The Electronic Virtual University in Your Future Council of Scientific Society Presidents Douglas Van Houweling President & CEO -- UCAID

Overview  Developments in Information Technology  Applications  Implications for Research & Education  Implications for the University  How Fast Will Change Come?

Developments in Information Technology  Computation VLSI progress will continue Everything will have a computer in it Challenge:  Even the smallest systems will be extremely complex

Developments in Information Technology  Storage Density will continue to increase Challenge:  Bigger but not faster  Archival systems

Developments in Information Technology  Communication Faster improvements in price/performance than computation and storage Challenges:  Uneven access  Speed of light latency  Mobility

Developments in Information Technology  Software Increasingly interoperable Better human factors Challenge  Reliability  Expense

Developments in Information Technology  Systems Distributed Built of heterogeneous components  Challenge Complexity Reliability

Applications: Many Disciplines and Contexts  Sciences  Arts  Humanities  Health care  Business/Law  Administration  …  Instruction  Collaboration  Streaming video  Distributed computation  Data mining  Virtual reality  Digital libraries  …

Application Attributes  Interactive research collaboration and instruction  Real-time access to remote scientific instruments Images courtesy of the University of Michigan

Attributes, cont.  Large-scale, multi- site computation and database processing  Shared virtual reality  Any combination of the above Images courtesy of Old Dominion University and University of Illinois-Chicago

Implications for Research & Education  Scholarly Collaboration Same time Different time Same place Different place In a shared information space Ubiquitously and routinely accessible

Implications for Research & Education  Tomorrow’s Student/Learner Increasingly adult More diverse Part time Less degree oriented, more focused on adding competence More to contribute  Rapid increase in demand

Implications for Research & Education  Distributed Learning Environments Respond to learner demand Global opportunity Highly individualized Require support for distributed communities Even campus-based learning environments will need to include global resources Will each learner assemble his/her own virtual university?

Implications for the University  Integration of Research and Education The same tools and infrastructure will support distributed research/creation/discovery Adult learners could be more engaged Will students pay to participate in research?

Implications for the University  Other Providers Primarily captive corporate or for-profit “institutions” Focused on student needs, not institutional priorities Global from the beginning Emphasis on intellectual capital, not facilities Will higher education institutions be split:  campus-based for young undergraduates  geographically distributed for advanced degrees and adults

Implications for the University  The Changing Role of Faculty Exploding opportunities for diverse affiliations Colleagues and students will be increasingly less local Will universities support faculty with multiple institutional affiliations? Will the best faculty members each create their own virtual university?

How Fast Will Change Come?  The technology will support the distributed university by 2005  Other providers are rapidly expanding market share  Institutional change is most rapid in the non-research sector of higher education  The faculty will drive change, and seek out institutional settings which give them the greatest opportunity

More Info...    Doug Van Houweling Internet Boardwalk Suite 100 Ann Arbor, MI