This award funds a workshop that focuses on the impact of rapidly evolving information and communications technology, i.e., cyber-infrastructures, on the activities of discovery, innovation, and learning. Cyber-infrastructure in discovery and learning is of significant current interest. Paradigm shifts that have impacted many industries appear poised to transform higher education and the academic research environment.
The goals of the workshop are to set an agenda for how to transform the what, the how, and who participates in discovery and learning; to personalize and broaden participation in discovery and learning; and to accelerate discovery and the transfer from discovery to innovative use. The specific workshop objectives are to: 1) explore and articulate key research questions, likely game-changers, and possible paradigm shifts, 2) frame an interdisciplinary research agenda for the next decade, and 3) identify possible research programs, experiments, and organizational structures that would best meet the needs of the nation in this rapidly changing environment.
Broader Impacts: New paradigms are rapidly emerging for learning and education that challenge the use of cyber-infrastructure as a platform for enhancing knowledge communities and for expanding their scope and participation unconstrained by time and distance. Our world has entered a period of rapid and profound economic, social, and political transformation driven by knowledge and innovation. Much of this workshop focus is to set an agenda for understanding the rapidly changing needs of society for workforce learning and skills, new knowledge, research, innovation, and creativity in a world increasingly integrated and transformed by digital technology. The impact of demographic change, workplace needs (adaptive, ubiquitous, and lifelong learning opportunities), and learning structures (explicit, tacit, and intuitive knowledge) are considered as well as redesigns for learning systems at the K-12, higher education, workplace, and lifelong learning. And, the discussion and products of this workshop will likely be useful in the pursuit of new science.
Intellectual Merit: Today the fundamental intellectual activities of discovery and learning are being transformed by the rapid evolution of information and communications technology. Some believe that today we are on the precipice of an era of extraordinary change as such disruptive technologies challenge the traditional paradigms of teaching and research. Some even suggest that traditional learning institutions such as the university could be swamped by a tsunami of new technology-based applications such as massively open online courses (MOOCS), learning analytics, or cognitive tutors that replace faculty. Research are also changing rapidly with the massive data sets ("big data"), powerful search engines to identify correlations, and cloud computing that enable social networking to engage large communities in scientific endeavors.The workshop and colloquium supported by this NSF grant first brought together a large number of thought leaders in the field of cyber-enabled learning and discovery to consider developments and possibilities in this field, and then followed by sharing their ideas with two dozen leaders of major universities from around the world (the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia). Although emerging technologies such as MOOCs and analytics have received great attention as possible game changers, the researchers, scholars, educators, and university leaders participating in these events caution that there was still a very great need for rigorous experimentation and measurement before more conventional approaches to teaching, research, and engagement with society were set aside. Yet it was also important to place before these groups, involving as they did leaders from higher education, industry, and government, the very real potential of these technologies to drive significant, disruptive change in the conventional paradigms for learning and discovery. Broader Impact: Today our world has entered a period of rapid and profound economic, social, and political transformation driven by knowledge and innovation. Educated people, the knowledge they produce, and the innovation and entrepreneurial skills they possess have become the keys to economic prosperity, public health, national security, and social well-being. Much of the focus of this NSF workshop, bringing together many of the leaders of computer and communications technology with leading researchers and educators, was to set an agenda for understanding the rapidly changing needs of society for workforce learning and skills, new knowledge, research, innovation, and creativity in a world increasingly integrated and transformed by digital technology. The differing priorities for learning and discovery were examined at the level of individuals, organizations, nations, and the world. The impact of demographic change, workplace needs (adaptive, ubiquitous, and lifelong learning opportunities), and learning structures (explicit, tacit, and intuitive knowledge) were considered, along with recent technology-based applications such as massively open online courses (MOOCs), learning analytics, social network, data mining, and cloud technologies. The possibility of radical redesigns for learning institutions at the K-12, higher education, workplace, and lifelong learning were suggested considered. The results of this workshop were then conveyed several months later to two dozen leaders of the world’s major universities at a major colloquium to understand better how their universities were planning and adapting to the possibility of disruptive change in teaching and research that will likely be driven by these technologies. This latter event was unusually in the degree to which it involved educational leaders from both developed and developing nations on a truly global level with representations from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Major reports, books, and video-based websites resulting from both the workshop and the colloquium are being widely distributed to leaders of education, industry, and governments around to world to stimulate both awareness and further discussion of the impact of cyber-enabled discovery, learning, and innovation.
