Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 52

VOLUME 01 ISSUE 03

EDU | VOLuME 01 | ISSuE 03 FOR LEADERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION WWW.Edu-LEadErS.cOM

50

A 9.9 MEDIa PUBLICaTION JaNUaRY-FEBRUaRY 2014 WWW.EDU-LEaDERS.COm

First woman president of the U of Michigan shares her secrets of success


pg 36 CURRICULUM

DIALOGUE

Why IIM-A launched an elective on the business of lms


pg 22

CHANGE EDUCATION
Find out what technologies will impact decision making in higher education in 2014 Pg 14

TECH TRENDS THAT WILL

FOREWORD
Nostalgia cant be an excuse for ignoring technology
f we were to trace the history of the tools used in imparting knowledge from the Vedic days to modern day India, we would probably have a couple of chapters for the rst 2000 years and then probably a whole other book just for the last decade. We have come a long way from the time the Vedas and Upanishads were written on dried leaves or even from the time when you and I learnt our rst words using slates and chalks. Todays kids are digital natives, who probably learnt their rst words on a laptop or tablet. The humble notebook and pen though still around could soon become obsolete. Technology is rapidly changing the way we live. The way we learn and teach is just a small part of this revolution. Universities, institutions and colleges are now being judged by the kind of technologies they are using. Simple facts like a well designed and navigation friendly website can make a big impression about your commitment to excellence. A good portion of university budgets are now being apportioned for tech expenses. Having a tech strategy is also a must these days. However, with a slew of new trends in technology it sometimes becomes difcult to gure out a good tech strategy in terms of which tech trends should you consider worth investing in. From practical solutions like online admissions and exams to aspirational solutions like hybrid classrooms and MOOCs, there are enough new trends that are powerful and transformational. So, which are some of these tools that you absolutely must not miss out on this year? Our annual survey on technology attempted to answer precisely this question. Deans, directors, principals and technology heads of institutions were asked to rate and pick the top 10 trends that would bring about a change in higher education in 2014 in this survey. They were also asked to point out the challenges they face in implementing technology solutions and the areas they need to focus on. We hope this survey, though based on popular perception, helps you in designing your tech strategy for this year. We also hope that you are actively changing the way you perceive technology. However much we may still love the smell of paper and the chalk dust, nostalgia can no longer be an excuse to not embrace this change in education.

With a slew of new trends in technology it sometimes becomes difficult to figure out a good tech strategy in terms of which tech trends should you consider worth investing in

Dr Pramath Raj Sinha pramath@edu-leaders.com


January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

CONTENTS EDU
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014
UPDATES
04 BIMONTHLY HIGHLIGHTS Round-up of the main news items in higher education

VIEWPOINT
06 N V VARGHESE Four trends reviving higher-ed globally

RAND THOuGHTS
08 RAFIQ DOSSANI Four issues that RUSAs plans for research universities ought to address

22

PHILIPS PICK
10 KAREN MAC GREGOR The role of research universities in developing and middle income countries

28

CuRRICuLuM
22 JOB READY ELECTIvE Why IIM-A started an elective on lm business By Charu Bahri

ACADEMICS
25 CONtiNuiNG EDuCatiON How IIT Bombay is making a success of its department for continuing education programmes By Charu Bahri

We dont sign a lot of MOUs but once we are in we are all in


Mary Sue Coleman, President, University of Michigan

CAMPuS
32 sOLar POwEr How VIT University is becoming energy self-sufcient By Charu Bahri

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Find out whats currently happening in institutions around the world. The Chronicle of Higher Education shares its perspectives with EDU 40 THORNY EXCHANGES ON CAMPUS CAN HOLD EDUCATIONAL vALUE By Dan Berrett

PLACEMENTS
28 EmPOwEriNG wOmEN Patna Womens College shares its placement mantra By Charu Bahri

36

43 BRITISH CAMPUSES DEBATE WAYS TO

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

VOLUmE 01 IssUE 02
FOR LEADERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

MANAGING DIREcTOR: Pramath Raj Sinha pUbLIsHING DIREcTOR: Anuradha Das Mathur PUbLIsHER: Kanak Ghosh mANAGING EdITOR: Smita Polite AssIsTANT EDITOR: Anam Naqvi MANAGER DIGITAL: Aparna Sati DESIGN SR. CREATIVE DIREcTOR: Jayan K Narayanan SR. ART DIREcTOR: Anil VK AssOcIATE ART DIREcTOR: Anil T SR. VIsUALIsERs: Manav Sachdev Shigil Narayanan & Sristi Maurya VIsUALIsER: NV Baiju SR. DEsIGNERs: Haridas Balan, Manoj Kumar VP Charu Dwivedi, Peterson PJ & Dinesh Devgan DEsIGNERs: Pradeep G Nair & Vikas Sharma ONLINE & MARCOM DESIGN AssOcIATE ART DIREcTOR: Shokeen Sai SR.DEsIGNER: Rahul Babu WEb DEsIGNER: Om Prakash PHOTOGRAPHY CHIEF PHOTOGRApHER: Subhojit Paul SR. PHOTOGRApHER: Jiten Gandhi SALES & MARKETING BRANd HEAd: Siddhant Raizada NATIONAL MANAGER-EVENTs & SpEcIAL PROjEcTs: Arjun Sawhney (09582220507) NATIONAL MANAGER-pRINT & ONLINE: Rajesh Kandhari ( 09911888276) Ad cO-ORdINATION/ScHEdULING: Kishan Singh PRODuCTION & LOGISTICS SR GM OpERATIONs: Shivshankar M. Hiremath MANAGER OpERATIONs: Rakesh Upadhyay AssT. MANAGER - LOGIsTIcs: Vijay Menon EXEcUTIVE LOGIsTIcs: Nilesh Shiravadekar PROdUcTION EXEcUTIVE: Vilas Mhatre LOGIsTIcs: MP Singh and Mohamed Ansari OFFICE ADDRESS Nine Dot Nine Interactive Private Limited. Ofce No. B201-B202, Arjun Centre B Wing, Station Road, Govandi ( East), Mumbai 400088. Certain content in this publication is copyright of The Chronicle of Higher Education and has been reprinted with permission. For any customer queries and assistance please contact help@9dot9.in Published and Printed by Kanak Ghosh on behalf of the Owners, Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. Published by him at A-262, 2nd Floor, Defence Colony, New Delhi-110024 and printed at Tara Art Printers Pvt Ltd., A-46-47, Sector -5, Noida (U.P.) and Print House (I) Pvt. Ltd, R-847, TTC Industrial Area, MIDC, Rabale, Navi Mumbai-400071, District Thane. EdITOR: Anuradha Das Mathur
COpYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTs REsERVEd: Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt. Ltd is prohibited.

COVER STORY

10 Trends that will impact tech decisions of colleges in 2014 Results of EDUs annual technology survey
By Anam Naqvi

14

BALANCE FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND RELIGIOUS SENSITIvITIES By Aisha Labi 40 PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING AT U OF FLORIDA By Megan ONeil

ADVERTISER INDEX
YOUNG INDiA FiLMS TRS FORMS PEARSON IFC IBC 15

EpSON BC
This index is provided as an additional service. The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.

COVER Design by: Vikas Sharma

Please recycle this magazine and remove inserts before recycling

January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

FROM THE WORLD OF HIGHER EDUCATION


FOR MORE STORIES: www.edu-leaders.com

IIT-Bombay Prof, Prakash Gopalan joins as Thapar University Director


Thapar University, Patiala, has appointed Prof Prakash Gopalan, former Dean of Student Affairs at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, as its new Director.

New VC for Tribal Varsity


The dean of mass communication and journalism and head of Hindi department ProfT V Kattimani, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, has been appointed as vice-chancellor ofIndira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU).Kattimani is from the Valmiki tribe and is an accomplished researcher and writer. He has been at MANUU for the past eight years.

College Principals Tenure Now 10 yrs: UGC


POLICY The UGC will be amending the UGC (Minimum qualications for appointment of teachers, other academic staff in universities and colleges and other measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education) Regulations, 2010. This will be done to give College principals a 10-year xed term in their ofces amending the regulations which had limited their tenure to just ve years.

P N Tandon Committee Submits Resignation


TheP N Tandon Committee has resigned apparently telling the HRD ministry that they have been functioning for a long time and would like to resign. During their tenure they reviewed 126deemed universities in 2009 and found 44 of them unt to have deemed university status.

MCI Might Shorten MBBS Course by 1 Year


POLICY The MCI is contemplating introducing specialist skills for undergraduates earlier than at present which will shorten the duration of the MBBS course by one year.Ofcial sources said that the MCI academic council will meet next to nalise the new curriculum and send it to the government for approval. The current MBBS course lasts for ve-and-a-half years with four-and-a-half years of academic studies and one year of internship.

No Extension for two IIT Directors


The HRD ministry has denied clearance for two of the sixIIT directors whose terms are ending by June 2014. Madhusudan Chakraborty, director,IIT-Bhubaneswar and Anil K Bhowmick, director, IIT-Patna have been denied renewal or selection to another institution.

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

UPDATES

AICTE will Commence Approval Process for PGDM


POLICY The AICTE began the approval process for existing PGDM institutions related to theincrease in intake, and extension of approval. The B-schools were allowed to apply for the academic session 2014 from January 28 on the AICTE portal. Applications for setting up of new PGDM and and extension of approval.

UGC Sticks to Promoter cant be Chancellor rule


REGULATION The UGC will continue with the diktat that the promoters or owners of the societies that promote deemed universities, cannot be chancellors of such institutions. The heads of deemed universities are likely to oppose this standing. The commission had a meeting on January 10 after the HRD ministry forwarded a bunch of proposed amendments to the UGC Regulations of 2010. They made the decision to stick to their rules and after a feedback exercise it undertook with the stakeholders.

Indian business schools are very Indiacentric - a sharp contrast to top global institutions. Indian B-schools need to be global, attract talent from across the globe andplace talent globally
AtisH CHAttOpAdHYAY Deputy Director,PGDM programme, SPJIMR

New Dean of Harvard College: Indian-origin Prof Rakesh Khurana


GLOBAL UpdATE Indian-American professor Rakesh Khurana has been appointed as Dean of Harvard College and will take up duties on July 1.Currently serving as the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School (HBS), he is also professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and co-master of Cabot House at Harvard.

UK Announces 370 UG,PG Scholarships Exclusively for Indians


GLOBAL UpdATE Andrew Soper, economic counsellor, British High Commission in New Delhi said UK launched 370 scholarships worth Rs 10 crore as part of the ongoing GREAT Britain campaign that will be exclusively for Indian students. Thescholarship amount is the largest ever allocated for India and will be available to students applying to 260 undergraduate and postgraduate courses in engineering, law and business, art and design, biosciences and information technology in 36 UK universities. The scholarships will be tenable for the September 2014 and January 2015 intakes.

Our efforts at gender sensitization of our judicial and criminal justice system should include Gender Studies as a subject for all our law courses. Participation in gender sensitization courses must be made mandatory for those aspiring to join the Bench
MArgAret AlvA Governor, Rajasthan

Indian-origin academician Rakesh Khurana succeeds Evelynn Hammonds, professor of African and African American Studies, who stepped down last June.

I am keen to open a branch (of BHU) in Bihar. It is up to theBihar government to provide us land (for it) as soon as possible
LAlJi SingH Vice Chancellor, Banaras Hindu University

January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

VIEWPOINT

NV Varghese

A
6

Four trends reviving higher-ed globally


fter a period of relative decline, higher education is globally experiencing a state of revival, expansion and high degree of convergence. The reforms in the wake of emergence of knowledge economy and globalisation have helped the system be more responsive to the requirements of the global job market.
The core elements of reforms that revived the sector can be categorised into the following four buckets: the OECD countries led by USA and UK occupy top positions in the global university rankings. Higher education reforms in Asian countries such as Chinese reforms of Project 985 or Project 211, the Centers of Excellence (COE 21) in Japan, Brain Korea 21 (BK 21), the Accelerated Programme for Excellence (APEX) in Malaysia etc. are good examples of prioritising investments in research and knowledge production.

2. Realigning higher education with employment market


A set of reforms attempted to reassert relevance of higher education to the changing context of employment. In the East European countries higher education facilitated transition from a centrally planned to a market economy through curricular changes. New courses were introduced to socialise and train graduates with market principles and operations. The liberalisation policies and the globalisation process changed the nature of skills demanded. Many an emerging job did not need skills to be developed through a long duration study programme leading to a university degree. This led to reforms to diversify institutions, study pro-

1. Focusing on knowledge production


Knowledge has become the single-most important engine of economic growth contributing to industrial and technological competitiveness. Its perceived economic value has increased with the emergence of knowledge economy and globalisation. In developed countries, public investment in STEM subjects increased even during the economic crisis in order to retain excellence in research and teaching and to attract students and funding. Investment was seen as a strategy to get out of the economic crisis. This positive association helped developed countries increase their investment and retain top positions in the world university rankings. For example,
EDUTeCH January-February 2014

NV Varghese

VIEWPOINT

grammes, and certication procedures. The distinction between research universities, professionally-oriented universities, and community colleges in the USA; Grandes coles, universities, and IUTs in France; and the creation of service universities in Korea are examples of diversication to improve employability. It needs, however, to be noted that the overemphasis on employability could lead employers to view universities as training institutions rather than academic organisations. This seems to be a very short-sighted and misplaced view. What is, perhaps, needed is diversifying provisions to promote expansion of the non-university sector which can respond more reliably to the changing skill requirements of the job market.

