faculty instructional time is a critical resource at all universities, but particularly in a major research institution like Harvard. Operating on the periphery of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvardâs division of Continuing Education is often at a disadvantage when attempting to recruit senior faculty. However, through its distance education program and its innovative use of technology, the Harvard University Extension School has been able to offer online some of the finest courses taught to the residential Harvard College students without making extraordinary demands on faculty. as a direct consequence the school is being repositioned from a peripheral role as Harvard's âevening schoolâ for local area adults to one that is available 24/7 to a growing population of enthusiastic students around the world. as the program matures, it has gained visibility and high regard by a growing number of senior faculty and by the central administration. This paper describes how Harvard Extension Schoolâs distance education model has evolved over the past ten years using the innovation life cycle methodology1, and illustrates how case studies inform the development of the program. ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 163 InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT Harvard University is decentralized, with authority distributed among the central administration and the 14 schools that comprise it. the president and provost are at the administrative core of the university, and if there is one unit that is its academic core, it would be the faculty of arts and sciences (FAS), which includes Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), and the division of Continuing Education (dCE), of which the extension school is a part. the degree of decentralization ensures a certain measure of independence on the part of the different schools; at the same time, for smaller units like DCe, it can mean operating on the margins of the parent institution. However, every unit of a major research university such as Harvard is mindful of its responsibility to maintain the schoolâs values in everything that it does, and a commitment to academic excellence is of primary importance. Established a century ago as an âexperiment in popular education,â the Extension School was charged with using its resources to benefit the local Boston-area community by making it possible for nontraditional students to receive a liberal education. By maintaining a policy of open enrollment and affordable tuition, the extension school has remained faithful to President Lowellâs original vision. For the most part, the Extension School has reflected the orientation of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering courses primarily in the liberal arts. Comparatively recently, the school has introduced professional courses in disciplines such as computer science, management, environmental management, educational technology, and journalism in order to respond to student demand. With the advent of distance education technologies, the scope of President Lowellâs vision has been extended to include a global audience. DISTANCE EDUCATION AT HARVARD EXTENSION Although invited to do so, Harvard University did not take part in the higher-ed âdot-comâ revolution of the 1990s in a meaningful way, at least not on a broad institutional level.2 This is perhaps due to both Harvardâs decentralized structure in which individual schools decide what works for them, and the fact that faculty are highly autonomous with respect to their teaching responsibilities. By the same token, individual units have a certain freedom to experiment with technology provided that they stay within their own budgets and do no harm to the Harvard brand. 164 ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 Harvard dCEâs mission contains a commitment to âexperimenting and innovating with courses and teaching techniques that enhance the learning of non-traditional students.â Within dCE, the Harvard Extension School in particular has a tradition of embracing technology not only to improve and to complement the learning process, but also to make possible the delivery of its courses to what we today call âdistance students.â Such efforts began in the 1950s, when the Extension School offered courses via educational radio and television, and continued in the 1960s when courses were presented via kinescope to US navy personnel on board Polaris submarines. During the fall semester of 1997, the extension school carried out a controlled experiment in which a computer science courseââCommunication Protocols and Internet Architecturesââwas offered to both local and geographically distant students who were unable to attend lectures in person.3 The format of that course remains as the template for the majority of courses offered since that time: the instructorâs lectures are recorded and digitized, and relevant materials (blackboard illustrations, slides, in-class video, etc.) are integrated with streaming audio and video for on-demand access through a web browser. An example from the âCommunication Protocolsâ course is shown below; the PowerPoint slides on the right-hand side are synchronized with the audio/video presentation that appears on the left. InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 165 Building on this initial success, courses offered during the next five years (1997-2002) were primarily in computer science for the following reasons: broadband Internet bandwidth was extremely limited; our production and delivery infrastructure was crude and occasionally unreliable; and the computer science student pool, comprised mainly of experienced hardware and software engineers, could provide much of its own technical support and was accustomed to receiving feedback via email. Within a relatively short period, the distance education operation attracted attention. in 1999, a technology writer for the Boston Globe wrote favorably about the Extension Schoolâs early efforts in a feature story, âPlugging in to the Electronic Campus.â4 internally, the central administration, through the Office of the Provost, funded a study co-conducted by one of the authors that centered on two questions: How fast should the program grow? in what ways was online education transforming teaching and learning at the Extension School? Evaluation results showed clearly that faculty and students received the program well, and the growing percentage of students who were participating exclusively online proved that Extension school students were becoming comfortable with teaching and learning in virtual environments. The report helped sharpen the vision for a multi-year process of strengthening the distance program by recommending that DCe focus on pedagogy and evaluation research, as well as continue to develop student-centered tools to enhance the online learning experience.5 By 2003, the production process had become more sophisticated, as professional videographers replaced part-time student help, and the production and delivery platforms were reengineered to become stable enough to permit scaling up. Administratively, the school developed a system for online course evaluations and a method for compiling distance education student demographics through online surveys. By that point, dCE was prepared to invest heavily in infrastructure and personnel. renovated space created a professional environment for production, research and development, and allowed for staff expansion. Between 2004 and 2007, these investments paid off in the form of a rapid increase in the number of online courses offered: InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE 166 ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE THE HARVARD COLLEGE DISTANCE EDUCATION INITIATIVE As