Is there an investment mismatch between physical and digital campuses?
It was Benjamin Franklin that said
“an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
When it comes to a university education perhaps it’s this sentiment that’s driving what’s predicted to be a 10% growth in the number of university students in the UK over the next 4 years.
University is a significant investment for many, and whether we like it or not the relationship between money and what you get in return has never been so prominent in higher education.
The House of Commons Value for money in higher education report published in 2018 puts this well:
‘The marketisation of higher education has led to the term “value for money” becoming embedded in public discourse. The recommendations of the 2012 Browne Review, and subsequent introduction of £9,000 fees, fundamentally changed the relationship between the student and their institution. Students increasingly want to know where their money is going, the quality of the product they will receive and what they should expect in return.’
This all begs the question, where is students money going?
Big investment in the physical campus
Well one unquestionable area is new buildings. Since 2012 UK universities have been splurging money on buildings.
A director of estates from one UK university explained it like this:
‘We need to invest in the staff and student experience if we’re going to attract the best of the best.’
A desire to offer the best staff and student experience is a good one. Buildings are important and necessary too. We have long-failed to really understand how the design of our buildings and spaces help to promote or inhibit conditions for learning.
It’s admirable that many in the sector are rethinking spaces for learning too. Not only do those spaces need to be re-imagined with a focus on learning, but we also need to understand how those spaces have ruled over it. How they’ve determined, shaped, constricted learning and proselytised those who educate on how they must educate.
The physical campus is being developed and heavily invested in, but that is just one part of the student and staff experience now. The other is, for the want of a better phrase, the digital campus. But, if we were to juxtapose the level of investment in the physical and digital campus, what would we see?
A lack of investment in the digital campus
The answer seems pretty apparent and in fact the digital campus, for all our talk of technological progress is often paradoxically dilapidated.
In respect to learning it can often be a mere clone of the very worst of physical learning spaces. Replay, download and submit are its key and often only pillars, and the cornerstone of the digital campus, the virtual learning environment (VLE) is in many cases nearly 20 years old.
We need more than a new facade and lick of paint. We need a rebuilding and reimagining of the digital campus, built on the foundations of evidence-informed learning design and modern user experience and usability research.
This will take a level of investment in digital and associated professions which in most places hasn’t been seen to date. In fact a recent report highlighted:
“As a sector, education is a digital laggard with less than 3% of overall expenditure allocated to digital, presenting a serious challenge given the scale of what’s to come.”
It will take vision and more cosmopolitan thinking, as there is much to learn beyond national boundaries and the sector itself about offering a truly delightful digital experience. It will take genuine partnerships to catalyse an improved digital campus, new ways of working and a change in mindset.
The last 20 years or so has seen digital technology permeate universities, but it’s also led to a bounded orthodoxy that has simply sidled alongside traditional methods.
To really arrive as institutions of learning in a digital age and places of indubitable technology enhanced learning, the digital campus, not just the physical campus will need more and better investment.
