Web 2.0 comes of age: disintermediation and the long tail in higher education
Dr Alan J. Cann, Department of Biology,
Adrian Building, University of Leicester,
University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
alan.cann@le.ac.uk
Background
There has been both a quantitative and a qualitative change in the students entering higher
education, and they have been described as the "loophole generation" (Summerville and
Fischetti 2007). In order to effectively cope with the long tail
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail) of students currently entering higher education, academic
staff need to stop attempting to maintain a stranglehold on learning technologies inside
institutional walled gardens, while maintaining a firm grasp on the quality of qualifications
awarded.
Disintermediation is "cutting out the middleman". By relaxing our grip on the technology of
learning we can utilize the power of "Web 2.0", a blanket term which refers to a second
generation of web-based communities and online services, such as social-networking sites,
wikis, and social bookmarking and indexing sites, which enable creativity, collaboration and
sharing between users. This approach changes e-learning resources from isolated information
silos to interlinked platforms. Most importantly, Web 2.0 also includes a social element where
the users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use, and allows
the user to do more than just download information. Users "own" and exercise control over the
data on a Web 2.0 site. Web 2.0 sites have an architecture of participation that encourages
users to add value to the site as they use it, and usually feature a rich, user-friendly interface
and may also have social-networking features. These technologies are therefore a natural fit for
building personal learning environments which encourage ownership of learning through a
choice of the best tools available, rather than just those which have been purchased by a
particular institution. By offering a wide choice of software tools, learners establish ownership of
their personal learning environment (PLE,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Learning_Environment) by following their preferred styles and
patterns of learning. This enhanced stake holding motivates and sustains learning. Unlike an
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institutional virtual learning environment (VLE
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_learning_environment) or learning management system (LMS),
students will not be locked out of their PLE when "their" course ends. This is the only financially
and educationally sustainable approach to lifelong learning.
However, VLEs/LMS have some advantages, notably authentication, monitoring student
progress and the convenience of "everything in one place". Rather than simply abandoning the
present monolithic structures we need to abandon a blinkered approach to e-learning
technologies and move to a loosely coupled teaching environment which aims to blend the
advantages of institutional systems while leveraging the power of contemporary social
software/Web 2.0 tools. In higher education we are selling a service, not a product. By allowing
academic staff to assume the role of learning advisors rather than production supervisors,
students will enter a learning community where they will acquire the skills and the knowledge
required for lifelong learning via a collaborative framework. The loophole generation will be able
to collaborate with academics to become the teachers of the next generation.
In the paper, I will describe initiatives which are underway in the Faculty of Medicine and
Biological Sciences at the University of Leicester to develop new practical strategies for
deployment of "loosely coupled teaching" involving Web 2.0 tools to facilitate and promote
personal development planning and lifelong learning.
Web 2.0 changes the game and raises expectations
Web 2.0 is defined as:
"A perceived second-generation of Web-based services such as social networking sites, wikis,
communication tools, and folksonomies that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among
users" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)
In practice, it is almost easier to recognize a Web 2.0 site when you see one than it is to define
the concept. Many examples of the Web 2.0 approach to online information have made their
way into everyday life, e.g. the inclusion of aspects of participatory or social media into sites
such as the BBC News website (news.bbc.co.uk) and many newspaper websites; Gordon Brown
solicits comments from members of the public on YouTube (uk.youtube.com/downingst). My
current approach to e-learning has arisen directly from my own extensive experience with
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academic blogging. My microbiology blog (microbiologybytes.wordpress.com) has received over
250,000 page views in the last year. Evidence of the success of this blog as a participatory
medium is that to date, the 500 posts have attracted over 780 non-spam comments from users,
showing that the site has been successful in achieving its aim of engaging in a conversation with
the public about topical aspects of microbiology. MicrobiologyBytes is also syndicated by
organizations such as Reuters and Fox News, further helping me to reach the widespread
audience I am aiming for (Cann, AJ: MicrobiologyBytes. Microbiology Today, 33(3): 192, 2006).
In addition to the blog element, the microbiologybytes.wordpress.com site also serves as the
home for my weekly MicrobiologyBytes podcast. In the last year, this has received over 100,000
downloads and there are approximately 1,500 regular weekly subscribers to the podcasts
(microbiologybytes.wordpress.com/podcasts).
