Open Learning and Open Management:
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This book review was first published in Vol. VII(1). It is republished here in its correct form.
It is a sad paradox that the institutions most clearly dedicated to helping adult learners to learn are such slow learners themselves. I refer, of course, to universities in general and more particularly to open universities. Ross Paul quotes his former President at Athabasca University, Terry Morrison, as follows:
If learning is the raison d'être of open learning systems, then organizations involved in that process should be learning organizations. (p. 10)
True, very true - but it is a normative, not a descriptive, statement. One may wish it were true in a descriptive sense, but it isn't. In one of his more trenchant comments, Paul writes:
even though we agree that we all do the same sorts of things, every one of us insists on going through the process in our own way anyhow. 'Why should I learn from you when I can learn so much more effectively from my own mistakes?' is the apparent message. (p. 62)
I like to look at the situation in terms of the nature of knowledge. If one adopts a Popperian conjectures-and-refutations type of epistemology, our present body of knowledge is based very much on the mistakes made by our predecessors, and the function of an education system is to allow our successors to learn from the mistakes of others rather than, more painfully, from their own. What a pity that open learning institutions seem largely to have failed on a criterion they set for their students: they have not learned how to learn.
Paul suggests (p. 61) that a body such as the International Council for Distance Education should fund a formal effort to elaborate a development model. Such a model would set out, for the illumination and perhaps the encouragement of others, the growing pains of a new open learning institution. One day, I hope, someone will find the necessary money, but, in the meantime, Paul's book provides some useful preliminary reading.
Good examples of non-learning are given in the chapter that deals with "The Politics of Collaboration." Paul gives an exposé of the persistent recurrence of political pressures on institutions to embark on collaborative arrangements; of the plausible expectations of major benefits - plausible at least to the uninitiated; and of the practical difficulties that, time and time again, have thwarted or limited the achievement of the objectives. Unfortunately, his book won't be read by politicians, but at least educators will have the handy ten pages that make up chapter 9 to back up their arguments that collaboration isn't easy even if you are fully sincere in your efforts to make it work.
The balance of theory and practice in the book is good - at least, it will appeal to an audience of practitioners, especially those in responsible management positions or aiming for such positions. There is a little theory - not too much - followed by quite a lot of practice. The opening chapters give a crisp survey of some organizational models for higher education institutions and summarize the particular dilemmas of those that try to be "open." Paul plumps for a "value-driven leadership" approach - clearly in an attempt to transcend the short-term expediency of the "situational lead-ership" style of decision making in which the inconsistencies are bound to trip you up sooner or later.
The dominant goal that is to do the driving emerges in chapter 6. It is to develop independent learners. Paul claims that this is "a new measure of success," better than completion rates or persistence rates, but he does not, I think, fully establish that claim. For one thing, how could one in practice measure the development of independent learning skills? One would have to find out to what extent the students already possessed such skills at entry, which is hardly practicable under normal conditions. The difficulty is similar to the notorious trap in measuring dropout rates or comparing dropout data from different institutions. In both cases, it concerns the difficulty of defining the starting point.
As a central, if immeasurable, goal for an open learning institution, the development of independent learners will command widespread support, but it is not beyond criticism nevertheless. The case is not clear cut because "independent" is not a generalized goody-goody word to the extent that "open" is. There has not, I think, been enough emphasis on kinds of dependence other than dependence on educational institutions. Since modern thought puts so much emphasis on social context, it seems strange to glorify a kind of learning for the assumed virtue of being relatively free of that context. Take telephone conferencing, for instance: the learning that takes place through this mode of interaction is not really "independent," but it is not the worse for that, and the skills involved may, indeed, be useful in the "real world," in the sense in which intellectually unsophisticated businessmen use that expression.
Chapter 7 is on regional networks and off-campus tutors, and it shows Paul at his best. He deals with the problems authoritatively, taking a few well-chosen cases and giving alternative answers to them based on the political and the value-driven approaches respectively. The treatment of technology in chapter 8 is less strongly framed by theory.
The remaining two chapters deal with more miscellaneous sets of issues. It seems almost as if Paul wanted to show that he has considered all aspects that a leader of an open learning institution has to consider. Throughout the book the emphasis on leadership is frank, starting with the discussion in chapter 1 of political leaders. Not all readers outside Canada will know that Paul has become President of Laurentian University since this book went to press. Few candidates for such a post can ever have been better prepared by previous reading and thinking on the problems involved. May he be as successful in his practice as in his preparation!
This modest sized book packs a lot of good material into 200 pages of decent print. There is much in it to praise and little to criticize, but as one who writes from outside Canada, I think it worthwhile to make one frankly parochial point. Australia resembles Canada in cultural background and geography. In distance education circles, it is often thought of as the land of dual mode institutions, but Canada also has such institutions. It seems a pity that Paul pays so little attention to Australia or to dual mode institutions except in a fictional form: in a skit appearing in chapter 3 that embodies the discussion of the elusive meanings of the word "open," the summing up of which is left to a former Vice Chancellor from an Australian dual mode university.
Fred Jevons, Science and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia, Australia 6150