Libro Tecnologia Disruptiva Educacion Superior

Universities,
Disruptive
Technologies,
and Continuity in
Higher Education
The Impact of Information Revolutions
Gavin Moodie
Universities, Disruptive Technologies, and
Continuity in Higher Education
Gavin Moodie
Universities,
Disruptive
Technologies, and
Continuity in Higher
Education
The Impact of Information Revolutions
Gavin Moodie
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ISBN 978-1-137-54942-6 ISBN 978-1-137-54943-3 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54943-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947339
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CONTENTS
1 Changing Universities 1
1.1 Three Information Revolutions 3
1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution 5
1.1.2 The Scientific Revolution 7
1.1.3 Digital Revolution 8
1.2 Three Factors Shaping Change in Universities 10
1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources 10
1.2.2 Nature, Structure, and Level of Knowledge 11
1.2.3 Methods Available for Managing Knowledge 14
1.3 Evidence 15
1.4 Development of the Argument 19
References 23
2 Students and Society 29
2.1 Contemporary Cost Pressures 30
2.1.1 Cost Disease 30
2.1.2 Increasing Participation 30
2.1.3 Balance Between Subsidy and Fees 31
2.2 Early Tuition Fees and Financial Aid 32
2.3 Students 34
2.4 The Language of Scholarship 38
References 42
v
vi CONTENTS
3 Libraries 47
3.1 To Deal with a Scarcity of Books 49
3.2 To Deal with a Profusion of Books 51
3.3 The Digital Revolution 56
References 58
4 Curriculum 63
4.1 Careers 65
4.2 Culture 70
4.3 Knowledge 74
4.4 Expansion of Careers 76
4.5 Curriculum Form 80
References 82
5 Pedagogical Change 89
5.1 Medieval Origins 90
5.2 Peer Teaching 96
5.3 Practical Classes 98
5.4 Levels 100
5.5 Classroom Teaching 103
5.6 Technology 105
5.6.1 Writing 105
5.6.2 Printing 106
5.6.3 Blackboards 110
5.6.4 The Twentieth Century 111
5.6.5 The Digital Revolution 112
References 116
6 Lectures 123
6.1 Early Lectures 125
6.2 Expectations of Lectures’ Redundancy 128
6.3 Improving Lectures 129
6.3.1 Lectures as a Production of Knowledge 129
6.3.2 PowerPoint 130
6.3.3 Mobile Devices in Class 131
6.3.4 Active Learning 134
6.3.5 Flipped Classes 136
References 137
CONTENTS vii
7 Assessment 143
7.1 Signification of Assessment 144
7.2 Disputations 145
7.3 Assessment Changes 151
7.4 Recognition of Credits 154
7.5 Seeking a New Economy of Scale 156
References 160
8 Advancing Knowledge 163

8.1 Aristotelian Method 165
8.2 Scholars’ Tools: Literature Survey 166
8.3 Scholars’ Tools: Reliable Texts 168
8.4 Scholars’ Tools: Accurate Illustrations 171
8.5 Institutions 175
8.5.1 Patrons 175
8.5.2 Academies 176
8.5.3 Specialized Training Institutions 178
8.5.4 Role of Universities 178
8.6 The Scientific Revolution 180
8.6.1 The Two Books 181
8.6.2 Examination of Mathematical
Abstractable Properties 183
8.6.3 ‘Experimental Philosophy’ 183
8.6.4 Fragmentation of Disciplines 185
8.7 Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production 185
References 188
9 Disseminating Knowledge 193

9.1 Books 195
9.1.1 The Explosion of Print 195
9.1.2 Printed Books’ Continuing Though
Declining Importance 196
9.1.3 E-books 198
9.1.4 Scholarly Publishers 201
9.1.5 Future of Printed Books 202
9.2 Unrefereed Publications 203
9.3 Journals 205
9.3.1 Journals’ Early Development 205
9.3.2 Changes in Publishers 206
viii CONTENTS
9.3.3 Changes in How Researchers Maintain Currency 207

9.3.4 Future of Journals 209
9.4 Open Scholarship 210
9.4.1 Open Source Software 211
9.4.2 Open Access to Research Publications 211
9.4.3 Open Data 217
9.4.4 Open Research 218
9.4.5 Open Educational Resources 219
9.4.6 Open Education 221
9.5 Re- and New Forms of Dissemination 221
9.6 Credibility of Publication 223
References 227
10 Progress and Prospects 237

10.1 Progress 238
10.1.1 Before the Gutenberg Revolution 239
10.1.2 Following the Explosion of Print 240
10.1.3 Following the Scientific Revolution 242
10.1.4 The Digital Revolution 243
10.2 Learning Disciplinary Knowledge 245
10.2.1 Interaction 246
10.2.2 Feedback 246
10.2.3 Hierarchical 247
10.2.4 Managed 248
10.3 Advantages of Face-to-Face Education 250
10.3.1 Young or Inexpert Learners 251
10.3.2 Social Structure and Discipline 252
10.3.3 Modeling Desired Behavior 252
10.3.4 Oral and Readily Incorporates Text 252
10.3.5 Affective Interaction 253
10.3.6 Greater Perceptual and Psychological Proximity 253
10.3.7 Informal, Spontaneous, and Serendipitous
Discussions 254
10.3.8 Attrition 254
10.4 Ways of Learning 256
10.4.1 Imitation or Observational Learning 256
10.4.2 Directed Learning 257
CONTENTS ix
10.4.3 Guided Independent Learning 258

10.4.4 Autonomous Learning 258
10.4.5 Relative Strengths and Weaknesses 259
10.5 Prospects: The Limits of Pedagogy 259
References 262
References 269
Index 273
LIST OF TABLES
Table 8.1 Aide memoire of characteristics of mode 1 and mode 2

knowledge production 186
xi
CHAPTER 1
Changing Universities
Almost 20 years ago, the management guru Peter Drucker (1998) claimed
that ‘Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics.
Universities won’t survive. It is as large a change as when we first got
the printed book’. The president of edX, the massive open online course
(mooc) platform founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and Harvard University, Anant Agarwal launched the platform in a
YouTube video on 2 May 2012 with the statement which has subsequently
been quoted frequently: ‘Online education for students around the world
will be the next big thing in education. This is the single biggest change in
education since the printing press’ (edX 2012). In the same year, the chief
executive officer and co-founder of the mooc platform Udacity Sebastian
Thrun claimed that in 50 years there will be only ten universities left in the
world (The Economist 2012).
Many others have expressed similar views (Bush and Hunt 2011; The
Economist 2012; Ernst & Young, Australia 2012), often in apocalyptic
terms: ‘An avalanche is coming’ (Barber et al. 2013), ‘The campus tsu-
nami’ (Brooks 2012), ‘tectonic shift’ (Lawton and Katsomitros 2012),
‘The end of the university as we know it’ (Harden 2012; Tapscott 2013),
‘Revolution hits the universities’ (Friedman 2013), ‘Higher education’s
online revolution’ (Chubb and Moe 2012, p. A17), ‘disruptive innovation’
(Christensen and Eyring 2011), and ‘game changer’ (Marginson 2012).
Mooc hype faded after 2012, but even so in 2013 Clayton Christensen
predicted that half of the USA’s universities could face bankruptcy within
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

G. Moodie, Universities, Disruptive Technologies, and Continuity in
Higher Education, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54943-3_1
2 G. MOODIE
15 years (Schubarth 2013) and a blogger claimed that ‘we’ve had more
pedagogic change over the last 10 years than the last 1000 years because
of these outsiders and technology’ (Clark 2013). Most claims for the revo-
lutionary impact of digital technologies on universities argue by extension
from the effects of digital technologies on photography, cinema, recorded
music, and news and public affairs media. But one could also argue histori-
cally. Just as Innis (1950, p. 158) argued that the introduction and spread
of paper in Europe in the thirteenth century broke the Christian church’s
monopoly of knowledge based on parchment, so one might argue that
digitization is breaking universities’ domination of advanced knowledge
extension and transmission based on paper.
Some academics’ response to moocs ‘would probably be something
between panic and disgust’, as Kremer (2010, p. 98) wrote about an unex-
pected meeting in his novel Smart time. But similar predictions were made
about the revolutionary impact on education of blackboards (1841), films
(1913, 1922, 1933), teaching machines (1932), radio (1940s), television
(1960s), and computer-based programmed instruction (1960s). These are
noted in Sect. 5.6 of this book. Lectures have long being criticized as a
relatively ineffective form of teaching, and contemporaries of Gutenberg
anticipated that printing would make university lectures and lecturers
redundant. Yet lectures persisted through the Scientific Revolution until
the present, having been as important in the five and a half centuries after
the invention of printing as they presumably were for the three and a half
centuries before printing (Chap. 6).
Some have suggested that predictions of radical educational change
have failed thus far because educational institutions are deeply conser-
vative and protect their established positions; and because teachers are
latter-day Luddites, resisting modernization and automation because they
always reject exogenous change, do not understand new technologies,
and protect their jobs and work practices. Indeed, Wareham suggested
that an article about academic staff’s response to the massification of
higher education in the UK in the 1990s be titled ‘Quite flows the don?’
(Trowler 1997, p. 315). But education made a major change from ‘indi-
vidual and successive’ instruction to classroom teaching in the late nine-
teenth century, a change that was not prompted by the introduction of a
new technology (Sect. 5.5). And email and learning management systems
pervade higher education (Sect. 5.6.5). But so far digital technologies
have been absorbed into existing university practices rather than revolu-
tionizing them.
CHANGING UNIVERSITIES 3
This book seeks to understand why the digital technologies which are
making such deep and pervasive changes to society generally have so far
not had a similar effect on universities: why the digital revolution is not
revolutionizing universities. It seeks to understand the effects on univer-
sities of the current information revolution by examining the effects on
universities of two previous information revolutions: Gutenberg’s proving
of printing in 1450 and the Scientific Revolution from the middle of the
fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. This chapter outlines the
book’s argument in these sections:
1.1 Three Information Revolutions
1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution

1.1.2 The Scientific Revolution
1.1.3 Digital Revolution
1.2 Three Factors Shaping Change in Universities
1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources

1.2.2 Nature, Structure, and Level of Knowledge
1.2.3 Methods Available for Managing Knowledge
1.3 Evidence
1.4 Development of the Argument
1.1 THREE INFORMATION REVOLUTIONS

‘Information revolution’ is understood here broadly to refer to changes in
the production, processing, transmission, storage, or control of organized
data that have substantial effects outside information management on soci-
ety, its culture, or economy. An example is text communications between
people reporting and/or discussing results of investigations or more gen-
eral news. People have long written letters to communicate or discuss infor-
mation or events, many with the clear expectation that they would be read
or copied to others, such as the letters of Cicero (106–43 BCE), Seneca
the Younger (c. 4 BCE–65 CE), Paul the Apostle (c. 5–67 CE) (Broman
2013, p. 6), and Petrarch (1304–1374) (Rüegg 1996, p. 16) (Sect. 9.3.1).
Print transformed these letters as newsletters and newspapers (Sect. 9.2)
which in turn have had substantial effects on politics and public affairs.
4 G. MOODIE
The Scientific Revolution gave rise to a new form of scholarly communi-

cation, the refereed journal, which extended the reach and influence of
scholars well beyond the ‘invisible college’ (Zuccala 2005). Indeed, there
are currently at least 109 refereed journals that have ‘letters’ in their title,
such as Chemistry Letters, Organic Letters, and Lettere Italiane (Italian
letters). The digital revolution is transforming, among much else, news-
papers and scholarly journals (Sect. 9.3) which in turn are changing the
public’s access to and involvement in academic and public affairs.
This book first considers the effects on universities of the Gutenberg
revolution. There were several earlier important changes in the means for
recording and disseminating knowledge which might also be called infor-
mation revolutions. The introduction of writing clearly had big implica-
tions for education, many deleterious according to Plato (c 425–c 347
BCE), as noted in Sect. 5.6.1. The development of alphabetic languages
was a considerable advance since they are easier to learn to read and write
than syllabaries such as Mycenaean Greek and Yi in which each character
represents a syllable and logographies such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and
Sumerian in which each character represents a word. Codices facilitate
different ordering and organizations of text from the scrolls they replaced,
which Innis (1950) argues shaped empires differently to those which
recorded their information on tablets.
Latin was written in scriptura continua without spaces between words,
sentences, paragraphs, or chapters from the second century CE (Saenger
1997, p. 10). Scribes started separating words with spaces in Latin manu-
scripts from the eighth century in England, Ireland, Wales, and Brittany,
where the vernaculars were unrelated to Latin; from the eighth and ninth
centuries in Germany and northern Europe whose vernaculars were also
markedly different from Latin; from the second half of the eleventh cen-
tury in southern France; and from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
in Italy where the vernacular remained closest to Latin (Saenger 1997,
pp. 41, 97, 223, 235). Word separation facilitated scribes copying texts
quicker visually than from dictation which in turn led to tables being
introduced to scriptoria; it facilitated rapid and silent reading which in
turn moved reading from private cloisters to common libraries; and it
facilitated authors writing rather than dictating their texts (Saenger 1997,
pp. 48–50, 61, 249, 252, 261–2). Silent writing and reading were private
which Saenger (1997, pp. 243, 264) argues emboldened the promulga-
tion of texts which challenged religious, political, and moral boundaries.
Word separation reflected a shift in responsibility for preparing a text for
reading from the reader to the scribe (Saenger 1997, p. 243) and thereby
shortened the teaching of reading which previously had extended into
adolescence (Saenger 1997, p. 55).
The introduction of writing, alphabetization, codices, word separation,
and indeed other early techniques for managing records and communica-
tion such as those considered by Innis (1950) each had major implications
for education. Yet the book starts by examining the Gutenberg revolution
because it lasted long enough to be experienced by many current students,
teachers, and researchers, and so is still referred to in many analyses, as was
noted earlier in the comparisons with online learning.
1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution

Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1398–1468) invented or at least proved printing
with moveable type by 1450 (Füssel 2005 [1999], p. 15). It is hard to
overestimate the importance of printing to society as a whole. Conversely,
printing has had such profound and widespread effects that it is hard to
identify its effects and appreciate the nature and extent of the changes
from a manuscript to print society (Moodie 2014, p. 464). The many
substantial immediate, medium, and long-term effects of printing on
society have been described by several others, most notably by Elizabeth
Eisenstein (1997 [1979]) in her study in two volumes of The printing press
as an agent of change.
Manuscripts were—and still are—rare as well as extremely expensive.
Even maintaining the existing store of recorded knowledge in manuscript
required a major investment of resources, organization, and effort. Most
of the dissemination of the knowledge recorded in manuscripts was not
by their copying and distribution to individual readers, but by one per-
son—usually a cleric—reading or recounting their contents to an audience
(Moodie 2014, p. 464). As is elaborated in Sect. 8.3, manual copying of
manuscripts was not only slow and expensive, but also uncertain. The
dissemination of knowledge, by either reciting or copying manuscripts,
introduced errors and inaccuracies that were repeated and multiplied in
subsequent retellings and copies. The investigation of natural phenom-
ena was particularly inhibited since inaccuracies were often introduced
into copies of formulas, tables of figures, diagrams, illustrations, and maps
(Moodie 2014, p. 464).
Printing transformed Europe, in multiple ways. Printing greatly
increased and broadened both the books produced and their readership
6 G. MOODIE
(Febvre and Martin 1990 [1958], p. 479; Pedersen 1996, p. 459–60).
With the advent of printing people could read books for themselves rather
than have them read or retold to them. The transmission of text became
less the collective activity of one person reading a rare manuscript to
an audience and more of an individual activity of people reading texts
themselves (Ong 2000 [1967], pp. 272, 283). Printing was therefore
central to the Reformation, which emphasized the penitent reading the
Bible for themselves rather than it being mediated through priests and
the Catholic Church (Moodie 2014, p. 464). Printing probably spread
Humanism more widely and certainly faster than was achieved in manu-
script—Erasmus as well as Luther was a bestselling author in the sixteenth
century (Vervliet 2013, p. 78). The greatly increased availability of books
made possible by printing encouraged literacy which led to an expansion
of basic education which in turn further increased the demand for books,
as is elaborated in Sect. 2.4.
Printing introduced new forms for producing, marketing, and distrib-
uting goods. The printing press was an early method for duplicating prod-
ucts so that each product was an exact replica of its model, rather than a
hand copy which varied from copy to copy. It was also an early method
for producing duplicates in high volumes, in contrast to block prints and
metal casts, for example, which at the time of the introduction of printing
were usually produced in modest volumes. Printing was therefore an early
form of mass production. Book publishing required considerable capi-
tal for paper, type, several presses, several skilled workers, and premises.
It was therefore an early form of capitalist production (Anderson 1991,
pp. 34, 37–8). Manuscript books were produced to order, like most other
goods in 1450. Some books were printed to order by subscription or, if
the printer was fortunate, by a patron. But most books were produced on
speculation, a substantial change in the relations between the producers
and consumers of books. Printers appointed agents in different towns to
sell their stock, thus establishing early distribution networks.
Printing was no longer new by the time of the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment, but many of the core Enlightenment ideas such as the
spread of reason beyond scholars and other specialists owed a lot to the
influence of printing. And without printing it would have been incon-
ceivable to produce one of the Enlightenment’s signal achievements: the
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
(Encyclopedia, or a systematic dictionary of the sciences, arts and crafts)
edited by Denis Diderot (1713–1784) and published in 35 volumes
between 1751 and 1772. Section 2.5 observes that printers did not print
in all the vernaculars and their variations which had been used in manu-
script books, but maximized their economies of scale by printing in one
dialect of one vernacular for each market. Further, printers standardized
the spelling and expression of each vernacular they printed. Anderson
(1991) argues that printing’s promulgation of one standardized dialect
for each market developed a collective identity of readers in each market
and thus contributed to the rise of nationalism.
But printing’s effects on education and particularly on universities have
been considered only incidentally (Moodie 2014, p. 451). Eisenstein
(1997 [1979], p. 61, footnote 61) notes that printing’s influence ‘is espe-
cially likely to be underplayed in connection with the history of educa-
tion’, and this book is the first extended treatment of the subject. The
book concentrates on universities in Western Europe and particularly in
England since these or their successors are thought to be most affected by
the digital revolution. Its starting point is Western European universities
as they were when printing began spreading throughout Europe in the
middle of the fifteenth century, but as it is elaborated in Sect. 1.3, infor-
mation on education during this period is sketchy and so inferences have
to be drawn from what information is available.
In this book the Gutenberg age is not synonymous with the print age;
Gutenberg developed an analog relief method for printing text which was
superseded by modern technologies for printing text. There is no clear
end point of the Gutenberg revolution, but its end might conveniently be
dated around the second half of the twentieth century when letterpress
was replaced by offset printing for big print runs and for smaller runs by
inkjet, laser, and other digital print technologies. However, by the six-
teenth century printing’s effects on universities started to be overwhelmed
by another information revolution, the Scientific Revolution.
1.1.2 The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was the development of a new approach to under-
standing the physical world, the consolidation of that approach (Gaukroger
2006, p. 21), and the resulting great expansion of knowledge of the world
in the early modern period. It is conventional to date the first phase of
the Scientific Revolution from the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’
(1473–1543) De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions
of the heavenly spheres) in 1453 to the publication of Isaac Newton’s
8 G. MOODIE
(1642–1726) Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica (Mathematical

principles of natural philosophy) in 1687. However, Wootton (2015, p. 1)
argues that ‘Modern science was invented between 1572, when Tycho
Brahe saw a nova, or new star, and 1704, when Newton published his
Opticcks’. But as discussed in Sect. 8.7, the Scientific Revolution emerged
from several earlier intellectual developments, and clearly has extended to
the present, perhaps in different phases. One important approach associ-
ated with the Scientific Revolution was examining physical phenomena’s
quantitative properties rather than investigating their qualitative nature
(Sect. 8.7.2) and a second important approach was developing ‘experi-
mental philosophy’ or what became codified as the scientific method
(Sect. 8.7.3).
The Scientific Revolution also changed the way statements about the
physical world are tested and validated (Sect. 9.6). The experimental phi-
losophers of the seventeenth century recorded and reported their experi-
ments and observations in such detail that their procedure or experiment
could be replicated. Readers could at least in principle follow the same
procedure and see the results for themselves. There was thus a coincidence
of the method of discovery, method of presentation, and the method of
verification. However, knowledge would be advanced and disseminated
much slower and much less widely if every reader had to replicate every
finding before accepting it. During the Scientific Revolution, natural phi-
losophers therefore developed a process for publications to be reviewed by
authoritative experts before being published, now known as peer review
and practiced in all scholarly disciplines.
The Scientific Revolution is considered an information revolution
because in addition to changing the way knowledge is extended and vali-
dated it changed the way knowledge is disseminated, considered in Sects.
9.1 and 9.3. The Scientific Revolution had profound although delayed
effects on universities’ curriculum (Sect. 4.3), pedagogy (Sect. 5.2), and
assessment (Sect. 7.3). It is therefore an informative comparison with
the Gutenberg and digital revolutions which are based on technological
developments.
1.1.3 Digital Revolution

What is called here the ‘digital’ revolution could also have been called the
informational and communication technologies revolution or the inter-
net revolution. Those alternatives would have given the study different
emphases and start dates. ‘Digital’ was chosen because it is more general
and because in retrospect some of the changes which are now identified
with information and communication technologies and with the internet
originated with digitization. Here the digital revolution is understood to
include three important developments. It includes the development of digi-
tal processing of data in the middle of the twentieth century. It also includes
development of digital storage of data, also in the middle of the twentieth
century, although anticipated by some years by Vannevar Bush (1945):
Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized

private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, ‘memex’
will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books,
records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be
consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate
supplement to his memory.
It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a dis-
tance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are
slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for conve-
nient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise
it looks like an ordinary desk. (Bush 1945)
The third element of the digital revolution is the digital transmission of

data. Digital transmission originated with teleprinters in 1906 and the
telex network in the 1930s, but has had most impact with the develop-
ment of the internet in the 1980s, the World Wide Web in 1989, and
electronic mail, which was developed in 1993.
In this book, the digital revolution is the combination of digital pro-
cessing, digital storage, and digital transmission. It is a revolution because
it already has had big effects on society and the economy. It has trans-
formed the management of records by governments, big businesses, big
universities, and other organizations. These bureaucracies no longer cre-
ate all records of citizens, customers, and students on paper, store them
in filing cabinets and move them between offices by courier. It is also
transforming communications between people: few write and send letters
through the post, telegrams are no longer sent, few documents are sent
by facsimile (fax) machine, itself a digital technology since the 1980s; and
increasing numbers of audio and audio-visual calls are made on mobile
phones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile devices. The digital revolution
has transformed photography: photographs are no longer taken with a
device that only takes photos, most images are not formed by exposing
10 G. MOODIE
film and most photos are no longer printed on paper and stored in hard
copy photo albums. The digital revolution has transformed recorded
music. Most music is no longer stored on record, tape, or even digital
compact discs, and recorded music is no longer distributed through shops.
It is transforming the cinema, radio, television, and other forms of enter-
tainment. It is transforming the production, publication, and dissemina-
tion of information on news and current affairs.
The digital revolution is powerful because of its combination of digital
processing, storage, and transmission. It is even more powerful, dynamic,
and unpredictable because of the interaction of digital processing, stor-
age, and transmission. The digital revolution seems to have the potential
for further substantial development and change: of information manage-
ment, of new applications, and in its implications for society, culture, and
economics. But it itself may be transformed or overtaken by quantum
computation and communication (Wiseman 2012).
1.2 THREE FACTORS SHAPING CHANGE IN UNIVERSITIES

Clearly the availability of new technology alone is not enough to bring
about substantial change, hence the criticisms of education for not taking
enough advantage of new technologies with which the book opened and
which are elaborated in Sect. 5.6. Equally clear, however, is that techno-
logical change is not a necessary stimulus of major educational change. The
change from ‘individual and successive’ instruction to classroom teaching
in the nineteenth century was a major development but did not depend on
the emergence of a new technology to be developed and certainly was not
stimulated by the availability of a new technology (Sect. 5.5). Likewise the
Scientific Revolution introduced major changes to universities’ curriculum
and pedagogy but was not stimulated primarily by technological change
or innovation. This book understands changes in the transmission and
dissemination of knowledge as the interaction of three factors: financial,
technological, and physical resources; the nature, structure, and level of
knowledge; and the methods available for managing knowledge.
1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources

Medieval universities seem severely limited by a paucity of resources in
comparison with modern universities. Early medieval universities and
colleges did not own buildings, but held classes in churches, professors’
private rooms, and spaces that could be rented from townsfolk. Much lec-
turing until the thirteenth century in Southern Europe and until the late
fifteenth century in Oxford and Cambridge was done not by professors
employed for the role, but by bachelors reading for their masters (Sect. 6.1)
and by necessary regents who had attended the lectures and completed
the disputations needed for admission as a master, but were required
to lecture for one to two years to be eligible to graduate (Sect. 5.5).
Manuscript books were too rare and expensive to be owned by any but the
wealthiest students, and even professors owned few if any books. Books
were still too expensive for most scholars to own when the very expensive
parchment (made from the skin of sheep or, occasionally, goats) and vel-
lum (calfskin) were replaced as writing material in the thirteenth century
by the still expensive paper.
The increasing prosperity of the late Middle Ages and early modern
period supported the replacement of necessary regents with salaried lec-
turers and an expansion of universities, often by the establishment of new
colleges and the building of new cloisters by monarchs, prelates, the aris-
tocracy, and other wealthy patrons. The new technology of printing made
books much cheaper and more numerous, which greatly affected universi-
ties’ libraries (Sect. 3.2), made cursory lectures redundant (Sect. 6.1) and
transformed the extension of knowledge (Sects. 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4) and its
dissemination (Sect. 9.1.1).
Universities in developed countries are now much better resourced
than their analogs and forebears of the Middle Ages and early modern
period. Nonetheless, the desire to reduce the growth in if not cut spend-
ing on higher education (Sect. 2.1) is encouraging policy makers to seek
ways in which to use another resource, technology, to make universities
more efficient if not increase its economy of scale (Sect. 7.5). As will be
seen throughout the book, the combination of financial, technological,
and physical resources available to universities shapes their extension,
transmission, and dissemination of knowledge.
1.2.2 Nature, Structure, and Level of Knowledge

The nature, structure, and level of the knowledge to be transmitted or dis-
seminated shape the way it may be transmitted or disseminated. Bernstein
(1999, 2000 [1996], pp. 155–74) distinguishes between horizontal dis-
course and vertical discourse. Horizontal discourse is everyday knowledge,
which Bernstein characterizes as oral, local, dependent on and specific to
12 G. MOODIE
its context, tacit, and multilayered. Importantly for Bernstein, horizontal

discourse is organized and differentiated segmentally: one type of everyday
knowledge has a different site and application from other types of every-
day knowledge. In contrast, a vertical discourse is an academic discipline
which has a coherent and explicit structure built on systematic principles.
Universities are clearly concerned only with disciplinary knowledge, verti-
cal discourse in Bernstein’s term. The methods appropriate for transmitting
and disseminating horizontal discourse are not necessarily appropriate for
transmitting and disseminating vertical discourse, considered in Sect. 10.2.
Bernstein further distinguishes between vertical discourses which have
a hierarchical knowledge structure such as the empirical sciences and ver-
tical discourses which have a horizontal knowledge structure such as the
social sciences and humanities. In hierarchical knowledge structures, the
aim is to create increasingly general and more abstract propositions and
theories which increasingly integrate knowledge at lower levels. Vertical
discourses with a horizontal knowledge structure may have a strong gram-
mar such as the social sciences or a weak grammar such as the humani-
ties. By ‘strong grammar’ Bernstein (1999, p. 164, 2000 [1996], p. 163)
means ‘an explicit conceptual syntax capable of relatively precise empirical
descriptions and/or of generating formal modelling of empirical relations’.
Different knowledge structures require different forms of pedagogy. In
particular, for hierarchical knowledge structures curriculum sequence is
likely to be more important and pedagogy is likely to rely more heav-
ily on levels of understanding than for horizontal knowledge structures
(Wheelahan 2009, p. 230).
‘Knowledge’ includes more than just facts or propositional knowledge.
Winch (2014, p. 48) explains that a person is not thought to know some-
thing unless they understand not only what a proposition refers to but also
the concept that it expresses: a person is not understood to ‘know’ that
Napoleon was crowned Emperor of France in 1804 if they do not know
who Napoleon was or what an emperor was. Further, knowledge entails
understanding inferential relations between propositions. If a student
of French history of the period 1789–1815 knows that ‘Napoleon was
crowned Emperor of France in 1804’ they also know that ‘France ceased
to be a republic in 1804’ (Winch 2014, p. 48). Indeed, knowledge entails
an understanding of the conceptual structure of the field—how the various
propositions of a field relate to each other (Winch 2013, pp. 130–2). As
Ryle (1946, p. 16, 1949, pp. 25–60) demonstrated, propositional knowl-
edge, ‘knowing-that’, presupposes ‘knowing-how’: effectively knowing
propositional knowledge involves knowing when and how to use it to

solve theoretical or practical problems (see also Winch 2009, p. 91).
‘Knowledge’ thus also includes procedures for finding, identifying,
testing, and validating propositions or knowledge claims (Winch 2014,
p. 49). A person is not accepted as fully knowing that Napoleon was
crowned Emperor of France in 1804 if they just accept the statement on
authority. They must know how to find such knowledge claims, identify
them as knowledge claims in the field, and test and validate their truth.
In history this requires among other things an understanding of primary
sources, how to work with them and their limitations, and how to assess
the strength of secondary sources. A strong understanding of ‘knowl-
edge’ is that it further entails understanding how knowledge is extended,
that is, how to conduct research in the field (Winch 2013, pp. 139–40,
2014, p. 49; Young and Muller 2014, p. 6). This strong understanding of
knowledge grew in importance from the nineteenth century.
Vertical discourses are thus further distinguished by the methods they
use to generate knowledge and the methods they use to test knowledge
claims: each academic discipline is a method for generating knowledge, a
method for validating that knowledge and the knowledge generated and
validated by those methods (Moodie 2012, p. 21). Different methods
for generating and testing knowledge claims are best learned in different
ways. Indeed, learners need to learn recognition rules (Wheelahan 2009,
p. 230) to be able to decide when a problem is best handled in one disci-
pline rather than another and which method to use within the discipline.
Conversely, learners need to be able to identify which discipline generated
various knowledge claims so that they can apply the appropriate method
for validating and testing each claim.
Winch (2013, p. 135) notes that the best sequence for developing stu-
dents’ understanding of logical or mathematical concepts is not necessarily
the sequence in which they were discovered nor the sequence in which they
are derived in experts’ expositions of the field. Barnett (2006, p. 145–6)
gives what he calls an ‘extreme’ example of Newton’s Philosophiæ naturalis
principia mathematica (1687). The Principia laid the foundations of clas-
sical mechanics and its ideas remain central to physics and engineering.
But no one would dream of prescribing in university courses even chunks
of the Principia’s 300 pages, even translated from the Latin. It is neces-
sary to decide which parts of the discipline to include in the curriculum
and which of possibly a very big body of knowledge must be omitted. It
is necessary to decide the sequence of the curriculum. Some parts of the
14 G. MOODIE
curriculum may be logically prior to other parts and some parts may need
to be understood before other parts can be introduced. Where there is
no sequence determined by conceptual or pedagogical considerations it
is necessary to decide the order in which parts of the curriculum should
be presented. It is also necessary to decide the pacing of the curriculum—
how much time to spend on each part. That is, disciplinary knowledge
has to be recontextualized as curriculum by a recontextualizing principle
‘which selectively appropriates, relocates, refocusses and relates’ disciplin-
ary knowledge (Bernstein 2000 [1996] pp. 33–4).
These characteristics of disciplinary knowledge shape the way it may be
taught and learned and the way it may be disseminated.
1.2.3 Methods Available for Managing Knowledge