My other academic blog is at: scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com. This blog has over 150
regular subscribers to the RSS feed and receives an additional several hundred site visits per
day. This site serves a consciously different function and readership to MicrobiologyBytes, by
acting as a reflective site where I can experiment with and comment on emerging educational
technologies and discuss them with other practitioners in the field. I have described in more
detail my rationale for academic blogging at (microbiologybytes.com/AJC/whyblog.html). This
site provides me with an opportunity to think, plan and reflect about developments in technology
and my own learning and teaching practice. Producing daily output for this site forces me to
read widely, including both peer-reviewed journals and online sources, in order to gather the
input I need. This site allows me to play with technology and ideas, and it often surprises me
how much I learn via the collaborative experience of writing in this way. By regularly covering
topics such as:

Why Facebook Is Sticky (tinyurl.com/2w92h3)

What is Second Life For? (tinyurl.com/2dp35r)

Filtering My Network (tinyurl.com/28xcqr)
and by engaging in online conversations with other academics, I am contributing to the active
development of pedagogical knowledge around these rapidly evolving technologies.
When I started MicrobiologyBytes, I imagined creating a sort of online magazine where the
content was essentially disposable - tomorrow’s chip wrappers. Analysis of the blog posts
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shows this not to be true. To the contrary, the discrete individual blog posts are seen as
reusable learning objects (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Objects) whose utilization is not only
maintained but increases with time as they are indexed in an increasing number of locations.
My initial expectations that I was creating trivial content has been confounded by the distributed
architecture of Web 2.0.
The participatory nature of Web 2.0 is reinforced by the fact that you don’t need to be technically
adept to contribute these sites and become part of an online community. The immersive
experience of such communities is a powerful motivator, but difficult to convey to those who
have not experienced it for themselves. In the Web 2.0 community, it is frequently stated that to
fully understand Web 2.0, users need to “walk the walk”, i.e. immerse themselves in an online
lifestyle. Many students currently entering higher education have done just that, not through
their previous formal education but through social networks such as Bebo and MySpace. This
has been eloquently pointed out by the recent work of Michael Wesch at Kansas State
University, whose work in digital ethnography has resulted in videos such as "A Vision of
Students Today" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o) and "Web 2.0...The Machine is
Us/ing Us" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE).
In 2004, Chris Anderson of Wired magazine coined the term The Long Tail to describe patterns
of e-commerce seen on websites such as Amazon (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail). In the last
decade, there has been both a quantitative and a qualitative change in the students entering
higher education, and they have been described as the "loophole generation" (Summerville and
Fischetti 2007). In order to manage the long tail of students currently entering higher education
(Brown and Adler 2008), we need to stop attempting to maintain a stranglehold on learning
technologies inside institutional walled gardens, while maintaining a firm grasp on the quality of
qualifications awarded. By relaxing our grip on the technology of learning we can utilize the
power of Web 2.0 such as social-networking sites, wikis, and social indexing sites, which enable
creativity, collaboration and sharing between users. This approach will change e-learning
resources from isolated information silos to interlinked platforms.
Virtual learning environments such as Blackboard, WebCT, etc, are closed systems which tend
to lock learners into a "one-size fits all" pattern of learning. Although they have their strengths
(such as authentication, monitoring of student progression and convenience), the pattern of
learning they attempt to enforce is not sustainable in that the students are locked out of the
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resources of the VLE/LMS as soon as the course they are taking ends. The model of "loosely
coupled teaching" I am developing employs contemporary social software/Web 2.0 tools outside
of the confines of an institutional LMS to enable learners to develop their own personal learning
environment. Ownership of both the content and the tools which comprise the PLE enables
learners to sustain learning after formal courses have ended, and potentially creates a pattern of
genuine life-long learning. By offering a choice of tools rather than institutional regimentation,
learners personalize the PLE by incorporating their preferred styles and patterns of learning.
This enhanced stake motivates and sustains learning.
VLEs have certain advantages, notably authentication, e.g. monitoring student progress and the
convenience of "everything in one place". Rather than simply abandoning the present monolithic
structures we need to escape a blinkered approach to e-learning technologies and move to a
loosely-coupled e-learning environment which aims to blend the advantages of institutional
systems while leveraging the power of contemporary social software/Web 2.0 tools. In higher
education we are selling a service, not a product, so there is no educational advantage in
locking students into educationally sub-optimal I.T. systems. By allowing academic staff to
assume the role of learning advisors rather than production supervisors, students will enter a
learning community where they will acquire the skills and the knowledge required for lifelong
learning via a collaborative framework.
