System of Systems

I heard education and universities described as a ‘system of systems’ today, and this brought together many different strands of thought and experience from my 17-year experience in higher education. It made sense, and I feel I have a better understanding. Certainly, it’s better than it was before.

This phrase was spoken by Professor George Siemens in a recording of ‘10 minute chats on Generative AI’ at Monash University.

“George discusses the general lack of strong action by leadership in Higher Education in responding to the emergence of widely available and embedded AI technologies. He suggests the possibility of using AI as an impetus to reconnect with human values, and argues that the critical challenge is understanding the interface between human and AI knowledge and activity.”

Talking about higher education’s response to the rise of readily and freely available AI tools, like ChatGPT, Professor Siemens says, at timestamp 03:56:

“Education is a system of systems, and so you could have something that does something amazing incredibly well [but] if it doesn’t play with the other parts of the system it’s not going to have a place for it. It’s not gonna work … which is why I’m giving more credit to the start-up communities or the thinkers outside of the existing university environment as maybe a source for that.

“We’re quite inhibited as a university sector by our regulatory political relationships [and] also by our legacy models and the nature of the work we’re doing as faculty members; you don’t have the control to make the changes that you need.”

There is a lot more to this 10-minute chat, and well worth your investment to listen to.

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash