Speaker: Clay Shirky, Faculty, New York University

For half a millennium, paper has been at the center of the academic enterprise, not just conceptually but architecturally, with many campuses arranged with the library at their center. Now, though, the core academic functions of collaboration, publication, dissemination, and argument are being virtualized. This change challenges many organizational and cultural assumptions, and moves the role of information and communication technology from a support function into the center of the academic enterprise.

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Speaker: Peter Smith, Senior Vice President, Academic Strategies and Development, Kaplan University Corporate Office

Information technology is having a profound impact on our ability to support improved persistence, attainment, and completion for adult learners. Improved metrics, reduced time to and cost of degrees, and better assessments are permanent changes in the education landscape. IT also has changed the meaning of completion from a fixed objective in time to a repeating cycle with multiple "end points" in the learner's life. I will analyze this new meaning of completion and its implications for workplace education, accreditation, financial aid, and the academic calendar as well as the higher education economic model.

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