To learn disciplinary knowledge, learners first need the knowledge recon-
textualized in a form in which it may be learned. This recontextualization
typically takes the form of a curriculum of material to be learned over the
course of a year or program. The material then needs to be further analyzed
into a syllabus for each course or subject and a lesson plan for each class.
Curriculums, syllabuses, and lesson plans should not only be self-contained,
but also make explicit links to preceding, succeeding, and cognate concur-
rent lessons, courses, and programs. Learners also need to undertake learn-
ing activities to achieve their learning goals. Learners need their learning
evaluated because, as is argued in Sect. 7.5, while a complete failure to
achieve learning goals may be obvious to a learner, learners often need help
in identifying incomplete learning and guidance in how that may be rem-
edied. Learning goals, learning activities and assessment should be aligned
(Biggs 1999a; Biggs and Tang 2011) (Chap. 4). Learning disciplinary
knowledge and skills is difficult: learners need to invest sustained effort and
practice, and as is argued in Sect. 10.2.2, learners need the guidance and
support of someone who is expert in the field of knowledge or skill being
learned and who is expert in guiding learners in the field being learned—
pedagogic content knowledge (Shulman 1986, p. 9, 1987, p. 15).
The alignment of learning goals, activities, and assessment, and their
support by appropriate social structures and institutions are difficult to
manage. Changing one aspect may affect others, sometimes in unforeseen
ways. The way people learn is not understood well, or at least not fully.
There are numerous theories, some of which are mentioned in Sect. 10.2.
Neither is the evidence of what works as rigorous as in other fields,
discussed in the following Sect. 1.3. So taking advantage of a new technol-

ogy which seems to have potential to improve teaching–learning requires
a good understanding not only of the technology, but also of curriculum,
pedagogy, assessment, and their interaction. In short, it requires an under-
standing of the methods available for managing knowledge for teaching–
learning. And inasmuch as a major improvement or change is sought, a
major new understanding of managing knowledge for teaching–learning is
required. The digital revolution may not be revolutionizing higher educa-
tion because higher education has yet to develop a radical new method for
managing knowledge for teaching–learning.
Disseminating disciplinary knowledge has different conditions from
those for disseminating everyday knowledge. Minimally, disciplinary
knowledge is disseminated in communications of substantial length, from
the few thousand words of a journal article to the tens of thousands of
words of a book. It is hard to imagine disciplinary knowledge being dis-
seminated in the 140 characters initially allowed for tweets, but Twitter
has been successful in disseminating everyday knowledge and links to dis-
ciplinary knowledge, among much else. In 2012, six years after its launch
in 2006, Twitter had 140 million active users who posted 340 million
tweets a day.
Until the seventeenth century, authors had difficulty establishing the
credibility of their publications (Sect. 9.6). Francis Bacon (1561–1626),
Robert Boyle (1627–1691), John Wilkins (1614–1672), and other fel-
lows of the Royal Society of London started describing their investigations
and experiments in such detail that the procedure or experiment could be
replicated and at least in principle readers could see the results for them-
selves. This coincidence of the method of discovery, method of presenta-
tion, and the method of verification seems natural to modern researchers,
but it was a crucial advance in the management of knowledge. Peer review
of publications was another development of the Scientific Revolution, also
pioneered by the Royal Society (Sect. 9.6). However, some argue that
peer review before publication is a contingent rather than necessary aspect
of managing knowledge dissemination (Sects. 9.5 and 9.6).
1.3 EVIDENCE
Much of the book seeks to infer the effects of the Gutenberg revolution
on universities by examining education before and after printing began
spreading throughout Europe in the middle of the fifteenth century. But
16 G. MOODIE
unfortunately there are only scanty records and accounts of education

before the seventeenth century. It has therefore been necessary to extrap-
olate from accounts of universities in earlier times. The most complete
accounts of universities during the Middle Ages are university statutes,
but unfortunately the earliest statutes extant are mostly silent on the core
concerns of curriculum and pedagogy:
For example, as valuable as the Cambridge statutes [dating from circa 1250]
are for information about the organization and governance of the university,
they tell us absolutely nothing about teaching or the curriculum, about the
textbooks used, the schedule of lectures and disputations, or the stages of
advancing to the master’s degree. … In most universities—and even in Paris,
in faculties other than the arts—these matters seem to have been regulated
by unwritten customs, by practices imprinted upon the collective memory of
the institution by the regularity of their occurrence. (Ferruolo 1988, p. 5)
Ferruolo (1988, pp. 5–6) notes that documents were most likely to be
issued and preserved when there was an unusual conflict, disagreement
or dispute, which thus give a misleading impression of normal affairs. As
observed in Sect. 2.5, Latin was the language of scholarship until the end
of the eighteenth century. But the referent of some medieval Latin terms
is obscure. Fletcher (1967, p. 431) notes that the University of Oxford’s
statutes of 1409, which are more informative about curriculum and assess-
ment than statutes of the thirteenth century, provide that an undergradu-
ate who presented for a bachelor degree had to swear that they had spent
at least one year ‘frequentantes parvisum’ as ‘arciste generales’ (junior arts
student). Grace Books, which were proctors’ records of administrative
decisions (Leathes 2009 [1897], p. ix), refer to the disputation exercises
responsions, oppositions, and variations being conducted ‘in Parviso’. But
it is not clear where the parvisus was (Fletcher 1967, p. 432). Fletcher
(1967, p. 432) notes that closely associated with the parvisus in both
Oxford’s statutes and its Grace Books are mentions of the ‘creacio genera-
lis’, but nowhere is it made clear what exactly this was.
Stone (1964, p. 41) who examined enrollments and the social compo-
sition of schools, universities, and the London Inns of Court in England
from 1560 to 1640, argued that the gaps in records had to be filled by
inference: ‘If the historian of a society seriously wants to pluck at the skirts
of truth, he is obliged to use common sense and arguments of probabil-
ity to apply correctives and supply lacunae’. But the sketchiness of early
records allows for multiple inferences, not all of them cogent. Hill (1965,
p. 309) notes about the disagreement over the persistence of scholasti-
cism in late Tudor and early Stuart education: ‘on evidence like this—one
tutor’s notes … the social contacts of some others, the books owned by
and the subsequent interests of a few dons and undergraduates—it would
be easy to argue that Marxism was being taught to undergraduates at
Oxford and Cambridge in the nineteen-thirties’.
The Gutenberg revolution overlaps substantially with the Scientific
Revolution. It is therefore not possible to consider changes as candi-
dates for the outcome of one or other revolution by simply observing
the sequence of events. Rather, it is necessary to make judgments about
what is likely by extension from events’ interactions in other contexts and
periods: one has to trace the threads in history’s fabric without unpicking
its weave. Maclean (2009), who examines European book markets in the
sixteenth century, observes that the same evidence can support contradic-
tory conclusions. For example, Maclean (2009, p. 27) notes that the fact
that only a few books of a particular type survive leads some to infer that
only a few books were produced and distributed, while others infer that
many were produced but that they were read to death. While some judg-
ments seem clear others are more debatable, and one has to be wary of
pareidolia—seeing images in nature’s clouds. The book therefore seeks to
avoid firm assertions unsupported by unambiguous evidence or its clear
extension.
O’Day (1982, p. 196) warns that ‘An overall view of educational
trends through out the early modern period has been hindered by the
excessive periodisation which is rampant in historical studies’ and Henry
(1997, p. 129) warns of the ever present threat of ‘generally lamentable’
Whiggism: judging the significance of past events by current standards
or interests, or considering only past developments which seem to have
obviously led to the current state of affairs. Accordingly, while this book
draws inferences from the scanty evidence reported, it is live to the risk
of over-interpreting fragments in favor of just one of several possible
understandings.
There is an abundance of information about modern educational prac-
tices: it is normally not difficult to find or reconstruct accounts of practices
from the late nineteenth century. The bigger difficulty is in determining
which practices are necessary for learning, which are contingent, and the
effects of changes in educational practices. Numerous studies find differ-
ent and sometimes contradictory results of various interventions such as
18 G. MOODIE
introducing computers in classes (discussed in Sect. 6.3.3), ‘flipped’ classes

(Sect. 6.3.5) and online learning (Sect. 5.6.5). One productive approach
is to undertake a meta-analysis—a statistical synthesis of results from con-
ceptually similar studies to compute a weighted average of the effect of
the intervention or condition, expressed as an effect size (Hattie 2009).
A stronger alternative is to conduct randomized controlled trials, in
which subjects are allocated randomly to a treatment group and to a con-
trol group which are treated identically except for the treatment being
tested. Randomized controlled trials have become the main method for
testing medical interventions and provide high quality evidence in the
social sciences if interpreted correctly (Cumming 2014, p. 19). Researchers
(Torgerson and Torgerson 2001) and government bodies (Coalition for
Evidence-Based Policy 2003) have urged their adoption in education.
However, there are at least two limitations to the evidence offered by
randomized controlled trials in education. One is the extent to which it is
possible to treat two groups identically in all material respects in an edu-
cational trial (Morrison 2001; Sullivan 2011). It is more difficult in the
social sciences than in the experimental sciences to identify and control
factors which may affect the result but which are extraneous to the effect
being tested (Moodie 2008, p. 18).
Second, many educational issues constructed as debates about methods
or means are essentially about ends or values. Plato opposed the introduc-
tion of writing because it would erode peoples’ memory (Sect. 5.6.1) and
contemporaries of Gutenberg argued that his invention would ‘destroy’
memory. Critics opposed the introduction of slide rules into schools
because they would undermine pupils’ ability to use log tables and then
opposed the introduction of calculators because they would divert pupils
from learning how to use slide rules (Sect. 5.6.2). Studies have found
that students learn more in lectures from which laptops have been banned
than in lectures in which laptops are allowed (Sect. 6.3.3). Numerous
studies have found that online learning is as effective as face-to-face learn-
ing (Means et al. 2010, p xviii), and randomized controlled trials would
establish that drilling directed by teachers develop pupils’ skills in spelling
and mental arithmetic better than asking pupils to practice by themselves.
But the basic questions are not what best develops students’ memory or
skills in using log tables and slide rules, the optimal conditions for lectures,
whether mediated teaching–learning can replicate face-to-face teaching–
learning or how best to develop pupils’ spelling and mental arithmetic.
The basic questions are how much society still values memorization and
the ability to use log tables and slide rules, what learning is best devel-
oped by lectures and other face-to-face methods, and what learning is
best developed by other methods (Bates 2015, p. 315), and how much
society values ‘basic’ education and how much it values developing pupils’
creativity and initiative. Randomized controlled trials cannot answer those
questions.
1.4 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARGUMENT

The rest of the book is set out in these chapters:
Chapter 2 Students and Society

Chapter 3 Libraries
Chapter 4 Curriculum
Chapter 5 Pedagogical Change
Chapter 6 Lectures
Chapter 7 Assessment
Chapter 8 Advancing Knowledge
Chapter 9 Disseminating Knowledge
Chapter 10 Progress and Prospects
Chap. 2 students and society sets the study in the context of the con-
temporary cost pressures on higher education which are enduring con-
cerns and one of the main motives for seeking a radical change in education
from the introduction of new technologies, and frustration at the lack of
progress in increasing education’s economy of scale. It compares current
charges and financial aid for attending university with arrangements in the
Middle Ages, and the associated number and composition of universities’
students. The chapter further sets the study in context by considering a
big change in education in the early modern period which, as will be seen
in subsequent chapters, had implications for universities’ management of
knowledge: the replacement of Latin as the universal language of scholar-
ship in Europe with vernacular languages. This is contrasted with the rela-
tively recent opposite tendency, the adoption of English as the language
of international research and the increasing importance of English as the
language of international education.
Chapter 3 observes how university libraries changed from dealing with
a scarcity of manuscript books before the Gutenberg revolution to losing
that role once printing alleviated the scarcity of books, and to subsequently
20 G. MOODIE
developing a new role dealing with the profusion of books that printing
stimulated. The chapter considers the substantial implications for libraries
of the digital revolution. Throughout their history, academic libraries have
been concerned with managing knowledge, and have developed new roles
in response to the new demands on the management of knowledge posed
by new technologies. The chapter is therefore optimistic that libraries will
develop a new role to support universities in handling the new challenges
in managing knowledge posed by the digital revolution.
Chapter 4 considers changes in universities’ curriculum which may be
broadly described as shifts in emphasis from developing students’ careers,
to assimilating middle- and upper-middle-class culture, to advancing
knowledge, and to expanding the careers for which they prepare gradu-
ates. These are posited as changes in emphasis only: most of the contem-
porary prominent elite universities are also deeply engaged in research,
and so are making major contributions to advancing knowledge while also
inculcating elite culture. Yet only a small minority of students are taught
in research-intensive universities; most are taught in mass and open-entry
institutions and an important trend in these universities has been their
expansion of careers for which they prepare graduates (Grubb and Lazerson
2004, 2005, p. 8). The chapter argues that these changes in emphasis in
the content and orientation of universities’ curriculum were not affected
directly by changes in technology or other resources, although new tech-
nologies may have accelerated and expanded changes in emphasis. Rather,
new technologies and changes in society and its economies have contrib-
uted to changes in the form of the curriculum. Changes in the form of the
curriculum may compromise some of universities’ multiple roles, but the
chapter argues that it should be possible to change universities’ curriculum
to accommodate technological, social, and economic change while main-
taining their contributions to culture, knowledge, and careers.
Chapter 5 considers changes in pedagogy. It notes that practices which
are collected under the heading of ‘peer teaching’ were introduced to
increase the efficiency of education—to maintain outcomes while reduc-
ing costs. Practical classes were introduced as part of the changes in the
way knowledge is extended and understood that form part of the Scientific
Revolution. The chapter notes that the elaboration of levels of educa-
tion and the demarcation between primary schooling, secondary school-
ing, and university education emerged from an increase in the knowledge
and skills developed by educational institutions and from the expansion
of education which in turn was supported by an increase in resources
available for it. The change from ‘individual and successive’ instruction
to classroom teaching in the nineteenth century was a major development
which introduced what is still probably the most pervasive form of teach-
ing–learning. It was introduced to improve the efficiency of school educa-
tion. The pedagogic changes noted so far were introduced in response to
changes in the nature of disciplinary knowledge and ways of managing
it—none was due directly to changes in technology, though improvements
in technologies enhanced changes made mainly for other reasons. The
chapter considers several new technologies that were posited as transform-
ing education but have not yet done so and argues that the technologies
or pedagogy may not yet be developed sufficiently to transform education,
or that the technology may not be as useful in education as some think.
Chapter 6 considers one form of pedagogy, lectures, since these have
been so prominent in discussions of the claimed lack of change in universi-
ties’ teaching methods and because of their persistence despite heavy and
sustained criticism for their modest effectiveness in supporting students’
learning. The chapter opens with a description of lectures in medieval
universities, from which it is clear that lectures have changed substantially.
Cursory lectures in which bachelor graduates read set texts to undergradu-
ate students to take notes or dictation were discontinued by the end of the
sixteenth century, having been made redundant by the new technology of
printing. But printing did not make redundant expository lectures despite
the expectations of at least one of Gutenberg’s contemporaries and subse-
quent critics of lectures. The most substantial changes in lectures reflected
changes in knowledge and ways of advancing it. The chapter concludes
by examining various proposals to improve lectures, which again reflect
improvements in pedagogy more than changes in technology.
Chapter 7 examines assessment since assessment drives learning (Elton
and Laurillard 1979, pp. 99–100) and because possibly the biggest change
in early modern universities was in their summative assessment, from its
medieval form of oral, individualized, public, and collective disputations
of questions in Latin to written, standardized, private, and individual
answering of questions in the vernacular. Some of these changes reflected
changes in curriculum and pedagogy, though they were enabled by print-
ing. But some of the motivation for changing from oral to written summa-
tive assessment was to handle the increased numbers of students enrolling
in universities and remaining for the final assessment by the nineteenth
century. Written assessment allowed universities to increase the economy
of scale available for oral assessment, but having achieved that, universities
22 G. MOODIE
have been unable to further increase their economy of scale. The chap-
ter argues that the need for extended evaluation of students’ learning by
someone who is expert in the field and also expert in supporting students’
learning restricts universities to increasing expenditure on assessment pro-
portionately to each additional student they teach. The digital revolution
may yet develop a technology for automating assessment of more than
rudimentary learning, but that seems distant now and the prospect of
teaching very big and indeed ‘massive’ numbers of students online at little
or even modest incremental cost currently seems remote.
Chapter 8 advancing knowledge outlines some of the developments
which made possible the changes in the methods for advancing knowledge,
their consolidation, and the resulting explosion of knowledge of the mate-
rial world which became known in retrospect as the Scientific Revolution.
Some of those developments were of the scholarly apparatus of the lit-
erature survey, reliable texts, and accurate illustrations which in turn were
direct outcomes of the printing revolution. However, scholars and printers
had to develop new methods for building confidence in the accuracy and
reliability of printed texts. Both were needed for printing to contribute to
the extension of knowledge: the promulgation of a new technology and the
development of a new method for managing knowledge. In addition,
the Scientific Revolution was the outcome of substantial changes in the
methods for advancing knowledge which in turn led to the development
of new equipment, but the main stimulus seems to have been the develop-
ment of new methods rather than the development of new technologies.
Chapter 9 examines the dissemination of knowledge, which has been
changed substantially by the three information revolutions and seems
likely to be changed further by the digital revolution. Printing greatly
facilitated the dissemination of knowledge through books and through
informal publications such as broadsheets, pamphlets, and newsletters,
many of which had more or less close analogs in manuscript. Printing
also enabled the development of the Scientific Revolution’s new form for
disseminating knowledge: the scholarly journal. The digital revolution is
further changing the production and dissemination of books, unrefereed
publications, and journals. It is at least possible that journals may not per-
sist in their current form: in retrospect journals may turn out to be an arti-
fact of the Gutenberg revolution. But while digital technologies obviously
have implications for disseminating knowledge and seem likely to lead to
reformed and new forms of dissemination, it is less clear what those new
forms may be. This seems at least partly because society has yet to develop
and adopt methods for managing knowledge which take advantage of the
potential offered by digital technologies, such as might emerge from a
range of developments considered as ‘open scholarship’ in the chapter.
Chapter 10 progress and prospects reviews the progress achieved in
transmitting and disseminating knowledge from the three information
revolutions and examines the prospects of further change to higher edu-
cation from the digital revolution. The chapter seeks an understanding
of the implications of the digital revolution for higher education not in
the nature of any technology nor indeed in the nature of educational
institutions, but in pedagogy: the nature of teaching–learning. It argues
that learning disciplinary knowledge requires interaction with learning
activities, feedback on progress, hierarchical knowledge and skills, and it
needs to be managed. These and probably other requirements for learn-
ing disciplinary knowledge impose conditions on teaching–learning. The
chapter considers a paradox, that these conditions can be met and sev-
eral advantages offered by online learning, yet online learning has not
displaced campus-based face-to-face teaching–learning which remains the
dominant mode of teaching–learning. This is exemplified by completion
rates, which remain much higher in face-to-face education than in online
learning. Institutions have yet to develop the evident potential of the digi-
tal technologies in teaching–learning because they have yet to develop
suitable new methods for managing knowledge: the digital revolution in
teaching–learning is inhibited by the limits of pedagogy.
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CHAPTER 2
Students and Society
Behind much of the impetus to adopt new technologies in education from

