The Virtualization of Universities: Improving the Quality of Academic Work

José SILVIO <jsilvio@cantv.net>
UNESCO Regional Center for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean
Venezuela

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the improvement of the quality of academic work by providing a better understanding of universities' presence and activities on the Internet. The study, which is part of a more extensive research project, is based on a survey of Web sites managed by universities worldwide. The survey was conducted by the author entirely on the Internet. Web sites of the Global University Web, the Commonwealth of Learning, Network Wizards (which provides data on Internet nodes by country), and the electronic database of the International Association of Universities were used as main sources of information. The main characteristics of the presence of universities on the Internet are analyzed. Qualitative aspects of university presence as well as functions and services offered by their Web sites according to the degree and type of interactivity between the Web site and the user are also examined. The paper then analyzes the development of virtual universities existing throughout the world, their functional characteristics, and services offered. These universities have been classified according to their degree of "virtualization" on a scale that ranges from partial virtual extensions of universities to totally virtual universities existing only on the Internet. The final section includes conclusions and suggestions to improve the quality of academic work through the virtualization of university activities.

Contents

• Introduction
• University presence on the Internet
• Virtual higher education worldwide
• Virtualization and academic quality
• References
• Author

Introduction

Virtualization is a process and a product at the same time of computer-mediated processing and communication of data, information, and knowledge. More specifically, virtualization involves the electronic or digital representation of objects and processes existing in the real world. In the context of higher education, the virtualization may comprise the representation of processes and objects associated with teaching and learning, research, and management activities. These representations allow the user to interact with them to perform several operations through the Internet, such as enrolling in courses, learning from electronic courses, retrieving information from an electronic library, communicating with teachers and students, and other activities [1]].

Universities and other higher education institutions, especially those of the developing countries, are facing the challenge of serving a larger population of users, more diversified culturally and socially, in a new social environment, more dynamic and turbulent. The virtualization (partial or total) of these organizations can be a transforming factor in their structures and functions, an instrument to improve the coverage, quality, equity, and relevance of their activities, and a way for them to build a new identity in the "knowledge society." To what extent virtualization can become a factor of academic quality will depend on the approach used to implement it and the role played by the users of the various services offered by the universities.

University presence on the Internet

University presence on the Internet can be studied through its Web site. A Web site is an electronically interrelated set of virtual documents that may contain data and information on an organization's mission, objectives, academic offerings, information from its library, and other aspects. The basic characteristic of a Web site is its interactivity, which allows the user to navigate across different environments and obtain results relevant to his learning, research, or management purposes. At present, the Web site has become the principal means of expression of the virtual presence and activity of an organization. Therefore, this study will consider the Web site as the main indicator of university presence on the Internet.

According to Figure 1, the distribution of Internet nodes is more unequal than that of higher education institutions (HEI) with a Web site. North America, including Canada and the USA, concentrate 38.8% of HEI and 61.6% of Internet nodes. The percentage of HEI in Asia (16.6%) exceeds that of Internet nodes (7.9%). In Europe, the proportion of HEI and Internet nodes is balanced: 25% and 24.1%, respectively. A marked disproportion is also observed in Latin America and the Caribbean: the percentage of universities (16%) is much greater than that of Internet nodes (1%). In Africa, the proportion is more or less the same: a very low percentage both of HEI with Web sites and of Internet nodes (1% and 0.7% respectively) [2]]. The pattern for Oceania is similar to the one in North America, where the percentage of nodes (4.7%) exceeds that of HEI with Web sites (2.3%). Universities make up a minority (39%) when compared to other nonuniversity institutions of higher education (60.9%); however, universities account for about 70% of the student population. Nonuniversity institutions are more numerous but smaller and less multifunctional than universities. This pattern is observed in all regions, with certain variations. Differences with regard to unequal distribution of universities and Internet nodes can be explained in terms of the recent and rapid development of the Internet, in comparison with that of HEI. A direct consequence of the above is that significant differences arise between countries developing at different paces.

