Challenges to Research on Tuning: Three Cases

Clifford Adelman, Institute for Higher Education Policy;

27 September, 2010

The Three Cases

• The language of Tuning learning outcomes statements;

• Achieving a critical mass for change;

• Identifying and articulating new skills and new competences.

1) The language of Tuning

Learning outcome statements are products of both language and culture

Given global adaptation of Tuning, convergence in language is a critical issue

Even when transnational teams in the same discipline agree on core concepts, the verbs of learning outcomes are subject to different interpretations

These variations may influence employers’ perceptions of what graduating students know and can do with their knowledge.

So, we need a map of the language of Tuning . . .• Highlighting terms and phrases that do

not cross language borders easily

• This is a project for linguists, working with faculty from specific non-scientific and non-technical disciplines---in which such language issues arise.

2) The critical Tuning mass for change• Tuning operates within divisions and

programs, and ultimately, it is assumed, will change curriculum, delivery, and assessment.

• But change is dependent on a critical mass of faculty who have been exposed to Tuning, and are disposed to support reconstructions of curriculum, delivery, and assessment.

Where has this happened?

• What was the “tipping point” of reaching the critical mass within a program’s faculty?

• What were the roles of personal relationships and rivalries in reaching that tipping point?

• What organizational processes advanced or hindered momentum toward faculty participation?

It should attract case-study researchers in public administration and sociology.

This is a qualitative research undertaking requiring interviews and focus groups.

3) New Tunings for New Knowledge and Skills• The most challenging of research tasks.• It requires determining leading edges of

both knowledge and skills in a field, • changing environments of practice, and• faculty fluency in both.• Neither knowledge nor environments sit

still, and we must Tune for the future, not the present.

Anticipating the future may not always yield benefits• 20 years ago, financial hedge fund managers were

trained in comparatively simple algorithms and software that executed market trades.

• Then, highly educated “quants” created derivatives-of-derivatives, with relationships that transcended algorithms, and

• Banks created invisible subsidiaries to issue, house, and trade these obscure instruments.

• The financial meltdown of 2008 was the result of these changes in knowledge and the environments in which knowledge was applied.

So, questions to ask of faculty in each field that has already gone through Tuning:• Identify and describe the leading edges of

your field;• Which of these is reflected in your current

curriculum? In your ideal curriculum?• What restructurings of the labor market in

relation to these leading edges, if any, will your graduates face in 2020?

• Consider whether these restructurings will be within occupation, industry, geography—or a combination of these.

And both knowledge base and the very nature of work• will be subject to change in methods, tools, and

applications.• So what is written for a Tuning template in nursing,

chemistry, history, or business in 2010 may be largely outmoded by 2020.

• We all know this, but we’re not conducting the right research yet. Examples based on the past might help, e.g.

• What would a Tuning template for computer science have looked like in 1940, 1960, 1985, 2000? What does it look like in 2010. If a historian conducted this research, we would have guidance to anticipate change in existing Tuning templates.

We cannot merely assert, for example, a generalized learning goal of “digital fluency” for all• Whatever “digital fluency” means, it takes different

forms in different occupations, and we must “Tune” each preparation program accordingly, even though

• we have little idea in 2010 of the available and accessible tools for whatever “digital fluency” will be like in 2020 in each of those work environments.

• In 2020, Blackberry, Kindle, I-book, and something called “apps,” may be fit for museum collections

and historical sociology.• And “social networking” is already giving way to

societal networks, a potentially more beneficial phenomenon.

Does potential research on Tuning die in the face of such considerations? No!• Take a page from the history book of IT

certification, which, 10 years ago, operated outside higher education at 5,000 sites in 140 countries---and 25 languages---and had awarded over 2 million credentials.

• Some of this has since moved inside higher education, and merged with traditional fields of study. Why?

Because its competence base proved essential to other fields of inquiry, for example:• “Multi-threaded development”

• Designing transactions in client-server environments

• Debugging network system problems

• Build, break, and restore

• “Braindumps”(e.g. “What will happen if you compile the following code. ..?) for cooperative problem-solving.

The inter-organizational aspects of this provide guidelines to Tuning’s future• IHEs began to administer certification

examinations;• Vendor/association collaborations emerged;• Joint certifications, e.g. for Java (IBM, Novell,

Oracle, and Sun) codified competences;• “Accreditation standards” that read like

Tuning templates were proposed for multiple technologies;

• Hmmmm!

Do you honestly believe that analogous developments are not in Tuning’s future?

Prediction is difficult, but history can be a helpful guide

I’ve just created a lot of work for the Tuning Academy

• And for teams of economists, historians, policy analysts, tech wizards, sociologists, and for people who just think well and think into futures.

• You will be kilometers ahead of an Academy that judges today’s advances (e.g. Tuning) as a finished product and process.