Science
In Wired World, a Changing Role for Research Universities
April 22, 2009 - 4:00am
Since Cornell’s inception in 1865, society has changed dramatically. In a world of iPhones and Kindles, have the physical aspects of research universities become obsolete?
“You can do a lot with online collaboration software of different sorts,” Asst. Prof. Rachel Prentice, science and technology studies, said. “The question is what are you losing when you lose that physical interaction.”
Physical presence allows individuals to interact on a much more communicable level. Asst. Prof. Jeremy Birnholtz, communication, expressed the influence of random encounters. A professor can go down the hall to ask for help and a student can come into contact with professors, graduate students or post-docs in their offices or labs contributing to their involvement. Most research still takes place physically in labs, where researchers must be present. A centralized location allows individuals with similar interests to congregate and collaborate. Birnholtz contends that the single most important aspect is the awareness of who else is involved, the ability to interact and these opportunistic encounters.
Asst. Prof. Lee Humphreys, communication, agreed. These chance happenings offer “exposure to things you might not have been looking for … There’s a lot of power in the physical space in general and how we interact with it,” he said. “I think it very much shapes our communication and ways of thinking which also can get lost online sometimes.”
Trust is very different for two people who do not meet face-to-face, Birnholtz noted. He adds that research is social in nature, and informal meetings can yield unexpected but important aspects in collaboration. Virtual talks adequately present information, but the “interactive capacity” is lost, and some things get lost in videoconferences.
“What students get from things like small sections, breakout groups, from seminars, from group interaction, is — if anything — pedagogically the most powerful stuff that you get out of college,” Prentice said.
At Stanford Medical School, all lectures are put online, which allows them to be archived and, potentially, to reach a larger audience. However, Prentice suggested that such a format treats the student as a passive receptor of data instead of someone who is actively processing it. “Ideally, what professors create is a platform for students to work from and launch from, and the ability to create something out of what we provide is going to be greater if people work collaboratively,” she said.
“E-mail probably has replaced student-faculty relations, but it’s a complicated thing, particularly with different email policies,” Humphreys said. Voicemail offers a sense of immediacy, and even Cornell’s own emergency broadcast system is equipped with phone and text messaging capabilities.
Birnholtz noted that online access to information is faster and more readily available, and checks on the quality via peer reviewing still exist. These checks are imperative to ensure the legitimacy of information. “It puts more of an onus on students to figure out what is quality information and what is reliable research,” Birnholtz said. “The answer is not [banning] Wikipedia, the answer is [teaching] students to recognize what are good sources of information and what makes those sources of information reliable,” he continued. “That’s what the point of the university is, to teach people how to make sense of the world.”
Prentice called current students “the visual generation,” who learn through alternative media such as videogames and films. “You’re going to ideally be learning for the rest of your life. If we set you up the right way, we’ve given you a bunch of tools to keep doing that with,” Prentice said.
Since Cornell’s inception in 1865, society has changed dramatically. In a world of iPhones and Kindles, have the physical aspects of research universities become obsolete?
“You can do a lot with online collaboration software of different sorts,” Asst. Prof. Rachel Prentice, science and technology studies, said. “The question is what are you losing when you lose that physical interaction.”
Physical presence allows individuals to interact on a much more communicable level. Asst. Prof. Jeremy Birnholtz, communication, expressed the influence of random encounters. A professor can go down the hall to ask for help and a student can come into contact with professors, graduate students or post-docs in their offices or labs contributing to their involvement. Most research still takes place physically in labs, where researchers must be present. A centralized location allows individuals with similar interests to congregate and collaborate. Birnholtz contends that the single most important aspect is the awareness of who else is involved, the ability to interact and these opportunistic encounters.
Asst. Prof. Lee Humphreys, communication, agreed. These chance happenings offer “exposure to things you might not have been looking for … There’s a lot of power in the physical space in general and how we interact with it,” he said. “I think it very much shapes our communication and ways of thinking which also can get lost online sometimes.”
Trust is very different for two people who do not meet face-to-face, Birnholtz noted. He adds that research is social in nature, and informal meetings can yield unexpected but important aspects in collaboration. Virtual talks adequately present information, but the “interactive capacity” is lost, and some things get lost in videoconferences.
“What students get from things like small sections, breakout groups, from seminars, from group interaction, is — if anything — pedagogically the most powerful stuff that you get out of college,” Prentice said.
At Stanford Medical School, all lectures are put online, which allows them to be archived and, potentially, to reach a larger audience. However, Prentice suggested that such a format treats the student as a passive receptor of data instead of someone who is actively processing it. “Ideally, what professors create is a platform for students to work from and launch from, and the ability to create something out of what we provide is going to be greater if people work collaboratively,” she said.
“E-mail probably has replaced student-faculty relations, but it’s a complicated thing, particularly with different email policies,” Humphreys said. Voicemail offers a sense of immediacy, and even Cornell’s own emergency broadcast system is equipped with phone and text messaging capabilities.
Birnholtz noted that online access to information is faster and more readily available, and checks on the quality via peer reviewing still exist. These checks are imperative to ensure the legitimacy of information. “It puts more of an onus on students to figure out what is quality information and what is reliable research,” Birnholtz said. “The answer is not [banning] Wikipedia, the answer is [teaching] students to recognize what are good sources of information and what makes those sources of information reliable,” he continued. “That’s what the point of the university is, to teach people how to make sense of the world.”
Prentice called current students “the visual generation,” who learn through alternative media such as videogames and films. “You’re going to ideally be learning for the rest of your life. If we set you up the right way, we’ve given you a bunch of tools to keep doing that with,” Prentice said.