Summary: David Noble Digital Diploma Mills

1. Summary: David NobleDigital Diploma Mills Norm Friesen May 13, 2006

2. A threat or a fad?

3. David Noble • Critique of online education from a social economic and historical perspective • Sees online discussion forums and other technology as enabling fundamental institutional change • These changes will weaken the university‘s autonomy –as a a place of independent and critical thought

4. David Noble, con‘t • A social historian: has focused on the role of technology in the „de-skilling“ and alienation of the labour force • Has looked at how standardization and automation of labour has created significant problems for workers • How technology supports a „conservative agenda“

5. Faculty under Attack • university teachers are losing control over what they teach, how they teach and for what purpose. • erosion of their intellectual property rights makes academic employment ever less secure • The academic workforce is reconfigured

6. Business Models • administrators claim ownership of the course-designs and teaching materials developed by faculty • the online university represents new opportunities for investors to profit • shift the burden of paying for education from the public purse to the individual consumer • „EMO‘s instead of HMO‘s“ (Health Maintenance Organizations)

7. Business Models • Online Universities to be run as corporations: • UNext • Western Governors‘ University • Cardean University • But there are successful examples: • University of Phoenix • Private Universities? In Austria; in Canada?

8. Resisting the inevitable? • E.g. Healthcare: • Are a number of different models, with mixtures of competition and regulation • Too much competition is not a good thing • Context determines technology use • Institutions, tradition and technology interact in complicated ways. Technology does not overpower them.