Humanizing the cyber revolution at Trent

by Tom Eadie

When I was a Physics student in the 60's, we used slide rules to do our calculations. In statistics courses, which required more precision, we used mechanical calculators - glorified adding machines. When I wanted to get money from the bank I had to observe banking hours, and deal with a teller who entered transactions in my bankbook by hand. My researches were limited to the books and journals in the University library. Classroom technology consisted of blackboards and chalk. Lab equipment meant Bunsen burners, test tubes, scales and other paraphernalia, which would have been recognized by students of the previous century - not a computer in sight.

Today, computing technology pervades our society: there are computer chips in our cars, household appliances, entertainment systems, children's toys. Behind the convenient 24-hour-a-day bank machine, or the easy credit card there is an impressive infrastructure of powerful computers and high speed data networks. There is as much information on the Internet as in the combined libraries of the world (and much more misinformation).

In universities throughout the world, technology is transforming teaching, learning and research. There are digital projectors and
computers in classrooms. Professors notes are projected on the screen, not scrawled on a chalkboard. Web-based resources, can easily be incorporated into the class presentations. The course itself may be captured by a digital camera and 'posted' to the Internet - to be viewed by students from wherever they can find a networked computer and whenever they choose. 'Attending a class' is a concept that now requires redefinition. There are virtual universities from which students can get real degrees without ever setting foot in a university classroom. E-mail and the Web have become vehicles of choice for scholarly and institutional communication: collaborating with a colleagues half a world away is common. Library systems enable access to a wide range of online services and 'virtual collections' (electronic versions of journals, books and reference resources).

What are the benefits of this new technology? Enhanced productivity. But more importantly, a level playing field between
large and small institutions, as resources are pooled and shared. The creation of new partnerships between groupings of universities, colleges, and others for mutual benefit and to make it possible to do more with less. But there is a downside to all these new technological wonders. How to create new information infrastructures at a time when institutional budgets are imploding. How to sustain an infrastructure which becomes outdated so quickly. Information technology has a rate of evolution that makes PC's obsolescent in three years, orphans yesterday's software products, and imposes an ever-steeper learning curve on users. Cynics say that information technology has created a new class of cyber serfs: those who can't afford the cost of remaining current.

For Trent, technology makes offers that cannot be refused. James Garfield once remarked that the ideal college consists of a teacher on one end of a log and a student on the other. Trent prides itself on being small and being excellent. The advantage of being small is the human scale of the university -small class sizes, and the attention that individual students are accorded. The disadvantage of being small is the limitation imposed on resources that support excellence: the numbers of faculty, the size of library collections, etc. Technology offers us the means of putting the world of knowledge 'at the other end of the log'.

Those are some possibilities. But what uses are we making of technology at Trent?

Trent University and Sir Sandford Fleming College are partnering in building a high-speed network linkage between our campuses. This will enable us to better support the programs and students we currently share, and will enable new cooperative ventures. We have created new computer labs for students, and have enhanced old ones. The Library has created an Information Commons to support student work. We have wired our residence rooms to enable students to connect to the Web from their desktops. All this enhances the ability of students to gain access to networked resources.

An Interactive Learning Centre to help faculty apply current technology in their teaching. The Centre provides expertise, specialized technology and courseware software (e.g.WebCT). The Help Desk, set up near the Information Commons, assists students. And we are equipping classrooms with projectors and screens to support the new teaching methods being developed.

The Library is partnering with the University of Toronto to upgrade its library automation system. Library collections are being
transformed - three years ago there were no electronic journals in Trent collections. Today there are 6000 electronic journals,
compared to 2000 print journals. The Library also provides technologically facilitated access to more than 50,000 additional titles. Just as 7/8ths of the iceberg is under water, the larger part of the Library's collection is not on the shelf.

You may remember the cautionary tale of the sorcerer's apprentice whose incomplete mastery of magic got him into deep trouble. An issue for Trent is whether technology will be servant or master. Trent's determination is to use the advantages technology offers to continue to achieve excellence in teaching, learning, and research, while maintaining a human scale and a student-centred perspective. In short, to continue to be Canada's outstanding small university.

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Last updated December 17, 2001