The social element is arguably the most important feature of Web 2.0, where users both
generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use, and this allows students
to do more than just download information. Web 2.0 sites have an "architecture of participation"
that encourages users to add value to the site as they use it, feature rich, user-friendly interfaces
and may also have social-networking and information-sharing features. Web 2.0 technologies
are therefore a natural fit for building personal learning environments which encourage
ownership of learning through a choice of the best tools available, not just what has been sitelicensed by a particular institution. By offering a choice of tools, learners personalize the PLE by
following their preferred styles and patterns of learning. This is a financially and educationally
sustainable approach to lifelong learning. We will also ensure that academic staff also benefit
from this project, learning about and through these new communications channels and media
(e.g. RSS feeds from academic journals) alongside and in collaboration with students.
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Where do students find information? Like it or not, they inhabit the Web 2.0 world, with Google
and Wikipedia as their preferred reference sources. Google's share of UK internet searches is
over 87% and continues to climb (tinyurl.com/4rafq2). We can either abandon students to these
sources or try to engage with them to develop their skills, as attempts at prohibition are surely
futile. The traditional model of I.T. support (specialist I.T officers embedded in departments or
faculties) dates from an era when institutions such as universities were the guardians of
technology and provided the only access to computing tools for the majority of staff and for all
the students. We have a similar pedagogical stance with a tendency to assume that academic
staff are the guardians of academic knowledge. Although the digital natives
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native) concept is overplayed, students no longer arrive at
university technologically naïve, or dependent on the university as a sole I.T. provider.
However, universities have made huge investments in information technology, and these must
continue to be supported by traditional means - a campus-wide network of computer officers.
But these traditional support channels are not the best means of facilitating outsourced Web 2.0
technologies, and it is unlikely that any enhancement can be gained by increasing investment in
traditional activities. For enhancement of user support, innovation is required.
Small world networks
Small world networks (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_network) consist of localized
subnetworks linked together (Academic departments? Universities? Or something much less
formal?). Clay Shirky eloquent summarizes the power of networked organizations in his recent
book "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations" (Shirky, 2008).
This small world pattern of organization is much more efficient organization than a single large
network where everybody is directly connected to everybody else. Such monolithic structures
are poor at filtering information (leading to institutional spam and alienation of users) and yet this
is exactly the kind of structure that a top-down institution-wide support network tends to impose.
Students don’t read their institutional email because it rarely brings them good news.
In the Faculty of Medicine and Biological Sciences at the University of Leicester we have
initiated a number of projects designed to allow students to create personal learning
environments and take much more control of their own learning through the use of participatory
media. One project involves information librarians and tutors of modules in medical ethics and
law to cultivate information literacy via construction of personal learning environments
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(pleproject.wordpress.com). A related project aims to foster the adoption of personal learning
environments for both academic purposes and for personal development planning (PDP) and
promotion of lifelong learning (pleuol.wetpaint.com). The final project aims to facilitate the
development of online social networks among early career stage laboratory scientists by taking a
grass roots social network approach (scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2008/06/small-worldssocial-networks-for.html).
To achieve enhancement of student (and staff) I.T. support, rather than increasing spending on
traditional support channels we should foster peer-support networks constructed on a small
world network model. Similarly, outsourcing of knowledge and traditional academic roles to
online communities of practice can only benefit students by preparing them for the world they will
enter when they graduate. I am convinced that emerging Web 2.0 technologies offer
enormously encouraging prospects for higher education. It is my belief that at the present time,
we have only scratched the surface of the potential of these novel approaches to teaching and
learning. It is my intention to try to ensure that the maximum educational benefits are achieved
from this potential.
References
Brown, J.S. and Adler, R.P. (2008) Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning
2.0. EDUCAUSE Review 43: 16-32. Available at:
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/MindsonFireOpenEducationt/45823
(accessed 10 June 2008).
Shirky, C. (2008) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.
Allen Lane, ISBN: 0713999896.
Summerville, J. and J. Fischetti (2007) The Loophole Generation. Innovate 4 (2). Available at
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=343&action=article (accessed 10 June
2008).
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