the IT production and delivery infrastructures became stable and sophisticated, and we learned that students and faculty were satisfied, the challenge was to attract more of Harvardâs senior faculty to take advantage of our increased capacity. Over the years, various Harvard College faculty had expressed interest in teaching for the extension school, but many felt that they could not afford the time to teach an additional course in the evening. In a brainstorming conversation we came up with a simple solution to this seemingly intractable problem: If Harvard faculty did not have the time to come to us, could we go to them? in other words, could the same course that was offered during the day to Harvard College undergraduates be offered simultaneously online to extension school students? to test this idea we sought a suitable faculty member, i.e., someone who was tenured, well-respected, and interested in expanding his teaching to new audiences using digital technologies.6 in the fall, 2000, Professor H. t. Kung, the william gates Professor of Computer science and electrical Engineering, agreed to offer his CS-143 course, âComputer networks,â to an online extension school audience. as a world-renowned authority on computer networks, Prof. Kung had been experimenting with distributed 1998-99
The economic transition in China since the late 1970s has led not only to drastic social transformations but also rapid advancements in science and technology, as well as a revolution in information and communications technology. In order to enhance the global competence of the Chinese population in coping with the challenges of the knowledge-based economy, the higher education sector has been going through restructuring along the lines of marketization, privatization and decentralization. Responding to the challenges of globalization, the Chinese government has opened up the education market by allowing private/minban higher education institutions and even overseas universities to offer academic programmes in the mainland. Hence, we have witnessed a proliferation of education providers, a diversification of education financing, and an increase in private-public partnerships in education provision since the policy of educational decentralization was introduced in the mid-1980s. This article sets out to examine the politics of educational decentralization in this wider policy context by critically analysing the tensions between the central education ministry, conventional minban higher education institutions and the newly emerging state-endorsed independent minban colleges (second-tier colleges or independent colleges). It also reflects critically upon the policy implications for the evolving "governed market" in education, and analyses the challenges for the new regulatory regime now that the higher education sector has become highly diversified in post-Mao China.
This paper postulates a life cycle model of university entrepreneurialism at the national level. Based on the analysis, this paper identifies two fundamental sources of such entrepreneurialism: 1) the institutional anchoring of the university of a public-private hybrid form in organization and finance; 2) decentralization of the system in such a way as to encourage a high level of competition and differentiation. We hypothesize that when national university systems grow and exhibit signs of demand overload, political pressures for system homogenization increase; system homogenization weakens both sources of entrepreneurialism and leads to decline. The sources of decline are thus unintended consequences of policy choices to cope with the side effects of demand overload within national university systems. Implications for the ascendant Chinese university system are derived.
University autonomy is a common and influential policy in higher education adopted by government in the paradigm of decentralization.By analyzing the value of university autonomy and factual estimation about its activity,we find that the core value of university autonomy mainly embody competition,choice,paramount,equivalence exchange,quality,efficiency and effectiveness,accountability,loosing control and decentralizing decision,pluralizing of origin financing,alteration of model of government imbursement,sharing in cost and user paying,which reveal the values of market.Therefore,department selfishness of market is the nature of university autonomy.
Many institutions of higher education have an administrative structure that reflects the highly decentralized nature of academic departments. In an era of cost-reductions, many universities are asking the fundamental question âMust the administrative side of the house mirror the academic structure with its many layers and fragmented organizationâ? While the autonomous and highly decentralized academic structure is a primary driver of the world-class strength of the American research university, the structure does not necessarily support the efficient delivery of routine administrative functions. By conducting administrative work at every level of the institution, many universities are finding their administrative structure is redundant, inefficient and expensive. Today's universities are being challenged to cut costs and focus limited resources on core mission activities of teaching, research and public service. Many are looking to realize these cost reductions in administration functions. The advantage of reducing expenses in administration is that the fundamental strength and nature of the institution can be protected while improving efficiency in the ânon-value addedâ functions. This study examines the applicability to higher education of an organizational model found in many corporations facing similar challengesâthe shared service center. The shared service center model consolidates administrative functions into a structure that considers the groups that use the center as âcustomersâ. It is performance and market-driven. This study examines three organizations that have attempted to implement the shared service model. In each case, the impetus for change, the change process itself, and the ability of the model to achieve stated objectives are described and assessed. The study concludes that the shared service model could well be an appropriate administrative structure for higher education, but that the implementation strategy and results may differ from those observed in other industries.
This policy review examines major government policies and reforms regarding higher education development in three distinct periods, and analyzes their impact on financing higher education in China. The analysis reveals that with the expansion of enrollments, declining funding from central government, increasing demand for greater quality and efficiency, and ascendance of market orientations and solutions, a new mechanism of administration and financing has emerged to adapt Chinese colleges and universities to change. The study describes four trends in higher education financing in China: (1) decentralization - shifting financing higher education from state government to provincial governments; (2) diversification of financing - supporting higher education with income from university enterprises, contract training for enterprises, contract research and consultancy, and donations and endowments; (3) cost sharing - sharing cost of higher education with students, parents, and other social sectors; and (4) optimization - increasing efficiency through consolidations and mergers among institutions. These reform attempts are parallel to the worldwide trends in the financing of higher education described by Johnstone. Results show that the financing mechanism of higher education has evolved to meet demands imposed by the changing political and social environment.
