and student
The importance of data in a contemporary university is hardly a new insight and, predictably, widely acknowledged by all of the experience, course design and content customization, and, ultimately, the emergence of more personalised learning profiles. Learning
participants in the Presidents’ Conversation. Data’s potential to transform research, teaching and learning and administration functions analytics are considered a vital tool in the quest for improved student retention, particularly given that government funding is often
led discussion leader Arizona State University Business Intelligence Strategist John Rome to describe data as “the new oil”. Data, provided on completion of courses rather than enrolment.
Rome argued, had become a precious commodity and strategic asset for contemporary universities. Data, however, does not equal
insight or information. The Presidents’ Conversation focused on the fact that data only had value if it was capable of helping people
make decisions. Data, it was argued, had a powerful role to play in augmenting intuition, upon which institutions have traditionally 4.2.3 Research
relied to make decisions.
Big data is providing opportunities for new fields of exploration and academic enquiry. Particularly in STEM fields (science, technology,
Investment in data and analytics is growing in both significance and impact, and affects universities in different ways. To become a engineering and mathematics), the capacity for researchers to capture, analyse and explore correlations in areas as diverse as
truly data driven university participants recognised that sustained commitment and investment were required, and that a focus on data genomics, nanotechnology and biotechnology offers the potential to unlock new discoveries.
had to become part of the institution’s DNA. There was a growing trend towards the appointment of a Chief Analytic Officer (CAO), and
There are many challenges involved in exploiting the potential of big data in research, including how to ensure that data is appropriately
predictions from Presidents’ Conversation members that the CAO would eventually be considered as important a position as the Chief
codified so that it can be accessed by those that need it in the future. Some universities have assigned responsibility for metadata
Information Officer.
tagging to the librarian, recognising their competencies in the development of taxonomies and cataloguing. A range of technology
While big data provides significant benefits, there is a tendency for many to over-simplify the process for extracting value from big data. A complexities is associated with the collection and management of large datasets, including procurement of secure, scalable and
common myth is that insight is automatically generated as data is captured. While this is occasionally true, with unexpected correlations efficient storage and computer infrastructure.
arising from large datasets, significant effort is generally required to identify the kind of value sought from a data set, the design of
analytical frameworks and the formats required to present data in useful ways. This was particularly true in the area of business analytics,
4.3 Revenue opportunities for universities around big data
where it often takes years of refinement to extract insight that is truly meaningful and actionable.
The opportunities presented by big data are not confined to university core functions. Demand for highly skilled people that understand
how to manage and analyse data, and discover and present its value, was identified as a major opportunity for universities. A McKinsey
4.2 Big data is being applied to the broad range of university functions
& Co study identified a major shortfall in the number of qualified data scientists by 201812. The study projects that this shortfall could be
Big data and analytics are increasingly central to all of the areas impacted by the reform tasks facing universities – from recruitment as significant as 50-60% of the required data scientist market, with significant shortages projected in education, scientific research and
of professional staff and students, student and faculty/staff engagement, improving student learning, to performance monitoring and development services. The US alone faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with analytical expertise and 1.5 million managers
management, productivity and cost reduction. The notion of a data-driven university is beginning to emerge as a strategic priority, with and analysts with the skills to understand and make decisions based on the analysis of big data. Universities clearly have an opportunity
applications of big data in three areas. to respond to such a significant strategic skills gap, with major potential benefits in terms of relevance, reputation and revenue.
Another potential revenue opportunity identified for universities was in offering big data capability as a service. Universities have made
4.2.1 Business analytics – and continue to make – significant investments in computing facilities and advanced software tools. To date, this infrastructure has
been applied to solving universities’ own research problems. Given the high cost, and specific nature, of the relevant infrastructure and
Big data was providing opportunities for universities to more critically assess performance against business fundamentals. At Arizona applications there is an opportunity to offer big data as a service to commercial and other research entities. While commercial models
State University, for example, sophisticated dashboards (underpinned by big data sets) had been created to more critically assess would need to be evaluated, specific services focused on the collection, curation, retrieval and analysis of research data could be offered.
faculty member performance against a range of metrics including utilisation, return on salary and output. One of the major challenges
identified as part of the Presidents’ Conversation was ensuring that the output from business data was both accessible and consumable.