Figure 1. Higher education institutions and Internet nodes by region, as percent of total (as of July 1997)

Region	HEI with Web Sites (%)	Internet Nodes (%)
Africa	1.0	0.7
North America	38.8	61.6
Latin America and Caribbean	16.4	1.0
Asia	16.6	7.9
Europe	25.0	24.1
Oceania	2.3	4.7
TOTAL	100.0	100.0

Note: HEI = higher education institutions.

Sources: Web sites of Global University Web, the Commonwealth of Learning, and Network Wizards.

On average, 31.4% of the HEI throughout the world are present on the Internet (Figure 2). Of these, 74.7% are universities and the rest are nonuniversity institutions. In terms of universities alone, an average of 60% have Web sites. However, a big disparity has been found from one region to another. Presence on the Internet is greatest in North America, where every university has a Web site, Oceania (83.9%), and Europe (69%). In Africa, only 13.6% have an Internet presence, and in Asia it is 35.3%. Latin America and the Caribbean rank fourth, behind Europe, with 58.8%. In Africa, only universities are present on the Internet. In general, in every region, with slight variations, nonuniversity institutions are present on the Internet to a far lesser extent than universities. Nevertheless, given the rapid expansion of the Internet, the presence of universities on the Internet will increase significantly. Furthermore, the databases of the International Association of Universities [3]], the Global University Web [4]], and the Commonwealth of Learning [5]], which were used as main sources of information, are linked to most, but not all, university Web sites.

Figure 2. Universities and other higher education institutions with a Web site by region, as of 1997 (% of total of HEI in each region)

Region	Universities with Web Site	Other HEI with Web Site	TOTAL HEI with Web Site
Africa	13.6	0.0	4.7
North America	100.0	43.7	71.1
Latin America and Caribbean	58.8	10.7	24.8
Asia	35.3	3.7	16.6
Europe	69.0	11.6	34.1
Oceania	83.9	32.1	55.0
TOTAL	60.0	13.0	31.4

Note: HEI = higher education institutions.

Sources: Web sites of Global University Web and the Commonwealth of Learning.

HEI, as a whole, serve a student population estimated at 73.7 million for 1992, which increases at an annual rate of 3.7%, and a teaching staff of 5.18 million, which grows at a rate of 2.9% a year. Annual growth of both students and teaching staff is higher in developing countries (5.9% for students and 4.4% for professors) than in developed ones (2.2% for students and 2.1% for professors) [6]]. Therefore, the demand for higher education will increase, particularly in developing countries. This will have considerable effect on the ability of higher education systems to adequately meet this social demand.

The presence of universities and other HEI is not seen as a problem in the future. In the short term, all institutions will be present on the Internet and they will quickly develop their own Web sites. What really counts is the type of presence that these institutions will have, as well as how they will use their Web sites. Web sites have become the means for organizations to express themselves in cyberspace. They offer information on their objectives and characteristics and can be used to provide different services to users through the user-system interactivity mode that characterizes them.

The survey conducted through the Internet on different university Web sites allowed us to identify various kinds of Web site use according to the degree and type of interactivity between the user and the Web site. The following types were determined, on a scale ranging from a lower to a higher degree of interactivity, for different levels of Web site utilization and extent of the variety of tasks offered to the user by the Web site:

• Presence alone, no interactivity: a Web site limited to describing an organization, its objectives, etc., but which does not allow the user to perform any other kind of operation. It consists only of an information page aimed at just showing the presence of the university. The message given by this type of Web site is "I'm here."
• Informative interactivity: the user can obtain at least some supplementary information on the university, its course offerings, teaching staff, schools, and departments. Its message is "I'm here and can show you what the university is like."
• Consultative interactivity: The user has access to information contained in university databases, or the Web site at least affords university students and faculty an access once membership and registration requirements have been complied with. "I'm here and I can let you consult my library."
• Communicational interactivity: At this level, the Web site allows the user to access communication spaces in real time (synchronous communication) or deferred time (asynchronous communication), in order to take part in discussion forums (IRC groups, newsgroups, and mailing lists). "I'm here, I can tell you about the university and let you consult my library and communicate with professors and students."
• Transactional interactivity: This is the most sophisticated degree of interactivity, allowing the user to perform different tasks: enrollment, book and document purchases, involvement in teaching-learning processes, participation in conferences, etc. This type of interactivity is the most desirable because it allows the user to take full advantage of the technology available. "I'm here, I can tell you about the university, let you consult my library, allow you to communicate with professors and students, and perform several kinds of tasks linked to your university activities, such as enrollment, study follow-up, research, etc."