It needs to be noted that the over-emphasis on employability could lead employers to view universities as training institutions
been driving the system towards better convergences and integration globally. The Bologna Process was, perhaps, central to higher education reforms in Europe. The countries in the region developed the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), adopted a credit system (180+120 credits equivalent to 3+2 years of full-time study), effected curricular changes, and embraced quality assurance processes. The effect of the Bologna Process transcended beyond Europe. Countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia formed their own regional networks. This helped evolve a global framework, a comparable degree structure, a credit transfer system and increased mobility between universities located within and between regions. If you view the reforms as interplay of three sets of actors: state, market and households,they indicate that the locus of decision making shifted from state to markets and the incidence of financial burden shifted from state to households. Whether the state wilfully reduced its role or was forced to retreat is another matter. The reforms also indicate a move towards an increasing market orientation, which helped in expansion but also resulted in widening inequalities in access as under market framework access is based on the ability-to-pay principle. Further, these reforms also led to imbalances in expansion between subject areas since the institutions in their efforts to mobilise resources are driven more by nancially attractive but non-core activities than by core academic activities which may be less rewarding nancially. Subscribe to the daily electronic newsletter from EDU at http://edu-leaders.com/content/newsletters

3. Expanding through nonstate resources


Most reforms attempted to expand higher education despite nancial constraints imposed by the public exchequer. Two measures of expansion relying on non-public sources of funding were: a) privatisation of public institutions; and b) expansion of private institutions. Reduction, if not abolition, of subsidies, cost recovery measures and income generating activities have become common in reforms to privatise public institutions. A major share of the additional enrollments in many regions is accounted by private higher education. While relying on public institutions to expand the sector was more common in the developed market economies, a reliance on private institutions is found more in the less developed market economies of Latin America, Africa and Asia. These reforms resulted in divorcing issues related to expansion of the system from the capacity of the state to finance the expansion. Needless to add, in all instances the incidence of cost burden was systematically transferred to the households. The effects of these reforms were visible through the unprecedented expansion in the rst decade of the present century. The enrolment in higher education increased from 100 to 177.6 million between 2000 and 2010 accounting for an average annual increase of around 7.8 million and is the largest expansion ever experienced by the sector in any decade.

AUTHORS BIO
Professor NV Varghese is currently Director Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE), NUEPA, New Delhi. Prior to joining the Centre, he was Head of Governance and Management in Education at the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), UNESCO, Paris.

4.Harmonising processes for global integration


The efforts towards a harmonised degree structure, curriculum contents, student assessment, and external quality assurance mechanisms have

January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

VIEWPOINTS FROM THE RAND CORPORaTION

RAND is an independent, nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis. More on: www.rand.org

Four issues that RUSAs plans for research universities ought to address
ByRaqDossani
he Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), or National Higher Education Mission, is the key implementing initiative of the Indian governments 12th Five Year Plan for higher education. RUSA was established in 2013 with approximately Rs. 100,000 crore (about $16.3 billion) in funding through 2017. It promotes three policy priorities in higher education equity, expansion, and excellence. Its action plans are centered on two objectives: equity-based growth and improvements in teaching-learning and research. It proposes improving teaching-learning and research by creating several world-class universities and academic clusters (groups of autonomous institutions that collaborate to expand student access across institutions), enabling mergers, expanding cross-disciplinary offerings within institutions, and establishing research universities. With regard to the initiative to establish research universities, RUSA species a target of at least one such institution per state over the ve-year-plan period. Noting that only a minority of a nations institutions can become capable of producing great research, RUSAs strategy document argues that Indias research universities are still worthy of state support. Specically, research universities appear to have strong trickle-down effects: They train specialists who can go on to play leading roles in industry, they develop the research and new knowledge needed for science-based economic growth, and they may support national innovation by fostering engagement between the research and industrial communities and the development of new products and services. RUSAs policy priority in establishing these institutions is to develop a high-quality faculty that is committed to disinterested research or knowledge for its own sake. This will attract and develop an excellent student body and additional funding; it will also help build the desired collaborations with

industry and promote other desirable outcomes such as publications and intellectual property. To achieve these outcomes it proposes providing academic freedom, modest teaching loads for faculty, adequate state funding and academic inclusion in institutional governance RUSA presents these action plans in detail, including processes for identifying existing universities that are ideal candidates for government support to grow them into research universities. The goal is to establish least one research university by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan. While much of the proposal for research universities is unexceptional and makes good sense, there are four unusual aspects that would benet from further exploration.

1. Converting existing institution into a research university


The rst is the process of converting an existing university into a research university. Such a university would be chosen by virtue of its well-functioning number of departments, and enrolment of research scholars and research output. According to RUSA, The University should have demonstrated an aptitude for research and innovation in more than one department. Such work should have been acknowledged globally. The University

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

Raq Dossani

RAND THOUGHtS

should have demonstrated its research bent by having existing collaborations with industries. There should be a signicant percentage of students engaged in research. Given that no Indian university would currently fulll the above criteria (not a single Indian university is on the Academic Ranking of World Universities Top 200 list), it is not clear how selecting any institution can be justied according to the plans terms. One or two may come close: the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi (but the latter would be disqualied for other reasons, as explained later). Even for these institutions, the standard for excellence on criteria such as multi-department research output would likely be regional, not global. Further, if qualifying institutions exist, they are likely to be successful because they already receive the support that RUSA recommends as is the case for IISc and may not need further support.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

erty created can help the universitys nances and promote its reputation as a place to engage with industry. In fact, the university should support such a process by allowing its faculty to retain some of the commercial benets of inventions using university infrastructure. There ought to be some caveats, however. Specifically, a faculty members academic progress should be based on academic factors, such as publishing record and student evaluations, not on the commercial value of his or her work.

2. Developing faculty committed to disinterested research


A second challenging aspect of the proposal concerns RUSAs interest in developing a faculty that is committed to disinterested research or creating knowledge for its own sake. This is a laudable value but nearly impossible to measure. It is also undesirable as a universal value. Suppose that an engineering faculty member discovers and profitably exploits a commercial application, either through the university or on his or her own time. Although this is not the creation of knowledge for its own sake, it should be welcomed for several reasons and with only a few caveats. Such work can help engage students in real-world problems and make them more employable. The returns on the intellectual prop-

RaqDossani is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. His research interests include: higher education, technology policy, and globalisation and innovation in services supply-chains. Previously, Dossani was director of the Stanford University Center for South Asia.

3. Funding outstanding faculty working only in acclaimed research universities


A third challenge centers on the very concept of a research university versus a narrower conceptualisation of research excellence at the level of academic departments and individual faculty. If globally outstanding faculty work in departments that are not exceptional (remember that RUSA is more stringent, requiring that multiple departments be excellent), or if they work in teachingoriented departments, their chances of procuring research support under RUSA are slim. This may incentivise faculty to move to an identified research university. This could have adverse implications, such as narrowing the pool of thinkers on a topic to a single location making it insular over time. RUSA, therefore, needs to propose solutions for such researchers to get the support they need. An approach that may address the difficulty with pre-identifying research universities and the need to support excellent faculty working in average institutions is to do what many other countries have done: support individual, not institutional or even departmental efforts. For example, RUSA can issue challenge grants that require researchers to collaborate on large projects. If multiple departments are capable of putting together a good proposal from researchers located entirely within a single institution, they should be allowed to do so.

No Indian university can currently fulll RUSAs terms for being chosen to be converted to a research varsity

4. Making industry collaboration a must even for social science


A nal concern is that non-commercial academic departments appear to be completely outside of RUSAs ambit. RUSAs language unambiguously requires collaboration with industry a criterion that otherwise excellent social science and humanities-oriented universities like JNU would not fulll. RUSA needs to propose ways to support such departments and their researchers.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

PHILIpS pICK
From International Higher Education the quarterly publication of CIHE
Philip picked this piece as it is focused on the role of research universities in low and middle-income countries

PHILIp G. ALTBACH
Dr. Altbach is director of the Center for International Higher Education and Research Professor at Boston College, USA. He has extensive experience in the field of comparative and international higher education. Professor Altbach holds a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago, and has been Distinguished Scholar Leader of the Fulbright New Century Scholars program. His most recent book is A Half-Century of Indian Higher Education: Essays by Philip G. Altbach, edited by Pawan Agarwal. (Sage, 2012).

The role of research universities in developing economies


KAREN MACGREgOR

esearch universities in low and middle-income countries have crucial roles to play in developing differentiated and effective academic systems and in making it possible for their countries to join the global knowledge society and compete in sophisticated knowledge economies, according to Philip G. Altbach, research professor and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the United States. While research universities in the developing world have not yet achieved the top levels of global rankings, they are extraordinarily important in their countries and regionsand are steadily improving their reputations and competitiveness on the international stagewrote Altbach in an article titled Advancing the National and Global Knowledge Economy: The Role of Research Universities in Developing Countries: A key point is that research universities around the world are part of an active community of institutions that share values, foci, and mission. Altbachs article was published in a special issue of the journal Studies in Higher Education dedicated to disseminating key concepts arising out of an investigation into higher educations knowledge structure, in a collaboration between the Center for International Higher Education and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developments Innovation, Higher Education and Research for Development programme. Research universities were dened as academic institutions committed to the creation and dissemination of knowledge, in a range of disciplines and elds, and featuring the appropriate laboratories, libraries, and other infrastructures that permit teaching and research at the highest possible level. Worldwide, research universities played complex roles in the academic system, including the core mission of research production and training students to engage in research. The research university is no ivory tower and is relevant to the wider
EDUTeCH January-February 2014

community; much of its research is carried out in collaboration, with funding and sponsorship from non-university sources. The research university is a highly complex and multifaceted institution, serving many societal roles. Research universities worldwide have a great deal in common, stemming from a specic tradition and serving similar roles, Altbach pointed out. There are national variations, but synergy of research and teaching is a hallmark. Knowledge production and dissemination must spread internationally, he argued, and wider dissemination of research capacity throughout the world was imperative. The argument can be made that all countries need academic institutions, linked to the global academic system of science and scholarship, so that they can understand advanced scientic developments and participate selectively in global science. Most countries could afford to support at least one university of sufcient quality to participate in international discussions of science and scholarship and conduct research in elds relevant to national development.

10

International Higher Education

PHILIpS pICk

All countries want world-class universities


Around the world, countries have recognised that research universities are key to the knowledge economy of the 21st century. In the United States and Britain, there was rising concern about the ability to maintain the standards of existing research universities. Germany had allocated resources to some key institutions, and Japan had funded competitive grants to create centers of excellence. China has placed emphasis on creating world-class research universities, and India is nally beginning to think about the quality of its mainstream institutions. Similar programmes to enhance standards exist in South Korea, Chile, Taiwan, and elsewhere, Altbach wrote. Several of Africas traditionally strong universities are seeking to improve their quality in an effort to achieve research university status, with assistance from external funders; but this process is, in general, behind levels of academic development in other continents. Research universities have emerged on the policy agenda in many developing countries, especially larger nations that seek to compete in the global knowledge economy.

Karen MacGregor is coordinating editor of University World News.


E-mail: editors@ iafrica.com. This article appeared in Studies in Higher Education, 38 in April, 2013.

Research universities and academic systems


Research universities are a very small and specialised but crucial part of any academic system, Altbach argued. In America there were around 220 research universities in a system of more than 4,000 postsecondary institutions. In the United Kingdom, there were just 25 research universities among 100 universities and 300 postsecondary institutions. Smaller developing countries have perhaps one research university, and many have none. China was developing around 100 research universitiesout of more than 3,000 institutions countrywide as part of its efforts to build world-class institutions. A clearly differentiated academic system was needed for research universities to ourish, Altbach wrote. A good example was the threetier California public higher education system, established by the California Master Plan, which has at its pinnacle 10 campuses of the researchoriented University of California, the 23-campus California State University system with around 433,000 students, and a community college system with 3 million students. Funding patterns, missions, and governance differ across the three tiers and state regulation maintained their differ-

ent missions. By distributing resources with an ideal of efciency at its core, the Master Plan also institutionalised a commitment to excellence in its best research universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley. Clark Kerr, architect of the Master Plan, had a vision of the key characteristics of research universities: internal governance primarily in the hands of professors; key decisions receiving inputs from academicsthe concept of shared governance is central; rigorous meritocracy; research intertwined with teaching; academic freedom; and engagement with society. Developing countries also needed to clearly differentiate the missions of institutions in the postsecondary system and to organise institutions in a rational way. Appropriate patterns of funding, realistic teaching arrangements, administrative arrangements, and other key elements of institutions will need to be organised and then implemented. Ensuring that the rapidly expanding private higher education sector is to some extent integrated into the system will also be necessary, Altbach argued. The fact is that few if any developing countries have a differentiated academic system in place; and this central organisational requirement remains a key task. Without an appropriate system, which would vary according to national requirements, research universities could not fully ourish. These institutions must be clearly identied and supported. There must be arrangements so that the number of research universities will be sufciently limited so that funding is available for them and that other resources, such as wellqualied academics, are not spread too thinly. Altbach explored aspects of academia key to research universitiescommunications and networks, journals, libraries, informal communities of scholars, conferences and professional organisations, the Internet, repositories of knowledge, research universities as critical centers, the globalisation of science and scholarship, internationalisation and the research university, the dilemma of language and the academic profession.