the nineteenth century has been a desire to reduce education’s increasing
costs, and this chapter opens by noting those cost pressures and reviewing
how they were managed in the Middle Ages. The chapter also puts the
study in context by observing the numbers of students and their social
composition during the late Middle Ages and early modern period. As
will be noted in subsequent chapters, the management of knowledge was
affected by the language of scholarship, which Sect. 2.4 notes was from
Latin in the Middle Ages to vernacular languages in the modern period.
This is currently being reversed somewhat, with English becoming the
language of research in the twentieth century and increasingly the lan-
guage of international education. This chapter considers these issues in
these sections:
2.1 Contemporary Cost Pressures
2.1.1 Cost Disease

2.1.2 Increasing Participation
2.1.3 Balance Between Subsidy and Fees
2.2 Early Tuition and Financial Aid

2.3 Students
2.4 The Language of Scholarship

30 G. MOODIE
2.1 CONTEMPORARY COST PRESSURES

One of the arguments for using technology to radically change higher
education is to cut its cost greatly. Some foreshadow a restructuring of
the whole sector, with some or all of curriculum design, teaching, assess-
ment, certification, quality assurance, and research being done by differ-
ent processes and by different bodies. Others envisage using technology
just to automate teaching and assessment, which is the biggest driver of
increased costs of higher education. There are three aspects to concerns
about higher education’s cost: cost disease, increasing participation, and
balance between subsidy and fees.
2.1.1 Cost Disease

Many sectors can increase their productivity and efficiency through inno-
vation such as by introducing new technologies and new modes of pro-
duction or distribution. Benefits from increased productivity are available
for sharing with employees in the form of higher pay. So far education
and many other personal services that rely on highly skilled workers have
not been able to increase their productivity greatly: Beethoven’s ‘Serioso’
string quartet requires as many people to perform for as long now as it
did when it was premiered in 1814. Yet if classical musicians are to retain
their pay relative to other workers they need pay increases which cannot
be offset by increases in productivity (Baumol and Bowen 1966; Baumol
1967; Archibald and Feldman 2008, pp. 272–5). This process increases
higher education’s cost per unit without offsetting savings.
2.1.2 Increasing Participation

Since World War II (WWII) developed countries and many developing soci-
eties have increased the participation of their age group which mainly stud-
ies higher education from the elite rate of up to 15 percent to the mass rate
from 16 to 50 percent (Trow 1973; Brennan 2004). Participation contin-
ues to increase in many countries, toward universal, or what Trow (2007)
[2005] later called open access higher education, with participation over
50 percent. These continuing increases in higher education participation
show no sign of slowing in many countries. Regardless of any economic
or human capital need for higher education graduates, a social demand
for higher education continues to increase, as Trow explained in 1973.
STUDENTS AND SOCIETY 31
Where half of an age group participates in higher education a baccalaure-

ate changes from being an advantage for those who hold it to a disad-
vantage for those who do not hold it. This is because qualifications are
used to signal graduates with specific knowledge and/or skills or to screen
employees with potential (Spence 1973). It therefore seems at least pos-
sible if not likely that in many developed countries higher education will
become universal as primary and then secondary education successively
became universal. Increasing participation increases spending on higher
education even if unit costs remain constant.
2.1.3 Balance Between Subsidy and Fees

Most countries subsidize student enrollment in higher education, directly
with grants to institutions, indirectly with grants and loans to students to
pay tuition fees to institutions, or by a combination of direct and indi-
rect subsidies. Increasing costs or increasing participation increases the
call on public subsidies of higher education. But there are other increas-
ing calls on public spending, particularly from health, which not only
suffers from Baumol’s cost disease but also is becoming more expensive
due to increased use of expensive technologies, medications, and other
treatments; and in many countries the health system is having to serve
a population with a higher proportion of older people who have higher
health needs. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) countries have very different tax levels, ranging from less than
25 percent of gross domestic product in the USA, Chile, and Mexico
to more than 45 percent in Belgium, Sweden, and Denmark (OECD
2014a). There, therefore, seems considerable scope at least in principle
for many countries to increase their tax to pay for increased higher educa-
tion participation and costs. However, many OECD countries including
the USA have cut taxation since 2005. Governments are therefore very
keen to cut their spending on higher education, either or both by cut-
ting higher education’s costs or by shifting costs from subsidies to higher
tuition fees. So there is considerable interest in technology’s potential for
big cost savings in higher education from politicians, taxpayers, parents,
and students.
Sections 5.2 and 5.6 note that education has so far not managed to
increase its efficiency with peer teaching and the use of technology, and
why this might be the case is considered in Sect. 10.5.
32 G. MOODIE
2.2 EARLY TUITION FEES AND FINANCIAL AID

During the Middle Ages, the church was averse to charging tuition fees,
recalling Proverbs 23:23 ‘Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and
instruction, and understanding’ which informed the Medieval aphorism
scientia donum dei est, unde vendi non potest (knowledge is a gift of god,
and hence cannot be sold) (Burke 2000, p. 149). The French jurist Pierre
Rebuffi (1487–1557) wrote in 1540 that humankind is not at liberty to
treat knowledge as a commodity, and submit it to the rules of the mercantile
world (Maclean 2012, p. 9). The early cathedral schools were in principle
free, the masters being supported by a prebend (Verger 1992b, p. 151), and
at least during some periods students did not pay tuition fees at some early
universities. Some professors in medieval universities were supported by
college fellowships, ecclesiastical benefices, and by religious orders (Cobban
1975, p. 155, 1988, p. 318). However, much lecturing for the bachelor of
arts was done by necessary regents, discussed in Sect. 5.2, who collected
lecture fees (collectae). Necessary regents were replaced by salaried lecture-
ships from the thirteenth century in the universities of Southern Europe
and later spread to northern European universities, reaching Oxford and
Cambridge in the late fifteenth century (Cobban 1975, p. 31). A condition
of many endowments and gifts which established salaried lectureships was
that lecturers not charge student fees (Fletcher 1967, p. 428).
While students at some universities may not have had to pay tuition fees
during at least some periods of the Middle Ages, students had to meet the
cost of traveling to and living at university. At least some halls charged stu-
dents by their capacity to pay. Bachelor graduates in the English-German
nation at the University of Paris between 1425 and 1494 paid a different
bursa (purse) for their weekly living expenses according to the amount
they could afford (Cobban 1975, p. 198). Some colleges charged some
students lower or no fees for meals and lodging for performing specified
duties such as serving other students. Isaac Newton (1642–1726) entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1661 as a sizar performing valet’s duties
until he won a scholarship in 1664 which he held for four more years until
he graduated as a master of arts. Students accumulated other charges for
assessment, graduation, and related ceremonies. In the fifteenth century,
candidates for the bachelor of arts at Oxford University had to pay big
sums for their admission and determination ceremonies which included
university charges and clothing and gifts for the candidate’s professor and
entertainment for his fellow students (Fletcher and Upton 1985, p. 19).
Most students were supported at university by their immediate or

extended family (Leader 1988, p. 39). Fletcher and Upton (1985, p. 19)
compared the earnings of a tradesperson and their laborer with their cal-
culations of the cost for residence at Oxford’s Merton College in 1442 to
conclude that ‘It would be difficult, therefore, to see the unskilled labourer
being able to provide alone the necessary money for a son to study at
Oxford, although the student might take up cheaper quarters than those
provided for the Merton founder’s kin. Even for the skilled craftsmen and
lower professional groups, the demands of a student at the university just
for a period of three terms’ residence would absorb about one-third of the
income they might expect to earn’. Nonetheless, some ambitious parents
of modest means made considerable sacrifices to advance their children’s
education. The historian and writer James Howell (c. 1594–1666) wrote
to the fourth Earl of Dorset Edward Sackville (1591–1652) that ‘every
Man strains his Fortunes to keep his Children at School: the Cobler [sic]
will clout till Midnight, the Porter will carry Burdens till his Bones crack
again, the Plough-man will pinch both Back and Belly to give his son
Learning’ (Jewell 1998, p. 8).
In addition, there were various sources of financial aid for the ambitious,
able, and fortunate students whose families could not afford to support
them at university. The most frequent source of nonfamily support was
the mendicant orders. The church also granted unordained rectors leave
from their benefices to study for up to seven years (Leader 1988, pp. 39,
41–2). Lecture fees paid by undergraduates supported at least partly nec-
essary regents who were graduates reading for the masters. Some of the
lesser gentry, comfortable church officials, and prosperous local merchants
admitted to their household their relatives’ children and children from
leading families in their village to be tutored by their children’s tutor,
and a few would support at schools and at university promising children
of their relatives or of their village. The church encouraged charities for
scholarly education because this furthered the church’s work (Jewell 1998,
p. 47). Monarchs, princes, bishops, and other wealthy people built and
endowed residences to board poor students (Pedersen 1996, p. 463). In
1253, King Louis IX of France’s chaplain Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274)
established his Maison de Sorbonne to teach theology to 20 poor students
which was supported by King Louis (Gerbod 2004, p. 107). While most
English medieval schools charged fees, endowed free schools were estab-
lished from the 1440s (Orme 1987, pp. 84–5).
34 G. MOODIE
At least initially, the church’s encouragement of education did not

extend to practical education. The first English ecclesiastical support for
practical education Jewell (1998, p. 48) found was by Thomas Rotherham
(1423–1500) who as Archbishop of York made statutes for Jesus College
Rotherham in 1483 which in addition to providing masters of grammar
and song provided a teacher of writing and accounts to fit able boys ‘for
mechanical arts and worldly business’. Private philanthropy for education
in England increased from about 1480 to 1530 due increased prosperity,
more settled political conditions, and a growing population which had
been depressed in the famine-stricken 1590s but which expanded strongly
by 1620 (Lawson and Silver 1973, pp. 50, 103).
Christians’ support for scholarly learning extended to English puritans of
the seventeenth century who believed education would counter ‘the three
great evils of Ignorance, Prophaneness and Idleness’ (Stone 1964, p. 71).
In The ready way to good works published in 1635, the English puritan
minister Richard Bernard (1568–1641) wrote: ‘Erection of Grammar
Schooles is a worke as farre transcending and surpassing the foundation
and building of Almes-houses as the instruction of the minde doth excell
in outward relieving and sustentation of the Podie’ (cited in Stone 1964,
p. 71), recalling the Chinese proverb often cited currently: ‘Give a per-
son a fish you feed them for a day. Teach them how to fish and you feed
them for a lifetime’ (Tripp 1970, p. 76). This zeal for an educated and
Protestant society led gentry and merchants to found not only schools but
also to fund buildings, college fellowships, and scholarships to develop an
educated clergy (Stone 1964, p. 72).
2.3 STUDENTS
As Sect. 5.4 elaborates, there was not a clear hierarchy of educational lev-
els and institutions until the modern era. During the Middle Ages many
students traveled to study in university towns, but as with today, many of
the younger students traveled to university towns to study at a level below
formal university level. Younger students studied Latin grammar which
was offered by masters or schools supervised by the university as in Oxford
and Cambridge (Leader 1983a, p. 9) or in some of the colleges, as at Paris
(Cobban 1975, p. 208).
In 1377, Oxford had about 1500 members—professors as well as stu-
dents—and Cambridge had perhaps between 400 and 700 members,
about a third to a half of whom were friars (Leader 1988, p. 35). In 1438,
Oxford had about 1000 students: 200 in colleges; 100 monks and friars
living in their monasteries and convents; and 700 students in lodgings,
hostels, and halls (O’Day 1982, p. 82). When the University of Glasgow
was founded in 1451, there were about 50 universities in Europe (Burke
2000, p. 33). By the late seventeenth century, Edinburgh was still small
with about 400 students and Glasgow was even smaller with 250 students
in 1696 (Jewell 1998, pp. 161–2). A big medieval university frequently
matriculated from 400 to 500 students annually and had a total of at
least 1000 students. While Oxford was relatively big in the first half of
the fifteenth century, Cambridge reached this size by the middle of the
fifteenth century (Cobban 1988, p. 89). Other big universities during
this period were on occasion in Paris, Toulouse, Avignon, and Orleans; in
Bologna and possibly also in other northern Italian cities such as Padua
and Ferrara; and in Salamanca, Vienna, Erfurt, Leipzig, Cologne, and
Louvain after the second half of the fifteenth century (Schwinges 1992a,
p. 189). Almost every European country had a medium-sized university
which frequently matriculated 150 to 200 students annually, and there
were several small universities which barely matriculated 50 students a year
(Schwinges 1992a, p. 189).
Medieval universities were urban phenomena: they were located in
towns and expanded with the European urban revival of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries (Cobban 1988, p. 14; Moraw 1992, p. 245). They
were also vocational institutions (Cobban 1975, pp. 8, 164, 1988, pp. 14,
161–2). Universities supplied the increasing numbers of educated priests,
administrators, lawyers, physicians, and clerks needed by the church, sec-
ular governments, and municipalities to manage the affairs of growing
towns and a more complex society (Scott 2006, p. 6; Lerner 1998, p. 83).
Sons of the nobility did not need to attend university during the Middle
Ages since they had access to careers in the church and government by
birth (Leader 1988, p. 40). Therefore, most Oxford and Cambridge stu-
dents were from the more prosperous peasant and yeoman classes that
could afford the minimum of two or three pounds a year needed to sup-
port their son, such as stewards, bailiffs, reeves, local scribes (Leader 1988,
p. 39), small tradespeople, skilled artisans, and copyholders (Stone 1964,
p. 45). This is consistent with the bursae for living expenses paid by bach-
elor graduates of the English-German nation at the University of Paris
between 1425 and 1494: some 18 percent were paupers who paid no bursa,
47 percent paid a minimum amount, 27 percent paid medium bursae, and
9 percent paid rich bursae (Cobban 1975, p. 198). South of the Alps in
36 G. MOODIE
universities such as Bologna and Padua students tended to be lay, older,

