APPENDIX VIII-9
9. LASPAU/Harvard
University Project
| Project 1. | Strategic Use of Technology in Higher Education |
| Project 2. | Sustainable Development in Amazonias |
Project 1. Strategic
Use of Technology in Higher Education
The globalization of society
and the rise of a knowledge-based economy have combined in the past decade to
impose drastically raised expectations upon higher education institutions.
Governments and corporations look to universities for innovative uses of new
information technologies in teaching and administration, while also expecting
that universities will make their students sufficiently technology-literate to
participate in a global economy. This vision of the new university emphasizes
the role of market forces in shaping the institution, the need to respond to
consumer needs, and the need to deliver knowledge continuously through distance
learning and lifelong learning. However, the vast majority of Latin American
universities‹as well as the public and private organizations they work with‹are
unprepared to reorganize themselves to address these new demands.
Technology investments in
education generally fall into two categories: supply driven, top-down
investments and, the other, "demand pull" investments that aim for change
from the bottom-up. We envision
our program as much more "demand pull" than "top
down." By offering training,
information support, and advising to individuals within universities, LASPAU
will move institutions from passive users to early adopters of sound technology
strategies. This will allow them to become self-sustaining in their use of
technology in teaching and internal systems, and to take advantage of top-down
investments (like those promoted by the World Bank and Inter-American
Development Bank through local government agencies). For LASPAU, developing
this strategic capacity means bringing educational opportunities to
disadvantaged Latin Americans, and empowering local universities. The program
is intended to have a disproportionate benefit for those provincial
universities with less access to educational, financial, and strategic
resources.
For institutions to
successfully develop and incorporate distance learning, they need new skills
and behaviors. LASPAU will effect
these changes through seminars on the strategic use of information
technologies. Pursuant to the goal of driving technology leadership on a
sector-wide basis, LASPAU would hope to implement this training program for
representatives of all higher education institutions within the AmazonNet
consortium¹s region.
The goal of the seminars is
to provide key members of Latin American universities new skills in conceiving,
proselytizing, and implementing a technology strategy. The seminars will be an extension of
LASPAU's five years of training experience in the use of the internet as a
research tool for basic end users coupled with LASPAU's seven more recent
seminars on the strategic use of technology for Latin American institutions.
Seminar content will focus on the strategic managerial and pedagogical aspects
of integrating technology within the university, with a particular focus on
distance education. Trainees will
discover, for example, how jobs will be affected if their faculty or school
adopts distance education and what kinds of resistance they can expect to
encounter, and how to offset that resistance with coping strategies. Another topic will be the costing and
financing of technology programs and how it challenges traditional university
budgeting paradigms. The end result of the seminars will be a project that the
trainee plans to implement within his/her home institution.
Seminars will contain both
online and in-person components (with the former increasing or decreasing in
complexity depending on the background and access requirements of the
trainees). Trainees will complete
four modules via asynchronous distance learning. Formats will range from discussion list only (for
institutions with limited access and experience) to web-based training
including streaming audio and video
(for high-access institutions).
The in-person component will be conducted in three-day sessions for each
group of approximately forty participants, on location at a site determined by
demand and proximity within Amazonias.
Curriculum for the in-person seminar will include case studies in
institutional change through technology and the core theory of strategic use of
technology: these cases will draw from Harvard Business School publications as
well as LASPAU-originated studies of Latin American institutions.
Faculty for the seminars
will be drawn from Harvard University and from other leading institutions as
necessary.
LASPAU will facilitate
ongoing feedback and support for participants by means of online forums. In
these forums, participants will be invited to submit progress reports from
their home institutions after several months of work implementing their program
proposals. Faculty from the seminars as well as peers will provide commentary
and constructive criticism. These forums could be expanded as an Internet-based
resource for use by the entire CampusNet consortium.
Details on the LASPAU
programs in institutional technology strategy are available at http://www.laspau.harvard.edu/tech.htm
Joshua S. Jacobs
Development Officer for
Technology Initiatives
LASPAU: Academic and
Professional Programs for the Americas
Tel (617) 495-0498 Fax
(617) 495-8990
25 Mt. Auburn St.,
Cambridge, MA 02138-6095 USA
Project 2. Sustainable
Development in Amazonias
One of the most important
issues in Latin America and the Caribbean is the impact that economic
investment, environmental preservation, lack of equity, and high levels of
poverty may have upon each other.
Conflicting forces usually have a negative impact on the environment,
yet experience shows that solutions can be found. This seminar hopes to provide future environmental leaders
in Latin America and the Caribbean with the tools and theoretical framework to
understand the many forces that affect sustainable development.
Through instruction,
collaboration, case study, discussion, and debate‹both on-line and during three
days at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts ‹the participants in the
seminar will develop a theoretical framework and the tools for addressing the
challenges they and their institutions will face when they return to their home
countries.
The seminar is implemented
through five weeks of online readings, discussion, and study, followed by a
weeklong residential seminar. The online seminar, if developed after full
implementation of the CampusNet Amazonia network, would allow participants to
share research and case study materials of a sophisticated nature in order to
achieve a richer collaboration. This aspect of the seminar will be conducted as
a colloquium, with the understanding that participants are already
practitioners in their fields. The residential seminar, conducted at a location
to be determined within the Amazonias region, will bring together the
participants and a range of faculty devoted to the study of the Amazon region
from a variety of perspectives.
Faculty for the seminar
will be led by Otto T. Solbrig, Bussey Professor of Biology Emeritus,
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, as well
as other experts from institutions throughout the hemisphere.
Details of the previous
iteration of the seminar are available at http://www.laspau.harvard.edu/eco_seminar/index.htm
Joshua S. Jacobs
Development Officer for
Technology Initiatives
LASPAU: Academic and
Professional Programs for the Americas
Tel (617) 495-0498 Fax
(617) 495-8990
25 Mt. Auburn St.,
Cambridge, MA 02138-6095 USA