Present circumstances
To paraphrase Charles Dickens, these are the best of times and the worst of times for research universities, Altbach wrote. While there was wide recognition of the importance of the research university, international academic conJanuary-February 2014 EDUTeCH

11

PHILIpS pICk

International Higher Education

Research universities require autonomy to shape their programmes. The balance between autonomy and accountability in developing countries may be complicated
nections and research, many countries did not realise the complexity of and resources needed to build and sustain them. He outlined some of the characteristics of successful research universities: Virtually all are a part of a differentiated system, standing at the top of an academic hierarchy and receiving appropriate support for their mission. Research universitiesexcept in the United States, Japan, and a small number of churchlinked institutions in Latin Americaare overwhelmingly public institutions. The private sector can seldom support a research university, although some private institutions are emerging with a research focussuch as in Turkey, India, and Latin America. Research universities are most successful in regions with little or no competition from nonuniversity research institutes or with strong ties between the universities and such institutes. The academy of science system in countries such as Russia and China and some models of research institutes elsewhere lack connections to universities. Some countries are trying to better integrate research institutes and top universities, in some cases merging themthis would undoubtedly strengthen the universities. Research universities are expensive, requiring more funding than other universities to attract the best staff and students and to provide the infrastructure necessary for top research and teaching. The cost per student is higher than the average across an entire system. Adequate salaries for faculty, well-equipped libraries and laboratories, and scholarships for bright but needy students are examples of the expenditures required.

Research universities must have adequate and sustained budgets; they cannot succeed on the basis of inadequate funding or severe budgetary uctuation over time. At the same time, research universities have the potential for signicant income generation. Students are often willing to pay higher fees because of the prestige attached to a degree from them, quality academic programmes, and access to top professors. Research universities also generate intellectual property and discoveries and innovations with value in the marketplace. In some countries, they can generate philanthropic gifts. Research universities require physical facilities commensurate with their missions, including expensive libraries and laboratories and sophisticated information technology. The infrastructures of research universities are complex and expensive. Not only do they need to be built but they must also be maintained and periodically upgraded. Research universities require autonomy to shape their programmes and practices. The balance between autonomy and accountability in developing countries may be complicated. Academic freedom is a requirement for all postsecondary institutions but especially research universities.

Conclusion
Research universities in developing countries are at the top of the academic hierarchy and are central to the success of any modern knowledgebased economy, Altbach concluded. All developing countries need these institutions to participate in the globalised environment of higher education. Thus, understanding the characteristics of the research university and building the infrastructures and the intellectual environment needed for successful research universities is a top priority. PHILIPS note: Building research universities in developing and middle-income countries is a significant challenges, since these institutions require significant investment over time, and are unique institutions that need considerable autonomy, a recognised mission, and a focus on post-graduate education. They also need to be part of a differentiated academic system, where most universities focus more on teachingand the research mission is concentrated in a smaller number of universities. India has so far been unable to build and sustain such institutions.

12

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

COVER STORY

Technology

TECHNOLOGY DECISIONS OF COLLEGES IN 2014


14
EDUTeCH January-February 2014

TRENDS THAT WILL IMPACT

DOES A CLASSROOM MEAN ONLY dESKS, BENCHES, A BLACKBOARd, StUdENtS ANd A PROFESSOR? NOt ANYMORE.
ith students and even teachers ditching conventional learning methods classrooms are increasingly becoming tech hubs that use gadgets and technologies that aid learning. Notebooks and pens are giving way to various wireless devices as the favourite mode for taking notes among college goers. The emergence of social networking sites, smartphone applications, digital readers and digital books have made classrooms interactive and smarter. Being present in class and attending lectures are no more a must for learning. There are several course-related materials including digital books and videos available on the internet. Carrying heavy bags around is no more a mark of a studious student. A single device can now store textbooks as well as the entire reading list recommended by a teacher. This new wave is no more limited to just students. To keep up with the times and engage effectively with their students who are digital natives, lecturers and professors have also started using technology. Teachers are using interactive and clouds based tools to teach in class bringing in a whole different approach to lecturing. Teachers are also using social media to carry on course related discussions beyond the classroom and clarify specic doubts. Students and teachers are both beneting from online exams. The process of taking exams and assessing papers has become almost hassle free. College applications have also become much simpler with online tools. Amidst so many new trends in technology, which trends will affect Indian institutions the most in 2014? Which trends should you look out for when making technology related decisions for your institution? The results of EDU s annual survey on technology can answer these questions for you. Read on to find out what the trends look like.

THE TRENDS
We asked our respondents,which included deans, directors, principals and technology heads, to rate and pick the technologies that would make the most impact in Indian higher education in 2014. Here is how they rated the technologies:

HYBRID LEARNING AND FlIPPED ClASSROOMS


Hybrid learning and ipped classrooms got the highest votes for making it big in the higher education sector in 2014. 92.6% respondents said that this trend would make a high to medium impact. Hybrid learning and ipped classrooms also known as backwards classroom or reverse instruction rotates the idea of traditional teaching and makes learning more interactive. This form of blended learning involves students looking at video lectures online, mostly at home. Time in class is then devoted to more interactions and specic discussions pertaining to assignments and focusing on problem solving. Since students learn from videos at home they can be more receptive in class and participate in a meaningful way besides clarifying doubts.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

BY VIKAS SHARMA

15

cover story

Technology

LESSONS ON DEMAND
With 89.9% votes, lessons on demand came a close second. Like Hybrid and ipped learning the concept of lessons on demand is also focused on home learning on the basis of a video with a teacher or animated instructions. Such video lessons are published by universities or institutions or independent entities and are focused on particular subjects. These lessons are generally free and are available to anyone with access to the internet. Students can use these lessons to move ahead if they have missed a few classes. Since these lessons are available at any time after being published, one can look at them at any time. They can also pause these lessons and come back to them whenever time allows it. Lessons on Demand are best suited for distance learning students. Those who learn part time and work full time can

learn whenever they can give time to lessons and finish courses according to their schedule without having to sit in physical classrooms. Individual devices can turn into virtual classrooms any time.

E-ASSESSMENTS AND ONlINE EXAMS


With 89.3% votes, e-assessments and online exams score almost equal to Lessons on Demand. Though the technologies related to e-assessments and online exams have started nding favour, they are still not the preferred mode of assessment. However, our respondents believe that it will be one of the most impacting trends to affect technology decisions in higher education in 2014. In a broader sense e-assessments are not just assessing students abilities with the use of information technology but it may also involve use of computers in other ways like recording grades online

and publishing test results online. Online exams and e-assessments are becoming popular in tests based on multiple-choice questions, or questions that have just a single-word answer. Technologies that can help assess essay-type questions are still evolving. An advantage of e-assessments is that it provides immediate feedback to students as a machine records answers and checks them at the same time. The possibility of human errors is also reduced when computerized marking is used. E-assessment has the potential to make its mark in entrance tests as the physical presence of exam takers may no longer be a prerequisite.

INTERACTIVE BOARDS AND VISUAl PRESENTERS


At number 4 on our list is Interactive boards and visual presenters which got 88.6% votes as the trend that is likely to make high to medium impact. Interac-

EDUs annual tech survey showed leaders are placing their bets on Hybrid and Flipped Learning, Lessons On Demand E-Assessments and Online exams to induce change in Indian Higher Education in 2014.
TecHNoLoGy TreNDs
Hybrid learning and Flipped Classrooms Lessons on-demand E-assessment & online exams Interactive boards and visual presenters Cloud based tools Tablets & smart phones Social networking Digital books Massiv Open Online Courses Bring Your Onw Device 92.60% 89.90% 89.30% 88.60% 87% 85% 83.20% 83.20% 77.10% 68.40%

16

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

Technology

cover story

tive boards and visual presenters have been in the business of education for quite some time now. Apart from the traditional blackboard and chalk, teachers have begun using projectors, slides and colourful boards to make lessons more interesting. It is no surprise then that such visual presenters, projectors and boards will continue to affect higher education. It is important that lecturers use such tools along with other newer trends to engage the ever distracted student. Long lectures are not the norm anymore; students want to experience what they are learning. Visual aids lend the much needed freshness to learning.

ClOUD BASED TOOlS


With 87.3% votes use of cloud based tools like Google apps, icloud, youtube and the likes is the number ve trend. These tools consist of several gamechanging technologies and broadly consist of several other trends that help in the use of other technologies. Most people are now hooked on to Google and its apps are used extensively. Notes, books, discussion points etc can be stored onto Google drives or Google Docs and be shared within a class. This helps students access the documents whenever required and lecturers stay virtually connected to students all the time. Anyone can add to the points, notes and other study material and its shared with the rest of the group immediately. This reduces the use of pen and paper and the stress of losing notes. Many batches of a particular course can also create Google groups for idea sharing. iCloud like Google apps is not constricted to one device and once it is activated lets one store books and videos connected to the course material. One can then access it from any device using the iCloud. Youtube lets students watch related material to the course and help add to the traditional books and lectures.

Virtual class rooms with interactive facilities for distance education is the trend that will have an impact on technology decisions
Director Jain University, Bangalore

Creating a digital repository and using learning management systems like Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment can change education
Acting Principal Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Mumbai

V. B Nanda Gopal

Seema Shah

TABlETS AND SMARTPhONES


How can tablets, phablets and smartphones be left behind in the race of new tech trends? Though it is at number 6 with 85.2% voting for it under the high to medium impact category, these devices are increasingly becoming ubiquitous. Tablets or tablet computers and phablets which are essentially phones but with wider screens and smartphones are today considered almost essential for students. These devices

can more or less perform the same functions as a desktop computer or a notebook. And their advantage is that they can be carried anywhere. These carry anywhere devices help students and lecturers alike make use of cloud based tools, videos, documents and website right when required. It also rids one of lugging around heavy paper notebooks for writing notes, as students can take these notes easily on their tablets and phones whenever required. These devices can also be hooked on to projectors and students can use them creatively to make presentations or show their assignments.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

17

cover story

Technology

SOCIAl NETWORKING
Though social networking is at number seven, it has a remarkably high vote of 83.2% as a trend that will affect technology decisions this year. As Facebook enters its 10th year and Twitter readies to sell its shares publicly, social media has started being regarded as a serious business. One can now nd several universities on Facebook and Twitter. Social networking has become the quickest way of connecting with current and prospective students and enhancing learning through a personal connect. Students now have groups on networking websites where they share ideas with each other and even take these discussions to class. Teachers can also take part in the discussions on these sites to help clarify doubts. Lecturers, Deans and Prinicipals are also taking to social media to form a personal connect with students. Applications like Whatsapp and other instant messaging services are also getting popular. Scheduling and cancelling of classes and deadlines for assignments can be easily communicated.

Challenges and Focus areas

part from the new trends in technology, respondents to the survey were also asked to detail challenges that they face in implementing these ideas and the areas that higher education institutions need to focus on. The survey reveals that most decision makers believe it is important for institutions to rst be aware of the technology solutions and identifying the right technologies before the next step is taken. It would then be important to understand the utility of these solutions and plan the strategy to implement them which would involve motivating stakeholders to

use the technology solutions and get funds to implement them. It was also important to train educators and students to use the technology solutions. When asked about the technology solutions that higher education institutions must focus on, most respondents said campus networks is the most important. Student learning solutions were next followed by institutional websites and portals. The survey also saw digital libraries, student record systems and web-based solutions for students and online assessments as important areas that need to be focused on.

TecHNoLoGy CHALLeNGes

91.3%

99.4%

94.7%

DIGITAl BOOKS
At the eighth position, though digital books got an overall rating of 83.2% it got only 38.9% votes in high impact zone and 44.3% in medium impact. Looks like the academic and administrator community in higher education is still averse to e-books. A reason for this could be that not all prescribed books are available digitally. It is also hard for some students to switch from conventional written form to digital form. However, digital books do have a huge potential as storing them and browsing through them is easier.

