IMS Global: So it sounds like there are a lot of partnerships and consortia forming outside the U.S. that are furthering the role of technology as a tool in advancing teaching and learning?

NA: A lot of consortia, a lot of experimentation. Trying new things and pushing Web 2.0. Also, the open content movement. It's not really consortia, but it involves putting it out on the Web and allowing others to take it, modify it, and innovate with it. There are various levels of control over that. In some cases there is a smaller control group that will accept or reject changes, especially as applied to some of the learning platforms. But in other cases, it involves just putting it out there. That's a big leap of faith for some of us here.

IMS Global: Is more money the solution to providing a higher quality learning experience? Can technology deliver better learning outcomes at a lower cost?

NA: I don't think that more money is necessarily the solution. More money poured into existing traditional systems and processes will simply drive costs higher, and that will make education unattainable for many. I think we've come to a watershed because the missing ingredient that we didn't have before in the access, affordability, quality equation is technology, if it is used wisely. And by wisely, I mean not just for technology's sake. Otherwise, technology only drives your costs higher. We only leverage the real benefit from technology when it is used in reengineered systems that enable an institution to scale its operations (processes, procedures, pedagogy, etc.) in a way that unit costs of whatever is produced get lowered. So scale has got to be a byword. That means you need to standardize basic platforms and procedures; you need to look at every possible way to deliver your services using technology; you need to look at better self-service supported by technology, but good self-service that is humanized by people behind the scenes who can respond when the technology doesn't do everything. All this is critical because if you can get scale, and lower the per-unit cost, the payoff is the margin that enables you to mass customize delivery of services and learning. The quality comes in because you can afford to build back in the customization that individual students need.

"Mass customization" by the way is not new; it's an old systems engineering concept. I think it applies as much to the education industry as it does to software engineering or manufacturing. Build the standard platform, lower the per-unit costs, and then build back the ability to customize to meet the needs of individuals. Customization alone only adds cost; you have to do the other stuff first; then you can afford to build customization back in. But to do all this, we have to use technology, and we have to change culture in much of higher education.

IMS Global: There's a lot of discussion these days in higher education about measurable performance. Is that something you are familiar with?

NA: Sure. Higher education is an industry that does not have a history of measuring how well it is doing. Of course there is evaluation, but as a rule not on an institutional or programmatic basis. Faculty in North America design their own examinations that measure what happens in their individual classes. But it's done on a cottage industry basis. Every faculty member does it differently, probably according to what they experienced when they went to school. We can't afford this practice any longer on an institutional level. We have to adopt a systems approach for it to work effectively. Unfortunately, there's a lot of resistance to change. It's built into our culture. Think what would happen if an institution measured learning outcomes and discovered that it had little impact on a student's learning at all? And at the price we are charging for it! No, we have to start thinking systemically about measuring the outcomes of everything, in both business and academic systems, and in the case of the latter, how well are our students learning? This issue is becoming part of a national discussion. It won't go away soon.