Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Current News
Monoculture, Blackboard, the President’s Commission, and Accreditation
6/21/2006
By Terry Calhoun
I’m not a big fan of monoculture. It is the concept of everything being too much alike. I keep hearing that some people are beginning to feel like learning management systems (LMS) are creating a vast monocultural crop of online course information, much in the way that agribusiness has with wheat, corn, and soybeans.
A couple of months ago, during a great discussion on UWEBD, Skip Knox of Boise State University made a passionate post. In reply to a side query from me, he was even more passionate. He said of learning management systems, “We find our choices have become traps, that we've adorned ourselves with an albatross.”
Those are strong words, but as I thought on those and other words Skip wrote, I also noted some news items that relate to “monoculture” and that also constitute a possible threat to higher education’s system of accreditation.
Skip, who teaches history, continued:
We find our choices have become traps, that we've adorned ourselves with an albatross. It's not just that Blackboard (to give name to the devil) is a corporate vendor; it's that any LMS represents a particular pedagogical approach. No one seems to have questioned the wisdom of imposing one pedagogy across the entire curriculum. Well, that's not true; the faculty questioned it, loudly and persistently, and were basically told to sit down and be quiet and get on board. Grants were got that perpetuated the mentality. Deans were hired who fostered that mentality. It's so embedded now that the only way to break free is to found a new school.
With respect to IT’s “blame,” Skip said:
IT can't be blamed exclusively, as purchasing decisions get made in partnership with other key players on campus. I'm thinking more of decisions that get made by default, such as the decision to buy software at all. There was a massive move in the direction of ERPs that seemed like it was a good idea at the time. In the wake of corporate mergers, however, we find ourselves restricted to less than a handful of vendors who can never be fully responsive to our needs.
“[S]uch as the decision to buy software at all…” Hmm. Sometimes decisions are made and we don’t even realize that there was a decision.
On the other hand, I’m not such a big fan of “Balkanization,” either. But some people feel it is more of a natural human social state. I was recently struck by one writer’s turn of phrase in Monoculture: An Artifact of the 20th Century?:
Recommended Reading
- Campus Security :: June 27, 2008
:::::: NETWORK SECURITY
: Delivering Slices of Network Securely at USC
:::::: CAMPUS SECURITY NEWS
: VMware Finds Home on Campus in Disaster Recovery Planning
: Microsoft Advisory Targets SQL Injection Attacks
: Mobile Security To Surface in Sybase iAnywhere Suite
: Southeast Missouri State Says Former Employee Took Student Data
: Universities Deploy Procera Hardware to Prioritize Network Traffic
: Dartmouth Launches 2-Week Crash Course in Security
: Survey: Many Microsoft Patches Are Going Uninstalled
: New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole - IT Trends :: Thursday, June 26, 2008
:::::: FOCUS
:: Lyon's 1:1 Laptop Program Aims To 'Level the Playing Field' for Students
:::::: IT NEWS
:: Windows XP's Death Is for Real, Microsoft Rep Explains
:: Temple To Deploy Wireless LAN Across 8 Campuses in Philly
:: Adobe Releases Acrobat 9, Creative Suite 3.3
:: Microsoft Open XML Converter Arrives for Mac
:: Pentaho's BI Platform Released Under GPL
:: New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole
:: New 11.0 openSuSE Linux OS Released - C-Level View :: June 25, 2008
:::::: EXECUTIVE VIEW
: The Educational Software Paradox - Can We Learn to Unlearn?
:::::: WORTH NOTING
: D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
: Western Governors U Offers New Online Degree in Health Informatics
: Foothill-De Anza CC District Deploys Abaca for E-mail Protection - SmartClassroom :: Wednesday, June 27, 2008
:::::: VIEWPOINT
: Podcasting in Instruction: Moving Beyond the Obvious
:::::: NEWS and PRODUCT UPDATES
: D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: Samsung Launches Pint-Sized Projector
: Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
: Mitsubishi Launches Wireless, Short-Throw Projectors - News Update :: Tuesday, June 24, 2008
:::::: NEWS
: Sao Paulo University Taps Sun Technology for Computing Cluster
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
: Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
: Intel 'Holding Back' USB 3.0 Spec, Says Nvidia
: Allegheny College Launches Energy Reduction Program
: Virginia Tech Automates User State Management with Kaseya
: Tokai U Uses PTC MCAD Software To Design Car that Competes at Le Mans - IT Trends :: Thursday, June 19, 2008
:::::: CASE STUDY
:: Job Scheduling Software Smooths Data Transfers at IUF
:::::: IT NEWS
:: Blackboard Continues Pursuit of Desire2Learn
:: IBM Launches 'Carbon Strategy' Service in Project Big Green
:: Microsoft Joins Open Source Census Group
:: Swedes Deploy Dual-Boot 'Green' Supercomputer with IBM, Intel Chips
:: U North Texas To Roll Out ImageNow for Document Management
:: Cambridge Installs Panasus Parallel Storage System for Research Support
:: Novell Joins Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program, Runs Windows Server 2008 On SUSE Linux Enterprise