96.7%

Respondents to EDUs survey placed being aware of new technologies as the most important challenge that higher education institutions need to take head on in 2014.
94% 96%

97.3%

95.3%

94%

Awareness of technology solutions Understanding the utility of technology solutions Planning a technology strategy for the HEI Getting funding for technology initiatives Identifying the right technologies for HEI

Leveraging technology solutions properly Training & motivating stakeholders to use technology solutions Maintaining & upgrading technology solutions Integrating existing & new technology solutions

18

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

Technology

cover story

TecHNoLoGy focUs

Educators believe that establishing campus networks, enhancing student learning solutions and innovating institutional websites and portals are the most important areas that higher education institutions should focus on in 2014.
Tablets and mobile devices Cloud solutions Data centers

72.4% 97.3%

Campus networks

High performance computing (HPC)

78.5%

85.2%

86.5%

IT security solutions

96%
Student learning solutions

85.3%

73.2%

95.9%

94.7%
Web-based student services

69.8%
Digital classrooms Marketing & CRM systems

85.3%

83.2% 93.3% 62.4%


Institutional websites & portals Digital libraries ERP systems for HEIs Student record management systems Distance education solutions

89.9%

92%

Collaboration systems Online exam & evaluation systems

It is important to understand the mindset of the consumers who would use these technology solutions
Sanjay Kumar Bahl
Director, Sri Sai Institute of Management, Manawala, Amritsar

Using technology should make students work ready and world ready, that is what HEIs should focus on
Director Planning, Reva University, Bangalore

N. Ramesh

January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

19

cover story

Technology

BITSAT: Online Admission test


Prof Bijendra Nath Jain, Vice Chancellor of BITS Pilani shares how online admission tests have proved to be cost effective.
also ensures transparency and efciency, making the whole process cost-effective. BITSAT was first scheduled in 2005 and is scheduled every summer. The 2014 BITSAT application for UG courses is presently open. In January 2013 BITS Pilani also began using tele-conference across its Indian campuses. TelePresence based network, relies on high-definition video conferencing, lets faculty members and administrators ideate, collaborate for research and solve problems in a face-to-face environment. This also helps in faculty selection, viva-voice exams by external examiners, performance review by virtually visiting committees and most importantly video classes on electives in a 200-seater classroom. The university is also working on using Oracle-based ERP solutions in its campuses. BITS Pilani hopes to cover the entire admissions process including awarding of degrees and nancial records. It also plans to digitise employee records, HR and payroll process. It will use these solutions to help calculate capital expenditures and operating expenditures, which they claim is a rst in India. The design and planning of ERP solutions began in 20112012 and is now nearing completion. Prof Jain says all 11,500 students, 600 faculty members and 1,200 administrative employees have begun using these solutions.

Apart from the survey on trends, institutions were also asked to share some best practices in the way technology is used in their institution. Heres a look at two such practices.

irla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani with campuses in Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa and Dubai began using online admission tests for under graduate programmes to make it more viable and student friendly. In 2005, when it started 40,000 students took BITSAT from 14 centres. The number increased to 1,39,000 taking the test in 40 different centres including Dubai. The number is only expected to grow, says Prof BN Jain, Vice Chancellor BITS Pilani. In the last eight years of its existence over 50 different sessions spread across three weeks were proctored with biometrics and processed through the web. The most signicant advantage of the online test is that it can be taken at any time after it is scheduled from any computer across the world and a student can also reappear for the test if he or she has missed it for the first time. Not only is online testing feasible and environment friendly but it

20

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

Technology

cover story

Blogs as Learning Material: NITIE Mumbai


Dr T Prasad, Associate professor, at National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai, explains how sharing blogs has enriched the learning experience in MBA courses.

MOOCS (MASSIVE OPEN ONlINE COURSES)


In spite of the recent hype surrounding MOOCs it got only 77.1% votes and a low ninth position on the list of trends that will impact technology decisions. The advantage of MOOCs is that they can be taken anywhere and are mostly free. Distance learners can take any course they prefer, online from the universities of their choice. Some universities not only offer lectures and videos but also allow for students to learn by grading each other. MOOCs integrate several other technology trends that have been talked about in this article and it can be a blessing to students in India if regulated to provide the right results. It will however be a challenge for universities to come up with learning methods and teachers who can devote time to off campus students and quick assessments.

r T Prasad decided to experiment with blogs as he believed writing could help in the process of teaching and learning. He began writing blogs on various subjects and sharing them with his MBA students. He also encouraged his students to write blogs on the course material, encouraging a self learning process. Professor Prasad shares posts that he wrote in the previous year with students from the current batch along with links to blogs of earlier students. It is then expected that the current batch of students read the material and come prepared to discuss the material in class. The professor also encourages the students to write posts as per their understanding after the course has been discussed keeping in mind previous faculty blogs, previous student

blogs and feedback from classroom discussion, thus enriching the content and understanding of the course. Education is about teaching as well as Learning but, most conventional focus is only on teaching. The learning part is missing and not given proper importance in education. Modern technologies like Blogs help the learning processes become more transparent, says the professor. The core members of this initiative include the professor and other faculty members and students as they accept this form of learning. This technology does not limit its use to the classroom and a particular group of students and teachers. Blogs are open for comments and inputs from students and teachers around the world, and that adds further to learning. Since starting a blog is quite simple there is no need for a budget, training or permissions. The idea of learning from blogs has been well received. Professor Prasad says students started comparing their understanding of a subject to that of their seniors and expanded their knowledge bank. Since content was available in advance students found it helpful to prepare for class.

BYOD (BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE)


The last on our list this trend got 68.4% respondents saying it would make an impact, with only 29.5% saying that it will have a high impact. This idea where students are allowed to bring their computers, laptops and personal devices to class could prove cost effective to colleges and universities. BYOD involves students connecting their device to the institution network. Educators could be apprehensive of allowing this as data breach could then become easy. But it could also help students become more productive when they are allowed use of their personal devices without having to burden themselves with keeping study material and personal material on separate devices. For institutions that have to provide devices to students, BYOD could help them save money. But making the college network secure is essential.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

21

STRATEGY Hiring CURRICULUM Job-ready industry elective experts

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad began an elective on the business of lms, to tap job opportunities in the sector
By CHARU BAHRI

a S T R a T S A M i I E S R U O C FiLm
22
EDUTeCH January-February 2014

BY VIKAS ShARMA

n 2008, Kandaswamy Bharathan, lm producer and an alumnus of IIM-A, got a surprise phone call from his alma mater. The institutes management wanted his help in designing and delivering a course on the Indian lm industry. A course on the business of lms was unheard of but then that was precisely the reason the institute wanted to start it. Though Kandaswamy had never taught before, the institute believed his experiences in the lm industry coupled with his management degree would help in creating a comprehensive course. The institute approached me as I am familiar with the style of teaching at IIM Ahmedabad and also have extensive domain knowledge and experience, from working as an executive director at Kavithalayaa Productions, says Professor Kandaswamy, now a visiting faculty at IIM-A. Professor Kandaswamy joined Kavithalayaa Productions, a Chennai based production house, in 1991 and since then has produced lms and television shows in four languagesTamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi. The brainchild of veteran lmmaker and Dadasaheb Phalke Awardee, Dr K Balachander, Kavithalayaa Productions is hugely popular in South India for lms such as Roja, Ek Duje Ke Liye and Muthu and introduced stars like Rajinikanth, Kamal Hassan, and the music genius A R Rahman. Though it came as a surprise, the idea of the first ever course in India on the business of lms hooked him to the project. And thus was born the course Contemporary film industrya business perspective. Bollywood is fast maturing as an industry, yet until now no one had looked at the production of lms from an educational perspective. Even institutions such

Kandaswamy Bharathan
Professor, IIM-Ahmedabad and Executive Director, Kavithalayaa Productions

Bollywood is fast maturing as an industry, yet until now no one had looked at the production of lms from an educational perspective
material for reference. Listing the course modules was easy but initially, I struggled to put together material for 90-minute long lectures, he recollects. To prepare relevant material he turned to the West for ideas. Universities in the US like Wharton, Kellogg, Colombia, UCLA offer well-designed courses on the movie business. But their courses are based on practices in Hollywood, which is much more mature than the Indian lm industry. But studying their concepts was a good start. I adapted their modules to Bollywood and added new concepts and the best practices in the Indian film industry, he shares. Its been ve years but Professor Kandaswamy believes his course is continuously evolving and will continue to do so Its important to give the course a fresh look every year. I pick new examples and applications to illustrate the concepts. This keeps the course relevant.

as Whistling Woods, Film & Television Institute of India and Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, only impart training in acting, direction and editing. Explaining why it is important to have a course on the business of lms he adds, The Indian lm industry is the biggest in the world in terms of number of annual productions with an output of 1,000 lms in 16 languages. It stands to reason that this burgeoning sector will need qualied professionals in the years to come.

Challenges of designing a relevant course


Putting together a course that would hold the attention of students was the least of Prof Kandaswamys worries. It was actually the fact that anything related to lms is so entertaining that became one of his biggest worries. He says: One of my biggest challenges is nding ways to engage students in an academic way. Creating a new syllabus was another challenge. Being the rst course of its kind in the country there was no ready

January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

23

CURRICULUM

Job-ready elective

Highlights of the course


While the course keeps evolving the following features are a constant: COURSE CONTENT: Students learn about production, nancing, marketing and the human resource management aspect of lms. They are taught to look at films as productsto be creatively designed, efciently produced, nanced at the optimal costs and innovatively packaged and marketed across multiple channels to maximise ROI. MANAGEMENT LESSONS: When students study the concepts of popular Indian and overseas lms they also learn management lessons. For instance lms like Chak De India and Border send out a strong message building great teams is essential for success. In context, students also understand the role films play as sociocultural communication tools. Although making lms is essentially a creative process, it brings together a medley of professionals including non-creative ones. TEACHING PEDAGOGY: Students are taught to build business strategies for films through virtual movie business workshops- an experiential learning methodology. Working in groups of 6 or 7, students attempt to produce a virtual movie. They ideate a story, write a business plan for the project, decide who they would cast in the film and create a detailed marketing plan including publicity posters. They do everything, but shoot the movie, explained Professor Kandaswamy. Nevertheless, he encourages students to create 90 to 120 second trailers for their projects using interesting related footage and/or animation. Nothing beats getting your teeth into a project to learn both about the art and business of lms, observes the professor explaining the rationale behind his teaching methodology.

THE 5WH IN BRIEF


Who: Kandaswamy Bharathan, lm producer and an alumnus of IIM-A, now also visiting faculty at his alma mater. What: Introduced a course titled Contemporary lm industry a business perspective. When: In 2008. Why: To familiarise students with the business of lms and expand options in elective courses. Where: Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. How: The course highlights management lessons on the lm industry with the help of guest lectures from industry personalities and virtual movie business workshops.

Growing takers for business of lms elective


At a global conference on management education, held in IIM-A in July 2011, the course Contemporary film industry a business perspective was recognized as an Innovation in management education in India.

24

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

COURTESY IIM AhMEDAbAD

Two interactive guest sessions are also an integral part of the course. One visitor is from the creative side of movies and the other is someone dealing with the business of films. Aamir Khan, Karan Johar, Madhavan and Dhanush (of Kolaveri Di fame) have delivered lectures to students as guests from the creative side, A recent guest from the business aspect of films was Sudhanshu Vats, CEO of Viacom 18 Media.

This course exemplies how management education can be made more interesting and relevant for our time, says Professor Kandaswamy. Its success is best reected in its growing numbers of takers. In 2008, barely 25 students registered for the course, and that too, mainly out of curiosity, says Professor Kandaswamy. The ensuing year, enrolments reached 70 and by 2010, registrations had crossed 100, a healthy number for an annual intake of 440 in the management programme. In the current year, Professor Kandaswamy is teaching two batches of 135 students. It has become the elective with the highest number of registrations, he notes with satisfaction. Business schools across India have taken note of the course and as a result Kandaswamy has started a similar programme in ISB, Hyderabad, and IIM Lucknow. He is also delivering guest lectures on the lm industry at other IIMs. Very soon, Professor Kandaswamy will also launch a parallel course in the business of television. This elective, to be offered to second year students of IIM-As agship post-graduate management programme, builds on the growing viewership of daily soaps, talk shows, reality and game shows, music and dance programmes and lm-based programmes. It will provide an insight into different business trends in the electronic media. Many leading Indian television channels are already hiring regular MBA pass-outs for their marketing and advertising functions. A formal course in the business of television will help to prepare students better and also make them job ready.

ACadEMICS Continuing 10 Tech education Tools TECHNOLOGY

By offering something to industry professionals from different walks of life, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay is building a community of dedicated takers for its Department for Continuing Education Programmes
bY cHARU bAHRi

IIT-B OFFERS COURSES FOR PROFESSiONALS


ince being launched in 1951 in Kharagpur, brand IIT has come a long way. By far, the institutions have become renowned in India and the world over for their enterprising graduates. And the best way to serve beyond those who take admission to regular programmes, is by giving working professionals an opportunity to better their skills and through that, enhance their ability to contribute to industry, opines Dr Bijnan Bandyopadhyay, Professor-in-Charge, Continuing Education & Quality Improvement Programmes Ofce and Professor, Systems and Control Engineering, IIT Bombay.

