El futur de les universitats no presencials: quin paper hi jugarà Google?

He vist a SocialMediaToday un post titulat How Google is on the Way to Take Over the Higher Education Market on es comenta l’experiència dels dos professors de Stanford, vinculats a Google, de fer a tot el món de forma no presencial una assignatura d’Intel.ligència Artificial. Jo mateix vaig intentat seguir-la, i fins i tot em vaig comprar el llibre que recomanaven. Malauradament no he tingut el temps de qualitat suficient per seguir-la i vaig haver de deixar de fer-la, malgrat que m’agradava molt.

Però aquesta experiència, i el fet que hi hagi professors que comencin a abandonar la docència a les universitats per muntar  una iniciativa de docènica online, fa pensar una mica. En aquest post de SocialMediaToday, s’hi diu que la Universitat basada en la Societat Industrial potser està arribant a la seva fi, i per també les universitats localitzades geogràficament:

As many Industrial Age institutions, the classical university institution is now under siege. Sure, there will be a few more years before we’ll see macroscopic effects: this experiment has been done by IT-savvy professors for IT-savvy students; it will take time before this spreads to the entire faculty and all subject matters.

Still, the university institution is in question and will soon be exactly in the same conundrum like physical newspapers or the publishing industry are today. Their economic model will become unstable because it is funded by big Industrial Age corporations that seek to produce commoditized degree-holders. The logic of geographical concentration of university to enhance communication is obsolete as we have just seen demonstrated. So, be ready to see big changes.

No ho acabo de tenir clar, però això mereix una bona reflexió. Cal recordar també que la Universitat de Stanford volia muntar un campus nou a New York City, però que al final no ho farà. Segurament ja en tenen prou en expandir-se virtualment, tal com diu aquesta altra entrada esmentada en la primera, Udacity and the future of online universities:

Stanford was willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building a new physical campus in New York City — but it isn’t willing, it seems, to help Thrun build a free virtual campus which could reach the whole world. That’s a dereliction of its educational duty. But where Stanford has failed, surely some other elite university will step in. Thrun is taking a bold step here. Let’s hope he soon gets the support, if not of Stanford, then of some other college. Like Harvard, or Yale, or Oxford, or Cambridge. They’re exclusive places now. But they don’t have to be, in the future.

El que està clar és que darrere de tot plegat hi ha la possibilitat de fer negoci:

The global education market is 2,000 billion $ and the higher education market worldwide is probably around 500 billion $. A lucrative enough market that could be leveraged with the technologies of the Fourth Revolution by Google!

Watch as Google reinvents Higher Education for both our benefit and their profit!

Em pregunto si les universitats presencials no han de reaccionar una mica, o al menys han de pensar en el seu paper quan Google o un NewGoogle munti una universitat, igual que ha muntat Google Maps o Gmail.

Foto: http://yiconaxu.uphero.com/images/10-ya.jpg