The Western Governors University may be exploring new ground in education, but Gov. Mike Leavitt found during a recent excursion to Great Britain that the frontiers of technology-in-education had been breached many years before.
During a weeklong visit to London and surrounding areas, Leavitt made sure to include a tour of Britain's Open University, a technological counterpart to his Western Governors University.Founded in 1969 by former prime minister Harold Wilson, Open University was designed to provide distance education through television and other new technologies. It was once called "The University of the Air."
Like Western Governors University, Leavitt said Open University faced its own share of nay-sayers. But with strong encouragement from then-upstart Minister of Education Margaret Thatcher, the university planted roots and began to grow. Today, Leavitt said Open University is one of only 13 institutions to receive an "excellent" education quality rating, and boasts over 200,000 students.
"It's maturing as a real force in higher education," Leavitt said, and he hopes his own pet project will do the same.
There are many similarities - and a few differences - in the goals and operation of the two universities, Leavitt said. Both Open University and Western Governors University are pushing at the edges of traditional education, utilizing technological advances to provide education. But Western Governors University will rely more on Internet communication to link students to their courses and host universities. Open University's emphasis is on televised courses and telephone conferencing, with peripheral use of the Internet.
Like Open University, Leavitt said Western Governors University seeks to provide education "without geographic boundaries." But, while Open University develops its own curriculum and hires its own faculty, Western Governors University will directly implement the curriculum developed by the participating universities.
In spite of their subtle differences, Leavitt said he learned a lot from seeing a program that has had time to mature. He was able to see what has worked well for Open University and also learn about some of the bugs they've had to work out: how to make a way for professors and students to interact meaningfully; how to focus on "competency-based" learning rather than simply acquiring credit; how to deliver the product (education) at the right time, to the right people.
And comparatively, Leavitt said Western Governors University looks good to go.
"We're way ahead of them in the technology-delivery part," Leavitt said. "Sure, they've got a lot more experience, but as far as technology goes, we're clearly the world leader."
Western Governors University is in the final stages of accreditation, and a pilot program is under way that will run through the summer. And he said the school's "smart catalog," which will offer students a list of courses available and guidance with filling degree requirements, is nearly complete.
Western Governors University is also expanding, Leavitt said. The school recently signed collaborative agreements to work with universities in Beijing, Japan, and Mexico, in addition to the one signed with Open University.
To prospective students and parents who may be doubting the quality of a Western Governors University education, Leavitt tried to be reassuring.
"They'll be able to choose classes from the finest universities throughout the world. The best they have to offer."
To people who say a big part of the whole university experience is attending class, getting to know people, and interacting with others in a close environment, Leavitt shrugged. To him, it's simple:
"WGU is no replacement for that. If they don't want to do it, don't. But, we've found that the amount of student interaction is actually higher than at schools where students just come to class and are not forced to participate. Really, all of those problems already exist today. How does a U. of U. professor know today in a class of 500 who a student is? But at WGU, students have to participate."
He also said that education as we know it is changing, and Western Governors University is looking to anticipate the needs of future students.
"The university of the past is a place where people would go, where knowledge was stored, enhanced and passed along. But in the future, it's not going to be the steady, continuous stream of new students.
"A successful society will be one that will be able to raise the knowledge level of the entire society at one time and that will require us to deploy information in new ways. This is one of those ways."