Among the universities consulted, the least predominant types of interactivity are located at the high and low ends of the scale, in other words, presence and transaction. Informative interaction prevails over consultative interaction. However, significant differences are noted between Web sites of universities in developing and developed countries: the least sophisticated kinds of interactivity prevail in the former, except in a group of advanced universities in some developing countries in each region, while in developed countries, universities have Web sites with a greater degree of interactivity.

Virtual higher education worldwide

The degree of virtualization refers to a broader concept, indicating a certain level of depth and penetration of universities in cyberspace. For instance, some traditional universities have created virtual spaces to disseminate education through the Internet, while others do not offer any teaching or research activities. Furthermore, virtual learning identifies clearly with distance learning. Not including the USA and Canada, there are currently 139 universities offering distance education programs throughout the world, of which 40 (13.6%) operate exclusively at a distance. All universities (partially or completely at a distance) cater to a student population of approximately 4 million through a teaching staff of 10,000 professors dedicated to this mode of education. The development of distance higher education is still incipient, considering the fact that these universities comprise only 1.3% of all universities in the world and that distance education students represent 5.3% of the student population and professors comprise 1.9%. Distribution is very uneven, and it reflects the enormous effort made by populated countries in Asia to meet their tremendous demands for higher education. The student population in distance learning programs in Asia represents 81.8% of the total student population and Europe 11%. Latin America and the Caribbean follow with 3.3%, Oceania with 3.2%, and Africa with 0.8% (Figure 3) [7]]. However, these figures would change considerably if we were to include the USA and Canada, for which we have not yet found accurate data about students and teachers in distance learning programs in international organizations' information sources.

Figure 3. Students and teachers in distance higher education programs, as of 1996

Region	Students	Teachers
Africa	0.8	1.2
Latin America and Caribbean	3.3	8.4
Asia	81.8	61.2
Europe	11.0	24.3
Oceania	3.2	4.8
TOTAL	100.0	100.0

Source: UNESCO. Statistical Yearbook. Paris, 1997.

Distance education universities are a potentially significant source of virtual learning that is inherent to their nature, but they have also inherited a long-established reliance on traditional means of communication that weighs heavily upon them and needs to be changed. Efforts to do so imply a considerable financial investment and a complex process of sensitization of students, faculty, administrators, and directors and training in the use of informative and telematic teaching-learning methods, as well as a change in attitudes and work habits.

To supplement this information, a survey was conducted through the Internet. A higher number of universities offering virtual learning programs were identified, including this time the USA and Canada. On the basis of a sample of 293 universities we found that 29 (9.9%) are totally virtual, and the rest (90.9%) are virtual extensions of universities with their own physical location (Figure 4). Of these universities (partially or totally virtual), 52.6% are located in North America and 23.9% in Europe. Among the remaining regions, Oceania stands out (10.6%) due to the influence of Australia and New Zealand, followed by Asia (7.5%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4.8%), and, finally, Africa with only 0.3%.

Figure 4. Virtual extensions of universities and virtual universities (as of 1997)

Region	Virtual Extensions	Virtual Universities	All (Extensions and Virtual)
Africa	0.8	0.0	0.7
North America	47.7	96.6	52.6
Latin America and Caribbean	5.3	0.0	4.8
Asia	8.0	3.4	7.5
Europe	26.5	0.0	23.9
Oceania	11.7	0.0	10.6
TOTAL	100.0	100.0	100.0

Source: data collected by the author from Web sites of universities.