12 McKinsey Global Institute, Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity, May 2011
18 1905 Building a resilient university 5.1.2 Capability to rebuild an institution’s DNA
The importance of leadership and vision were on display, rather than discussed at length as part of the Presidents’ Conversation. The
impact of technology on people working within universities was profound, and would continue to be. For example, in a contemporary
5.1 Resilience involves bouncing forward not just bouncing back university faculty staff are increasingly being expected to co-design courses and materials with external parties, interact with students
via a range of modes and at all times of the day, and operate in a ‘flipped’ environment where their primary role is that of curator and
In the face of a perfect storm of economic, technological and social changes, and against the backdrop of the rise of the digital economy,
facilitator rather than only as a subject matter expert. Failure to achieve culture change – and quickly – to adapt to these expectations was
universities identified the need to be resilient. True resilience, it was argued, comprises not only the capacity for universities to ‘bounce identified by most participants in the Conversation as a major risk.
back’ but to ‘bounce forward’: to use the current context of rapid changes not just as a chance to get back to where they were but to
become stronger, more capable and more relevant than ever. Obstacles to achieving culture change included ‘skill’ and ‘will’ issues. A major issue that had urgently to be overcome was the mix of
skills required to bring about genuine change in the way that the university organized itself. New work practices capable of reflecting new
To demonstrate the point, participants asserted that simply being patient in the face of imminent change would not position universities academic reality were embraced by some, but not all. Strong leadership and a compelling narrative about a desired future were a pre-
for relevance to the next generation of learners, companies, communities, governments and researchers. They identified a range of factors requisite for helping faculty and staff to not only accept the need for change, but also embrace it and ‘bounce forward’.
that would impact on their capacity to bounce forward, including the capacity to imagine a different future, rebuild their institutions’ DNA
Culture change is not just about changing attitudes and perceptions. The Conversation focused on the need to ensure that faculty and staff
and create a resilient business and technology architecture.
were provided with appropriate systems and levers to innovate. One of the clear themes emerging in the Conversation was the importance
of committing to experimentation and feedback loops. The speed of the design-test-learn-redesign cycle is key to determining how
quickly and effectively universities can re-tool learning and other processes to take advantage of data-driven insights from current
Elements of a resilient university experience and performance. With many of the technology advances now impacting universities, for example those that underpin the
evolution of MOOCs, real-time experimentation is more efficient and effective than ever. SJSU, for example, is using its partnership with
Udacity to undertake rapid experiments focused on aspects of its curriculum content. The results from those experiments – including
1. 2. 3. understanding what types of content were most effective / popular – are fed back to the design teams to ensure the learning is constant
Capacity to imagine Capability to rebuild Creation of a resilient and incorporated into subsequent versions.
a different future the institution’s DNA architecture
A relentless focus on what all these changes mean for the student experience was acknowledged as a fundamental tenet of a
contemporary university’s DNA. Investments in high-definition video, individualised learning content, student support services and
improving student choice (in subjects, delivery channels, scheduling) are significant. Investments in the campus experience – perhaps
5.1.1 Capacity to imagine an alternative future ironically – have been brought into sharper focus by the uptake the MOOCs. The rise of MOOCs has caused universities to contemplate a
simple question: if the primary differentiator of a university is not their course content, what is it? The answer for many universities is the
The first step in creating a truly resilient university is to develop the capacity to anticipate change and imagine a different role for the
campus and broader student experience.
university in contemporary society. Strategies are as varied as the changes being responded to, but there were some consistent themes
about what works (and doesn’t):
5.1.3 Creating an architecture of resilience
Sustained strategic commitment over quick wins. The capacity for universities to innovate quickly, and continuously, relies on an architecture or deliberate design for resilience. The
architecture refers to more than the design of physical spaces (though important), or the enterprise architecture at a technology level.
The Presidents’ Conversation explored the need for, and importance of, a range of architectures that are necessary to exploit technology’s
Collaboration over independent action. potential in higher education. These include:
A new role for data and pattern-based analytics and, as a consequence, a shifting balance between data and intuition Organisational architecture
for better decisions.
Organisational structures, governance arrangements and workforce policies need to support agility. Continuous innovation requires
organisational flexibility. Universities represented in the Conversation spoke of a range of new models that were emerging to ensure
The convening of the Presidents’ Conversation, at its core, was both a recognition and reflection of exactly those principles. It sought that the organisation was better equipped to respond to the rapidly evolving needs of students, industry and the community. A strong
to identify and critically analyse data, assess opportunities through a strategic lens and come to independent decisions through a organisational or business architecture pulls together a set of critical components, including strategy, business processes and a range of
collaborative process. ‘people’ issues including culture change and staffing.
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