On Openness, Science and Scientific Learning.
To paraphrase the man of the moment: “Some are born open, some achieve openness, and some have openness thrust upon them” (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night). As a practising scientist (and now academic lecturer) of the “old school”, I grew up with a closed educational system in which we paid to access the lofty levels of tertiary education (or were paid by our government); access being permitted by virtue of the rigours of, in my case, the terrifying but enlightened Scottish Ordinary and Higher level examinations. We bought the recommended textbooks, listened to the obligatory lectures, practiced the scientific art in the labs and quietly accepted our lot after each set of examinations. Later, I published my scientific findings in journals which charged our institution(s) for access (and me for copies!). In turn, then, I taught and examined later generations under the universally accepted idiom of “if it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for them”. Until, one day, grainy black and white TV images were broadcast in the early hours of the morning, espousing odd mathematical theorems and governed by odd-looking men in beards… the Open University was born — followed, a little later, by the web; and then Twitter, Facebook and all the other instruments of the devil (which I continue to eschew). I think that puts me firmly in the “openness thrust upon them” category.
Compare and contrast — today, anyone with the ability to access the web can “freely” obtain information on some of the most up-to-date scientific subjects simply by adding “wiki” to the end of every question they might choose to ask — and they can do this almost anywhere, at any time. But, from the point of view of a University educator should I not be made happy by these significant, free for all, advances? Well, yes and no. That information should be so freely available cannot be a bad thing, but the quality of that information must be assured and so “quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (“Who guards the guards?” My Ordinary Level Latin was worth something!). Our role as educators then becomes less of an expounder (and interpreter) of scientific information and more of a reviewer and proof-reader (though perhaps I exaggerate a little).
Nevertheless, if University students have near limitless access to information, from multiple, acceptable sources, then surely this must be a good thing. All else being equal, I believe it would be a very good thing, but we need to put this into some perspective. Like all good scientists I keep up to date by reading the current (peer-reviewed!) scientific papers — not so long ago that meant a photocopy or reprint which I could read in my “spare time” — and so the photocopy grew to be something I could find later when I needed to, without the inconvenience of a trip to the library (and with the paper copies now replaced by the omni-present pdf I can now even carry them around with me). However, to be able to find the appropriate reference, I had to recall at least some of the contents of the paper. The advent of Google (as an entity and a verb) has begun to replace this — I can now find the work I am looking for simply by searching the web (Medline/Pubmed, not Wikipedia, of course) with the question or keywords that led me to the paper in the first place, de novo, each time I want find the same paper — and am instantly carried to the paper, and given list of others who have cited it, or others which may be similar. Herein lies the problem — I will now recall less of the original data and more on the strategy to locate the paper (eg “I recall that I Googled with “neuroscience” and “visual” and “thalamus”, and it was the third hit”). Is this a small price to pay? Less so, perhaps, when I have ~30+ years of background material (my personal, some-what shaky “backup”) stored in my (still active!) brain — but perhaps more of a problem for the new generation, for whom this will be a principle (if not sole, and certainly un-backed-up!) resource. Thus one of the most common questions I receive from undergraduates in the run up to exam time is “do I have to remember all the drug/brain/technical words?” and I think you can guess my (ever unpopular) answer.
But am I/we being fair?
For the vast majority of our Life Science undergraduates, the basic scientific “facts” we teach are actually unlikely to be of much use in their future careers in industry, banking, computing and so on. And for the few who continue in science? Ideas change and can change very rapidly, so surely teaching them to source the most up to date information will be more useful than cramming them full of soon-to-be-out-dated “facts” — and teaching them to interpret and integrate ideas should be the main goal. However, we are then left with a real dilemma (possibly the major dilemma in tertiary education at the moment) — how to test and measure their abilities, so that we can reward and rank them appropriately. Can we “open” examinations? To some extend we do now, with more course work given and open book tests offered — but these are double-edged swords, because we cannot be sure that the result we get is truly the work of the student we are testing (sad times, indeed!). So, can we invent a new examination; a test with free access to all of the required material, but one which tests the ability of the student to reason; to adapt the material to correctly answer the question as stated? It would be possible, indeed simple, to setup a computer cluster, open under exam conditions, and provide students with questions to answer — whereby their answers, containing a log of sources utilised, would reflect their ability not just to navigate the web (under 5’s and the silver haired can do that!) but combine and reflect upon ideas — to make judgement and reach conclusions. Too far-fetched? Perhaps — particularly when we consider how we would mark/evaluate the output! And so, for the time being, I think we will have to continue the status quo, despite the fact that the Pandoras box of information is well and truly open.