Located between the two extremes of what we might call the degree of virtualization scale are various kinds of universities. The degree of virtualization ranges from universities that offer only continuing education courses to those with entire master's and doctoral degree programs (the minority). In terms of the coverage of virtual activities, variations range from universities that only use telematics to support courses and activities requiring physical presence through electronic mail, and Web usage as a sort of information warehouse for students and faculty. Most universities offer a relatively low coverage. The highest level of telematic coverage corresponds to universities that use these services for activities linked to the teaching-learning process and telematic services for information search, storage, and synchronous and asynchronous communication. There is also a scale for the variety of informational and communicational media used to support the teaching-learning process that goes from the use of a single media (unimedial) to the use of every distance communication media available, like telematics, television, radio, CD-ROM, teleconferencing, etc. (plurimedial). Generally speaking, universities with a higher degree of virtualization tend to make the most use of electronic media, with a high level of transactional interactivity, and to use every communication media available to conduct teaching and learning activities. Nevertheless, some universities offer a few virtual learning programs, but their degree of coverage is quite high and based on plurimedial communication. Most of the universities examined have a relatively low level of virtualization.

Now emerging is a trend towards the association of universities in networks for teaching and research activities through the Internet, allowing them to complement and share their programs and resources. Thirteen networks were identified, grouping 139 universities. This is relatively high if we consider the rather recent appearance of this kind of association among virtual universities. Most of these networks (81.3%) are located in North America and the rest in Europe and one in Latin America-Caribbean. This type of association does not exist in other regions yet. Examples of these networks include the Telelearning Network in Canada; the Electronic University Network, the Mind Extension University, and the National Technological University in the USA; in Europe, the Erasmus Virtual University, supported by the European Union, and the Clyde Virtual University in the United Kingdom. The Technological Institute of Monterrey in Mexico manages a virtual network extending to several campuses in Mexico and is beginning its expansion to various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Another finding is that universities that offer virtual programs are generally either those operating under the distance mode which used to apply traditional media of communication before the appearance of electronic communication media, or recently established "traditional-type" universities. In the former case, their basic mission is to provide teaching and learning at a distance and, consequently, they are naturally inclined to make use of an interactive media of communication that lessens the importance of time and space in teaching and learning. The latter, in turn, have the advantage of not being bound by a long history of teaching through traditional communication media, a long-established infrastructure, and resistance to innovation. However, when accompanied by academic excellence, tradition is not necessarily negative. The incorporation of "traditional" universities, characterized by excellence, into cyberspace will surely increase quality and excellence in this education mode.

The evolution of both virtualization in universities and virtual learning has been very uneven worldwide. Due to the exclusive nature and recent appearance of this kind of educational mode, the differences among regions are even more pronounced. Most of them, be they partially or totally virtual universities, are concentrated in the USA, with a few in Europe. The number of universities offering virtual learning programs in regions among developing countries is very limited. Disparities will prevail for a while, but will decrease if developing countries make informatic and telematic technologies their own.

Virtualization and academic quality

Virtualization of universities makes no sense if it does not help to improve the quality of academic work, its processes, activities, products, and its contribution to the improvement of the quality of life in general. The improvement of quality is much more complex in higher education than in educational institutions at other levels. Until now, reference has been made only to teaching as the sole function of universities. But the university model that has prevailed in the world, at least nominally speaking, is that of a multifunctional university that transmits knowledge and facilitates the means of acquiring it, creates new knowledge, and disseminates this newly created knowledge to society for its application to the solution of development problems. These three functions have been linked to three processes: teaching-learning, research, and extension. Based on this university model, university virtualization would have to be measured according to each function, and we would have to determine how this virtualization contributes to improving the total quality of higher education. The institutions included in this work have indicated virtualization to a greater or lesser extent based on teaching and learning. We need to also have information on what they have done in terms of virtualization of research and extension.

