In an earlier posting I suggested that one way we could start approaching the Online Global Land Grant would be to think about goals, structure, and finance and economics. In my last posting I identified some ways that we could think about structure and provided a number of potential reference organizations. Now I will start by outlining considerations for finance and economics.

It seems clear that the structure and financing of an online global land grant will be closely tied. Traditional centralized funding through a state, heavy student fees, and funding through a single source (sponsor) such as a church might play a role, but are unlikely to be sustainable. I believe that the structure will have to support an economy in which value and resources are exchanged efficiently. Organizations whose mission is to distribute knowledge and engage in educational activities must be identified and aligned, while the efforts and goodwill of independent teachers and learners must be leveraged, and the interests of governments, universities, and NGO’s and philanthropic organizations must also be aligned and their commitment enlisted.

At the beginning, it might be worth simply identifying existing organizations that operate in research, instruction, and cooperative extension, that could potentially contribute directly to the global land grant university. For example, there are research organizations such as International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) that could potentially become active research partners in the global land grant. There are universities and other organizations that receive funding to engage in teaching and learning activities such as ASEDA and Aga Khan University whose impact could be magnified by partnership with an online global land grant. Many governments and communities have field-based education operations, some traditional land grants, such as the University of Wisconsin, have established international extension programs throughout the globe, and NGOs such as IREX and OSI, could partner to enhance their extension agenda.

Because the global land grant will likely build its economy on knowledge and resource exchange, across the globe, its infrastructure and resources will have to be easily and openly exchanged and adapted to local purposes. This is where Free and Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and Open Educational Resources (OER) are absolutely critical. The impact the FLOSS and OER is having on education is a topic of discussion on Terra Incognita, while the topic is being treated by numerous projects including the Center for Open Sustainable Learning (COSL), the OER Commons, and others. FLOSS and OER set the tone for a culture that values development and mission over protection and profit, creating the foundation of a open market for global knowledge and education, which I believe will be a critically important feature of the online global land grant university.

During the coming months I will continue to teas out some of the themes that have been included in the past few posting on this topic. I welcome comments and suggestions for directions this could take and for resources to explore.

In an earlier posting I suggested that one way we could start approaching the Online Global Land Grant would be to think about goals, structure, and finance and economics. In my last posting I identified some potential goals. Now I will start by outlining considerations for structure, which might prompt some dialog. No matter what it means to be “global,” we should be considering structural models that can support the following goals:

1. Enhancing Capacity for Development through Education: The online global land grant will enhance quality of life through the development of civic and economic capacity.
2. Reducing Barriers to Quality Education: The online global land grant will significantly reduce educational access barriers, while ensuring the learning experience is relevant.
3. Supporting Educational Models to Meet Global Needs: The online global land grant will identify and shed ethnocentric assumptions, goals, and practices based on hegemonic ideologies.
4. Reshaping the Notion of Globalization: The online global land grant will recast the globalization dialog to include humanitarian ideals.
5. Internationalizing the University to Foster Understanding: The online global land grant will provide opportunities for participants to better understand and be prepared for their role in a global community.

So, what types of structural models will help us meet, or at least work toward, our goals while operating across tremendous geographic distance, economic conditions, forms of government, development needs, national and societal interests, cultural norms, etc.?

What are some of the structural characteristics of the Online Global Land Grant that will be enabling, and what types of organizations might be critical contributors? I have the sneaking suspicion that organizational centralization, distribution, and governance might guide structural considerations and impact the ways that goals are approached. There are several organizations with a “global” mission (or at least presence), which might be worth a look. We can then dig into their missions, goals, the ways they look at their global involvement, and how they are organized. I would like to start with the following sample list and grow it based on your suggestions:

