“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”[21]
In his presentation at the launch of the Information Futures Commission, Richard Katz outlined the very rapid pace of technological progress and its disruptive effects on society.[22] He spoke of looking back 20 years and comparing the excitement some of us felt at playing “Pong” to the rich experience of immersive games available to today’s generation. Even looking back 10 years — the same time period as the scope of the Information Future Commission’s forward view — the changes in technologies and associated behaviours have been intense. In 1998 Google was in beta testing and was only a search engine; collaboration using the Internet was in its infancy, although many were beginning to think about whether business could be transacted on the web
On the other hand, the complete replacement of printed books by electronic information was touted some time ago and has not yet eventuated. Today, the Internet is pervasive in the lives of many, providing the ability to obtain information at will, to transact business and to employ tools that lubricate an extended social network.
Katz began his presentation by outlining two opposing views of technologically-enabled change. One is the view that technology is a “raging torrent of water changing everything in its path” and the other is that technology is a tool we control and channel. Those who hold the former view may not feel any worth in gazing too far into the future because technology will change in unpredictable ways. Those holding the latter view might not feel the need to look too far into the future either, believing that organisations will be able to shape technology to support whatever strategic decisions they make. Perhaps, as Katz suggested, there is a unity in these views. The University of Melbourne is unlikely to influence most of the ways in which technology is created and interacts with society globally, but we are in a position to choose which of these changes require our response, either in advance or as they arise.
Should a great university take notice of technological or other trends as they emerge? What should it do about them and at what point? What level of resources should be committed in responding to predictions, some of which may never come to pass?
As a concrete illustration it is worth considering a few of the predictions made at a Gartner conference late in 2007.[23]
Gartner predicts that “by the end of 2011, eighty per cent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a ‘second life’ — but not necessarily in ‘Second Life,’” the online role-playing world where users can create environments and avatars through which to interact with each other. Gartner touts these tools as potentially useful to organisations because they offer a range of online social networking features. Some universities have created campuses in Second Life as a marketing instrument, a few are teaching some classes in the Second Life environment, and many are not yet doing anything in virtual worlds. This is analogous to the World Wide Web’s early years when many were experimenting with how to get real value from it. Should a university invest in using virtual worlds and social networks for collaboration between researchers or as an aid to teaching and learning?
Gartner predicts that “by 2017, ‘extreme meritocracy’ based on publicly published performance ratings will be normal work practice.” An early example of this practice is the site RateMyTeachers.com. It is possible to imagine a similar model for university lecturers and researchers. What methods of disseminating scholarly information would be helpful to the ratings of our academics in such a world? Does this type of tool have the potential to instigate ‘extreme’ competition by academics to attract students into individual subjects within broad degrees?
Faced with a range of potentially disruptive technological and societal changes, what should an institution’s attitude be? To ignore predictions altogether and concentrate its resources on the present may seem foolish. To extrapolate current trends a few years forward and cautiously experiment with emergent technologies may still leave an institution behind. To gamble on long-term predictions may prove expensive with little return on investment.
It seems reasonably certain that the increasing pace of change in our scholarly practices, support services and business activities will demand in response a high degree of flexibility — in spaces, in services, in technology, in the structure and essence of information itself. It could be argued that a university’s role as an innovator entails the duty to experiment and innovate in its approach to research, learning, teaching and knowledge transfer.