and wealthier, preparing for admission to professional occupations such as
law or medicine (Cobban 1975, p. 62, 1988, p. 393; Verger 1992a, p. 49).
University enrollments expanded from about 1450 to 1600 (Stone
1964, p. 68; Schwinges 1992a, p. 193; O’Day 2007, p. 411; Burke 2000,
p. 23; Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 3402), which was ‘a period of
exceptional European prosperity’ (Anderson 1991, p. 38). The number
of schools also increased rapidly to prepare more notaries, secretaries,
and literate public officials needed by the expanding functions of govern-
ment (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 493; Green 2009, pp. 64, 362;
Stone 1964, pp. 69–70). William Harrison (1534–1593), chaplain to
Lord Cobham, reported: ‘Besides these universities, also there are great
number of grammar schools throughout the realm, and those very liber-
ally endowed, for the better relief of poor scholars, so that there are not
many corporate towns now under the Queen’s dominion that have not
one grammar school at the least, with a sufficient living for a master and
usher appointed to the same’ (Harrison 1557).
Universities increased in size and new colleges, universities, and prot-
estant academies were founded over the period (Pettegree 2010, Kindle
location 3421; Reiter 1998, p. 394). Enrollments peaked at Castile in
around 1590, in the Holy Roman Empire in 1610, in England in 1630–
1640, in the United Provinces (Dutch Republic) in 1640–1650, and in
Louvain in 1660 and subsequently declined over more than a century
(Di Simone 1996, p. 299; Stone 1964, p. 68; Lawson and Silver 1973,
pp. 177, 210; Green 2009, p. 67). The decline may have been due partly
to changed economic conditions (Stone 1964, p. 71; Schwinges 1992a,
p. 191), the oversupply of graduates resulting from the earlier big expan-
sion in enrollments (Burke 2000, p. 23) and because ‘the conservative,
gentlemanly studies of the universities’ met less well ‘the commercial and
professional needs of the age’ (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 177). In the
early eighteenth century, London merchants charged a premium of £500
to £1000 for entry to prestigious apprenticeships and Liverpool and York
merchants took an apprentice for £130 (Jewell 1998, p. 8).
Universities’ social composition also changed from the late Middle
Ages. A higher proportion of lay and of wealthy students was attracted
to university (Carlsmith 2010, p. 138; Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 59;
Clark 2006, p. 147; McConica 1986a, p. 65; Green 2009, p. 194; Jewell
1998, p. 112). In 1458, while Bishop of Winchester, William Waynflete
(c. 1398–1486) founded Oxford’s Magdalen College with statutes that
provided that 20 sons of ‘noble and powerful personages, being friends

of the said college … be taken in and admitted, at the discretion of the
President, to lodgings and commons, without charge or loss to the
College itself, but at their own expense or that of their friends’ (Curtis
1959, p. 38). The proportion of Oxford matriculants who were gentle-
men or above increased from 39 percent in 1575–1579 to 52 percent in
1600–1609 (O’Day 1982, p. 90).
Over this period, poorer students were gradually excluded from uni-
versity by greatly increased costs (Di Simone 1996, p. 312) and reduced
financial support, at least partly because sons of gentry were gaining schol-
arships that were intended for poor students (Harrison 1577; Jewell 1998,
p. 112; Di Simone 1996, p. 316; Leader 1988, p. 343), and because
poor students were diverted to the more numerous grammar schools (Di
Simone 1996, p. 316). This contrasts with the current experience where
increased enrollments are often associated with increased participation by
disadvantaged students. It also contrasts with the current experience where
high tuition fees are not necessarily associated with lower participation of
disadvantaged students if they are backed by suitable and accessible loans.
As is popularly known, many students traveled to another country to
study during the Middle Ages, offering an interesting comparison with
the high and increasing incidence of international education from the
late twentieth century. Approximately, 20 percent of Poles who attended
university between 1510 and 1560 did so in another country; at least
10 percent of graduates from the northern Netherlands took their degree
in a foreign university between 1575 and 1814 which increased to 18 per-
cent in the seventeenth century; and approximately 15 percent of students
from the southern Netherlands enrolled in a foreign university until about
1600 (De Ridder-Symoens 1996b, p. 441). De Ridder-Symoens (1996b,
p. 418) wrote that ‘the first decades of the sixteenth century were the
golden age of wandering scholars’, with hundreds of students attracted by
famous professors such as Erasmus (1466–1536) and Cujas (1522–1590),
even to universities of hitherto no great repute. Such movement was facili-
tated by universities reading the same texts during the Middle Ages, as will
be explored in Chap. 4, and by them all teaching in Latin, as is discussed
in the next section.
Civic authorities were alive to the economic impact of international
study. The Florentine commune noted that 250 Florentines spent 5000
florins annually studying abroad and argued that if they attended the
home university the money would stay in Florence. It therefore increased
38 G. MOODIE
its appropriation to the university in 1429 and forbade its citizens study-
ing abroad (Grendler 2002, p. 80). Every Italian government except the
papacy required its subjects to study and take their degrees from the uni-
versity or universities within the State and repeatedly passed laws imposing
heavy fines on violators and baring out of State graduates from civic office
(Grendler 2002, p. 178). In 1485, the Duke of Ferrara Ercole I d’Este
(1431–1505) forbade his subjects from studying or taking degrees outside
his University of Ferrara, an injunction repeated several times over the
century (Grendler 2002, p. 103), which probably reflects its ineffective-
ness. Numerous students ignored the decrees and there is no record of
their being punished (Grendler 2002, p. 178).
But the international movement of students fell markedly in the sev-
enteenth century (Vandermeersch 1996, p. 229). Many new universities
were established in principalities which reduced the need to travel so far
to study, many princes forbade their citizens studying outside their prin-
cipality, Christian sects were intolerant of students studying at universities
which followed a different sect and as the next section observes, Latin
declined as the scholarly lingua franca as universities started teaching in
the vernacular (Müller 1996, p. 238).
2.4 THE LANGUAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP

English has been the main language of international research from the
middle of the twentieth century (Joyner 2015) and is of increasing impor-
tance in teaching. Most international students travel to study in the USA,
UK, or another Anglophone country, and some programs are taught in
English in countries with a strong academic tradition in a language other
than English such as France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Brenn-White
and Faethe (2013, p. 4) reviewed StudyPortals.eu, which its managers
estimate records 90 percent of masters programs taught in English in con-
tinental Europe. They found that the number of master’s programs taught
entirely in English in continental Europe rose from 3701 at the end of
2011 to 5258 in June 2013, an increase of 42 percent over a period when
the total number of masters programs increased by 25 percent to 21,000
programs. Almost all postgraduate programs in Scandinavian countries
were taught in English in 2013 (Brenn-White and Faethe 2013, p. 5).
Dearden (2015, pp. 2, 4, 29) surveyed staff of the British Council in
55 countries in which English was not the first language of most people
to find generally a rapid expansion of teaching academic subjects such as
science and geography in English at all levels of education, and that uni-
versities were increasingly internationalizing and teaching in English.
Nonetheless, most higher education students study in their home
country in one of their home country’s official languages. As will be elab-
orated below, universities have taught in their home country’s vernacular
language only relatively recently: European universities taught in Latin for
three quarters of their 900-year history since the University of Bologna is
commonly understood to have emerged in 1088.
Many manuscript books were written in a vernacular language. Narrative
fiction in German circulated in the late Middle Ages (Füssel 2005 [1999],
p. 113). Teachers and preachers published manuscripts in vernaculars to
popularize their ideas (Norton 1477, p. 68, cited in Jones 1953, p. 5, fn. 8;
Eisenstein (1997) [1979], p. 546) and by 1400, most English readers
preferred their books in the vernacular (Taylor 2007, p. 48). Alfonso
Chirino (c. 1365–c. 1429) wrote medical compendia in Castilian in 1406
and 1414, Francisco López de Villalobos (1473–1549) wrote his Sumario
de la medicina (Summary of medicine) in Castilian, Lope de Barrientos
(1382–1469) wrote his brief popularizations of Aristotle’s Parva natu-
ralia (Short treatises on nature) in Castilian and Aristotle’s De animali-
bus (Generation of animals) was translated into Castilian, also probably
around the early fifteenth century (Ballester 2006, pp. 50, 52, 53). There
were 18 translations of the Bible into German before Luther’s translation
was published in 1534 (Füssel 2005 [1999], p. 163).
But Latin was effectively the lingua franca of all Europe during the
Middle Ages, being the main language of communication between all
educated people, necessary for entry to all learned professions and the
language of European scholarship (Murphy 1995, p. 63; Jewell 1998,
p. 46). All European scholarly books were written in Latin, all European
universities taught only in Latin and most scholars corresponded in Latin,
even if they spoke the same vernacular. In many European countries, Latin
was the only language taught in schools (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location
3583): to be literate was to be able to read Latin (Bloch 1961, p. 77) and
Latin was often taught in Latin as the language of instruction.
But vernacular languages were more accessible to readers outside the
church hierarchy and universities. This was not welcomed by all prelates.
Reginald Pecock (c. 1395–c. 1461), Bishop of Chichester, warned that the
vernacular Bible would enable common readers to interpret the Bible for
themselves: they ‘would fetch and learn their faith at the Bible of holy scrip-
ture, in a manner as it shall hap them to understand it’ (Rose 2011, p. 13).
40 G. MOODIE
This in turn would facilitate multiple interpretations of scripture. Thomas

à Kempis (c. 1380–1471) (1999 [1441], book 3, chapter XLIII, par. 4)
wrote in The imitation of Christ that ‘The voice of books is one, but it
informeth not all alike’. This was not a problem for other writers, perhaps
of a more democratic tendency. Thomas Norton (c. 1433–c. 1513) pub-
lished The ordinall of alchemy in 1477 in ‘blunt and rude English … to
please ten thousand laymen’ instead of ‘ten able clerks’ (cited in Eisenstein
1997 [1979], p. 546). Gentian Hervert (1499–1584) (1956 [1526],
p. 348) wrote in his preface to his translation into English of Erasmus’
‘Sermon on the mercy of God’ published in 1526: ‘And whereas afore,
learned men only did get out both pleasure and great fruit in reading this
book, every man, as well rude as learned, may have this sermon Of the
mercy of God as common unto him as the mercy of God itself is’. Since
Latin was the language of the Catholic Church, the Reformation polarized
preference for vernaculars (Gaukroger 2006, p. 140).
Printers followed their commercial interest to produce books in ver-
nacular languages or ‘in vulgar speche’ as John Dee (1527–1608 or 1609)
(1570) noted in his preface to Henry Billingsley’s (c. 1538–1606) transla-
tion of Euclid’s Elements. However, there were numerous vernaculars and
even in one broad region, there were several dialects and other variations
of the vernacular language. As was noted in Sect. 1.1.1, printers maxi-
mized their economy of scale by choosing to print in one vernacular for
each market (Pedersen 1996, p. 459). Further, printers standardized the
dialects they adopted and fixed them, so they evolved slower than when the
languages were mainly oral and in manuscript (Febvre and Martin 1990
[1958], p. 319). The favored vernaculars grew in prestige and popularity
(Maclean 2012, pp. 19, 54–6), overtaking languages such as Irish and
Provençal in which manuscript books were written in the Middle Ages but
which were not promulgated in print (Febvre and Martin 1990 [1958],
p. 319). The English headmaster Richard Mulcaster (1531–1611) advo-
cated English’s replacement of Latin as the language of scholarship. But
in Elementarie published in 1582 he noted that ‘our English tung … is
of small reatch, it stretcheth no further then this Il d of ours, naie not
there ouer all’ (Mulcaster 1582, p. 256). While Newton had published his
Principia in 1687 in Latin, he published his Opticks in 1704 in English
(Spangenburg and Moser 2004, p. 106).
But vernaculars did not displace Latin quickly. Only a fifth (Füssel
(2005) [1999], p. 113) to a quarter of books were printed in vernaculars
in the first 50 years of printing and Hirsch (1967) estimates that probably
more than half of books were printed in vernaculars by the end of the
sixteenth century. Latin persisted partly because many languages such as
Dutch and even German were rarely learned by foreigners (Febvre and
Martin 1990 [1958], p. 330) and Latin remained the language of inter-
national communication (Maclean 2012, p. 56). While reformers such as
the head of the Zurich church Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) preached
in German when addressing the people, the printed compilations of his
sermons are all in Latin (Stotz 2008, p. 181).
There were diverse forms of Latin in the Renaissance universities:
technically scholastic, humanist, and functional Latin which was not
concerned with elegant or technical expression (Maclean 2012, p. 54).
English schools started teaching Latin in English by using conversational
phrasebooks (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 51) and by increasingly using
bilingual—Latin and English—versions of classical texts in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries (Green 2009, pp. 55, 261). Holt’s Lac puero-
rum (Children’s milk) published in 1510 explained the rules of Latin in
English and English was the language of instruction in grammars written
by Linacre published in 1523, Vaus (in 1528), and Wolsey (in 1529).
These were followed by several texts teaching Latin in other European
vernaculars (Murphy 1995, p. 64). Henry VIII authorized the adoption
of ‘Lily’s’ grammar which was published in three parts between 1540 and
1543 and comprised a primer of the alphabet and basic prayers in Latin and
English, an elementary Latin grammar in English but an advanced Latin
grammar in Latin (Orme 2014, 708). However, change was limited in the
schools that prepared pupils for admission to Oxford and Cambridge by
those universities’ conservative admission procedures and requirements,
which in turn reflected the importance of ancient Latin and Greek authors
in undergraduate studies at Oxford and to a lesser extent at Cambridge
into the eighteenth century (Green 2009, p. 84).
But even Cambridge had to make concessions to students’ lesser prepa-
ration in Latin. Its chancellor William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520–1598),
instructed the humanities professor to ‘explain and interpret the required
texts in English so that he can be understood’ (Leader 1988, pp. 306–7).
Oxford and Cambridge were unusually conservative, however. Grendler
(2002, p. 54) reports that the first vernacular language chair in Europe
was the University of Siena’s chair of Tuscan which was established in
1588, over a century after the development of printing, and even then
lectures were restricted to German students. Febvre and Martin (1990
[1958], p. 330) suggest that the ‘final blow’ against Latin was the decline
42 G. MOODIE
of the Frankfurt book fair around 1630 and the fragmentation of the book
trade, although Latin continued in some areas until the beginning of the
eighteenth century. Philosophy lectures were delivered in English for the
first time at the University of Glasgow in 1729 (Jewell 1998, p. 161). Stray
(2001, p. 37) cites a letter from Horace Walpole (1717–1797) describing
an examination at Cambridge University as evidence that Latin was still
being used in 1735. He suggests that the shift to English occurred in the
1750s and 1760s, three centuries after Gutenberg, not because of the
ubiquity of books printed in the vernacular, but probably because the new
heavily mathematicized curriculum of Newtonian natural philosophy was
more easily handled in the vernacular.
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CHAPTER 3
Libraries
Libraries have been the ‘heart of the university’ for about two centuries
(Gerbod 2004, p. 105). This metaphor is widely attributed to the long-
time president of Harvard University Charles William Eliot (1834–1926)
in 1873 (Weiner 2005, p. 3) and was used by Leupp (1924, p. 193) in
1924. It has been questioned increasingly as computer technologies have
become more pervasive and powerful. In 1983, Thompson (1983, pp. 248,
253, 254) predicted ‘The end of libraries’ unless libraries and librarians
embraced the ‘pre-emptive technology’ of ‘The combination of computers,
in which information can be stored and processed, and telecommunica-
tions, by means of which information can be transmitted to anybody any-
where in the world’. In 1993, major changes were anticipated for libraries
as a result of ‘Automated library processes, new electronic resources, and
computerized tools’ (Dougherty and Dougherty 1993, p. 342) and the
advent of new electronic media such as computer discs and CD-ROM, new
information suppliers, and access via remote computers (Reid 1993, p. 4).
In 1998 the director general of the British Library Maurice Line warned:
All libraries are affected by IT. At the same time it both poses threats,
particularly that of being bypassed in favour of direct access, and offers
opportunities. The ultimate threat is non-existence, which some think is
a real prospect: public libraries because there are other priorities for fund-
ing and other opportunities for enlightenment and entertainment; academic
libraries because students and researchers will soon be getting everything
online. (Cohen 2014)

