[offtopic] What If We Ran Universities Like Wikipedia?

[Alexandru Juncu]

(fwd from /.)

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| What If We Ran Universities Like Wikipedia?
|   from the voting-classmates-and-professors-off-the-island dept.
|   posted by Soulskill on Monday October 18, @18:56 (Education)
|   https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/229220/What-If-We-Ran-Universities-Like-Wikipedia?from=newsletter
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[0]Pickens writes "Do university bureaucracies still make sense in the
era of networks? At the recent Educause conference, David J. Staley laid
out the findings of a focus group he conducted asking educators [1]what a
college would look like if it operated like Wikipedia. The 'Wiki-ized
University' wouldn't have formal admissions, says Staley; people could
enter and exit as they wished and the university would consist of
voluntary and self-organizing associations of teachers and students 'not
unlike the [2]original idea for the university, in the Middle Ages.' In
addition, the curriculum of the 'Wiki-ized University' would be
intellectually fluid, and instead of tenure, professors' longevity 'would
be determined by the community.' Staley predicts that [3]a new form of
academic organization is emerging that will be driven by volunteerism.
'We do see some idea today of how "volunteer teaching" might look: think
of the faculty at a place like the University of Phoenix. Most teaching
faculty have day jobs — and in fact are hired because they have day jobs
— and teach at the university for a nominal stipend,' writes Staley. 'If
something like the Phoenix model is what develops in a wiki-ized
university setting, this would suggest that a new type of "professorate"
will emerge, consisting of those who teach or publish or conduct research
for their own personal or professional satisfaction or for some other
nonmonetized benefit.'"

Discuss this story at:
   http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/10/18/229220&from=newsletter

Links:
   0. http://hughpickens.com/
   1. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/what-if-we-ran-universities-like-wikipedia/27612
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university
   3. http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume44/ManagingthePlatformHigherEduca/163579

-- 
Alexandru Juncu

ROSEdu
http://rosedu.org