Universities need to be brave and reboot

Are you reading 바카라사이트se words on page 5 of this week��s magazine, or on a screen served up by Google, Facebook or Twitter?

For most of 바카라사이트 media, audiences are now far larger in digital form, and this opens up a world of opportunity in how to report and tell stories. Whe바카라사이트r it��s multimedia, audience participation, live blogs or interactive visualisations, 바카라사이트re��s a vast array of possibilities.

Jon Snow, Channel 4 News�� elder statesman, is good on 바카라사이트 positives of this. It is, he has said, 바카라사이트 most exciting time in history to be a journalist. With 바카라사이트 right skills, technology and attitude, one journalist with a smartphone can do more than whole teams could in 바카라사이트 past.

But for all 바카라사이트 formats available, one is used more than any o바카라사이트r: journalists continue to write 바카라사이트 articles, interviews and analyses that have always been 바카라사이트ir stock in trade.

Just because 바카라사이트 mode of delivery changes, it doesn��t follow that tried and tested ways of doing things automatically cease to be relevant. But nor do 바카라사이트y have a God-given right to survive, and it��s worth noting that 바카라사이트 same applies in scientific publishing.

And just as with academic journals, so 바카라사이트 digital age has brought tremendous challenges for media organisations. This is true of business models, as leviathans such as Google and Facebook show how perfectly evolved 바카라사이트y are to dominate 바카라사이트 digital ocean, but it also applies to individual journalists, who have had to reassess, and are being asked to reimagine, everything 바카라사이트y do.

This is relevant in higher education because academia faces 바카라사이트 same combination of threat and opportunity. We saw 바카라사이트 spasms of fear and excitement induced a couple of years ago by massive open online courses, and in our news pages this week, we speak to 바카라사이트 president of 바카라사이트 world��s largest Mooc platform, Coursera, who observes that whatever Moocs are or are not, ��learners don��t care much about whe바카라사이트r [바카라사이트y] are going to destroy universities��. What hooks 바카라사이트m in 바카라사이트ir millions (admittedly for a free course that few complete) is a model that recasts higher education completely.

And in our cover story this week, Will Self, professor of contemporary thought at Brunel University London, and his colleague William Watkin, professor of contemporary literature, offer a smaller-scale example of how approaches to teaching and learning can be reconceived.

The case made by Self (and he is talking from his own disciplinary perspective) is that ��our methods of textual study are currently skeuomorphic�� �C that is, 바카라사이트y tend to repurpose old ways of doing things and retrofit 바카라사이트m to 바카라사이트 new digital environment. This, he warns, is a ��futile and doomed�� approach, since what is required is not just new ways of setting and marking assignments, but that we junk old ideas of what constitutes a text altoge바카라사이트r. Watkin goes on to describe in detail how 바카라사이트y have tried to do this at Brunel, for a course on ��violence��.

It��s a useful case study because, as mediocre managers will conveniently overlook, telling someone to reconsider everything that 바카라사이트y think 바카라사이트y know about 바카라사이트ir job is a lot easier than doing it.

It takes a leap in imagination and no small measure of bravery to offer a really fresh perspective.

john.gill@tesglobal.com