Dynamic course
Serving working professionals is challenging because different aspirants have different goals. Some aspire to stay abreast with advancements in critical areas of technology to widen their knowledge base. Others seek to widen their skill base to improve promotion prospects. Over and above these individual aspirations, industrial houses see in IIT-B a partner who can help them become globally competitive and design tailored courses to develop their human resources.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH
BY VIKAS SHARMA

25

ACadEMICS

Continuing education

Tailored short and long courses are run exclusively for a specic company or organisation. These can be held at IIT-B or the companys premises
On its part, IIT-B also wants to build bridges between its different departments and industry, to promote positive interactions between its faculty and working professionals. doctors and management professionals alike to study the topics that interest them. Typically, open courses are intensive and spread over 2 to 5 days. Many of these include hands-on experience in IITBs labs. According to Professor Bandyopadhyay, One of the institutions most popular open courses is one on Piping Engineering. Launched in 1990, it made IIT Bombay the rst university in the world to conduct a formal training programme in Piping Engineering as applied to process plant design, engineering and construction. Over 64 editions conducted in the classroom have beneted more than 8,000 engineers of different ages, from across the world. IN-HOUSE PROGRAMMES: Tailored short and long courses are run exclusively for a specic company or organisation, on demand. These can be held either at IIT-B or the companys premises. For instance, the Indian Police Service has requisitioned IIT-B to design and annually deliver a sixday in-house course on The role of technology in crime and crime prevention. IPS ofcers and ofcers of other paramilitary organisations like CISF, CRPF and RPF are beneficiaries of this course funded by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Bureau of Police Research and Development, New

Multiple course choices

In response to industry expectations, since 1988, IIT-Bs Department of Continuing Education Programmes has created multiple avenues to increase access to its education programmes and reach out to industry and participate in nationbuilding. These include: REGULAR CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAMMES: Working professionals can sign up for regular post-graduate level semester courses and slowly work their way through these, attending three lectures each week in the evening hours or early morning hours. Credits they earn can be transferred and counted towards an M.Tech degree at IIT-B provided they are admitted to those courses through the regular stream. QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMMES: These government and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) sponsored short courses are open for faculty members of engineering colleges. As train the trainer courses, these aim at improving the quality of engineering education being imparted across India. ation BRIeF N I g Educ Another AICTE-sponH W ntinuin 5 o C e , e H g T har sored option allows ion or-in-C Educat Profess , y a y h inuing t d teachers from engineera n o p o C y f d ent o an Ban epartm ing colleges to pursue Dr Bijn f the D o s : o ie h it W ctiv full-time M.Tech and rward a ering fo e t m S Ph.D. programmes at T syste What: m the II going o n r o f , t 8 8 e 9 IIT-B. Here they get a en in 1 rm to b Started a platfo ls chance to revisit the cura n io When: s s g profe riculum from the stuworkin To give nals rofessio dents perspective. They Why: ds of p e e n e bay ing th return to their institus fulll IIT Bom : course f o y t Where tions after completing g a varie oducin the course. By intr How: OPEN COURSES: IITBs open courses attract

26

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

Continuing education

ACadEMICS

Revenue: Course fees are shared between the faculty and institute in the ratio of 70:30

Bijnan Bandyopadhyay

Professor-in-Charge, Continuing Education & Quality Improvement Programmes

The best way to serve beyond those who take admission to regular programmes, is by giving working professionals an opportunity to better their skills

Learning technology: The Indian Police Service has requested for a six-day course

Delhi. Each year, the Bureau of Police Research and Development nominates 15-25 ofcers for the course. Typical topics are: Wi-Fi Cyber Crimes, Cyber Crime and Internet Security, DNA analysis in Forensics, Application of Imaging in Police Department, Optimal Sensors for Pathogen/Explosive Detection, etc. Since in-house programmes are designed on-demand, these help create close ties between the organisation and IIT-B. In recent years, IIT-B has limited the companies from which it accepts requests to design custom courses, to exclude third-parties. We insist that only companies and organisations whose own employees need training can ask for assistance. We are not in the business of designing courses to be offered join-tly with others, claries Professor Bandyopadhyay. DELIVERY MODES: To maximise the number of enrolments to its continuing education programmes, IIT-B offers these courses directly as well as through online. Online courses are more comprehensive, offering about ve times the content of the contact course. Online courses use information technology tools very effectively and help engineers to learn engineering concepts in a

convenient place, at a pace that suits them. Certain features make these courses effective, such as user-friendly design, easy-to-understand language, condence-building mock examinations, solved examples and tutorials, and animations and movies to explain engineering drawings and documents. IIT-Bs Certicate Course on Piping Engineering is now available to engineers in both the contact as well as the online mode. In serving industry, IIT-B is redeeming itself. Last year, IIT-B conducted 50 open courses, each attended by an average of 30 participants. The institute conducted 41 in-house courses. A couple of participants enrolled in each of 37 post-graduate level courses which are open to industry people. Also, IIT-B is playing a major role in enhancing the quality of engineering education, taking on groups of 30 trainees at a time through its Quality Improvement Programmes. In the near future, we expect the number of participants per course to increase to 60, adds the futuristic professor. Also, continuing education programmes bring in valuable revenue. Last year, IIT-B earned six crore rupees through this route. Fees are shared between the faculty and institute in the ratio of 70:30. Continuing education programmes benefit industry as well as motivate faculty to push the boundaries of course design because they are remunerated for going the extra mile, concludes Professor Bandyopadhyay. Truly a winwin situation.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

27

COURtESY IIT bOMbAY

PLACEMENTS

Empowering women

IN SPiTE OF OFFERiNG MOSTLY CONVENTiONAL UNDERGRADUATE COURSES, PATNA WOMENS COLLEGE iS HELPiNG iTS GRADUATES FiND MEANiNGFUL EMPLOYMENT iN DiFFERENT SECTORS AND HELPiNG THEM TO RELOCATE TO OTHER CiTiES
BY CHARU BAHRi

PATNA COLLEGE MAKES A SUccESS OF pLAcEMENTS


28
EDUTeCH January-February 2014

decade ago, Patna Womens College did not offer its students any placement services as most of its students are enrolled for undergraduate courses in arts, science, commerce and vocational streams. It recently started a post graduate programme in computer applications and its only other post graduate programme was one in home science, hence it saw limited scope for placements. But wanting to impact the lives of young women passing out from its campus, changed the outlook of Dr Sister Doris DSouza, principal of the Christian minority college a constituent unit of Patna University, Patna and a National Assessment and Accreditation Council accredited (A grade) institution. When the University Grants Commission accorded College with Potential for Excellence status to Patna Womens College in 2004, Principal Dr DSouza had to think of new ways to help its students. She identied placement services as the one thing missing in the college. So that very year, Patna Womens College took a conscious decision to prioritise placements. Principal Dr DSouza tells us why: Graduates with some work experience are better prepared for higher studies. We saw it as our responsibility to

help students acquire such experiences. We also realised that it was our duty to help students who cannot take up higher studies, due to constraints, to get meaningfully absorbed in industries and to pursue their careers.

Placement challenges
There were only a few coveted local employment avenues which made the new priority a tall order. Neither did it help that the colleges pass outs are graduates in conventional streams, of which there are plenty in all Indian cities, nor is Patna a usual stop for multinational corporations based out of other cities in India. The placement ofcers had another dilemma should they actively liaise with concerned human resource departments or approach companies through agents? So a steep learning curve lay ahead of the college. Another important thing was that communication and soft skills of students needed pulling up. Women from conservative backgrounds also wanted the faculty to help convince their parents to let them take up jobs in other cities. Would the college be able to achieve that?

Stepping out
Patna Womens Colleges holistic approach that focused on preparing students for placements as well as on attracting companies to the campus worked well. Heres what the college did: SET UP A PLACEMENTS CELL: At the outset, a Placement Cell was created and Professor Sahar Rahman of the Department of English and Professor Debjani Sarkar of the Department of Geography were asked to take up the additional duty as placement ofcers. Their mandate is to boost quality placements at Patna Womens College. LIAISE WITH INDUSTRY: To kick start placements, the ofcers connected with Ma Foi Consultants. The agency conducted campus interviews for HSBC. As a result, three students got placed in 2005 and four in the following year. At this point, the placement ofcers realised the need to directly liaise with representatives of companies. Professor Sahar Rahman explains whyWe did not want any agency between our students and their employers. Direct dealings would save us from the hassle of checking the credentials of the consultants. It would also ensure that the privacy and safety of our girls are not compromised because
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

THe 5WH IN BRIeF


When: Started in 2004. Who: Principal Dr Sister Doris DSouza and Placement Ofcers Dr Sahar Rahman and Dr Debjani Sarkar, Patna Womens College, Patna. What: Are prioritising placements in spite of the fact that most of their students are enrolled in conventional undergraduate streams. Where: Patna Womens College, Patna. Why: To help students acquire work experience to become better prepared for higher studies. To help students who cannot take up higher studies to get absorbed in industry. How: Through creating an active Placement Cell which liaises with industry, prepares students for placement interviews and counsels parents to permit their girls to relocate to other cities.

IMAGE BY PHOTOS.COM

29

PLACEMENTS

Empowering women

their CVs and other personal details are accessed by the consultants. So the placement ofcers started to make contact with human resource heads of companies in the information technology, BPO, media and banking sectors, and invited them to their campus for placement drives. They chose these sectors seeing scope for their graduates to get placed. Bachelors in computer applications and in science can get placed in the information technology industry, graduates in mass communication and in communicative English with media studies can be employed in media, commerce and economics graduates can nd jobs in banking and any graduate can get jobs in BPOs, says Placement Ofcer Professor Debjani Sarkar. After the word got around, the placement ofcers were pleasantly surprised to be approached by a few companies. We responded positively to such calls, says Professor Sarkar. PLACEMENT CELL REPRESENTATIVES: Every year, the placement ofcers train 30 nal year students from each department as Placement Cell Representatives. These students are briefed about the functions of the Cell and are made responsible to ensure the participation of their classmates in placement activities. According to Dr Rahman, This has worked well especially in the beginning when footfalls used to be very low. PREPARE STUDENTS: The placement ofcers periodically hold workshops and interactive sessions on communication and soft skills for students. Students are encouraged to become more proactive about nding employment. Vacancy notices and tips to enhance employability are put up on the Placement Cell notice board. COUNSEL PARENTS: An early placement hiccup was the challenge that young some women from conservative families faced in convincing their parents to let them relocate to other cities. Most of the selected students are from middle class backgrounds. In the early years, a lot of their parents did not support the idea of their daughters taking up jobs elsewhere. It was embarrassing because even after girls were appointed in large numbers many could not join the jobs, shares Professor Sarkar. To address this issue, IBM Daksh (Gurgaon) conducted interactive sessions for parents of young women selected by the company. On a couple of occasions, the IBM Daksh recruitment team was accompanied by former college students working with the company. This worked very well It inspired girls to join the company and

Professor, Department of English Patna Womens College

Sahar Rahman

We did not want any agency between students and employers. Direct dealings would save us from the hassle of checking the credentials of the consultants

parents could learn from the rst-hand experiences from former students.

Recruitment success
Placements started to look up in 2007. That year, TCS picked up 75 students, IBM Daksh selected 120 students, Wipro BPO selected 29 students, and Wipro Tech six students. Infosys BPO joined the fray in 2008. Star TV started to recruit a few college students in 2010. In 2009 IBM Daksh awarded Patna Womens College collected for achieving the highest number in campus joinees. The company has consistently recruited young women from the college 72 in 2008, 73 in 2009, 118 in 2010, 102 in 2011, 36 in 2012 after the company became IBM GPS and 68 in 2013. According to Professor Rahman, It has helped that our girls have performed well after joining. That keeps up the interest in Patna Womens College. A few companies which Patna Womens College counts as its placement partners today are IBM GPS (previously called IBM Daksh), Wipro BPO, Wipro Tech, TCS and Star TV. Of the approximately 1,700 students passing out every year, 30 to 40% are keen to get placed and participate in the campus placements drive. Last year, 20% of the participating students got placed. Principal Dr DSouza observes that the colleges current crop of graduates is far more condent about launching themselves in careers than those of a decade ago. They aunt their selection letters, she shares. Applicants for enrolment in the college have gone up by about 30% because of the placement cell (and other) facilities introduced in the last decade.

30

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

An ideal platform for business leaders to share leadership strategies and help business ourish
ISHAAN SURI DIRECTOR, INTERARCH BUILDING PRODUCTS

CEOs JUST JOINED


Inc. India invites all CEOs and founder managers to an exclusive membership programme which fosters knowledge sharing in the community and strengthens your efforts to build and take your enterprise to the next level of growth and business excellence

COCOBERRY | OZONE OVERSEAS | DTDC | DHANUKA AGRITECH | HOLOSTIK | PRECISION INFOMATIC SHRI LAKSHMI COTSYN | O3 CAPITAL | EMI TRANSMISSION | GRAVITA INDIA | AND MANY MORE...

