Higher education facing the challenges of the information age

It is claimed that traditional higher education has become obsolete. It was justified as long as knowledge was concentrated in the hands of a few experts and in not-easily accessed libraries. However today, the three pillars of higher education - the production of new knowledge, teaching, and the preservation of knowledge - can easily be and more efficiently replaced by electronic means. One can learn whatever and wherever one wants. This can make the diffusion of knowledge far more affordable, more democratic, and less elitist. However, there are a number of social, psychological and societal factors that need to be taken into consideration, serving as counter-forces to the rush to provide electronic replacements to higher education. These factors cast strong doubts on the true value and efficacy of virtual higher education. The solution may lie neither in the wholesale abolishment of institutions of higher education nor in ignoring the opportunities afforded by novel information technologies, but rather in pursuing differentiation between virtual universities and regular ones such that each will excel in its own way. Similarly, we will have to think of differentiation within our institutions so that we come to harvest the new technological opportunities to improve existing higher education. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.