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Cornford, James and Pollock, Neil. (2003).
Putting the University Online: Information, Technology and
Organizational Change. London: Open University Press.
Pp. 144
$ 30.95 ISBN 0335210058
Reviewed by F. Nevra Seggie
Michigan State University
May 31, 2004
This book is an important piece in the search to provide a
different perspective on the relationship between new information
and communication technologies (ICTs) and higher education
institutions (HEIs). It claims to be the first book length study
based on detailed analysis of what putting the university online
means.
In the current world context where ICTs appear to be holding
out many promises for universities in terms of
“flexibility, efficiency, quality and access” (back
cover), Cornford and Pollock, in their book, aim at discovering
what sort of implications the pursuit of this vision might have
for a HEI and its concerned parties; and the implicit and
explicit consequences for the role and identity of the
university.
The authors explore “how universities are attempting to
build and use new ICTs to sit alongside, complement and in some
cases, replace established means of delivering, organizing and
managing higher education” (back cover). The work draws
both on theories from the sociology of science and technology and
on empirical research carried out by Cornford and Pollock in the
UK context.
The authors explain that there is an extensive body of
knowledge on the impact of ICTs on the university. However, they
argue that this tends to deal with the relationship between ICTs
and the whole field of education, seeking the big picture,
overall very much future-oriented as if “there were no
‘layers’ between an institution and its goals and
information technology policies” (p.107) and hence lacks in
many ways. They state that the current work focuses mainly on
online universities, “eliding the prior process of
putting the university online” (p.14). It also has a
strong bias in addressing “either higher education or its
specific aspects” (p.14) such as teaching and learning,
thus omitting “the question of the institutional-level
analysis of the putting the university as an institution
online” (p.14). Finally it has some sort of
“technological determinism” (p.14) and so “a
narrowly technological understanding of the scope of the problem
of putting the university online” (p.14). In this
respect the book is a notable contribution to this corpus since
it aims at filling these “three significant lacunae”
(p.13) in the literature on the role of technologies in higher
education.
The book can sometimes be a difficult read because of the way
it is structured. Chapters 3 to 8 are written to be read in
pairs, building on the arguments of the previous chapter, or to
be read as “standalone essays … in isolation”
(p.13). This approach leads to some repetition and overlap of
ideas. It might have been better if the authors did not target
the chapters to be also read as a standalone one since at the
beginning of each chapter, there is an introduction which
prepares the reader for the rest of the chapter leading to an
overview and thus to some ideas of the previous chapters being
said and paraphrased in a different way. In the same way, at the
end, there is a chapter dedicated to reflection which is a very
nice wrap-up and summary of the book in themes. But it might also
have been interesting to read a section on the wrap up of the
implications of the study conducted in the UK for other
institutions in different contexts. I also think that a section
might have been dedicated to some further research suggestions
which this research can follow for scholars interested in online
issue. Nevertheless I believe, this work, as a whole or as
chapters in isolation or in pairs, would serve as an excellent
resource in graduate courses in higher education, mainly in the
ones concerned with organizational change, online learning and
ICTs policy and design. Furthermore, the arguments put forward in
this book would I think engage many scholars of higher education
to question their ideas and beliefs about the role and impact of
ICTs and make them develop a new perspective about the
implementation process of these ICTs in HEIs. It would also help
“sensitize policy makers, academics [and] university
managers… to the limits to, and implications of, the
pursuit of a virtual future for higher education” (back
cover).
Book Summary
The book opens with an overview of the current situation of
HEIs in the face of modern technology. The authors first assert
that perhaps the only clear message that can be derived from an
in-depth analysis into the contemporary literature on the
university is that the university, as it stands now, appears to
be in crisis. “In spite of the lack of an empirical base,
many commentators seem to agree that new … ICTs
…” (p.107) are “a significant element of the
current condition” (p.1). They then explore “the
principal threats which the online world is understood to present
to the university” (p.1). They argue that one reason why
ICTs are seen as a threat is because the online world, its actors
and practices seem to “destabilise almost all of the
established certainties around which the university has been
formed” (p.2). Later, they focus on the claims of new
uncertainties in two areas: “the realm of knowledge”
(p.2) and “the realm of geography” (p.2). They
explain that in the literature, the modern university appears to
be challenged by the postmodern environment and globalization
which made the knowledge available to everyone everywhere in the
world with a computer and network connection, decreasing its role
as a “gatekeeper to the world of knowledge” (p.2) and
undermining the intimate relationship it has with its
“campus, … region and nation” (p.2). They
further highlight that ICTs are considered to not only be
“threatening the university as an institution, deepening
its sense of crisis, but also [to be]… holding out the
promise of a solution to, or at least a way of living with, that
crisis” (p.13). They state the rationale that “if
they threaten to pull the university apart, then they can also
bind it together” (p.3). In this respect, “the
virtual or online university has emerged as a potent vision for
the future of higher education utilizing … ICTs to
radically restructure higher educational provision and re-equip
the university for its new environment” (p.3), that is,
“a university without walls” (p.3). The authors claim
that this agenda has implications for the university and
throughout the book they explore “a little more deeply some
of the implications of this vision and what it might mean for the
universities and those who work and study in them” (p.4).
The underlying suggestion of the work then appears to be the fact
that “ the route towards the online university is not as
simple as is often presented” (p.4) and when the university
does transform, the result may not even look like the desired
vision.
The authors acknowledge the rapid diffusion of this vision,
pinpoint its possible reasons as put forward by the literature,
but challenge these claims from various angles. And along with
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid 1995 (and also Newman and
Johnson 1999), they suspect that the idea of the online
university may be both undervaluing how universities work and
overestimating what new technologies do. Nevertheless, the
authors recognize the fact that “these claims have
underpinned an expanding programme of initiatives and projects
within traditional universities as they have sought to explore
the virtual university” (p.7). They provide examples of
new, “for-profit” (p.7) institutions, which are seen
as progress toward the vision. They, however, articulate that
these institutions’ significance lies not in their direct,
but indirect impact on traditional HEIs making them add “a
new impetus and urgency to the body of experimentation and
innovation with the use of ICTs within existing
institutions” (p.7). So they argue that within this
traditional higher education context, “the most
quantitatively significant moves towards the online university
are to be found” (p.7) in “brownfield rather than
greenfield sites” (p.7) and so throughout the book they
deal with these brownfield sites where traditional institutions
make attempts to go online.
The overall emphasis is on “the complexity of the
process of putting the traditional university
online” (p.107). They think while studying technology and
institutions, there is not much to be gained from focusing on the
end product and as such the book concentrates on “the
processes by which an institution and technology mutually shape
each other” (p.107) since the authors believe that it would
help develop “a deeper understanding of just how new
technologies are contributing to the reshaping of higher
education and then in turn how technologies are being shaped for
use within universities” (p.108).
Throughout the work, how universities are “redefined in
a number of new ways” (p.108) is emphasised and three main
themes, information, technology and organizational change are
explored.
Chapter Highlights
The book is organized in such a way that it starts from
“the sub-institutional level” (p.12), proceeds with
“a focus at the level of the institution itself”
(p.12) and concludes with “a focus on the technological
mediation of relationship between universities”
(p.12).
Chapter 2 introduces the authors’ “theoretical and
methodological stance” (p.13), “drawing on work in
science and technology studies” (p.13). It sketches out
“the basic framework of [their] approach” (p.24) to
the study. It explains the rationale behind the reasons why they
have adopted an ethnographic approach as a means to the end. In
this chapter, the authors “elaborate [their] particular
understanding of what it might mean to put the university
online” (p.13). They then introduce the 4 particular
institutions they have studied, presenting their rationale behind
their decision and reflect “a little on the problems”
(p.13) doing research in such institutions.
The authors use Chapter 3 to explore the types and amount of
work required to construct online courses in universities. They
present a case which focuses on projects and initiatives carried
out for the implementation of an online course and a video
conference but “stalled” (p.34) after a while in a
university called North-Campus. At the beginning, they pose what
an online or virtual university is. With the support of the
literature, they define it as a “distributed
university” (p.27) where those who make up the university
do not have to be in the same place any more. They then discuss
what “makes the distribution appear possible” (p.27).
