Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Eduction [Hardcover]

David F. Noble (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1583670610 | ISBN-13: 978-1583670613 | Publication Date: November 1, 2001

Is the Internet the springboard which will take universities into a new age, or a threat to their existence? Will dotcom degrees create new opportunities for those previously excluded, or lead them into a digital dead-end? From UCLA to Columbia, digital technologies have brought about rapid and sweeping changes in the life of the university—changes which will have momentous effects in the decade ahead.

In the first book-length analysis of the meaning of the Internet for the future of higher education, Noble cuts through the rhetorical claims that these developments will bring benefits for all. His analysis shows how university teachers are losing control over what they teach, how they teach and for what purpose. It shows how erosion of their intellectual property rights makes academic employment ever less secure. The academic workforce is reconfigured as administrators claim ownership of the course-designs and teaching materials developed by faculty, and try to lower labor costs in the marketing and delivery of courses.

Rather than new opportunities for students the online university represents new opportunities for investors to profit while shifting the burden of paying for education from the public purse to the individual consumer—who increasingly has to work long hours at poorly-paid jobs in order to afford the privilege. And this transformation of higher education is often brought about through secretive agreements between corporations and universities—including many which rely on public funding.

Noble locates recent developments within a longer-term historical perspective, drawing out parallels between Internet education and the correspondence course movement of the early decades of the 20th century. This timely work by the foremost commentator of the social meaning of digital education is essential reading for all who are concerned with the future of the academic enterprise.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“David Noble spells out the meaning of the automation of higher education in terms of academic freedom, civic values, and the distortions of research, curriculum and tuition on campus. Noble knows more than anyone about the growing struggle by faculty and students in North America against these erosions. Digital Diploma Millsis a wake-up call to millions of teachers, students, and parents about the battle over an under-publicized but big assault on quality education and intellectual freedom.”
-Ralph Nader

,

“David Noble's Digital Diploma Mills is a work of extraordinary importance and deserves the attention of everyone who is concerned with the future of higher education, social inequality, and democracy. Written in a clear, accessible, and to-the-point style, that makes it a real page-turner.”
-Robert W. McChesney,author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times

“David Noble’s critique of technology has never been more forceful-or more usable for faculty-than in his writing on distance education. This collection of his ideas is a succinct and brilliantly pointed antidote to cyber hype. Most of all, its force derives from a passionate attachment to the notion of education as a vital human compact between individual, in-the-flesh students and teachers.”
-Mary Burgan,American Association of University Professors

From the Author

"The moral of the story is that, through higher tuition, students have been subsidizing the commercialization of the university. They are paying more but their money is being used to underwrite the very thing that is destroying education. Students are paying more for less. Class sizes increase, teacher-student ratios go down."

David Noble

in conversation with Jamie Swift

JAMIE SWIFT: How does this book connect with your previous work on the history of technology and the relationship between culture and technology?

DAVID NOBLE: I've spent a lot of my career studying the automation of other industries and also the impulses behind that automation. And now "Digital Diploma Mills" is an examination of the industry I work in.

JS: How does what you call the "religion of technology" -- and more specifically the automation of education and the rise of on-line learning -- affect professors and students?

DN: There is no evidence of any pedagogical value for any of this. The economic viability, to the extent that it exist at all -- and that's questionable -- demands a dramatic reduction of labour costs. So the whole edifice of so-called on-line learning rests on the rather frail backs of indentured servants, part time and adjunct faculty who are paid next to nothing. The first chapter of the book is a history of correspondence education in the twentieth century. We're now seeing a repeat of an enterprise that was based on minimizing instructor costs. All the money went into advertising and promotion.

Today the technical foundation is not the post office but fibre optic networks and so on. The investment in infrastructure is enormous. In the book I call it a "technological tapeworm" that exists in the guts of higher education. The tapeworm must be fed -- maintained, serviced, and upgraded. The costs of actually producing courses is much more expensive than had been anticipated, exactly the same as with correspondence courses.

JS: Who will pay those costs?

DN: They try to get the customers to pay. But there's a problem because there aren't many customers. Just as there was little evidence of pedagogical value with correspondence courses, there was also little demand. The impulse behind today's initiatives was that, for a while, there was the expectation of big dollars to be made. That bubble has burst. What we're left with is massive infrastructure like the Technology Enhanced Learning building at York. In addition to that infrastructure there is a cadre of careerists who have staked their careers on this boondoggle. They are doing everything they can to keep the thing afloat. The names change. Before technology enhanced learning there was on line learning. Before that there was distance learning.

The implications for students are horrendous. Tapeworms deplete the energy and health of the host. In this case, there's a real toll on the educational function of the university. At York a hundred million dollars are going into the Technology Enhanced Learning building where one floor is leased to corporations. Meanwhile a ten per cent cut is being imposed on everything else. Class sizes are increasing. Staffing is being cut. Curriculum and course offerings are being eliminated. Adjuncts are replacing full time faculty.

JS: How does this affect the tuition and the higher costs that we hear so much about?

DN: As an historian, I've found it interesting. You rarely get things to line up so neatly. In the US in 1980 the Bayh-Dole Amendment to the Patent Act gave universities automatic ownership of all patents on federally funded research. That turned the universities into patent holding companies. Peddlers of intellectual property. Universities began building commercial labs and hiring expensive researchers to the impoverishment of the rest of the university. In the US tuition began to outpace inflation in 1980.

In Canada the same thing happened in 1990 through a fiat -- like a papal bull -- from Ottawa. Patents that had reverted to the Crown became property of the university. In 1990 tuition started to outpace inflation in Canada. The moral of the story is that, through higher tuition, students have been subsidizing the commercialization of the university. They are paying more but their money is being used to underwrite the very thing that is destroying education. Students are paying more

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Monthly Review Press (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583670610
• ISBN-13: 978-1583670613
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,177,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Well-written, but Expensive Polemic, April 28, 2002

By 

Art Blaser (Orange, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Eduction (Hardcover)

David Noble effectively makes the case against online education. He points out that the rush to "clicks" means not only the replacement of "bricks" but also the replacement of people (or, more accurately, replacing many people who think with fewer people who count, but don't think.

Noble is a first-rate essayist-his "In Defense of Luddism" (in Progress without People) is wonderful. One problem is that Noble will have persuaded many readers after five pages, but won't have persuaded others after reading five volumes. A second is that readers could skim the basics of Noble's argument for free online (currently at [URL) and send a donation to the Monthly Review Press (a worthy cause). The book contains some added prose, but doesn't add much to Noble's argument.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On the Nose, May 20, 2006

By 

Souper (Casper, WY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Eduction (Hardcover)

I am neither a Marxist nor of the P.C. Left, but I taught dozens of on-line courses for various schools at all collegiate levels and to all kinds of students. Noble's assessment hits the bullseye. He wrote this book back in the early 2000s, and in the ensuing four years when I taught on-line, I saw his observations and predictions amply confirmed. It's why I don't teach on-line anymore. Sadly during this time, the abuses that Noble warned about became the norm, and pre-processed 'McEducation' came to be what on-line college students expected.