[p2p-research] Universities Irrelevant by 2020?

[Andy Robinson]

Let's take a few issues one at a time.

1) Are books likely to disappear?

Personally I'm happy reading ebooks, but I think most people still prefer
paper (because of the screen light partly I think, though also through
familiarity) - nearly everyone I know downloads articles/web documents to
read, but I'm the only one of my circle of real-life friends who doesn't
print them out before reading.  Which raises the question: will people
choose to print out massive ebooks rather than borrow/buy the book?  At
present prices, the printing cost may turn out more expensive even than
today's book prices, and compared to borrowing it is costly vs free.  It's
also more convenient to have a book than an ebook, especially considering
printing times.  People print journal articles because the convenience of
printing outweighs the cost (or because they have free printing access) -
accessing paper journal articles is horribly inconvenient - while websites,
e-journals and many other journals will not normally be accessible except by
download-and-print.  E-journals are a growing trend, and e-newspapers, and
even a few print newspapers have gone entirely web-based, Christian Science
Monitor being the best-known (apparently they had about 50,000 subscribers
compared to 2 million web hits or something of that magnitude).  I could
imagine the journal industry going entirely virtual (and possibly free) more
easily than the book industry.  Ebooks replacing books?  Less like CD's
replacing records, than MP3s replacing CDs - which despite widespread free
downloading, I don't see happening - people still seem to like hard-copies.

Another point about whether books will disappear.  There is of course also
an interest in rent-extraction in the book industry, as in the music
industry etc.  In terms of academic books, this is mainly financed by
universities either directly (as library purchases) or indirectly (as
textbooks recommended for students).  So a portion of the sum of money which
goes to universities, goes to subsidising the selection criteria via book
publishing, and incentivising the writing of textbooks to appeal to whoever
compiles reading lists.  But there is also money in commercial mass
publishing, and commercial mass publishers will be resistant to
non-proprietary distribution.  This won't stop such distribution, but
remember that again the factors of printing cost and time come into the
equation.

2) could virtual HE handle selection?

Another point about both the book industry and the university industry are
that they are selection systems as well as production/access systems.  For
the academic book industry, book sales (except for popular textbooks) are
abysmally small.  The industry survives because it is necessary for academic
selection.  Academic CV's are determined by the number and quality of books
and journal articles published.  The higher-ranked the journal or book
publisher, the better the academic's CV.  This is because book and journal
publishing are selective, and selective by criteria (particularly but not
only peer-review) which are widely assumed to represent in some way the
quality of what is produced.  This not only affects rankings among scholars
but also the selection of particular post-PhD individuals as scholars (it is
an independent variable from academic employment).  Academic publishing may
functionally be more important as selection than as production to be read -
the number of readers per article is very small (actually in many cases more
people will read or hear the paper pre-publication, or read a copy sent to
friends and contacts of the author, than will read it in its official place
of publication).  In selection systems, brand-name recognition is very
important.  Online systems do not make good selection systems for a number
of reasons.  One of these is precisely that it is very open and p2p-inclined
- anyone with minimal programming skills can set up a website, an ejournal,
etc.  Paper journals and book publishers have physical production limits
which impose selectiveness, and a centralised distribution system which
allows for rankings.  Academic selection criteria are beginning to accept
certain selective e-journals as equivalent to paper journals, and would
doubtless accept paper journals which go virtual, but it is hard to imagine
ebooks gaining similar status.  The same even happens even with online
selection criteria - Wikipedia for instance accepts academic journals and
"reputable" publishers as valid sources, but not self-publication, blogs,
most websites, etc (though they do allow the latter if some other criterion
suggests a person's expertise, e.g. if they're an employed academic).  It
would be possible for academic publication selection to go entirely virtual
only if the effects of the journal and book markets are replicated online.
But it is easier for these functions to be performed offline, as the online
selection criteria are necessarily arbitrary (e-journals manage it mainly
because they mimic paper journals in length and format).

Then there's selection of lecturers.  One crucial feature of universities is
that they actually pay a stratum of people to teach, lecture and do
research.  While it is quite possible to teach, lecture and do research
virtually, at present it is not typically possible to be paid to do so.  And
the limited number of paid posts is linked to the selection process.  Could
the physical space of the university be replaced by lecturers working
online?  In theory yes (and in practice - Open University works this way),
but somebody would have to raise the money to pay lecturers to do this.  So
how is virtual HE to be funded?  In theory it could be funded by a
society-wide gift economy, but this would require a more general
revolutionary change.  What about market models?  While these may be viable
in limited spheres, in general I would say that market models are not
sustainable for three reasons.  Firstly because knowledge and skills are
indefinitely replicable, not scarce, and given the open context, it would be
impossible to prevent those who learn from setting themselves up as
teachers.  Secondly, because the quality of knowledge or teaching can only
be ascertained after one has already obtained it, making it very difficult
to make market-based choices in advance.  The only possible guide in
selecting a market education provider is previous feedback from others, but
this could as well represent a cleverly sold teaching of fallacy.  Thirdly,
because the system would select by effective marketing rather than expertise
or ability; it would therefore be deemed less reliable than the university
system (which is assumed to select by expertise - whether it does or not).
E-learning and qualifications suffer from the dangers of being tarred with
accusations of low-quality degrees, buying and selling of degrees, etc.