They argue that it is not the “mere presence” (p.27)
of ICTs that render it thus, but the way they “are used to
move the work of the university around” (p.27),
“making [the] work mobile” (p.27). They then
elaborate on “The work of making work mobile” (p.27)
engaging the reader into the topic via the descriptions of
observations and quotations of interviews they conducted in
Learning Development Services in North Campus. They describe the
initiatives – online course and video conference- in a
detailed way to create an understanding of what worked, what did
not, the challenges the constituents faced during the process and
how the projects stalled. At the end of the chapter, they discuss
the possible reasons why these projects got stuck. They argue
that in an environment where there was “no overt staff
resistance” (p.35), the failure might have resulted from
the underlying “tensions that arise once those building
such technologies attempt to complement and, in some cases,
replace the work that the established organizational and
institutional structures undertake on behalf of the
university” (p.26).
They conclude the chapter by summarising their claim that the
overall issue for universities facing the challenges accentuated
by ICTs, is “to choose which aspects
of their existing institution they should continue to exploit
and which of the promises of the new technologies they should
begin to explore” (p.36-37).
Chapter 4 “develops some of the arguments of Chapter 3
by focusing on the relationship between the physical campus
environment and the new online technologies” (p.13). The
authors discuss “the role of the campus in online
education” (p.38). Their intention is to explain how the
campus together with its constituents refuses “to lie down
and die” (p.38). They attempt to show “some of the
subtle and powerful, if often taken-for-granted, ways in which
the campus works to support higher education”
(p.38). They claim that for those seeking to develop online
education, it is important to “understand the support a
campus setting gives the education process” (p.38) and so
to be prepared “for the need to find new ways of providing
that support in a distributed education context” (p.38). In
this sense, they claim that campus, rather than a constraint,
should be considered a resource. Drawing a parallelism with Brown
and Duguid (2000)’s work on network actor theory, they
propose that networks of human beings and also other actors such
as buildings and machines “facilitate and support the
learning process” (p.46). From this perspective, they
believe that “the work which the campus undertakes for the
university, the subtle ways in which it supports the process of
learning and research, become apparent and its ‘submerged
resourcefullness’ (Brown and Duguid 2000:244) is
revealed” (p.46). They then support their argument via the
example of their fieldwork at two UK universities. They explore
the problems encountered when it was time for one university
under consideration to set up an assessment scheme for an online
course and for the other to develop an online module on cyber
culture. They then discuss their findings briefly with reference
to the university and its relation to the campus and end the
chapter by re-emphasising their view which is for the campus not
be seen as a constraint but as a “resourceful constraint
(Brown and Duguid 2000:246)” (p.51). I believe this is a
noteworthy issue to think about for distance learning course
developers so that they can consider alternative ways of
compensation in the process of taking the courses online.
Chapter 5 “shifts the central focus to the higher
education institution as a whole, questioning the dominant
‘informational’ understanding of the
university” (p.13). Overall, it describes at some length
“how informational discourses have been used by
institutional managers to redefine what the university is, what
its problems are, and how these problems could and should be
addressed” (p.108). In other words, the attempt is to show
“the means whereby a university can be redefined as an
‘information institution’ ” (p.65).
Empirically, they focus on the replacement of one management
information system, Management and Administrative Computing
(MAC), with another, Enterprise, in a traditional university
which they name Big-Civic. They explain that the reason given for
replacing the previous system is that MAC does not provide the
same type of “accurate and timely information” (p.65)
as Enterprise. They, however, think that the reason put forward
shows only one level of thought and argue that on another level
the system is seen as a kind of virtual university for Big Civic
to move online. They then move on to describe how the project has
been implemented. They first argue that it is only through
“bringing together people disciplined enough to repeat an
informational mantra [which is Enterprise will provide
“timely, accurate and accessible information” (p.57)]
that a difference between 2 systems is achieved” (p.65) and
then describe how the mantra shaped “the move from MAC to
Enterprise” (p.56) and “How the project team used it
to drive [the system]” (p.56). The authors discuss the
transition period from an old to a new system,
“Reconfiguring the university” (p.62) and
describing its extension throughout the university. They explore
the problems and concerns that the involved stakeholders express
and conflicts they go through while organizational and individual
identities are being shaped.