Annual membership to Inc. India Leaders Forum will entitle you to the following benets

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS

PEER NETWORKS Provides an opportunity for chief executive ofcers and owner managers to engage with a likeminded peer group.

LEADERSHIP SUMMITS Annual meeting to set the agenda for the communitys strategic and most current issues. The Forums summits bring together a focused audience and authoritative speakers, in a highly interactive format

BRIEFING SESSIONS A series of quarterly meetings throughout the year. Constructive debate, diverse opinions and indepth discussions provide a premier networking and instructive forum

COMPLIMENTARY ADVERTISEMENT Access to the 9.9 Media bouquet of magazines for complimentary advertising (Includes: Inc. India, CTO, CIO&Leader, CFO, IT Next, EDU & I2)

RESEARCH AND ADVISORY Access to our in-house research reports on issues of relevance to high-growth companies.

Membership to Inc. India Leaders Forum is corporate but limited to Entrepreneurs, Directors and Chief Executive Ofcers

Please contact Rajat Gupta at rajat.gupta@9dot9.in or call at 0120-4010 914

TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMME

CAMPUS

Solar Power

To achieve energy self-sufciency, Vellore Institute of Technology has committed to developing renewable energy in a big way by investing in tapping solar energy and driving research by both faculty and students

N A G N i D L i U B S t i N T E I i V C i F F U HOW S F L E S Y ENERG NStitUtiON i


32
EDUTECh January-February 2014

Solar Power CAMPUS Solar Power CAMPUS


autonomous organisation set up in 1988 under the Department of Science and Technology, was appointed as project consultant. Getting experienced consultants on board can also help institutions navigate through complex and ever-changing government policies and subsidies for solar projects. As an example, in 2001, VIT wanted to install a 100 KW solar power plant costing rupees four crores under the Financial Intermediary (FI) route. A change in policy saw the government withdraw the FI scheme under which VIT had applied for funding, compelling the institution to scale down its plans to a install a plant of 8.25 KW capacity only costing about rupees forty lakha sum we could hardly afford, recollects Selvam. As importantly, institutions must build the skills of their faculty to take their solar aims forward, especially if solar research is a priority. According to Selvam, If the institution aims at solar research, like VIT University, it helps to develop new technical skills in its faculty. Doing so gives faculty the confidence to take on leadership roles. In 2001, VIT deputed associate professor Dr V Ramesh from the electrical engineering department to Schlaich Bergermann & Partners facility in Spain to study the dish Stirling concept. Because of this exposure, Dr Ramesh played a key role during the installation of VITs dish Stirling engine and in monitoring its operations.

I
BY ViKAs SHARMA

n 2001, VIT University, Vellores core governing committee backed by none less than the Chancellor Dr G Viswanathan committed to energy self-sufciency. We aim at 100 per cent energy self-sufciency says G V Selvam, Vice President, VIT University (VIT), Vellore, the driving force behind its energy initiatives. What inspires Selvam is the strong sunshine that graces most parts of India for the better part of the year. Notwithstanding the large upfront investment needed to tap solar energy, the returns from the installation after the payback period are substantial. Selvam knows this from VIT Universitys early experiences in tapping solar energy, which he is building on. Also, he is driving research in solar energy by both faculty and students, to improve upon and expand the applications of solar energy on the campus.

Plugging into the sun


VIT was thinking in terms of solar energy research from the beginning. It installed a 10 kW solar dish Stirling engine for R&D purposes in 2001. To promote the concept in India, Schlaich Bergermann & Partner provided the engine free of cost, through KEMS, Bengaluru its India representative. KEMS and Aurovil, Pondicherry, executed the project. PHASE II: In 2003, another faculty member Dr R Sundaresan, professor in the School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, was sent to Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Science, Germany, as part of an agreement between the two institutes. Dr Sundaresan studied solar cooling methods and the cogeneration concept involving the simultaneous generation of electricity and air conditioning through solar energy. That same year, VIT commissioned an 8.25 KW solar plant costing around Rs 40 lakhs, replete with battery bank and inverter. This plant is meeting part of the power requirement of the institutions Energy Centre. The power generated
January-February 2014 EDUTECh

Developing skills for harnessing solar energy


Solar energy technology is still new to India, especially large scale projects. So, institutions embarking on this path must rope in experts who can guide them in selecting and implementing appropriate technologies. At the outset, VIT University contracted Karnataka Energy Management System, Bengaluru (KEMS) to execute its solar projects. Professor R Natarajan, now General Manager of VITs CO2 research and Green Technologies Centre, then working with the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council, an

33

CAMPUS

Solar Power

Sun as fuel: An advanced solar energy cooking system was commissioned which can also be used to fry food

niversity ent, VIT U id s re P e ic ,V GV Selvam s re WhO: y initiative (VIT), Vello able energ cient w e n re d n lf-suf solar a energy se Is driving make VIT WhAt: lly a u d ra to g g 01, ongoin own rted in 20 ta S : ergy, cut d N WhE le solar en ctricity, b ila va a ly e le To tap fre onal grid e ate a WhY: n conventi lar energy and cre reliance o o s in search titution conduct re y self-sufcient ins rg e n e l mode nnai d VIT, Che Vellore, an , IT V chnical : E WhER in-house te g solar and g in p lo ve e ltin Through d olar energy, consu nching solar HOW: in s d lau n a , s rt e expertise p energy ex in phases renewable le energy projects b a w e and ren

IN THE 5WH

BRIEF

through solar photo voltaic units is stored in batteries and used for street lighting at night. As a corollary of this project and to make the most of the stored energy, VIT piloted the use of low-energy consuming 12 watt LED lights in place of 40 watt tubes lights, mercury and sodium vapour lamps, for street lighting in the

Vellore campus. LED lights replaced mercury street lights at junction points on an experimental basis. Then, a 90 watt LED bulb/pulp cost around Rs 15000 vis--vis the current Rs 5000 per piece. It took VIT 3 to 4 years to recover this investment. Based on that success, the institute has since replaced the remaining street lights and tubes in all

the hostels with 12 watt LED lights. Doing so has helped cut the power consumed by tubes by over 75%. Also in 2003, it commissioned a gridinteractive bio-mass power plant, producing approximately 1500 units per day. This output is channelled to students hostels through the internal grid. A government grant helped meet part of the expenses of this project, which meets 1 to 1.2% of the universitys energy requirement. PHASE III: In 2010, VIT completed the installation of indirect solar water heaters with a capacity of 20000 litres per day in its Chennai campus. The following year it installed a similar 10000 litres per day system in its Vellore campus. Indirect systems help avoid failures due to salt deposition. By then, VIT had started to think in earnest about methods to bring down the cost of solar energy devices. Its in-house CO2 Research and Green Technologies

34

EDUTECh January-February 2014

Solar Power

CAMPUS

Vice President, VIT University (VIT)

G V Selvam

Meeting needs: VIT commissioned a grid-interactive bio-mass power plant, producing approximately 1,500 units per day

Centre fabricated indigenous solar photovoltaic street lights for its Vellore campus. Costing only Rs 80000 per device, each of these comprises four LED lights, a battery bank and inverter. Four such street lights were installed as an experiment. Keen to save electricity through solar powered street lighting in its Chennai campus as well, VIT installed 56 China-made LED street lights there over 2010 and 2011, at a cost of Rs 1.56 lakh per piece. Powered by solar photovoltaic panel, aero generator (wind mill) and the grid, these can store energy in their battery bank. In 2012, VIT commissioned an advanced solar energy cooking system which can generate temperatures up to 300 degrees Centigrade, and which can be used for frying as well as regular cooking. ONGOING PHASE IV: VITs latest initiative is a 2 MW solar photovoltaic grid interactive project, which doesnt need a separate storage facility. Ventus, a company specialising in solar energy, is set-

ting up this plant on 7.5 acres of land provided by VIT. Other ongoing projects include the installation of a biomass pyrolysis unit to produce bio-oil from agro waste, solar tri-generation system and solar photovoltaic-based pumps for pumping water from borewells. Also, VITs CO2 Research and Green Technologies Centre is developing a solar photovoltaic panel tree for VIT, capable of producing 16 kW per tree through 16 branches at different levels. This will cut down the land required to produce solar energy by 50%, from 5 acres per MW to 2.5 acres per MW.

Ahead in the race to tap solar energy


When VITs latest 2 MW plant is commissioned in 2014, the institution will meet more than 12% of its 3.8 MW (per hour) energy needs from renewable sources. VIT will well exceed the Tamil Nadu state governments directive mandating educational

institutions to meet 6% of their power usage from renewable energy. Incidentally, before passing this directive, Tamil Nadu state government ofcials paid visits to VIT to study and learn from its achievements in harnessing solar energy. VITs experience allows it to offer to students courses in renewable energy. Its bachelors in technology course in the mechanical engineering stream, offers students the option to specialise in Energy Engineering. It also offers a masters course in technology on Energy & Environmental Engineering. Students are also working with faculty on solar projects, such as the creation of solarpowered mobile device charging poles for the use of 21000 students in the Vellore campus and another 4000 in the Chennai campus. Other ongoing research aims at improving the efficiency of solar panel powered battery cars used for intra-campus faculty transfers. VIT is truly racing to tap solar energy.
January-February 2014 EDUTECh

COuRtEsY vit uNivERsitY

We aim to achieve 100 percent energy self-sufciency in our campuses

35

DIALOGUE

Mary Sue Coleman

Leadership starts with a good team


Mary Sue Coleman, the rst woman President of the University of Michigan, shares her secrets of success and her plans for India
By SmITA POLITE
EDU: You were the rst female President of the University of Michigan as well as Iowa besides being one of the longest serving Presidents. What was it that got you here? What would your advice be to women in higher education aspiring to become leaders? Mary Sue Coleman: Certainly in my lifetime and over the span of my career in higher education, I have seen many more women take leadership roles. It was probably thirty years ago that the US decided that we had to make it more equitable for women entering professions like law and medicine and others that had been previously limited to men. This has been a growing movement in the United States and now there are many programmes to help young women advance in their career and hone both scholarly and administrative talent. It has been extraordinarily positive because theres talent everywhere. Now it isnt perfect and I dont say that there are not still inequities but I do think it is much better. Today over 20 to 30 per cent of the University Presidents are women and a much higher percentage of women are Provosts and Deans. It starts at the department level with you becoming the chair of the department, getting and really seeking administrative experiences.

36

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

sUBHOJIT PAUL

Persons Name

DIALOGUE

MARY SUE COLEmAN


CURRENT ROLE: President of University of Michigan since being appointed in August 2002. AcaDEMIcS: Graduated from Grinnell College in Chemistry and later received a doctorate from University of North Carolina in Biochemistry. OTHER ROLES: She also serves on the board of directors at Johnson & Johnson and is a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation

January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

37

DIALOGUE

Mary Sue Coleman

So my advice to women would be to actively seek out administrative roles and prepare for them if they are interested in such roles. You cant just wait for these roles to come to you. Many US universities have instituted mentorship programmes to advise young women on their careers. Policy interventions like these are very important and I dont think things will change without those interventions. As far as my story goes, I am a scientist and I had a long career as a biochemist when I ran a research laboratory. I actually think that those experiences helped me enormously in rising through the ranks to rst be a Dean and then a Vice Chancellor and a President.

You came in as the President at a time in 2002 when Michigan was into its worst economic downturns and you are leaving at a time when U-M is ranked 12th globally and has the largest research budget in US for a public university. What were the steps you took that helped the University gain this status? When I came in to Michigan, I was prepared for the prospect of economic austerity. I dont think I understood at that time how severe it would be, but the state of Iowa had also begun to have some economic problems so I already had some experience with making strategic decisions about what to cut in order to preserve the academic core. But by the time I came to Michigan it became much more severe. Theres no one piece but a coming together of several pieces that really allowed us to thrive. First of all I had a very good team of smart people around me. It is an absolute must to have people that are the best at what they do at every single position. The second piece was a concentration on cost saving, and it really helped that I had that team which really understood how to find efficiencies in the operations of the university that are not academic core. We were able to save a lot of money by simply making services

like cleaning buildings, more efcient. We got better purchasing contracts and changed the way we do our operations. We have taken out about 230 million dollars from the recurring costs of the basic operations simply by examining everything we did and doing it better and more efciently. During this time we have had no faculty layoffs or furloughs. We have in fact been able to give small increases in faculty salaries. The third piece that helped us is ramping up our philanthropy. We have a tremendous philanthropy tradition and so were able to have a hugely successful capital campaign. The fourth piece was working at making our research enterprise flourish. We streamlined many of our policies for faculty to get grants. Our interactions with the industry and companies also changed. We created a business engagement centre, a one-stop-shop that was extremely helpful in getting many more grants and contracts from companies. The fth piece was around admitting out of state students who pay higher tuition. Thanks to the way our state was changing we had a different tuition rate for in state and out of state students. The in state population of high school graduates is going down quite precipi-

tously so we were able to admit more out of state students who pay much higher tuition. Our success is a result of these pieces coming together. We were able to provide modest tuition increases and more nancial aid. Philanthropy stepped up, the research enterprise ourished, cost saving strategies became more aggressive, interactions with companies to bring in more resources to the university increased and so we were able to provide modest tuition increases even as nancial aid increased.

