Tracking Learner's Academic Progress

In our recent conference calls of the Academic Progress Workgroup, we have discussed about two dozen granular academic progress events with data payloads from a general level. That sounds pretty technical, but essentially, we are crafting an abstract model of events that could be supported by any product engaging in student support and advising systems. We are not constructing this event model specific to a vendor's product. Nor, are we confined by the limitations of existing technology. Our efforts are motivated to create a new way of thinking about the growing list of what are essentially snapshots in time that would reveal either a need for data or for a process against a set of data to help students succeed.

Our goal is to create an abstract interface layer with detailed specifications to support academic progress within one academic institution, across academic institutions, and supported by others stakeholders like state agencies as students persist, stop and start on their path to a degree. This abstract layer would be owned, in a sense by the public and not vendors through PESC. It will allow the community of software developers, implementers and agents to build bridges between applications on campus and across campuses with consistency and purpose. We need to motivate student system authors and other academic progress related system authors impacting or tracking a learner's academic progress to think of this work like Underwriters Laboratories (UL) which is a worldwide standard to ensure safety across power, chemical, plumbing, fire, energy, lighting, and appliances.

UL is not governmental, but it is intertwined in code required by local, state and federal agencies and enforced in a range of laws and regulations. Vendor software systems, are like appliances. Think of a washer or dryer. There are standards on how the appliance is connected to the electrical system of a house, apartment or building. You would not consider it safe to hardwire the 240v, 20 amp power feed direct into the power grid would you?

The software industry in general has been shielded by complexity and continuous development that has yielded the environment we face. That is, one that is not very easy to plug and play products, nor leverage the assets of appliances built by many and managed inside or shared by universities and colleges. Without some form of data exchange standards, we will continue to expend a large portion of our resources on very unproductive results since the bridges between systems are limited or non-existent. This friction is actually harming the adoption of products industry wide, because of the cost and technical complexity limits the use of appliances in general.

Often, software authors and developers assume their limited functions are airtight. Like the washer machine that is made by GE or Maytag, systems are somewhat self-contained with their functions and purpose. Yet, the appliances have to fit into the confines of the power brought into the house, and be safely used by consumers who are not expert at power or professionally trained electricians. If the power load is not 'standard', special interfaces have to be constructed. This drives the cost up and often, limits the utility of all products in our industry. And, this resistance slows sales, turnover of systems and actually hurts the software industry that is trying to grow their value or utility in a small market confined by academic mission. It is not like we (software authors) are creating software products that can span into other industries. The small market footprint thus limits the ability of vendors and authors to rationalize the need to turn over technology and reinvest - or redesign for the evolving global market.

Do you realize that States spend nearly 50% of their budget on education? When you consider that many States are like countries, what does that mean when we think globally? Institutions receive directly or indirectly billions of dollars of support from Federal and State funds - something on the order of $300 Billion. Roughly 4% is spent on IT. That is somewhere in the neighborhood of $12 Billion. Not a small market at all.

There is a bigger picture than looking at the institutional model as the sole constituent of software utilized in higher education or K12. Vendors and authors may not be convinced this is in their best interest. They make money from the expensive connections they build and support today at the institutional level. They protect their institutional install base by not allowing others to do the connections. But, as States and the Federal Government Agencies continue to expect new virtual connections, the bigger market to consider is how to develop appliances that could plug in and support the next generation of products and services that will support learners everywhere.

Most vendors and authors feel their application services do support open integrations and interfaces according to their own definition of use. This includes all forms of software from commercially developed systems to open source systems. Yet, most are not engaged in the community process spanning their own self interests. If they joined PESC and worked together, even with their competitive organizations and offerings, the world and outcomes would be different. Most developers and authors still market open systems, open technology and flexibility in the guise they are. Many have promised integrations, API's (application program interfaces) and adapters, only to find it near impossible to really deliver them given the complexity and motives already mentioned. Meanwhile, the promise of technology goes unfulfilled. It is not delivering on the true potential to support connectivity, communications and data workflows. When we see systems like Twitter and Facebook expand with viral adoption, one must question, does the proprietary view the industry has generally taken, been the root reason why systems don't work well together?

We know or can at least argue about it, that this is a very narrow market and is also difficult to breakdown since proprietary motives tend to hinder open access and sharing. Vendors protect proprietary assets the same as institutions. Yet, systems must interchange data and processes to support the freedom of data flows in my view to support learners. That is what Government will mandate and regulate, whether we like it or not. It will require technical evolution led by new forces that will drive the evolution of software. Governance will not come from institutions. It will evolve from Government. The single institution's perspective is still relevant and important, but only one perspective. In order to leverage the billions of dollars spent on education, and to grow the value invested in education, Government will support the use of shared resources. PESC is like a sandbox we can all play in.

As we look to the future, learning will not be confined by an institution or a period of time. Institutions will offer the means to obtain credentials and verify we have obtained them. Institutions will continue to meter how we view learning outcomes, knowledge creation and the socialization of knowledge in small, statically controlled communities of faculty and learners - in person or online. How learning delivery and recognition evolves will be impacted by technology no doubt. Yet, no matter how it evolves, learning and academic progress will always be events distributed over time. Systems snapshot time and capture data. And, if systems continue to evolve as they are, we will eventually get to the point that the events and data will have to be better defined independent of products to allow expansion of the technology, the development of more advanced tools and the creation of a better learner enterprise.

Mobility matters because the world is our campus. Learning, assessment and recognition of learning are at the core of academic progress. Come join us and work to define how the systems to support 21st century learners could leverage the work in our sand box.