Chapter 6 “develops the arguments of Chapter 5 by
focusing on the question of standardization associated with the
informational view of higher education” (p.13). It starts
with the authors’ point of view which suggests that
“the virtual university is not just a matter of
‘distance’ or ‘flexible’ teaching and
learning systems but extends into administration, student
recruitment and alumni management, resource networks, library
systems and so on” (p.69)
Having explained in which ways the current British university
system is changing with a particular emphasis on the move towards
“a ‘knowledge-based’ economy (see, for example,
Goddard et al 1994)” (p.70), they seek to understand
what this means for the university and its identity. Drawing on
the models of universities as organizations by McNay (1995:106),
they assert that “the university must be seen as a highly
heterogenous institution ensemble, which exists primarily in the
heads of the people who constituted it, and in a myriad of
locally negotiated practices and interactions” (p.71). In
this sense, the traditional university, as an institution
“appears to exist only ‘virtually’ ”
(p.71).
The rest of the chapter provides three examples of cases--Open
University, Big Civic and City Campus--which explore “the
pressures that are released by the use of computers and networks
in the university” (p.72) and discuss and show how this
generates “demands for its reinstitutionalization in a more
corporate form.” (p.72) where “both policy formation
and policy implementation are far tighter and goals, identities,
abstract rules and standard operating procedures are made
explicit and formalized” (p.72).
Chapter 7 moves the focus to the “inter-university scale
and the relationship between universities and other
organizations” (p.13). It explores the ways in which
“the university’s engagement with ICTs raises the
issue of uniqueness of the university as an organization,
distinct from other organizations” (p.13). It starts with
a brief literature review on the way the university is seen as an
organization compared to other institutions. Drawing on the
opposing views from the existing body of knowledge, they cite the
arguments of those who see the university as something different
and of others who focus on the similarities between HEIs and
other organizations since they face similar problems. They
briefly discuss how some “have attempted to resolve the
issue of differences and similarities” (p.79). They,
however, argue that the issue is not to come up with “a set
of characteristics and elements which set universities
apart” (p.90), but how “some of the differences and
similarities are actively constructed and ‘brought into
being’ ” (p.79), which is the main aim of this
chapter. In order to explore their argument, the chapter examines
and reports how a computer system called enterprise resource
planning (ERP) – the Enterprise system discussed in Chapter
5- “designed with commercial organizations in mind is made
to fit within the context of a university” (p.90),
Big-Civic. According to the authors, although the literature
argues that ERP systems have “expanded to include an ever
increasing range of organizational characteristics and
functions” (p.79), these characteristics are
“embodied in the system as modules and ready-made business
process templates and, … are seen as being applicable to a
wide variety of user organizations” (p.79). The study in
this chapter shows this is not always the case at least for
universities.
When they present their empirical material and describe the
process of building the ERP system, Enterprise, within the
university. They demonstrate “the particular ways in which
the university has engaged with the system and “how the ERP
system is also subject to much change” (p.79). In other
words, in Big-Civic, many of “the policies, [procedures]
and processes underwent a process of standardization”
(p.79) for the system to be customized itself. They also show
that this occurs partly “through conscious choice …
[and to some extent] ‘by default’ ” (p.79). So
the chapter explores the “complex set of relationships the
university has with the system and its supplier, its various
departments and other institutions involved in similar
implementations” (p.79). The underlying argument is that
managing this process is “a key task, and difficulty, for
universities” (p.79).
This chapter clearly identifies struggles of various actor
networks on the way to a “successful realization of
differences and similarities” (p.90) between HEIs and other
organizations and successfully describes the introduction of new
roles and work practices with the reshaping of various identities
throughout the standardization and customization processes.
Chapter 8 explores both “the ways in which putting the
university online is deployed in strategies to mark a particular
university as distinctive, and also the ways in which it creates
forces to homogenize universities” (p.13).
The chapter discusses attempts to build both a new software
module – a new student management system called the Campus
Management - within a university, Big-Civic, and a new kind of
user – the self-administering student. It does this with
reference to other HEIs, mainly American, trying to adopt the
same system. It shows how the idea “received a good
response” (p.105) initially, but witnessed so many
concerns, conflicts and pressures in the construction process
with the realization of the fact that it could create tension in
relationships.