• Laureate International Universities: This is quite different. Laureate Education, a for-profit, owns a network of universities throughout the world, including some online universities.
• The Open University United Kingdom: They certainly have global ambition, an international reputation, involvement in Europe, and they’ve tried to establish a university in the United States.
• Penn State Outreach: Penn State Outreach captures many of the values and services of the land-grant university. Although it has global programmes, it has a strong connection to and focus on the state of Pennsylvania. Penn State Outreach can be used as a starting point in investigating how the land grant is structured and works on the ground.
• The University of Maryland, University College: UMUC has been operating globally for more than four decades, providing educational services in the United States, Europe, and East Asia on the ground and online.
• The University of the South Pacific: USP is an interesting university that has a regional mission and multinational operation. It is jointly owned by the governments of twelve island countries and supports fifteen campuses. They were early leaders in distance and online learning serving an incredibly interesting and diverse group of countries with development needs.
• The University of the West Indies: The UWI is an international institution that serves the Commonwealth Caribbean, which is composed of seventeen countries. Although it shares a regional orientation with USP, it is organized differently.
• Virtual University of the Small States of the Commonwealth: The VUSSC is a consortium of twenty-six countries coordinated by the Commonwealth of Learning and supported through their Ministries of Education. They are collaborating to reduce the digital divide for education.
• Worldwide University Network: WUN is not a university, but I think it might be of interest to us. It is a network of seventeen research universities that have joined to share research resources and eLearning expertise.

Although all of the above organizations are “global” and have some commitment to online education, they have a diverse set of missions, goals, and structures. During the coming months, I would like to tease through the list and see what we can learn and apply to the Online Global Land Grant University and its goals. I welcome comments and suggestions for other organizations and institutions we should consider.

In an earlier posting I suggested that one way that we could start approaching the Online Global Land Grant concept would be to start thinking about goals, structure, and finance/economics. I’ll start with introducing some potential core goals and perhaps it will initiate some dialog on the topic.

• Enhancing Capacity for Development through Education: The online global land grant ought to follow in the tradition of practical education designed to enhance quality of life through the development of civic and economic capacity. These goals are not at all unique to the land-grant mission; they are reflected in the Australian Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions, Polytechnics of New Zealand, and programs such as the L3Farmer in India, and tuXlab in Africa.

• Reducing Barriers to Quality Education: The online global land grant should reduce economic, social, organizational, and access barriers to education, while ensuring the educational experience is relevant. There is enormous unmet need for education on every level through the developing and developed world. Although the barriers to education in some locations are rooted in complex relationships, there are some activities that move us toward our goal. For example, capacity development for the use and development of Free and Open Software; development of learning materials that are Free and Open for sharing, redistribution, and localization; intelligent investment in technologies, distance, and online learning; direct connection between educational activities and enhanced quality of life; and strengthening of community—all will reduce some barriers.

• Rethinking Educational Models to Meet Global Needs: One significant barrier that is not always considered is the ethnocentric assumptions frequently made about educational quality and the role of the traditional Euro-centric university in society. The assumptions support and perpetuate educational models that were not designed to meet global needs.

• Reshaping the Notion of Globalization: Globalization is alternatively viewed with angst, frustration, and hope. The online global land grant can help minimize angst through the development of a global community that has shared interest and can better understand the impact that our behavior has on others in our community. To date, most popular literature and news reports frame globalization in ideas and terms that are inherently capitalistic, with “winners” and “losers.” One role of the global land grant could be to recast the globalization dialog to include humanitarian ideals.

• Internationalizing the University to Foster Understanding: The online global land grant should provide opportunities for enhanced personal and professional development of faculty and learners. Contact between individuals across cultures is a powerful tool to enhance understanding and community. Thoughtfully designed and developed curricula and pedagogy, coupled with excellent faculty facilitators can enhance understanding and international cultural competence.

These goals will have implications for organizational structure, values, and partnerships. In the next post, I will outline what I see as some of the structural issues and directions for the online global land grant. Once again, I invite comments on the notion of the online global land grant and on the specifics outlined in these posts. Constructive feedback will only improve and refine the ideas.

