ABSTRACT
Universities have been social institutions since the 12th century, but today the notion of postsecondary institutions as the repositories and creators of knowledge, the society’s knowledge memory, is being replaced with the expectation that they consider themselves to be an industry and part of the knowledge sector. This is one of three major trends putting pressure on postsecondary institutions to reconsider their vision for the future. A second trend is the influence of telecommunications and digital technologies on the administrative and research capacities of institutions; and the third is the growing interest in new curriculum and learning models for postsecondary education based on models of learning that connect brain research, psychological studies of active involvement, pedagogical developments and epistemological theories of meaning-making. In addition, postsecondary institutions, including institutes of open and distance education (as have been analysed in Chapters 2 and 3), have to respond to demands from government and the public to contribute more directly to national growth and economic development, to help speed the technology transfer from laboratories to new investment, to meet the demands from groups who previously have not had access to postsecondary education, and to provide increased opportunities for continuing professional education.
