Advances in digital technology make it possible to rethink higher education around equity rather than geography, cost and institutional prestige, with a distributed university model offering broader access to learning and research.
The benefits from access to higher education, as well as from research and its publication, are unequally distributed both within and among countries. This inequality is viewed as an undesirable feature of contemporary society by those who advocate that equity (overcoming unfair inequality) is an important dynamic in ethical social development.
One of us (RH) has recently published an open access book Distributing knowledge: Openness, equity and higher education transformation arguing that opportunities for distributing educational opportunities have opened as a result of recent rapid innovation in information technology.
Australia’s program of recruitment of fee-paying international students serves many interests. Indisputably it has enabled study from neighbouring countries to acquire knowledge and skills for application back home. However, it ignores the inherent inequity as international students mostly do not come from countries which have a need for extra higher education, rather from families rich enough to pay the fees. Fees from international students subsidise mainstream university education and research – raising other questions that we do not address here.
What arrangements commend themselves as ways to achieve greater equity in tertiary education and research given the scope of IT? Most universities have already employed IT in online and hybrid teaching and in supporting its organisational and managerial structure and activities, and this extends to the use of AI.
Most of us gain our information online in one way or another. There are societal moves towards decentralisation of the Internet (Web 3.0) and federated IT infrastructures (such as the Fediverse for social media) to reduce central control of the way we access information. The potential for the use of a distributed IT infrastructure to actually transform universities, rather than just support the current system, can be realised by a model that distributes knowledge with a central focus on equity.
Here, education is largely online and utilises a distributed model with central campuses largely replaced by local hubs – which can be physical or virtual. Educational resources will be open and can be shared locally and globally, increasing access to best practice resources and reducing costs all round. Research will be able to involve under-represented populations as research hubs will also be distributed rather than centralised. Publication of research will use the ‘Diamond Open Access’ model – a community-driven, academic-led, and academic-owned model allowing open access to journals and textbooks avoiding the current paywalls. The carbon footprint of higher education would be drastically reduced.
The distributed model would extend to leadership, reducing managerialism, increasing academic autonomy and reducing internal inequity. Collaborative development and sharing of Open Educational Resources reduce the drive to the commodification of education, and open publishing reduces the power of commercial publishers. These various initiatives will increase knowledge equity. The adoption of such a distributed model would encourage new locally driven academic environments and research initiatives responsive to societal needs, and increase knowledge equity.
What are the advantages of this distributed model? We could provide education to wherever and whenever it is needed, with a low impact on the climate. Students from rural and remote areas and those at social disadvantage could equally access education, extended globally to those at real need. Educational resources would be open and can be shared, increasing access to best practice resources and reducing costs all round. Research can involve under-represented populations, and research publications move away from predatory commercial publishers and are free – for researchers to publish and for those who require the information to read.
What if there was a way to transform higher education towards these ideals?
We should not underestimate the difficulty of changing established universities towards the distributed model. This would require equity and societal priorities rather than a business model to be reflected in the mission of universities. Despite funding constraints on the sector currently, the creation of a new ‘Australian Distributed University’ could be considered. The distributed model would be much cheaper to build and run than a traditional university. It could even start as a collaboration between current universities who offer online education, with each offering its own courses towards a common set of degrees. The Australian Regional University Study Hub program, as well as local industries and libraries could offer local settings, especially for rural and remote students. Equity would be its organisational principle.
The Universities Accord recommended an increase in the proportion of the population enrolling in universities, but current universities are already large in global terms. The new proposed university, using a model of distributed learning, focused on equity, established at low cost, could also demonstrate how this new model might be adopted by current universities to escape the crisis in which the sector finds itself and form the basis of a wider transformation.
What might be the steps? Is there a scope for a trial of this new model, or at least a formal evaluation of the model we outline here? Are there alternative models for increasing knowledge equity?
Richard Heller
Richard Heller is Emeritus Professor at the Universities of Newcastle, Australia and Manchester, UK. He was Director of The Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Newcastle, and consultant physician at the John Hunter Hospital. Then as Professor of Public Health in Manchester he set up the University’s first online master’s degree. He founded and coordinated Peoples-uni to build Public Health capacity in developing countries at low cost, through online learning. His recent open access book is The Distributed University for Sustainable Higher Education.
Stephen Leeder is an Emeritus Professor of public health and community medicine at the University of Sydney. Steve has 45 years of experience in epidemiological research, medical education reform and in mentoring young investigators and is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Epidemiology. He held the position of Chair of the Western Sydney Local Health District Board from 2011 until 2016 and was Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Journal of Australia from January 2013 until April 2015.