Earlier this week I had the chance to chat with Michael Adewumi, who, among other things, serves as the director of the Alliance for Earth Sciences, Engineering, and Development in Africa (AESEDA). As an aside, AESEDA and the World Campus co-sponsored an interesting event in early December 2006, which included a seminar titled “What Does It Mean to Be a Global Land Grant University?” Audio files and notes can be found on WikiEducator. Following that seminar, Michael expressed interest in the global land-grant notion, and during our recent chat raised a number of interesting issues, inspiring me to try and frame the idea, which will hopefully shape the conversation as it develops. I am taking my guidance from the work that the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) has done around internationalizing the university, the dialog generated during the previously mentioned December 2006 seminars, observable trends on the perception of globalization, and the changing nature of international assistance programming.

I would like to start by developing a high-level outline of things we ought to consider; from there we can develop, dispute, formalize, explore, etc.

Goals: Understanding and articulating why a global land grant is a compelling notion, what it has to offer, and what its goals would be. During my recent chat with Michael he made an observation that unlike many other universities, Penn State’s forte is resource management, which speaks to its land-grant heritage, and is relevant to much of the geo-political, commercial, and environmental activity through which we often describe the effects of globalization. What can the internally and externally facing goals of the global land grant be? Are there other types of institutional models that support similar strengths or complementary strengths, particularly while considering the impact of online learning and social networking applications?

Structure: Given what it means to be “global,” how can we organize ourselves and structure the organization to fulfill the land-grant development mission based on the connections among teaching, applied research, and practice (cooperative extension), frequently in a community context? That is, what types of models will help us meet our goals while working across tremendous geographic distance, economic conditions, forms of government, development needs, national and societal interests, cultural norms, etc.? What can the global land grant look like?

Finance and Economics: What types of financial arrangements and exchanges of value will support the mission and sustain participation? Due to a trend in reduction of state support, U.S. land-grant universities have had to rethink how they operationalize their missions and seek new sources of revenue to finance operations and program development. We might ask ourselves what types of arrangements will work on a global scale with little central financial support. How can the global land grant operate and create sustainable value to all participants?

I will start fleshing-out each of these areas in future posts, digging into what lies beneath the surface. This is all very conceptual right now, which provides us with an opportunity to create the path as we walk it. I welcome your feedback, whether it is supportive or disparaging—constructive contributions move the dialog forward. In addition, sharing resources on the topic would be appreciated.

Well, I’ve been thinking a little bit about the possibilities. What if a land grant university really took its mission globally, and if it did, what might be the role of online learning?

After all, there are many parallels between the environment in which the U.S. land grants were established in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the current environment in much of the modern developing and developed world. When the land grants were established in the U.S. there was social unrest, post-war reconstruction, profound economic and social stratification, expansionism paved by the systemic genocide of native populations, epidemics, economic migration, the need for developing civil infrastructure, agricultural capacity, education, health, and human service systems to support economic and social capacity to scaffold the civil society. Although things aren’t perfect, by many measures they are considerably better, and I would argue that the land-grant universities have played a significant role in making things better by fueling development through outreach into communities by integrating educational activities, practical research, and cooperative extension.

If the basic model has promise, how can we leverage the benefits of online learning? I believe that there would be a pretty practical curriculum focusing on business, work force development, engineering, natural sciences, education, etc. Unlike the elusive Global Online MBA this program would be intensely international because of the applied research and extension activities grounding the online component in practice onsite in places like Uzbekistan and Liberia. Think about the possibilities for study abroad programs and internships.

Although online learning has great potential for reducing barriers to education, whenever we work globally there are considerations about technology and connectivity, and access to educational resources. We would have to assume that this global land grant would have the same financial challenges as its more-or-less state bound counterparts in the U.S. are suffering and would have to fit the budget of a global audience. How might we reduce the financial and access barriers to infrastructure and educational materials? My experience suggests that western textbooks carry too big a price tag. How would we localize the learning environment and content? Would the organizational model be a network or a centralized institution? There are a lot of questions. Are there examples of institutions that might look something like the global online land grant, and are they delivering the promise?