University Business - January 2009 - (Page 13)

VIEWPOINT Open Education: A New Paradigm e promises of open technologies for education By Michael King B ETWEEN 2010 AND 2025, nearly 80 million “baby boomers” will leave the workforce, just as they entered it between 1960 and 1980. When this exodus occurs, only 20 percent of workers remaining will possess the skills required for most of the jobs being created today. On a global scale, the United States, the European Union, Japan, China, and India will face critical shortfalls of 32 million technically specialized professionals. roughout the world, the demand for educated professionals is growing faster than populations of people with the required skills. e education industry is facing challenges that make improvements more critical than ever: 1. Demand for increased delivery capacity. In many developing countries, half of the population is under age 25. In India, where more than half is under 25, within a decade the working population could peak at 800 million people. Education and skill-set development are crucial to the continued growth of economies like these. And in major economies, most people will change careers several times in their lives. Retraining and continuous learning mean more demand for education. 2. Declining workforce populations in many developed countries. Japan’s workforce population today is about 2.5 times smaller than that of the United States, and it is trending to be ﬁve times smaller by 2050. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2030 the European Union can expect to have 14 percent fewer workers than it does today. Innovation in education is crucial to continued produc- A more open culture of collaboration will ultimately lower costs of operation and delivery. tivity as workforce populations decline in many industrialized countries. 3. Poor system performance. A May 2006 Manhattan Institute study found that for every 100 U.S. ninth-graders, 68 graduate from high school on time, 40 enroll in college, and only 27 are still in college a year later. Only 18 earn an associate’s degree within three years or a bachelor’s degree within six. So it is questionable whether or not the United States will continue to have the necessary skilled labor force to compete globally. Typically underfunded, today’s educational systems must do more with less and are ill-equipped to close the skills gap. Despite billions of dollars in spending, technology has produced inconsistent results. Siloed institutions and enterprise applications, lack of data interoperability, escalating total cost of ownership, and absence of industry standards contribute to ineﬃcient processes, creating barriers to collaboration and innovation. COMMITMENT STEPS To address these challenges, the education industry must oﬀer (1) more open access to education for more students, regardless of their institution, the region they live in, or any other factor; (2) more open data and processes within and across institutions to improve quality and outcomes measurements; and (3) a more open culture of collaboration to foster reuse and sharing, to ultimately lower costs of operation and delivery within the industry. With all this openness, addressing security and privacy concerns will be critical. ese changes can be enabled by more open technologies. Together, this new paradigm is referred to as “open education.” Many educational institutions are taking steps to embrace open education by creating more open, ﬂexible processes and data access to improve quality and performance outcomes, while lowering cost. Here are two examples in K-12: • In 2005, the School District of Philadelphia implemented “SchoolStat,” a data-driven management process, within 270 schools. It quantiﬁes performance in areas such as attendance and school climate and provides school leaders with actionable data from the district’s IBMpowered data warehouse. District improvements since the implementation include a decrease in student suspensions and a decrease in teacher absences. • Broward County Public Schools in Florida implemented a similar system based on IBM’s On Demand WorkMichael King is vice president of IBM Education Industry. January 2009 | 13 universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - January 2009

University Business - January 2009
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Behind the News
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Money Matters
Financial Aid
Community College
From Data to Information
5 Reasons to Switch to Virtual Servers
Finished in a Flash
Internet Technology
What's New
End Note

University Business - January 2009