48 G. MOODIE
Libraries do indeed seem to be losing their role as physical repositories

of print materials. Few readers visit a library to read a journal or other
periodical any more if they can peruse or read it online. In an article
he called ‘Cry not for books’ Medeiros (2011, p. 85) suspects that the
replacement of print with electronic journals is not greatly lamented by
many librarians, for print journals caused problems with cataloging, shelv-
ing, circulation policy, and were expensive to bind: ‘Books, however,
define libraries, and by extension, librarians. For many, imagining a tran-
sition to e-books as [the] dominant format is frightening, and spells the
kiss of death for libraries’. Dempsey et al. (2014, p. 18) report a survey
of the Online Computer Library Center which found that ‘e-books are
the number one priority of academic library managers in Germany, the
Netherlands, the UK, and the US’. In 2013, the University of Arizona
Libraries reported that more than 94 percent of its serials and 20 percent
of all its books were then electronic (Dempsey et al. 2013, p. 3). As Cohen
(2014) observed:
Today, it is the internet that is the true heart of the modern university, and
Google is the omniscient librarian. Google Books already outranks most of
the world’s print collections and is busy scanning the rest of the estimated
129,864,880 print books that now exist on Earth. (Cohen 2014)
Throughout their long history in Western universities libraries have been

transformed once, extended their role significantly, and arguably faced
an existential threat in the period following the introduction of print.
While contemporary libraries may have an uncertain future, it is not nec-
essarily bleak in view of their successfully managing big changes over
their history of some eight centuries and in view of the many ideas for
libraries’ new future. These changes are considered in these sections of
this chapter:
3.1 To Deal with a Scarcity of Books

3.2 To Deal with a Profusion of Books
3.3 The Digital Revolution.
Universities first collected manuscripts (from libri manu scripti ‘books

written by hand’) to deal with the scarcity of books.
LIBRARIES 49
3.1 TO DEAL WITH A SCARCITY OF BOOKS

It is anachronistic to refer to early medieval universities’ collections of man-
uscript books as ‘libraries’. These book collections—proto libraries—were
assembled to deal with the scarcity of manuscript books before the intro-
duction of printing with moveable type. Chaucer’s scholar of Oxenford in
the Canterbury tales, written some time before 1400, had at ‘his beddes
heed | Twenty books, clad in blak or reed | Of Aristotle and his philoso-
phie’. But other evidence indicates that this would have been a very big
private collection for a scholar at this time (Jensen 2006, p. 351; Maclean
2009, p. 90). Until the printing press made books much more accessible in
the sixteenth century, most scholars had very few books, if any. They relied
on a combination of memorizing, copying, and borrowing the texts they
needed for their scholarship, which is elaborated in Sect. 8.2.
Early medieval colleges held manuscript libri distribuendi (distributed
books) which were loaned to fellows or professors in electione sociorum
(colleagues’ selection) at a fixed time each year, in Michaelmas term in
England. Fellows were obliged to attend at the specified time and place
to return any book they may have on loan from the previous year. A col-
lege official such as the dean or bursar oversaw the lending of books for
the following year to fellows in order of seniority. Where records exist
they report that fellows usually retained their sortes or choices from year
to year, possibly because they lectured on the same texts each year (Lovatt
2006, p. 168). The lending list for the King’s Hall, the former Cambridge
college for 1386–1387 records that 80 volumes were loaned: eleven each
to the warden and one fellow, seven volumes to two fellows, five volumes
to one fellow, four volumes to two fellows, three volumes to three fel-
lows, two volumes to nine fellows, and one volume to each of four fellows
(Cobban 1988, p. 387). Books not selected were often kept in a chest
until the next electio (Lovatt 2006, p. 168).
In the early Middle Ages, scholars were unlikely to read in a shared
reading room or library because most read aloud. Before vowels were
added to alphabets, all languages were written with words separated by
space, points, or both. Once vowels were added to alphabets word sepa-
ration was no longer needed to eliminate an unacceptable level of ambi-
guity and scribes wrote in scriptura continua—without spaces between
words, sentences, or paragraphs. Classical Greek was written in scriptura
50 G. MOODIE
continua and Latin was written without word separation rather later, in
the second century CE (Saenger 1997, pp. 9–10). Latin continued to be
written in scriptura continua until the eighth century in Ireland, England,
Wales, and Brittany (Saenger 1997, pp. 41, 83, 101); the ninth century in
Germany (Saenger 1997, p. 97); the late tenth century in northern France
and the second half of the eleventh century in southern France (Saenger
1997, p. 223); and the final two-thirds of the eleventh century in Italy
(Saenger 1997, p. 235). Scriptura continua is most readily decoded by
reading out loud and thus alone in a walled cloister. Silent reading was
introduced with word separation.
Word separation and silent reading made communal reading rooms more
useful and common, leading to a major expansion of the role of universi-
ties’ book collections from lending to also include becoming reference col-
lections. Books not in electio were kept in a room set aside for the purpose
which was locked and to which each fellow would normally have had a key.
The first reference collections were established in Oxford’s Merton College
in 1289 and in the Sorbonne in 1290 (Saenger 1997, p. 263). These books
were chained (libri concatenati) to a lectern (Ker 1968, p. 476) to ensure
that they did not go missing when unsupervised (Leader 1988, p. 73). The
Paris college of the Sorbonne chained about of one-fifth of its books in
1338 and the King’s Hall chained about the same proportion of its collec-
tion in 1391. In contrast, Cambridge’s Peterhouse chained just under half
the 302 books it listed in 1418 (Cobban 1988, p. 385).
Oxford’s New College was the first Oxbridge college to include a
library as part of its initial foundation, in 1379. Libraries rarely faced a
noisy street and were typically on the first floor to keep their books dry,
were oriented east–west to maximize sunlight, and had two-sided lecterns
extending perpendicular from the wall (Leader 1988, p. 74). New College
had 246 volumes by about 1400 and more than 650 books by 1500.
Before 1500, the number of books held in Oxford college libraries ranged
from more than 800 books at Magdalen to about 400 at All Souls and
fewer books at some other colleges. Cambridge college libraries ranged
from 101 volumes at the King’s Hall in 1391 to 302 books at Peterhouse
in 1418 and more than 300 volumes at Gonville (Cobban 1988, p. 385).
University libraries did not have a significant pedagogical role until the
beginning of the nineteenth century (Freshwater 2006, p. 358). They
generally excluded undergraduates (De Ridder-Symoens 1996a, p. 201).
While in around 1309, the statutes of the Sorbonne provided for stu-
dents to borrow books against security deposits (Saenger 1997, p. 259),
LIBRARIES 51
the Oxford statute of 1412 limited access to its library to professors,

bachelors in academic dress, and religious possessionati (landholders) of
specified seniority, and Cambridge’s statute of the 1470s was somewhat
similar. There were exceptions, for example, on payment of a contribution
to the library, and for monk students at Cambridge in 1499 (Lovatt 2006,
p. 171). A century later, the library of Cambridge’s Emmanuel College,
founded in 1584, was open to undergraduates (Jensen 2006, p. 361), but
around 1603 the libraries of Cambridge and of its Christ’s College were
closed to all undergraduates on pain of a fine (Looney 1981, p. 15).
The catalog of the Bodleian’s arts holdings compiled by its librarian
Thomas James (c. 1573–1629) in 1624–1625 does not reflect well what is
understood to be Oxford’s arts curriculum in his time, confirming librar-
ies’ minor pedagogical role during the early modern period (Maclean
2009, p. 20). Freshwater (2006, p. 358) explains:
The main role of university libraries until the beginning of the nineteenth
century was custodial. Collections were acquired, catalogued, gloated over
and admired. Libraries were largely, in fact, museums of the book. … They
were resources for research and study, but seldom for teaching.
Those who used university libraries were university teachers and privi-
leged outsiders pursuing research, especially in the humanities. Students had
to pay a returnable deposit if not an outright fee (in some cases both), to
use their university libraries, although the Bodleian admitted students and
their friends free of charge as visitors if they were wearing academic dress.
(Freshwater 2006, p. 358)
3.2 TO DEAL WITH A PROFUSION OF BOOKS

Scholars’ collections increased greatly after printing made books much
more affordable and plentiful, and by the sixteenth century, scholars were
likely to own the books they needed for their teaching and scholarship
(Jensen 2006, p. 351; Fletcher 1968, p. 167). In 1543, a ‘Master Bysley’
owned 120 books and William Browne, MA, owned 228 books at his
death in 1558 (McConica 1986b, p. 703). By 1586, many people had 300
or more books (Ker 1968, p. 477).
Since fellows now owned the books they used intensively they no longer
needed to borrow them from their college library and so the electione sys-
tem gradually waned (Cobban 1988, p. 386) and scholars had less need of
52 G. MOODIE
libraries, which fell in importance (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 5873).

Nonetheless, English college libraries increased their acquisitions exten-
sively from the mid-1530s to the mid-1550s (Jensen 2006, p. 348; Ker
1968, p. 445). Over the same period, and probably as a result, the English
university libraries lost their importance and became moribund (Pettegree
2010, Kindle location 5856). Oxford’s library was opened in 1488 but
had its last documented use in 1528. In 1556, the university established
a committee to dispose of the wood used for the library’s furniture. No
money was spent on acquiring books for Cambridge’s library from 1530
to 1573 (Jensen 2006, p. 347). Toward the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury, even the English college libraries fell in importance. Oxford’s Trinity
College probably spent more on feasting the bishop of Winchester on 2
August 1576 than on the library for over 45 years (Jensen 2006, p. 351).
The library receded as a focus of public civic interest in the sixteenth
century and ‘struggled to find a role in the new age of print’ (Pettegree
2010, Kindle locations 5873, 5925, 5941). Italian universities lacked
libraries during the Renaissance and students were left to seek access to
private collections and to the collections of student nations, ecclesiastical
institutions and professors, or to buy their own books if they could afford
them (Grendler 2002, p. 505). The first university library in Italy was
established at the University of Padua in 1631 (Grendler 2002, p. 506).
The University of Uppsala was founded in 1477 but did not get a univer-
sity library until 1620 (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 6052).
British college and university libraries revived from the end of the six-
teenth century. Cambridge University library regained its importance after
1576, Edinburgh University library was founded in 1580, and in 1602
the distinguished diplomat and scholar Thomas Bodley (1545–1613)
refounded Oxford University’s library (Jensen 2006, p. 356; Pettegree
2010, Kindle location 5856). ‘However, right up to the eighteenth cen-
tury nearly all university libraries remained small and of little importance’
with the exception of the Bodleian (De Ridder-Symoens 1996a, p. 196).
‘The University of Leuven still claimed in 1639 that it was unnecessary
to have a library “because the professors were walking libraries”’ (Burke
2000, p. 56).
Libraries expanded their collections from bequests, donations, stu-
dents’ fees, fines, and legal deposits (De Ridder-Symoens 1996a, p. 197;
Grendler 2002, p. 506). The University of Padua required every new doc-
torate to contribute two scudi to the library and deducted for the library
10 percent of the first year’s salary of new professors and those moving to
LIBRARIES 53
a different lectureship (Grendler 2002, p. 506). If libraries had an acquisi-

tions policy, as it would be known now, it was heavily shaped by the books
they acquired from donations, bequests, and any legal deposit granted in
their jurisdiction (Lovatt 2006, p. 177).
The first legal deposit was under France’s Francis I by the Ordonnance
de Montpellier of 1537 which required printers to send a copy of every
book printed in France to the royal library in Blois and importers to offer
for sale to the library a copy of every book imported into France (Lerner
1998, p. 113; De Ridder-Symoens 1996a, p. 198). Venetian publishers
were required to give a copy of each book printed or reprinted to the
University of Padua’s library after 1631 (Grendler 2002, p. 506). All
stationers in Britain were supposed to send a copy of every book they
published to the Bodleian from 1610, but seem to have done so only fit-
fully. The Press Licensing Act of 1652 extended legal deposit to the Royal
Library and the Cambridge library, but again stationers did not comply.
‘When Cambridge set up a committee in 1674 to make sure that pub-
lishers sent their books, Oxford wrote Cambridge that it had little hope
of its sister institution’s success’ (Clark 2006, p. 304). The Copyright
Act of 1709 included the Scottish university libraries in the legal deposit,
but in the eighteenth century only some 10 percent of English books
were deposited (De Ridder-Symoens 1996a, p. 198). Legal deposit was in
any case of limited worth to British university libraries since so few major
scholarly texts were printed in the UK, which had higher printing costs
than the Continent and had such modest local demand for scholarly texts.
Most scholarly texts, which were still written and published in Latin until
around the mid-eighteenth century (Sect. 2.4), were imported from the
Continent.
The dramatic expansion of libraries’ collections caused libraries’ storage
problems that got worse as their collections grew. From the late Middle
Ages to the end of the sixteenth century libraries chained their books to
sloping lecterns and perhaps had shelves underneath where chained books
were stored flat. In 1589, Oxford’s Merton College introduced the stalls
system: on top of flat desks, it stood horizontal book shelves in which
chained books were held upright, not flat (Ker 1968, p. 441). Merton’s
stalls system was soon followed by a number of other Oxford colleges, and
Bodley adopted it for his refounding of Oxford’s university library (Jensen
2006, p, 361). However, books remained chained in Cambridge colleges
until the seventeenth century and in Oxford colleges until the eighteenth
century (Clark 2006, p. 313; De Ridder-Symoens 1996a, p. 201).
54 G. MOODIE
The quick spread of printing not only increased the supply of existing
texts, but greatly expanded the number and range of books published. A
new technology—the book wheel—was developed to give readers ready
access to the multiple texts that had recently become available. Agostino
Ramelli (1531–c. 1610) described his invention in Le diverse et artificiose
machine (Diverse ingenious machines) published in Paris in 1588 (Yeo
2002, p. 311). Libraries developed a new role, or perhaps a transformed
revival of their previous role, as repositories of the books on a subject
which few if any scholars could realistically own. Before the advent of
printing, scholars’ ownership of books was limited by their great expense.
By the end of the seventeenth century, few scholars could hope to have
in their personal collection all books relevant to their scholarship because
of the proliferation of relevant titles. Libraries thereby developed a new
standing (Klinge 2004, p. 144) as vast and aspirationally comprehensive
collections of books.
This knowledge ‘explosion’ (Yeo 2002, p. 301) concerned contem-
poraries. Anton Francesco Doni (1513–1574) (1552–1553) referred to:
The Forest of books before us, like an orchard teeming with different variet-
ies of fruit, has but a few crop-bearing trees, what with the misshapen, half-
withered, rotting, prickly, and putrid ones. So that, even if you are able to
find the occasional ripe specimen, you’ve run out of time to pick it. (Doni
1552–1553)
Leibniz wrote to Louis XIV in 1680 complaining about the ‘horrible mass
of books which keeps on growing’ and feared that eventually ‘the disorder
will become nearly insurmountable’ (Yeo 2002, p. 308). Leibniz believed
that the flood of books exceeded the capacity of any individual to absorb.
The greatly increased number of titles lent a new impetus to encyclopedias
which guided readers through the greatly expanded printed knowledge
(Burke 2000, p. 109). If the flood of new titles overwhelmed such a great
a scholar as Leibniz (1646–1716), it was completely unmanageable by
lesser and novice scholars using contemporary systems of knowledge man-
agement. Scholars learned of unfamiliar texts not only from fellow scholars
as before, but also from printers’ catalogs which they collected and newly
developed library catalogs. Librarians also compiled union catalogs of the
holdings of libraries in a city or region (Saenger 1997, p. 263).
Encyclopedias, printers, and libraries experimented with the order and
classification of their entries. Initially books were classified and stored by
LIBRARIES 55
the faculties which developed and used them: theology, law, medicine, and
arts (Lovatt 2006, p. 169). The explosion of titles led to the introduction
of subdivisions within the broad faculty categories. Tree diagrams were
developed showing the relations between categories and subcategories.
Titles were listed alphabetically by author within category (Maclean 2009,
p. 20), and this is still the organization of the Library of Congress clas-
sification which was developed in 1897, but of course with a different and
much more sophisticated categorization of subjects. A Lutheran pastor
George Draut developed a Bibliotheca classica (elite library) in 1611 which
was divided into the seven fields that scholars, libraries, and book fair cata-
logs recognized as distinct: theology; law; medicine; history, geography,
politics; philosophy (including several of the liberal arts); poetry (includ-
ing humanism); and music (Maclean 2012, p. 61). Draut introduced com-
plex and exhaustive subcategories and cross references (Maclean 2009,
p. 20). Librarians developed complementary author catalogs organized
alphabetically (Saenger 1997, p. 263).
But eventually the numbers of categories and subcategories, and their
cross references and interrelations became too numerous and complex,
and libraries built catalogs alphabetically by title as well as by author,
though they still shelve books by category. Encyclopedias also came to
be organized alphabetically, although contemporary compilers rued that
this disguised the interrelations between areas of knowledge. Dealing
with the mass of titles and their various concordances and guides required
new skills. In 1604, Robert Cawdrey (c. 1538–1604) published A Table
Alphabeticall, the first monolingual English dictionary, in which he advised
readers:
If thou be desirous (gentle Reader) rightly and readily to vnderstand, and

to profit by this Table, and such like, then thou must learne the Alphabet,
to wit, the order of the Letters as they stand, perfecty without booke, and
where euery Letter standeth: as (b) neere the beginning, (n) about the mid-
dest, and (t) toward the end. (Cawdrey 1604)
Libraries established an explicit role developing undergraduates’ skills in

identifying, evaluating, and managing relevant and appropriate texts from
the mass newly available. As will be observed in Sect. 4.2, following the
introduction of print universities’ curriculum changed from an intensive
study of one text or authority, possibly on multiple subjects, to an intensive
study of one subject, normally treated by several authors. This depended
56 G. MOODIE
on undergraduates having ready access to several texts for each subject,

that is, on their access to a well-stocked library. Thus, libraries became
central to undergraduate study, at least in the humanities and social sci-
ences, and for those subjects libraries became the heart of the university.
3.3 THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