The achievement of a more advanced degree of virtualization requires a complex organizational strategy to project universities with all of their integrated functions to society and allow partially or exclusively virtual universities to progressively incorporate other functions in an interactive and integrated manner. Teleresearch and tele-extension could also be incorporated along with teleteaching and telelearning. Teleresearch has taken place rather spontaneously. The Internet evolved as a network to support research through communication between scientists and academics. But, perhaps it would be advisable to think of a more systematic structuring of virtual research through the different types of existing telematic services. Tele-extension would allow universities to link up with companies and other institutions around them. All of these functions require structured virtual environments for information management and communication between universities and their respective internal and external "clients" by function. Another question to ask would be how far virtualization should progress in terms of need, desirability, opportunity, convenience, and feasibility. Still another to ask would be if, given the precarious conditions under which universities operate in developing countries, it would be realistic to demand this multifunctional integration, when universities have not even been able to solve their teaching and learning-related problems. The teaching function is, no doubt, the one that carries the most weight of all of the functions. Higher education institutions are still under heavy social pressure by a continuously growing population that is avid for learning. We have already seen how the student population growth rate in developing countries doubles that of developed countries. We must also add the population integrated into the labor market, who need to perfect their knowledge, and those who were unable to attain higher education and now seek a second opportunity for career advancement that will allow them to act effectively within the new and emerging knowledge society, where most workers will be called knowledge or "symbolic" workers [8]]. In this context, universities will face an ever-increasing demand. Developing countries will not escape the transition towards the knowledge society. Development is not linear, and these countries should not necessarily take the same path as developed countries to reach the knowledge society. Because of the strong trend towards globalization in every activity of society worldwide, developing countries will also have to follow the same trend; otherwise, they will be unable to function within it.

Virtualization of teaching and learning in higher education constitutes both hope and promise if it is dealt with adequately and a clear view of its possibilities and limitations is maintained. Some of its possibilities are the reduction of operating costs for teaching and learning programs, increased control of learning by the learner, more interactivity between all actors involved in the teaching-learning process, individually paced learning, and lifelong learning. Virtualization can "deliver education to people, instead of people to education" [9]]. All of this seems very tempting to higher education, which is so very pressured by the exceedingly high demands made upon it by society. In terms of its limitations, we could mention inequalities existing with regard to its level of incorporation to the Internet and degree of assimilation of informatics and telematics among countries, regions, and locations within the same country, among social groups and classes within the same country, and among organizations from different institutional sectors of society; resistance to change from several social groups; relatively high costs of technology and access to telematic connectivity in developing countries; lack of resources to obtain new technology for vast segments of the population, especially in developing countries; and difficulties in learning the technology experienced by many sectors of the population. Much of this inequality is linked to an even deeper degree of inequality that stems from the varying levels of wealth that differentiate developed from developing countries. Resolution of same will depend on the evolution of development worldwide and the balance achieved by closing the gap between rich and poor. While it is true that these conditions cannot be directly controlled by higher education planners and managers, some of the inequality and limitations can be mitigated.

Another very important factor that will decisively influence the future evolution of education at its different levels is the emergence of a new generation of youth that is growing up in a world dominated by electronic technology, which is completely contrary to the philosophy of unidirectional and noninteractive transmission of information that characterizes television and other mass communications media. Furthermore, these youth are able to learn this technology with ease and flexibility because it is essentially interactive and closely linked to their psychological needs and expectations. For the first time in the history of mankind, a younger generation has mastered a technology better and faster than the one known to the older generation. Michel Cartier foresaw this phenomenon and has clearly portrayed the roles that different generations of users will play in the future knowledge society [10]]. Don Tapscott recently published a study on this phenomenon based on an analysis of experiences among thousands of children and youths with the Internet in several areas of their lives in society. He calls it the "N-Generation," or "Network Generation" [11]].

The question for higher education planners and managers is what will happen when this generation works its way through the education system and reaches the university. Are universities prepared to meet the needs and expectations of a generation that can handle technology better than its professors? These issues should compel higher education institutions to program their activities with a prospective view if they intend to survive and offer students learning opportunities at the level of quality and pertinence required by them. The demands they will make on the education system are not without context, for they will be the agents through which the new knowledge society will impose its culture. Undoubtedly, the passage of young people through the education system will require change and will imply that they will not accept just the traditional solutions to the issues linked to their learning. They will demand interactivity, dynamism, a new role for teachers, greater pertinence of educational contents in terms of the real world, while being more discriminating as to the quality of education they are being given.