The authors define the campus management module which sees the
university as ‘self-service’ in which students will
have responsibilities in conducting their administration. Having
given a brief literature review regarding the history of the
‘self-service’ concept and discussed the perspective
of the university as ‘self-service’, they explore how
the implementation of the module would “demand the
renegotiation of the status of students and their relationship to
the university” (p.94) rendering students active users
which will “require radical changes in thinking and
organization” (p.93). In this sense, they demonstrate how
the university seems to be “ready for the system …
but not yet ready for self-service” (p.105).
Via the exploration of the counteracting of other sponsor
groups, the authors show in the design of the new module how
“more attention was paid to the search for generalizable
concepts than the needs of individual institutions”
(p.111). They demonstrate how “the system
‘converged’ on a particular design, not because the
supplier had found the one ‘best model’ or set of
practices but because this is the nature of standardized software
and the production of a ‘global’ product”
(p.111). The authors argue that this convergence “has
important implications for the future shaping of
[institutions]…” (p.111).
This chapter concludes with a discussion of how the
implementation could not proceed because the system was mainly
customized for the American market having “implications for
Big Civic’s own methods for managing students”
(p.104). Thus it shows, while American universities have embraced
the technology, Big-Civic’s position was unclear for the
future.
In the last chapter which is mainly a reflection on the
previous chapters, the authors re-emphasise the fact that they
support the thesis that “the institution of the university
is changing in fundamental ways and that “these changes
deserve to be analysed both in more detail than they have to date
and in different ways” (p.107). They restate the fact that
their criticism is towards the works which “often ignore
the individual dynamics of technologies and talk as if there were
no ground or terrain to be travelled between the present
institution and some future end-state” (p.107). So, they
highlight one more time that their work, in contrast has focused
on the “complexity of putting the university online”
(p.107). In this respect, they claim that their work appears to
be “somewhat different from conventional studies of
universities” (p.107).
They make summative reflections on the chapters under three
themes: information, technology and organizational change.
They reflect on the way in which the university has been
redefined in terms of “the storage, processing,
transmission and sharing of information” (p.108). They
explain that “while perhaps antithetical to conventional
understandings of higher education, it has, nevertheless, become
powerful rhetoric in and around campuses” (p.108). So they
reflect on the fact that the direction of much of the book was
guided by the question of how this “ discursive
reorientation was achieved” (p.108) and then pose the
question as to whether or not “the view of the university
as information downplays certain things while highlighting
others” (p.108) for further consideration. They also
reflect on the “process of standardization associated with
producing and maintaining this informational view of higher
education” (p.108).
In terms of the relationship between technology and the
university, they reflect on the fact that many conflicts and
discussions throughout the various chapters of this book
“have resulted from basic temporal, spatial and process
incommensurabilities between the technologies and the
institutions of the university” (p.109) providing
“important insights into the mutual shaping of technology
and institution” (p.109).
They then summarise that throughout the book they have
attempted to show some of the “ways in which putting the
university online will directly and indirectly mediate the
relationships [within the universities themselves,] between
… [them] and software suppliers and between universities
and other higher education institutions around the world”
(p.111).
In terms of organizational change, they ask whether or not
“the university is organized to undergo such processes of
change” (p.111). They reflect on the extent to which it is
“equipped to make use of new ICTs while retaining its
foundational institutional values” (p.111). They question
whether or not the university is “necessarily losing its
organizational specificity and uniqueness as it gears up to go
online” (p.111). They highlight that what they “found
was that, despite pressures to change, … the university
remains committed to many established structures, identities and
relationships” (p.112).
The authors conclude the book by highlighting “the most
significant outcome of all the work presented in this
book”(p.112). It is that “the important (and
desirable) outcome of the process [putting the university online]
is a new kind of university” (p.112). They emphasise that
this new type of university is not the one “that is
distinguished from its former self in terms of technologies,
structures or processes, but it rather differs in terms of its
degree of self-knowledge” (p.112). In short, they claim
that as “… universities have lost their monopoly of
knowledge about the world, they have been offered a new
opportunity” (p.112) to find out about themselves.
About the Reviewer
F. Nevra Seggie is a doctoral candidate in the department of
Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education (HALE) in Michigan State
University. Her current research interests are organizational
change and professional development issues in higher education
institutions in developing countries, with particular emphasis on
Turkey.
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