You are regarded as one of the most successful fundraisers. You along with your husband have contributed over $1.79 million to university funds. What are the attributes that makes fundraising campaign successful? What would your advice be to universities looking to raise funds? Both my husband and I were really transformed by our experiences as students going abroad and experiencing the world. We were in Iowa, a small western state and hadnt seen the rest of the world. But we were lucky because our parents could afford to send us abroad. My husband became a Latin Americanist and I became a biochem-

38

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

Mary Sue Coleman

DIALOGUE

We dont sign a lot of MOUs but once we are in we are all in. Our goal is to do those that are going to be benecial for both parties
ist. We just understood so much more about the world by being able to go abroad. Those experiences were so important in our lives that we wanted to do something to help students whose parents might not be able to afford to send them abroad. Thats the reason for my personal interest in promoting global education. Fundraising is also a very big part of my job. I probably spend almost half of my time in fundraising. Its much more subtle than going to people that youve never met and asking them for money. You have to develop relationships, build confidence and present a vision that gets people excited about something signicant that they can do to support students, build a programmme or even a new building. These are long relationships. Most of the people that give a lot of money to the university have been known to me for years and years and have developed a friendship and trust. As a university you have to demonstrate to people that you will be good stewards of their moneythat you will be responsible and invest it well and that you will create the programmes. Its a combination of the two and at the University of Michigan weve built a lot of trust with our donors over many years and I think thats why we are so successful.

Brazil. Our relationship with India goes back several years as we have had connections at the faculty level and through the Centre for South Asian Studies. However, planning for these trips at the administrative level began about a year and a half ago. To plan these trips one of the things we do is to gauge faculty interest and assess where the best opportunities are. We do many advance visits and make sure that the faculty get together and that we have a very good plan to make our partnerships substantive. So thats how this visit developed and I am very optimistic that even though I am stepping down these relationships will continue to be very robust. We have over 10 MoUs in India and this time we signed four, NCAER, AIIMS, Ashoka and DU.

U-M is known for its interdisciplinary richness. How should a university work at improving interdisciplinary interactions? You have to be quite directed in providing a mechanism and incentives for people to become more interdisciplinary. We have indeed become much more interdisciplinary during my tenure. We started out by offering money to faculty for them to develop and run courses that would be interdisciplinary. But they had to compete for getting this money and we picked the ones that were the best. Faculty also had to compete for positions that were interdisciplinary and again it was incentives all along the way. We provided research funding for interdisciplinary projects as well as for teaching projects. It has worked quite well for us over the last decade. In order for it to work you have to invest, you have to have a plan and you have to let faculty understand how this plan will enrich their lives. I think most people at Michigan now will say that it has worked. How do you plan your collaborations? How did this trip to India come about? We have long term partnerships across Africa, in China and Brazil. We are just beginning our relationships in

Is there a bent towards liberal arts in the kind of collaborations you are looking at? Not necessarily though we believe deeply in the liberal arts and I mean not just the humanities but also the sciences; the liberal arts writ large. We absolutely believe that this is one way to educate students to be prepared for a future thats very uncertain because we do not know what the jobs are going to be for the future so we want to teach students how to think, be critical and exible and how to solve problems. But we are not limited to liberal arts because with AIIMs we are very interested in its trauma centre and we want our students to have the opportunity to come here. They are just doing miracles at AIIMs and we would like our students to have that experience. Wed also like to have students from AIIMs coming to Michigan. We want it to be both ways. It has to be mutually interesting. If its just one way it wont work. So our interest is not limited and we have tried to pick the places that we think can have the most robust collaborations. We dont sign a lot of MOUs but once we are in we are all in. Our goal is to do those that are going to be benecial for both parties where we have faculty interest and student interest. Thats why we have picked the ones that we have.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

39

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


FROM O f H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N

INSIDE 43 | British Campuses Debate Ways to Balance Freedom of Speech and Religious Sensitivities 46 | Psychological Counseling Goes Online for Students at U of Florida

Thorny exchanges on campus can hold educational value


If students can learn to consider opposing views, they will mature into citizens who can nd common ground in fractious times. BY DAN BERRETT

P
BY PHOTOS.COM

Allowing debate: Some institutions can be timid in defending controversial discussions on the campus

olitically charged ideas are a mainstay on many campuses. So is the controversy they provoke. When handled poorly, such incidents trace a familiar arc: Initial expression begets umbrage, which spurs real or perceived overreaction, followed by vows to better handle highly charged disagreements the next time. A sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder recently had to ward off administrators concerns that her in-classskit about sex workerswould offend students. In October, students at Brown University ended a guest lecture by Raymond W. Kelly, who was then New York Citys police chief, bybooing himoff the stage. Thorny exchanges in classes and on campus can provide great educational value if guided skillfully, according to professors in disciplines like communications, education, history, and political science who lead programs described as including difficult dialogues, transformational conversations, or deliberative democracy. Such efforts have emerged as examples of how higher education can foster a stronger sense of civic engagement in students. If they can learn to carefully listen to and consider opposing views, the thinking goes, they will mature into citizens who can deliberate and nd common ground in fractious times. But such conversations often prove difcult for faculty members to carry out and can be risky, especially for those without tenure. Some institutions can be timid in defending controversial discussions on the campus. Those institutions may nd them-

40

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

GLOBAL.CHRONIcLE.COM
Several students, including football players selves less able to advance the cause of knowland residents of football-crazy hometowns, edge, says Caryn McTighe Musil, director of initially ascribed responsibility to the athletes civic learning and democracy at the Associaalone but found themselves growing uncomtion of American Colleges and Universities. fortable, Mr. Kurtz says. Weve always had to exist with this contraQuestions arose: Was there something to dictory commitment to inquiry, says Ms. Sign up for a free weekly the case against football culture? We were Musil, whose organization in 2012 published a electronic newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education at stopped in our tracks, Mr. Kurtz says. When report, A Crucible Moment:College Learning Chronicle.Com/Globalnewsletter the class session ended, he told his students and Democracys Future, that challenged colThe Chronicle of Higher Education is that they could no longer retreat to bland leges to assume a greater role in civic engagea US-based company with a weekly agreements to disagree. ment. The association will offer more than a newspaper and a website updated Such interactions can be particularly fruitful dozen sessions on the subject at its annual daily, at Global.Chronicle.com, that cover all aspects of university life. when they happen with people from outside meeting in late January. With over 90 writers, editors, and the campus. We are committed to asking tough quescorrespondents stationed around Students in some political-science courses at tions and to exposing students to multiple the globe, The Chronicle provides Wake Forest University, for example, have points of view, some of which they detest, timely news and analysis of academdebated the merits of Social Security with she says. ic ideas, developments and trends. senior citizens in Winston-Salem, N.C. Brown is still guring out how to respond to At rst, the students favored privatizing the the disdain expressed so loudly by some of its program, while the elderly residents defended students. One remedy will be an effort to train it as is, says Katy J. Harriger, a professor of political science. She faculty members in moderating difcult conversations and to guided the discussion, following ground rules to discourage work with student groups to sponsor constructive dialogues interruptions and generalizations. Participants were asked to outside of class, says Liza Cariaga-Lo, associate provost for acaidentify common ground and areas of disagreement. demic development and diversity. By the end, Ms. Harriger says, nuance had crept in. The stuIn the wake of the Ray Kelly incident, I think we all came to dents saw the need to preserve the safety net; the older particirecognize that we often dont come into these situations prepants acknowledged the value of means-testing and worried pared to be able to talk to one other about issues that divide us, about the debt being passed to future generations. she says. A university is, in fact, the place where we should be having these conversations.

Rupture point
Advocates for facilitating constructive conversations about controversial subjects cite the educational benets of the experience. Such arguments also tend to be made in support of liberal education and engagement on issues of diversity. Like liberal education, civic learning is promoted as helping students wrestle with messy problems that have no clearly dened answers, a skill that will help them as voters when they evaluate policy trade-offs. It is also a skill that many employers say they value. Participating in difcult dialogues about politics or values is thought to spur a healthful cognitive disjunction in students, which causes them to take a fresh look at their unexamined viewsmuch the way that substantive conversations about race and ethnicity have been shown to improve criticalthinkingskills. Jeffrey B. Kurtz, an associate professor of communication at Denison University, calls the moment of dissonance a rupture point. One such moment happened this past fall, when students in his course on rhetoric, sports, and culture proposed discussing the notorious rape by two high-school football players, and humiliation in social media, of a girl in Steubenville, Ohio. The Denison students debated to what extent blame should be placed on football culture.

Political or partisan?

While a classroom can be a good place to cultivate the skills needed to carry out difcult dialogues, that environment also has shortcomings. Classrooms are inherently inauthentic laboratories for democracy, Ms. Harriger and Jill J. McMillanwroteinDeliberation and the Work of Higher Education,published by the Kettering Foundation in 2008. The power dynamic between teacher and student often shortcircuits any pretext that equals are freely exchanging ideas. And professors who have developed expertise in a subject are not always good at getting out of the way of a discussion or at being neutral moderators. Above all, such discussions are very hard to conduct effectively, says Nancy L. Thomas, who directs the initiative for the study of higher education at Tufts Universitys Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. We know that discussion-based teaching gets results. To avoid it is bad teaching, she says. But we dont do it, because we dont really know how. One stumbling block for many professors is confusion between the political and the partisan. Examining the power dynamics underlying given issues is often thought to be acceptable; advocating for ideological positions is not. Writing inThe Chroniclein 2003, the outspoken professor Stanley Fishwarnedfaculty members not to teach peace or war
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

41

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


When their ideas are threatened, students, like many other people, choose to disengage. If that happens, students wont learn to talk with one another across ideological divides, and the opportunity to meet on common ground will be lost, perhaps irretrievably, says Matthew Hartley, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. If they cant do it in college, he says, they sure arent going to do it later in life.

Thorny exchanges in classes and on campus can provide great educational value if guided skillfully
or freedom or obedience or diversity or uniformity or nationalism or antinationalism or any other agenda. Of course, he continued, they can and should teach about such topicssomething very different from urging them as commitmentswhen they are part of the history or philosophy or literature or sociology that is being studied. Many professors avoid any charged discussions. About half of all faculty members report that they often or very often encourage their students to discuss local, state, or national issues, according to the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement. Twenty percent urge their students to organize other people to work on such issues. Part-time lecturers and instructors report that they encourage their students to discuss and engage on political issues less frequently than their tenured peers do, according to the survey. Many faculty members who seek to facilitate difcult conversations try to help students sort through their own reasoning and its consequences, says Richard M. Battistoni, a professor of political science at Providence College. What were talking about is getting students to be more effective citizens based on their own values. When faculty members push students to examine their thinking, they need to do so respectfully, says Tuftss Ms. Thomas. She describes how a professor asking a question about, say, the role of religion in public life might step into a mineeld. Suppose the faculty member asks why a student feels that the teachings of a religious leader should inuence public policy. The words might seem open and nonjudgmental, but the tone might be perceived as hostile. You can put your hand on your hip or glare at them, she says. The inference is there. Instead, she says, a professor could ask a student to explore why he or she is suggesting that position, or to share personal examples that support the statement. What youre really doing is expressing interest in peeling the onion instead of expressing interest in taking on that view, Ms. Thomas says.

How to teach students to have hard talks


Encouraging classroom conversations on controversial subjects often depends on preparation. Experts cite common approaches that tend to make such efforts successful: Establish ground rules.Spend time with your students at the beginning of the semester agreeing on how to engage in debate, says Jeffrey B. Kurtz, an associate professor of communications at Denison University. Generate a list of rules and post it. If the effort to set ground rules sputters, try ipping the question. Ask students what happened when a discussion in which they were involved broke down or became polarized: Did it result in namecalling, interruptions, accusations, defensiveness? Then stake out rules that would support more-positive results. Emphasize storytelling.Encourage students to speak from their own experiences rather than make sweeping generalizations. They should claim the I position, so you assert what you think, says Katy J. Harriger, a professor of political science at Wake Forest University. Frame the discussion.Conduct extensive research on an issue and propose reasoned, substantive approaches that reect the best arguments of each side. Ask students what aspects of each side appeal to and concern them. Ask them to sift through the possible consequences and trade-offs of each position in identifying how they might take action. The goal, says Jan R. Liss, executive director of Project Pericles, a nonprot group that promotes participatory-citizenship programs at colleges, is for students to think through the other sides positionnot by thinking about why theyre wrong, but understanding that theres another perspective and why there is that perspective. Ask questions in an open-ended way.When students offer ideas that require substantiating, consider asking them to explore why they made those suggestions, or to offer examples from their lives that support the statement, says Nancy L. Thomas, director of the initiative for the study of higher education at Tufts Universitys Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Its how you frame the entire discussion and how you frame individual questions. Subscribe to a free weekly electronic newsletter from the Chronicle of Higher Education at http://chronicle.com/article/Thorny-Exchangeson-Campus-Can/144097/

When faculty members push students to examine their thinking, they need to do so respectfully

42

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

GLOBAL.CHRONIcLE.COM

British campuses debate ways to balance freedom of speech and religious sensitivities
British universities are wondering if segregating audiences is the practice they should follow when orthodox speakers visit BY AISHA LAbI

ritains leading highereducation association recently sought to offer guidance on a tricky question: When a university invites an orthodox religious speaker to campus, should it allow the audience to be segregated by gender? Universities UK, which represents the vice chancellors of British universities, responded with a conditional yes. While the advice was buried deep inside a mundanely titled report, External Speakers in Higher Education Institutions, released in November, it triggered a restorm of public criticism, with students, academics, and ultimately even the prime minister weighing in. The episode is the latest in a series of recent incidents that have ignited a debate on British campuses about how to balance freedom of speech with religious sensitivities. While issues of freedom of speech and religion are familiar on campuses in the United States, public universities in Britain have been struggling with them in recent years, with some saying that public displays of religion have increased, along with pressure to cater to religious groups. Others say that a growing atmosphere of Islamaphobia has emboldened critics of religion to target innocent expressions of faith in the guise of combating extremism.