The traditional problem of user-system interaction arises on a more specific level when we focus on the potential and limitations of virtualization. Universities need to increase their degree of interactivity with their users in the virtual world in order to go from informative interactivity to transactional interactivity. University Web sites, particularly in developing countries, should be more attractive to their users and fully integrated into the functional life of the organization, instead of being just a plain screen projected in cyberspace. The user is undoubtedly the core of every generalization process of new technology, as well as the key to its success. Main action should center on the two main actors involved in the teaching process: teachers and students. Along with its basic offerings, any system of virtual learning should include sensitization services and user training based on the newly introduced technologies that these processes involve. Training should not be limited to just the technical aspects of software use and to navigating in cyberspace; it should also include, on a supplementary basis, a process to change learning, teaching, and work habits and methods in general, as well as attitudes with regard to relations between user, technology, and the technological means. Once this change in attitudes and habits takes place, the actors will feel a true need for virtualization in life in general and be able to act accordingly to satisfy their needs in cyberspace.

The implantation of virtual teaching and learning is much more complex in the case of universities that function on a physical presence basis. It implies selection of activities to be virtualized and the way to relate them to the traditional ones. The main danger involved stems from the weight borne by tradition and the opposition clearly associated with any innovation as profound as that of informatics and telematics in society. The feasibility of performing virtual activities varies between universities that are physically established. Traditional universities tend to favor lengthy expertise, accumulation of excellence, social prestige, and a potentially high level of resources for teaching and learning which, if made available to virtual learning, could become a very powerful asset to them in terms of alleviating the organizational burden of activities conducted via physical presence, as well as the financial expense they imply. However, this tradition could stand in the way of innovation and strongly resist change. New universities and nonuniversity institutions have the advantage of their flexibility, thanks to the absence of tradition, routine, and habits accumulated with regard to structure, organizational functions, and actors, but they lack accumulated excellence and will need to achieve their own in a virtual world. No doubt the combination of both comparative advantages incorporated into a network of institutions could result in a cooperative advantage that would benefit every institution and the society as a whole. Cyberspace is the ideal place for cooperation and association. We could very well combine the efforts of two or more university institutions to obtain the desired result. Another type of desirable association has been suggested by Glenn Jones with regard to mergers between academic institutions and enterprises for the development of virtual learning that combines caution and risk [12]].

References

1. Quéau, Phillippe. Le Virtuel. Editions Champ Vallon et INA. Paris, 1993. This book contains an extensive discussion of the concept of virtualization in different contexts of human life.
2. Data on Internet nodes collected and processed by the author from the Web site of Network Wizards. (http://www.nw.com)
3. International Association of Universities. World Academic Database. CD-ROM Edition. Paris, 1996.
4. Global University Web. http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~jdorkin/guweb/
5. The Commonwealth of Learning. http://www.col.org/
6. UNESCO. World Education Report. Paris, 1995. Pp. 103-109.
7. UNESCO. Statistical Yearbook. Paris, 1997. http://www.unesco.org
8. Reich, Robert. The work of nations. Vintage Books, New York, 1992.
9. Jones, Glenn. Cyberschools. Jones Digital Century Inc. Englewood, USA. 1997. p. 45
10. Cartier, Michel. Le nouveau monde des infostructures. Editions FIDES. Montréal, Canada. 1997.
11. Tapscott, Don. Growing up digital. McGraw-Hill. New York, 1998.
12. Jones, Glenn. op. cit. Chapter 10.

Author

José Silvio is currently the Principal Specialist at UNESCO's Regional Center for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRESALC). He has also worked at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, in the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and the Division of Educational Policy and Planning. He is coordinating CRESALC's program for the development of academic networks, among others, and has worked on several research and training projects in the field of electronic networks. In particular, he is the principal adviser of a Network on Distance Education (RIESAD) for the creation of virtual communities for research, training, and development in this area. He is a sociologist and graduate from the Central University of Venezuela. He holds a doctorate degree in Educational Sciences from the University of Paris and pursued post-doctoral studies in Informatics and Statistics Applied to Social Sciences, and Mediatics and Telematics, in France and Canada, respectively. He is the author of several articles about the social and educational impact of new information and communication technologies and the editor of two books recently published by CRESALC/UNESCO: Calidad, tecnología y globalización en la educación superior (Quality, technology and globalization in higher education) (1992) and Una nueva manera de comunicar el conocimiento (A new way to communicate knowledge) (1993). Mailing address: UNESCO/CRESALC. Apartado 68394. Caracas, 1062-A, Venezuela. Tel: 2860721, 2860516. Fax: 2862039. E-mail address: j.silvio@cantv.net.