Remember also that university funding, and the market value of selection
criteria, come from unwieldy old-style institutions as well.  At present
this happens in three ways at least - via prestige, which is very slow to
change; via state funding; and via market demands (students trying to get
skills or qualifications they think will raise their earning potential, at
their own expense).  In the current structure, market demands are highly
responsive to prestige, and state funding is highly responsive to both
market demands and prestige (as well as being quite random in relation to
long-term trends).  Look at the failure of Britain's foundation degrees and
GNVQs - despite these being geared specifically for "employers", the latter
still prefer old-style degrees and A-levels (and even special qualifications
formulated by private schools to be more like old A-levels than today's
A-lelves are).  Why?  Well, I think a big part of it is that they know that
the students with a choice, meaning either with a lot of ability or from
upper-class backgrounds, will choose traditional courses over vocational
courses.  So they will use selection preference for traditional
qualifications both as a placeholder for amorphous
intelligence/potential/ability and as a placeholder for class
discrimination.

There are also ways in which the Internet has made universities more
traditional.  In particular, the instant transfer of data and the
possibility of anonymity make the Internet unsuitable for reliable
assessment.  Plagiarism is very easy online.  This has led to a revival in
exams and other kinds of observed assessment.  If part of the function
assigned to universities is to deem people adequately knowledgeable or
skilled in particular areas, it seems likely that observed assessment of
some kind will persist.

3) can the pedagogical functions of university be replicated virtually?

Then there is the question of the pedagogical value of meeting in person,
either with a tutor/lecturer/supervisor/skill-model or with peers.  The
lecture is vulnerable here, because it can easily be replicated virtually
(though without any way of ensuring or verifying that people have actually
"attended").  But seminars, one-to-one tutorials, critical pedagogies,
pastoral support for students, are rather harder to imitate virtually.  One
could have seminars via instant messenger or skype or teleconferencing,
which would be an interesting experiment.  But with the loss or blurring of
nonverbal cues, the absence of teaching resources which could be used by the
entire group, the substituting of one or two senses for the full range,
could the full experience be replicated, or something equally useful be
created?  Or if the seminar etc are not especially useful - could one create
something which would not be rejected as less useful?  I think a lot of the
most successful pedagogies, things like Freirean pedagogy, require
face-to-face interaction.

I'm not saying any of this is necessarily a good thing.  Some of it is, some
of it isn't.  Personally I would rather like for all publications to have
equal status, or subjective status, and for anyone who wants to be a
skill-model, lecturer or researcher to be paid to do so.  I'd love to see
hierarchical rankings replaced by something more like the Open Source
movement.  I think the selection function of education is quite corrosive of
knowledge-production and leads to a lot of the problems that are all too
evident in academia today (style before substance, grandstanding,
repetition, writing for the sake of writing, inter-perspectival
sectarianism, hagiography, etc).  But getting rid of selection functions
would suggest a transformation to a society-wide gift economy, which I see
as possible from counter-trends of resistance, but not from dominant trends
in the current system.  The moment we introduce state or market forces, we
introduce selection, and hence the need for selection criteria.

Incidentally - horizontal p2p education already exists, nascently at least,
in popular/community education, things like the Cuban literacy programme,
activist practices of skill-sharing, hacklabs, knowledgelabs, etc., and in
indigenous education practices and epistemologies, travelling storytellers
and the like.  Of course, most of this is unpaid.  And most of it does not
get any credibility from the hierarchies in terms of selection functions.

Another interesting possibility is what would happen to education if
networks gained the ability to take and hold entire swathes of space against
hierarchies.  Suppose for instance that hierarchies have retreated to the
network of global cities and extraction nodes, and that the remainder of the
planet has become something like the Somalia or NWFP of today but without
the constant wars.  Now suppose that education projects (with or without
fixed physical sites) were to emerge in these border regions, or be
implanted there by intellectuals fleeing the controlled "core" spaces.  It's
in this hypothetical context that I can see Hakim Bey's idea of "research
monasteries" becoming a close approximation of what would happen.

bw
Andy
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