Driving Innovation in Higher Ed Through Data
It's that little bit of language, and the way we show it to somebody in their profile, and how that motivates them to take that next step toward who they want to become. It might not be a curricular pathway; it might be a module or a bootcamp or some learning moment that gets you moving in that direction. By decomposing our curricular pathways into modules, and allowing somebody's abilities, and their dream, to create an individualized pathway around skills they need to get to that dream — we've just created an individual LMS. Every step of the way is based on data, is based on their dream. What do you want to do next? The AI can put that next step in your pathway.
When you inspire somebody with their data, and put all their learning in front of them, you can't stop them from learning. It's impossible. I think what we've done is created a lot of ways that stymie that ability to move forward — course catalogs and curricula and things like that. But showing people, "This is the world of knowledge that you need to know, here's your goal, this is where you're at, and how you are going to get there is up to you" — if we can motivate those journeys on an individual basis, we can get to what I call the cohort of one. And that is magical, because it's everybody, and everybody might get to the same ending point, but we're all going to start at a different place. Why can't we as educators take that into account, and just spend a bit more time to put somebody on a journey that doesn't bore them, or doesn't waste their time or money? Let's get them to that next thing that motivates them to keep going, keep going, keep learning. That's what I think data can do for us in this space — individuals' data and what it represents.
CT: Putting data into the hands of students is reminiscent of the ideas behind some of the initial uses of blockchain in education. So is this a blockchain-based system?
Komarny: Yeah, absolutely. I don't even want to say the word because it's irrelevant. Just saying blockchain or Bitcoin or all that, it's not about that. It's about how that mechanism allows trust to persist with the data when it's transient. What we can do now is say, "This is your data, there's a way to make it validated with us, you hold it, and we will ask you for it if we need it." I think the world is screaming for a new way to relate to a business through their data without it being stolen and scraped and mismanaged and all the bad words that we're seeing in the world. How can we create a relationship by saying, "This is you. This is how the university sees you. This is how we want to develop you. All you got to do is share that data with us and we can put you on a journey that's going to get you into a career." That's the promise. If we can do it in a positive light and give people some positive value for sharing that information with us, that's a relationship with data that I want to unlock for folks and show them how valuable it is.
CT: What's your take on how today's students conceive of their own data?
Komarny: That's a brilliant question. Two or three years ago, at the Eduventures Summit, I was speaking as a keynote with Hunt Lambert from Harvard. Hunt started to speak on stage with me about having a dream about people understanding their data — that was his dream. And it was so funny: I thought every student in the world would glom on to that and say, "Yes, we need our data." You know what happened? They don't give a shit about their data. None of them. I asked a student from Ohio State, a student representative to their senate, this direct question: "What would you do if this data could do this?" [Her response:] "We don't even care about our data. We have no idea what's happening with it."