Gender Balance: Some believe male and female students sitting separately at sensitive talks is voluntary, others see it as an imposed manifestation of culture

You can really feel the tension in Britain right now, said Lawrence M. Krauss, a professor of physics at Arizona State University. In March, Mr. Krauss, an outspoken atheist, was to take part in a debate on Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense? held by an Islamic group at University College London. When he arrived, he said, the organizers were attempting to separate audience members by gender, and he threatened to leave. The event proceeded as planned after the group, Islamic Education and Research Academy, dropped overt efforts to have the sexes sit separately, which it later said

would have been on an entirely voluntary basis. For Mr. Krauss, the episode highlighted what he views as a troubling trend in Britain to try and impose some elements of Islamic law within groups, even in public spaces. Universities UK sought in part to help clarify how institutions should navigate events like the one at University College London. Its report included a hypothetical case study in which a representative of an ultra-orthodox religious group has been invited to speak. University administrators have approved the event, but the speaker then asks for the audience to be segregated.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

43

bY pHoTos.coM

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


is less important than the right of others not to be offended, not that there is such a right. In the gender-segregation case, Mr. Moos says, the right of the speaker not to have his personal sensitivity be offended by having a nonsegregated audience weighs more heavily than the right of people not to be discriminated against on the basis of gender. Omar Ali, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, which represents some 115,000 Muslim students in Britain, says that using the term segregation is incorrect. Instead, he says, what its about is the provision of separate seating for males and females at religious eventsits totally voluntary and totally not forced. For Mr. Ali, the reaction to the controversial Universities UK advice has turned into a smear campaign against Islam, although the religion of the speaker in the contentious case study isnt specied. Mr. Ali said that he has attended events sponsored by Christian, Jewish, and other religious student groups at which men and women chose to sit separately, but that the tenor of the discussion over the past few weeks, invoking labels like Islamist and extremist, is pretty telling of the malicious agenda of this whole debate. Mr. Ali describes the effort to prevent voluntary gender segregation as an attempt by one group to impose its view on anotherexactly the offense that critics of the policy have ascribed to religious believers. One of the great things about Britain is the fact that different people from different religions have the ability to manifest their religion and feel comfortable, as long as it is peaceful and is not taking away the rights of others, Mr. Ali said. The most important part of being at university is that you can get together with people of different beliefs to exchange and debate ideas, he added. On that point at least, even the harshest critics of the controversial advice might agree. Subscribe to a free weekly electronic newsletter from the Chronicle of Higher Education at http://chronicle.com/article/Should-theAudience-Be-Seated/143811/

Those opposed to segregation are entitled to lawful protest and could be encouraged to hold a separate debate of the issues
The report said there were several factors to take into consideration, including whether everyone attending would be required to adhere to the request. eron, who said that the guidance should be urgently reviewed, Ms. Dandridges organization withdrew the case study, saying it would work to clarify the position when gender segregation is voluntary. For Chris Moos, a graduate student at the London School of Economics and Political Science and secretary of the universitys student Atheist, Secularist, and Humanist Society, the organizations advice, and the reaction it generated, has focused a much-needed spotlight on growing campus tensions between freedom of expression and religion.

Be mindful
Ultimately, if imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition to the segregated areas contravenes the genuinely held religious beliefs of the group hosting the event, or those of the speaker, the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully, it said. Those opposed to segregation are entitled to engage in lawful protest against segregation, and could be encouraged to hold a separate debate of the issues. Those lines soon drew widespread public attentionand growing outrageas bloggers, commentators, and the news media picked up on the story. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, initially stood by the organizations guidance, saying in an appearance onToday,the BBCs main national morning radio show, that in circumstances where the audience is saying that they prefer to sit in different groups, then we are saying that universities should respect their views providingand this is criticalproviding that there is no disadvantage to either men or women. She added, That element of voluntary choice is really critical, its not a question of imposing views on students here. Within days, however, following critical comments by Prime Minister David Cam-

Jesus says, hey


Mr. Moos himself sparked a national stir recently when he and his university butted heads over a T-shirt with cartoon depictions of Jesus and Mohammed. On the shirt, Jesus says, Hey, to a bearded figure wearing a turban, who replies, How ya doin? In October, he and another member of the Atheist, Secularist, and Humanist Society wore the shirts to a student-activities fair but were removed from the premises by campus security after complaints. The university secretary sent them a letter stating that the wearing of the shirts was a possible breach of the universitys harassment policy. Following a public backlash, the university apologized and said the two students actions did not violate its rule. But Mr. Moos says that the episode is emblematic of a troubling trend. In our case, the right to wear a T-shirt

44

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Psychological counseling goes online at U of Florida


Student patients and counselors indicated a certain level of motivation and comfort with the new technology. BY MEGAN ONEIl

bY pHoTos.coM

I
46

Guidance: The University designed the Therapist Assisted Online programme to help students battle anxiety

f Three years ago, facing a particularly acute demand for services, the Counseling and Wellness Center at the University of Florida managed to add four full-time positions to the existing 33. That bought the director, Sheryl A. Benton, and her colleagues just two weeks without a waiting list for appointments. Concluding that she would never hire her way out of the problem, Ms. Benton set about to expand the centers capacity by developing an online psychotherapy program, an approach long used and studied in Australia, among other countries. Therapist Assisted Online, or TAO, began at Florida this past fall. Designed specically for students battling anxietya priEDUTeCH January-February 2014

mary mental-health issue on college campusesit is the rst research-supported program of its kind in the United States, Ms. Benton believes. In the pilot program, 26 students treated under TAO showed more improvement, calculated using a system called Behavioral Health Measure-20, than 26 participants in the in-person grouptherapy sessions at the counseling center. The students treated under TAO also made more progress than about 700 students receiving individual in-person therapy. The results blew me away, not to mention the fact that it stunned all of my counselors, who I think are still trying to come to terms with what happened, Ms. Benton says.

GLOBAL.CHRONIcLE.COM
Ofcials are exploring the licensing potential of the program, he says, although the priority is to produce an effective, replicable treatment rather than a profitable business. TAO and other types of online psychotherapy are inappropriate for seriously ill patients, counselors at the University of Florida and others say. Moreover, the regulation of mental-health professionals in the United States is done at the state level, creating geographic limitations even though the treatment is done online. There are interjurisdictional problems, says John C. Norcross, a researcher and professor of psychology at the University of Scranton. If you launch a website in Pennsylvania and the therapist you are talking to is in Florida and the patient is Louisiana, it is a regulatory and malpractice nightmare. Where the licensing and regulation of mental-health professionals is done at the national level, such as in Australia and Britain, online psychotherapy has been in use for years, Mr. Norcross says. Nevertheless, TAO promises clear advantages for mental-health professionals in higher education and their patients, experts say. They cite time and cost savings, the exible and discreet nature of delivery, and the potential scalability. The weekly video conference in TAO takes up less than a third of the time spent in face-to-face therapy, freeing up counselors to work with individuals who are more seriously ill. Students in TAO programs can complete the treatment modules as their schedules permit. The model can help temper the stigma surrounding counseling-center visits, especially for students from cultures in which discussing personal or family troubles remains taboo, mental-health professionals say. And it has the potential to expand access. When you get right down to it, psychotherapy in the U.S. has always been a luxury for the afuent, Ms. Benton says. If you have good-enough insurance or enough money, you can get really effective treatment, and if you dont, you are pretty much out of luck. If the tools that we have now in the digital age can begin to match what we do with face-to-face therapy, she continues, this could be a social-justice issue that brings effective treatment to all kinds of people who have little or no access today. Therapist Assisted Online comes at a time when the mentalhealth landscape on campuses is growing increasing complex. In the 2013 National Survey of College Counseling Centers, 95 percent of directors at four-year institutions reported an increase in students with severe psychological problems. Eighty-eight percent reported a steady increase in the number of students arriving on the campus already on psychiatric medication. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death (after auto accidents) among college students. When I rst started this work, the most common things we would see were things like homesickness, roommate issues, that kind of stuff, says Mr. Pollard, of George Mason. You dont see that anymore. That gets handled at the residence-hall level. We see people who have profound depression, people who have debilitating anxiety. We have people who are bipolar, people who are actively schizophrenic. Its an entirely different can of worms.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH

26 students treated under TAO showed more improvement than 26 others in the group-therapy in-person sessions
The director is the rst to point out the limitations of the pilot. Both the student patients and the counselors self-selected, indicating a certain level of motivation and comfort with new technology. The pool of participants was small. Other research studies show that online patients experience results equal to those of in-person patients. Still, the model could spell major change for mental-health services in higher education, where the number of students in need of treatment and the severity of diagnoses has climbed steadily during the past decade, according to professionals in the field. Within a couple of years, I think, most college campuses are going to be offering this, and it wont just be college campuses, says Jeffrey W. Pollard, a consultant on campus threat assessment who is a former director of the counseling center at George Mason University. People are still going to want to come in and be across the room from the person that they are working with, but there are other people who are going to be ne looking at a computer monitor and talking to it. TAO consists of seven interactive treatment modules meant to be completed during a seven-week period. It includes assessments of current symptoms and level of function, as well as cognitive-behavorial and mindfulness exercises. Student patients participate in 10- to 15-minute video consultations with their counselors once a week, and receive daily encouraging text messages. The online-treatment program falls between self-help and traditional therapy, Ms. Benton says. The relationship between the counselor and the patient remains paramount. The weekly video consultations and the content of the modules work in concert. Counselors monitor progress, and layers of risk management are in place. Participating students must provide emergency contact information and authorize the counseling center to use it, if necessary.

Jurisdictional issues
Much of the technical work is being done within the E-Learning, Technology, and Creative Services division of the universitys College of Education. Glenn E. Good, dean of the college and a licensed psychologist, estimates that the university has spent about $200,000 to develop TAO.

47

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE App on the way


The work being conducted at the University of Florida is one example of how practitioners and researchers have worked in recent years to harness technology in order to push the boundaries of mental-health services. The standard has advanced well beyond static web pages and other forms of pure information delivery, to highly technical, interactive forms of education, assessment, and intervention. A suite of gatekeeper-training programs created and licensed by Kognito Interactive, a company in New York, puts users through lifelike scenarios and conversations with avatars in which users learn to recognize warning signs of mental illness, navigate sensitive conversations, and seek professional help. It is used throughout the California community-college system and elsewhere. This semester the counseling center at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor plans to introduce an iPhone and Android app designed to help students manage stress, says Todd Sevig, director of counseling and psychological services. It will include videos, contact information, and a daily message of encouragement tailored to Michigan students. Meanwhile, under a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, a team of social workers and computer scientists at the University of Southern California is building a virtual patient to help train mental-health professionals for therapeutic engagement with military veterans, says Anthony Hassan, director of the Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and Military Families at USCs School of Social Work. The virtual patientnamed Staff Sgt. Alamar Castillacurrently responds to 2,000 questions with 900 different responses. The goal is to quadruple those figures. At the counseling center at Florida, Ms. Benton and her colleagues plan to increase the number of students being treated by Therapist Assisted Online to about 70 this semester. They have begun work on online treatment for depression, and a sequence of modules on mindfulness. Treatments for trauma, substance abuse, and eating disorders are planned, as are supplementary modules on anger management, panic, and relationships. Working as a mental-health professional in higher education is a specialty all to itself, says Ms. Benton. It is a population who might suffer a lot from mental-health problems, but they are also the most responsive to treatment, she says. We know if you can effectively treat people when they are adolescents or young adults, you have the possibility of changing the entire trajectory of their lives. Thats pretty exciting. Subscribe to a free weekly electronic newsletter from the Chronicle of Higher Education at http://chronicle.com/article/Campus-Psychological/143963/

48

EDUTeCH January-February 2014

Вам также может понравиться