Recent comparative education policy studies show that even though there seems to be similar patterns and trends in higher education reforms in East Asian societies, the recently initiated higher education reforms have had very diverse agendas. Thus, the considerable convergence of policy rhetoric and general policy objectives may not satisfactorily explain the complicated processes of changes and the dynamic interactions between global, regional and local forces that shape education policy-making in individual countries. This article discusses globalization effects on national policy, with particular reference to how the higher education sector in Taiwan has transformed itself under the global tide of marketization and decentralization. There are a lot of changes similar to both higher education in Taiwan and that of elsewhere, which suggests that Taiwan's higher education has been affected by the trends of globalization. But before we jump to this conclusion, maybe we should also bear in mind an alternative hypothesis that local factors are crucial and determining factors for change. The core of the article is to examine the ways and strategies the Taiwan Government has adopted to reform its higher education systems in response to the changing local socio-economic political context and regional-global environments, with a particular focus on provision, regulation and financing.
With an introduction to the overall underdevelopment of higher education in China compared with the American counterpart, this article briefly examines the main trends of over two decades of development of the governance and financing systems of China's higher education sector. This article analyzes the resource allocation from governments and revenue generation in institutions under the reform policies of administrative decentralization and financing diversification. The new "Great Leap Forward" in higher education in 1999 and beyond, i.e., the radical and, to a certain extent, desperate mass higher education policy and practice of expanding enrollments in order to spur domestic consumption, is critically analyzed. By examining the ongoing institutional merging and "co-building" and the most recent enrollment expansion, the writer points out the economic significance for higher education of overcoming diseconomies of scale and inefficiencies. However, the long-range outcomes of the seemingly exciting investment in and consumption of mass higher education are difficult to predict.
With an introduction to the overall underdevelopment of higher education in China compared with the American counterpart, this article briefly examines the main trends of over two decades of development of the governance and financing systems of China's higher education sector. This article analyzes the resource allocation from governments and revenue generation in institutions under the reform policies of administrative decentralization and financing diversification. ...
In 1984, slightly more than a decade ago, neo-liberal economic theory under the guise of 'free market' reform was ushered into New Zealand for the first time in the country's history by the ruling Labor Government. The initiation of monetary reform policies sent shock waves throughout the nation. The ensuing fiscal reforms changed the operating patterns of both public and private organizations as well as the lives of individual citizens. This paper examines the political and economic environment which preceded the enactment of the broad sweeping educational reforms. The purpose of this paper is to review policy papers and government documents that affected educational reform and restructuring of the tertiary educational system. Although primarily focusing on tertiary educational change, this thesis will also summarize educational policy changes that premeated compulsory education. As a primary service organization of the state, education was caught up in the tide of market reforms ushered in by the Treasury Department. The initiation of monetary policy changes sent shock waves throughout the nation as it drastically altered the 'cradle to grave' welfare philosophy. Restructuring the educational bureaucracy and establishing greater accountability were the general aim of the decentralization process. The 1989 Education Act stream-lined the educational bureaucracy by dismantling the Department of Education and its ten regional offices. In its place, the Ministry of Education was established with the main function as a policy advisor to the government. This structural change coincided with the tertiary education functions being transferred to four new agencies: 1). The Ministry of Education, 2). The New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 3). The Educational and Training Support Agency, 4). The Careers Service. Tertiary Education in New Zealand was modified in greater detail following the passage of the Education Act of 1990. This act extended the changes initiated with the Education Act of 1989. It essentially established tertiary educational institutions as autonomous bodies and placed polytechnics on the same bureaucratic structure as universities. More importantly, this new educational law of 1990 transferred the technical and skilled training standards to the Ministry of Education. The free market economic reforms initiated in the mid-80's have influenced educational restructuring by expecting more accountability on the part of the educational institution and greater choice on the part of the student consumer. Recent tertiary education reforms highlight the delicate balance between professional and technical education and the needs of the state as well as the rights of the students.
The Accreditation Commission of Slovakia was created in 1990, six months after passage of the Higher Education Law. The accreditation procedure stresses decentralization and participation at all levels; however, it leads to major decisions concerning the disapproval or approval of given faculties and appointments to professorships. Institutions as a whole are still not subjected to accreditation procedures. The Accreditation Commission has gained wide acceptance. Its judgments can be expected to influence the financing of given faculties and programmes in the future.
This chapter examines the financial history of the university during the period from 1914 to 1970. Early on in the 20th century the Board of Finance sought central control over departmental funds, but this proposal was rejected in March 1915 and the university remained highly decentralized. In 1917, the Board of Finance made another attempt to centralize college finances and failed again. In terms of finances, the university's income was little more than a third of that of the colleges collectively and it did not overtake this until the early 1950s. This chapter provides statistics relevant to the income of the Oxford colleges and the expenditure per students from the 1660s to 1988.