The ‘death of the library’ (Dwyer, [1988] 2010, p. 13; Harzbecker 1989;
Brophy 1990, p. 23; Shuman 1991, p. 17; Line 1992, p. 289) feared
from the apparently impending ‘death of the (print) book’ (Asheim 1955,
p. 283; McLuhan 1962; Turner 1966, p. 521; Martin 1973, p. 47) con-
fronts libraries with strategic decisions (Levien 2011, p. 28) and has led to
several proposals for libraries to remake or transform themselves. Libraries
have developed as congenial places to study, meet, and do group work.
But this does not seem to be a distinctive role for libraries since such ven-
ues are as readily and more cheaply offered on campus by cafeterias and
student lounges (Charbonneau 2015). Medeiros (2011, p. 85) observes
that ‘many libraries … have transformed themselves from book reposito-
ries to academic centers featuring pervasive technology, portable furni-
ture, and coffee shops, in addition to more traditional library functions
and services’. That is, their distinctiveness derives not from providing a
unique service, but from their offering a unique combination of informa-
tion services broadly conceived.
Another proposal is for libraries to concentrate on developing informa-
tion literacy for the ‘information age’ (Castells 1996). Zurkowski (1974,
p. 6) describes ‘information literacy’ as ‘techniques and skills for utilizing
the wide range of information tools as well as primary sources in molding
information solutions to their problems’. Brophy (1990, pp. 24–5) pro-
poses that libraries be considered ‘information and information-expertise
centres’ which offer information services to academics, develop students’
information skills, and prepare maps and guides to help users find their
way through the electronic maze.
Reid (1993, p. 41) proposes that libraries adopt a new role ‘as an
“intermediary”, rather than as a “repository”’. This was a prescient antici-
pation of how libraries have developed at least some of their services in
the ensuing two decades and may foreshadow their future. However, it
is not clear that every university would need to be a separate or different
information intermediary. One could imagine universities subscribing to
a shared intermediary and providing their own portal for their users, thus
LIBRARIES 57
being part of or possibly a node of a network (Dempsey et al. 2014, p. 6).

This would allow libraries to aggregate demand for the ‘long tail’ of mate-
rials sought be users.
Anderson (2004) observes that many physical suppliers of goods or
services such as book shops must restrict their stock of goods or services to
those most in demand from their customers or clients. There are—or per-
haps were—many specialized book shops that served niche markets, but
even in big cities the limits of convenience meant that a ‘long tail’ of cus-
tomers remained unsatisfied or at least underserved. The internet allows
suppliers to aggregate from the whole world the long tail of demand from
customers who seek a good or service which has a small demand within any
city or region. It is not worthwhile for any book shop to stock thousands
of titles that have worldwide sales of a few hundred, but it is worthwhile
for Amazon. Likewise, iTunes, Spotify, and Netflix aggregate demand for
music and films which have small demand in any city or region, but which
is worth meeting online by aggregating demand worldwide.
Dempsey [2006] (2013) envisages that libraries may serve the long tail
of their users’ needs by forming or joining networks. Libraries would need
to aggregate users’ demands and libraries’ supply and greatly reduce the
inconvenience and costs of discovering, locating, requesting, and deliver-
ing materials (Dempsey [2006] 2013, p. 30). Basically, it needs to be as
easy for users to get library materials from anywhere in the world as it is
for them to buy a book from Amazon.com. This would be part of librar-
ies shifting their ‘focus from supporting collections to supporting users’
(Dempsey 2012, p. 211).
Many universities make their academics’ publications openly available to
the public via a digital repository (Sect. 9.4.2) managed by the library (Björk
et al. 2014). This makes libraries central to the dissemination of research and
potentially also accords them a role in shaping the production of research
publications (Mullen and Otto 2014; Dempsey et al. 2014). Libraries might
have a similar role in teaching with open educational resources (Weller
2015b), learning materials that are available freely, normally via the internet
(Unecso 2002) (Sect. 9.4.5). Canada’s Athabasca University library (2015)
organizes learning objects by courses. This ‘digital reading room’ is mainly a
collection of articles and chapters for each lesson for each course, but some
history courses have videos of relevant TV programs, some English courses
link to web sites for authors and genres covered in the syllabus, a labor stud-
ies course links to its Facebook site and some French courses have audio
clips and web exercises for conjugating verbs.
58 G. MOODIE
Libraries’ role as a digital repository of open educational resources rel-

evant to their university’s courses and as a digital repository of their aca-
demics’ publications would be digital analogs of their role as a physical
repository of materials needed for their university’s teaching and research.
They would be distinctive of each university because the materials would be
organized around and many would be created specifically for their univer-
sity’s courses. They would reflect their university’s research interests, and
indeed could be a primary site for disseminating their university’s research
publications and data (Sect. 9.4.2). Libraries’ digital teaching and research
collections would be searchable, of course, but if they were also networked
as Dempsey proposes they could develop a powerful new role as portals
to resources directly relevant to their university’s teaching and to their
researchers’ research interests. If university libraries organized open educa-
tional resources by their universities’ courses resources would be organized
not only by subject matter but also by level. This would deal with a com-
mon issue for inexpert learners: gauging the level that is expected of them
and identifying resources pitched at the appropriate level.
There is a sizeable literature worrying about libraries’ future and of pro-
posals for their future roles, only a little of which have been considered here.
Not all of the futures for libraries may seem plausible or likely to emerge over
time. But they illustrate that librarians and other library supporters are alive
to their changed circumstances which may require a changed role. Even
were some of the future changes as radical as they are sometimes portrayed,
they would not necessarily be as big as some of the changes university librar-
ies have already made, from just lending to fellows in the early Middle Ages,
to lending and reference collections for professors in the high Middle Ages,
to their loss of role and importance in the sixteenth century, and thence from
the nineteenth century to becoming the heart of much of the university by
developing a valuable newly needed skill and supporting a new curriculum
and pedagogy. Libraries’ successful navigation of those major changes and
their development of new roles are good reasons to be optimistic that librar-
ies will manage future challenges and changes successfully.
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tional Essen symposium to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Essen
University library, October 12–15 (Essen: Essen University Library), pp. 283–
294. https://archive.org/stream/ERIC_ED358863/ERIC_ED358863_
djvu.txt, accessed 28 June 2015.
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of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society, 10(1), 9–19.
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Britain and Ireland. Volume 1 to 1640, pp. 152–77 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
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(ed.) The history of the University of Oxford volume III: the collegiate univer-
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CHAPTER 4
Curriculum
Two contemporary issues are considered in this chapter on curriculum:

the content of learning, and its division into parts for teaching–learning
and certification. Chapter 5 considers changes in the form, levels, and
technologies of teaching–learning, and a form of pedagogy that is cur-
rently challenged extensively is considered in the following Chap. 6 lec-
tures. However, as will become apparent over this and the following two
chapters, the discussion is constrained by this somewhat artificial separa-
tion of content from form of teaching–learning, and of one particular
form of teaching–learning. Chapter 7 assessment is also related to these
chapters because for students assessment defines the curriculum (Ramsden
1992, p. 187) or as it is also often expressed: assessment drives learning
(Elton and Laurillard 1979, pp. 99–100) and because in any case good
learning design aligns learning goals, learning activities, and assessment
(Biggs 1999a, b, p. 64; Biggs and Tang 2011).
As noted later in this chapter, universities were vocational in an impor-
tant sense since their emergence and foundation in the Middle Ages. This
shaped if not determined their curriculum. However, at least in their
institution-wide projections of their role modern universities eschewed or
at least downplayed their vocational role from, say, the beginning of the
nineteenth century with the establishment of the University of Berlin in
1810. Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) also posited a non-
vocational, albeit different, role for the Catholic University of Ireland
for which he was founding rector from 1854 to 1857 (Newman 1959).

64 G. MOODIE
One may summarize countries’ approaches during most of the nineteenth

century epigrammatically by stating that while French higher education
formed the professional, in Germany it was the scientist (broadly con-
ceived to include rational enquiry in the humanities and social sciences),
in England the gentleman, and in the USA the citizen (Gellert 1993,
pp. 237–43; Bockstaele 2004, p. 511).
But intruding on this by the end of the twentieth century was the
‘growing clamour from industry for the graduates it employs to have more
work-related skills’ (Barnett 1990, p. 158) and hence for universities to
become more vocational (Neave 1992; Gellert and Rau 1992; Lamoure
and Lamoure Rontopoulou 1992; Symes 1999). Employers’ demands for
graduates to be more ‘job ready’ coincide with their cutting investment
in their own training of their employees, at least in the UK. Green and
colleagues (2013, p. 27) reviewed ten surveys of employee training at UK
private and public organizations to find that the volume of training per
worker approximately halved from 1997 to 2012.
Employers are not only seeking changes to the content of universi-
ties’ curriculum, but also questioning the current structure of the cur-
riculum of subjects or courses of around a dozen weeks’ duration that
lead to qualifications of several years’ duration. Countries and institutions
have somewhat different durations of qualifications, different rationales for
organizing subjects or courses into programs, and different traditions and
requirements for breadth, patterns, and sequences of subjects or courses.
These, too, employers question, seeking to replace the educational logic
of programs’ patterning which is at least in principle generalizable, with an
employment logic that need not apply beyond one industry or even one
enterprise. The aim seems to be to develop units which may be taken sin-
gly, combined into different modules, accumulated, or exchanged (Barnett
1993, pp. 40–1) as if they were as fungible as units of currency. Such mod-
ules are known variously as skill sets, digital badges, and micro credentials.
Critics argue that changing the content of the curriculum from knowl-
edge based on disciplines to knowledge used at work would change from
the powerful knowledge that leads to new understandings to everyday
knowledge that reproduces current practice (Bernstein [1996] 2000).
Critics argue further that changing the organization of the curriculum
from that required to develop disciplinary knowledge to that reflecting
work practices would undermine the development of deep knowledge and
skills (Muller 2009, p. 219). A useful perspective on this debate is offered
by Geiger (2015) who posits not two, but three roles for higher education.
CURRICULUM 65
Geiger (2015, p. ix) opens his history of US higher education to W W II

by observing that:
As an icon, college has always symbolized the acquisition of advanced

knowledge, access to careers more or less connected with such knowledge,
and the assimilation of middle- or upper-middle-class culture. Knowledge,
careers and culture are and always have been not only the quintessential
objectives of American higher education, but also the external factors that
have shaped its development. (Original emphasis, Geiger 2015, p. ix)
In his closing chapter, Geiger (2015, p. 539) notes that culture, careers,
and knowledge ‘are multifaceted, change over time, and defy precise defi-
nition’. Nonetheless, they remain useful concepts for encapsulating three
central aspects of the university curriculum. Arguably, universities have
advanced all aspects concurrently, but this chapter argues that universities
emphasized different aspects of their curriculum at different times. It does
so in these sections:
4.1 Careers
4.2 Culture
4.3 Knowledge
4.4 Expansion of Careers
4.5 Curriculum Form.
4.1 CAREERS
All institutions which were recognized as a university in the Middle Ages
had an arts school and at least two of the ‘higher’ or postgraduate faculties
of theology, law, or medicine (Frijhoff 1996a, p. 54; Verger 1992a, p. 42).
The arts had only a propaedeutic or introductory role for the higher fac-
ulties. The arts in universities north of the Alps, for example, at Paris
and Oxford, developed from monastic and cathedral schools which until
the eleventh century followed Saint Augustine’s (354–430) De doctrina
Christiana (On Christian doctrine): profane knowledge was acquired to
serve religious ends. In contrast, the arts in Italian universities such as at
Bologna and Padua retained the lay and civic character of Roman educa-
tion (Leff 1992, pp. 309–10).
The arts in early medieval universities derived from the artes liberales
mentioned by Cicero (106–43 BCE) and elaborated by Marcus Terentius
66 G. MOODIE
Varro (116–27 BCE) in his De novem disciplinis (The nine disciplines) as

grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, medi-
cine, and architecture (Cobban 1975, p. 9). In the early fifth century in De
nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii et de septem Artibus liberalibus libri novem
(On the marriage of Philology and Mercury and of the seven liberal arts,
in nine books) Martianus Capella (active 410–39) outlined the seven lib-
eral arts described by Varro but omitted medicine and architecture (North
1992, p. 338) which Cobban (1975, p. 10) speculates may have by then
developed a less liberal orientation. The seven liberal arts were divided
into the trivium, the verbal arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the
quadrivium, the mathematical arts of arithmetic, music, geometry, and
astronomy (Wagner 1983, p. 1; Scott 2006, p. 9).
In principle, medieval universities’ undergraduate curriculum started
with the trivium, proceeded to the quadrivium, and finished with the
three philosophies: natural, moral, and metaphysical (Leedham-Green
1996, p. 17). However, this theoretical outline was reiterated as a con-
vention: ‘some of the branches were predominant and others vestigial, or
cultivated only by the specialist’ (Leader 1988, p. 91). Undergraduates at
medieval Oxford and Cambridge spent their first two years on logic and
grammar (Scott 2006, p. 9) and the following two years on natural phi-
losophy (Leader 1988, p. 92).
Medicine remained a university discipline throughout the history of
universities (Porter 1996, p. 558) but apothecaries and surgeons who car-
ried out the bulk of medical practice (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 209;
Ackerknecht 1984 p. 546) were trained by apprenticeship after a period of
schooling and did not enter universities until the nineteenth century. It is
unclear why architecture did not join medicine as one of the higher facul-
ties. Rüegg (1992, p. 28) argues that Vitruvius (c. 80–70–c. 15 BCE),
author of De architectura libri decem (The ten books on architecture),
provided a foundation for a discipline of the art of building; that there
were several ancient texts that could have been the basis of teaching in
the field; that municipalities, churches, and princes commissioned big
building projects which demanded architect-builders who had practical
and theoretical knowledge; and that accordingly, master builders became
prominent and enjoyed high social esteem from the thirteenth century.
There were seven ‘mechanical arts’ according to a medieval classifica-
tion which was still followed in 1550, none of which was developed in
universities until modern times: cloth making, shipbuilding, navigation,
agriculture, hunting, healing, and acting (Burke 2000, p. 84). Other fields
CURRICULUM 67
with a clear social need for advanced specialized training not included in
universities until modern times were military technology, mining (Rüegg
1992, p. 25), metallurgy (Henry 1997, p. 26), and cartography (Pedersen
1996, p. 465). Experts in many of the fields neglected by universities were
prepared by apprenticeship, perhaps incorporating periods in specialized
schools (Neave 1992, p. 6; Frijhoff 1996a, p. 58) such as Gresham College
which was established in London in 1597 to instruct ‘sailors and mer-
chants in useful arts, especially practical mathematical techniques’ (Dear
2009 [2001], p. 53). These schools taught in the vernacular language,
in contrast to all universities and the schools which prepared students for
admission to them which taught in Latin until the early modern period, as
was discussed in Sect. 2.4.
After its fall to the west in 1085, Toledo became the major center for
Latin translation, mainly of Arabic sources. Sicily, which had retained links
with Byzantine culture, became the chief center for translations directly
from the Greek after it fell to the Normans in 1091 (Wagner 1983, p. 25).
These newly translated works included almost all of Aristotle’s extant works
(Principe 2011, p. 7) and many of the philosophical and scientific works
of Euclid and Ptolemy, Galen, and other Greek works on medicine, Arab
mathematical treatises, and the major Roman law texts (Scott 2006, p. 8).
This explosion of knowledge started to infuse universities’ curriculum
(Huff 1993, pp. 187, 192) after around 1150 (Cobban 1975, p. 107),
but the Catholic church was initially deeply antagonistic to the writings
of the pagan Aristotle. In 1210, the University of Paris banned all teach-
ing of Aristotle’s natural philosophy in the Arts Faculty, under penalty
of excommunication, and that ban was renewed in 1215 by the papal
legate upon his sanctioning the university’s statutes, again in 1228 and
in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX in his bull Parens scientarium. The ban was
not extended to Oxford (Cobban 1975, p. 107). Aristotelianism was
not formally accepted by the University of Paris until 1255 (Gaukroger
2006, pp. 47, 68). Even so, in 1277 the Bishop of Paris Stephen Tempier
(?1210–1279) condemned 219 propositions entertained at the University
of Paris, many of them Aristotelian (Huff 1993, p. 107).
Once Aristotle was accepted, his writings on natural philosophy formed
the core of universities’ curriculum for some three centuries, from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth century (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 359).
Medieval scholars adopted from Aristotle’s earlier writings such as the
Topics, a method for discovering knowledge by classifying or characterizing
problems or questions and applying the appropriate technique. Thus, in
68 G. MOODIE
Book E of the Metaphysics, Aristotle defines metaphysics as the study of

whatever does not change and has an independent existence; physics as
the study of those things that change and have an independent existence,
that is natural phenomena; and mathematics as the study of things that do
not change and do not have an independent existence, that is, quantita-
tive abstractions: numbers and geometric shapes. Aristotle posited that
the method for investigating independent invariant phenomena had to be
consonant with those phenomena and that therefore different methods
were required for investigating independent variable phenomena, and dif-
ferent methods again were required for investigating dependent invari-
ant phenomena (Gaukroger 2006, pp. 400–1). From later works such as
the Prior and Posterior Analytics, medieval scholars adopted Aristotle’s
method for testing the validity of reasoning: the syllogistic (Gaukroger
2006, p. 160), which will be considered further in Chap. 7 assessment.
Thus, Cambridge undergraduates spent their first two years on
Aristotle’s Organon and logic. After becoming a sophista generalis, one
who actively participated in disputations, undergraduates studied natu-
ral philosophy and to a lesser extent moral philosophy and metaphysics
(Leader 1983a, pp. 218, 249). The Augustine Paul of Venice (1369–
1429) spent his first two years of theological studies at Oxford between
1390 and 1393 studying philosophy including logic, natural science, and
theology. He attended three lectures daily: a lectio ordinaria (ordinary lec-
ture) on Holy Scripture by the master, a lecture on the Sentences of Peter
Lombard (c. 1096–1160) by a bachelor, and a literal explanation of the
Bible by a bachelor. The last lecture was combined with a daily disputation
(Perreiah 1984, p. 94). Oxford and Cambridge undergraduate studies in
the fifteenth century included modal grammar, the logical analysis of lan-
guage, and signification. This was an important part of the curriculum;
all undergraduates were required to conduct disputations on signification
(in modo significandi) before they could take the bachelor of arts (Leader
1983b, pp. 9, 11).
South of the Alps in Italy medieval universities were organized some-
what differently, being initially associations of students which engaged
masters. In these universities, the structuring of the curriculum was nego-
tiated between masters and at least graduate students of the higher fac-
ulties. In the early fourteenth century, the text for a lecture series was
divided into puncta (points) or important passages. At the opening of the
academic session, students and the master agreed on how many lectures
would be devoted to each puncta (Cobban 1975, p. 64; Garcia 1992,
CURRICULUM 69
p. 398). ‘At Padua on the last day allowed for a punctum, the beadle
entered the classroom to announce that the professor would begin a new
punctum in the next lecture’ (Grendler 2002, p. 448). Masters who failed
to adhere to the puncta schedule risked a heavy fine or had to repay part
of their fees (collectae) (Cobban 1975, p. 64; Müller 1996, p. 344), as
masters in Italian universities risked fines for starting or ending their lec-
tures late. Masters started ‘teaching the puncta’ by concentrating on the
puncta rather than covering the text as a whole. In 1614, the Venetian
Senate complained that as a result students failed to understand the ‘true
discipline’ of the subject and imposed a fine of 100 ducats on masters who
taught the puncta. Nonetheless, the practice continued and in 1614, the
Senate relaxed its prohibition somewhat (Grendler 2002, p. 491).
Medieval universities relied on texts far more than their analogs in
ancient Greece or Rome (Ong 2003 [1982], p. 113) but they varied little
in the texts they studied, reflecting the influence of Aristotle and also the
limited range of books available before printing. Burke (2000, p. 91) noted
that in 1450 the curriculum of the European universities was remarkably
uniform, allowing students to move with relative ease from one institution
to another. Grendler (2002, p. 148) noted that the major Italian historian
and statesperson Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) attended three uni-
versities, moving from the local institution to a more prominent university
and then to the prestigious Padua. This was possible without much loss
of time because professors everywhere lectured on the same texts. Even
as late as 1772, Rousseau (1712–1778) complained that ‘Today there are
no longer any French, German, Spanish or even English, in spite of what
they say: there are only Europeans. They all have the same tastes, the same
passions, the same morals, because none of them has received a national
moulding from a particular institution’ (cited in Rüegg 2004, p. 4).
Medieval universities trained graduates to suit the needs of their society
(Ferruolo 1988, p. 22), predominantly for highly trained workers (Frijhoff
1996b, p. 397). Brockliss (2000, p. 151) observed that ‘From their incep-
tion universities were professional schools’, a role that has been called
utilitarian (Cobban 1988, p. 15) and vocational (O’Day 1982, p. 179;
Cobban 1975, p. 165). Cobban (1988, p. 162) explained:
In a legalistic society with a maze of competing rights and privileges con-

ferred by a hierarchy of authorities and meticulously defended, there was
almost limitless scope for the application of that dialectal adroitness funda-
mental not only to arts, but also to civil and cannon law, and indeed to the
70 G. MOODIE
other superior faculties. Whether the university graduate aimed to make his
career within the governmental, judicial, ecclesiastical or academic arenas,
his gaining a dialectical prowess was deemed to be a worthwhile prepara-
tion for the range of problems he was likely to encounter. (Cobban 1988,
p. 162)
Section 2.3 noted that during the Middle Ages universities north of the
Alps were populated by students from middle and lower-middle-income
backgrounds, and Lawson and Silver (1973, p. 31) note that neither stu-
dents, their sponsors, nor medieval society generally could afford intel-
lectual luxuries and so sought professional training from their universities.
Cobban (1988, p. 15) added that medieval society had only limited
resources available for higher education and expected concrete return
from its investment: ‘Scarce resources were not available for the subsis-
tence of ivory towers’.
Cobban (1875, p. 3) argues that medieval education inherited its utili-
tarianism from Graeco-Roman education which toward the end of the
fifth century the sophists conceived as a training for an active participation
in civic affairs, for which they argued rhetoric and dialectic were neces-
sary. This contrasted with ancient Greek education which was designed
to develop the character of the sons of wealthy aristocratic families. But
while Graeco-Roman education prepared students for service res publica,
medieval education prepared students for service to the church (Cobban
1875, p. 6).
4.2 CULTURE
Universities’ curriculum changed substantially during the Renaissance,
albeit gradually if not slowly in the English universities (Lovatt 2006,
p. 177; Green 2009, p. 194). The beginning of the change is often marked
by Petrarch’s (1304–1374) descent from Mont Ventoux in the Provence
region of southern France in 1336 to write a letter to his friend and con-
fessor, Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (c. 1300–1342). Pettegree (2010,
Kindle location 385) observes that the letter is in elegant Latin quoting
classical poets, and the internal conflicts and musings expressed in it and
in Petrarch’s other writings inspired humanists for the next two centuries.
Petrarch traveled widely throughout Europe, during which he recovered
forgotten Latin manuscripts including in 1345 ad Atticum, a collection
of Cicero’s letters previously lost. Plato’s texts began to appear in Latin
CURRICULUM 71
translation in the fifteenth century (Dear 2009 [2001], p. 23; Gaukroger

2006, p. 89).
Humanists rejected much of the commentary and glosses of the scho-
lastics, preferring to return ad fontes (to classical sources) (Carlsmith 2010,
p. 140). This was encouraged by the flood of Greek manuscripts and Greek-
speaking scholars to the Latin West following the fall of Constantinople to
the Ottomans in 1453 (Wootton 2015, p. 184). As they gained influence,
humanists changed universities’ curriculum from 1450 to 1600 from
scholastic logic and philosophy to humanist logic and litterae humaniores
(humane letters) (McConica 1986b, p. 708) though universities retained
their heavy reliance on Aristotle (Leader 1984, p. 105; Cobban 1988,
p. 244; Green 2009, p. 13). This change was also in the way in which the
curriculum was defined. Initially the curriculum was specified by texts.
In time, the curriculum became specified by lectures on a set text, the
emphasis shifting from texts to topics (Clark 2006, p. 72). And the change
extended to the content of lectures and the method of exegesis:
Although Aristotle was retained, professors agreed that his oeuvre could
no longer be treated as if it were some vast diamond mine full of individual
uncut gems that the exegete might extract, polish and display according to
whim. Instead, the professor was expected to treat the Aristotelian text as
an integrated whole, outlining its general argument, proceeding through it
in order, and expiating at length only the significant points that the master
raised. (Brockliss 1996, p. 580)
Humanists promoted the study of rhetoric and the emulation of Cicero’s

style (Green 2009, pp. 55, 129). In 1488, Cambridge changed its statutes
to require arts undergraduates to study libros humanitatis (humane let-
ters) in their first two years, logic in their third, and philosophy in their
fourth year (Leader 1988, pp. 242, 249). The emphasis on rhetoric was at
the expense of modal grammar, the logical analysis of language, and sig-
nification, which disappeared from Oxford’s and Cambridge’s curriculum
by 1527 (Leader 1983b, p. 11; Grafton and Jardine 1986, p. 123).
Erasmus (1466–1536) prepared important new Latin and Greek edi-
tions of the New Testament on humanist philological principles and these
and his many other writings were most influential through their ubiquity
among scholars (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 3421; Leader 1988,
p. 317). Erasmus as well as Luther was a bestselling author in the sixteenth
century. Erasmus’ treatise De ratione studii (On the method of study)
72 G. MOODIE
published in 1512 ‘prescribed liberal education for a social elite: those who
followed it would be Latinate, cultivated and polished, fit for a life in pub-
lic affairs. It was a reminder that the humanist educational programme was
as much concerned with cultivating civility as teaching literacy’ (Pettegree
2010, Kindle location 3390).
Also very influential was the French humanist Peter Ramus (1515–26
August 1572, murdered in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre) who
simplified and codified scholastic dialectics, combining it with the presen-
tation rules of rhetoric (Hamilton 1989, pp. 45–7) to offer a unica metho-
dus, a single method for transmitting knowledge (Grafton and Jardine
1986, pp. 169–70). Grafton and Jardine (1986, pp. 124, 162) argue that
the wide adoption of Ramus’ method ‘marks a genuinely transitional stage
in the institutionalising of Renaissance humanism. It is part of the gradual
shift from humanism as the practice of an exemplary individual, to human-
ism as an institutionalised curriculum subject—a distinctive discipline in
the arts’, when by 1550, ‘humanism’ became ‘the humanities’.
Humanists also introduced new subjects to the curriculum: Greek
(McConica 1986, p. 65), Hebrew (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 3421;
Green 2009, p. 259), and advanced mathematics (Clark 2006, p. 46;
Murphy 1995, p. 65). Humanists’ interest in original classical texts led to
a great increase in interest in the study of history (Green 2009, pp. 237,
322), which was revived by Petrach (1304–1374) ‘whose sequence
of biographies, De viris illustribus (Lives of famous men), became an
extremely popular genre in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and was
widely imitated’ (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 3567).
Despite the best efforts of Erasmus and other scholars, the schism
in the Western Christian church brought on by the Reformation and
Counter Reformation infected much of universities’ work as well as other
institutions. Not only the competing churches but also monarchs insisted
that universities’ curriculum, student admissions, and staffing adhere to
their religious tenants. Theology increased in importance to support each
confession’s arguments and to train their higher clergy (Frijhoff 1996b,
p. 380) and in Protestant Germany reorganized or newly established uni-
versities ‘became “increasingly agents of confessionalism” in which the
powerful faculties of theology were the arbiters of orthodoxy’ (Green
2009, p. 294 citing Spitz 1985, p. 74).
The Reformation took a distinctive form in England. Henry VIII’s
(1491–1547) repudiation of papal authority made Roman canon law
obsolete in England, and he prohibited all teaching and degrees in the
CURRICULUM 73
subject (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 95; Jewell 1998, p. 69). In 1535,
Henry VIII excluded a number of scholastic texts from Cambridge’s
curriculum—Duns Scotus, Walter Burley, Antonius Trombett, Thomas
Bricot, and Stephenus Brulefer—although by then these scholastics were
little taught at Cambridge or elsewhere in Europe (Leader 1988, p. 310
and fn. 182, p. 335) and Henry did not ban the production, sale, or
ownership of these texts (Jensen 2006, p. 347). Henry VIII’s dissolution
of the monasteries between 1536 and 1541 dispersed their book collec-
tions, closed the Oxford colleges which had been maintained by monas-
tic houses (Jensen 2006, p. 346), reduced the income of colleges which
gained rent from monasteries and ended the supply of monks attending
the universities (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 96).
The nonconformist Protestants who refused to subscribe to the arti-
cles of the established Church of England founded academies to provide
higher education for their sons who were excluded from Oxford and
Cambridge which applied a religious test. The dissenting academies pro-
moted Protestant learning and adopted more modern teaching than the
universities: they taught in English and their curriculum included modern
languages, geography, and science as well as the more traditional Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew (Green 2009, pp. 68, 300–1).
The first colleges in British North America—Harvard which was estab-
lished in 1636, William & Mary 1693 and Yale 1701—followed their
English models (Geiger 2015, p. xiii). In their first century, the first
colonial colleges’ undergraduate curriculum included Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew in the first year; logic in second year; and Aristotle’s mental,
moral, and natural philosophies in the third and fourth years. The proposi-
tions for disputations in the second through fourth years were taken from
Ramus’ Technologia (Geiger 2015, p. 29). Colonial colleges were caught
up in the sectarian contests of the time.
Section 2.3 noted that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
ries, as humanism came to dominate universities’ curriculum, the social
composition of English undergraduates changed due to the influx of sons
of the gentry and prosperous merchants (Green 2009, p. 194). Green
(2009 p. 194) argues that this led to a bifurcation between the traditional
degrees for students who aspired to join an occupation after graduating
and more general studies for gentlemen who spent only a year or two at
university. The general studies included less logic and rhetoric and more
moral philosophy, poetry, and history and new subjects such as modern
languages, geography, military history, and science (Green 2009, p. 194).
74 G. MOODIE
As is noted in Sect. 2.4, over the same period Latin started losing its
place to vernaculars as the language of serious writing, though it persisted
in universities until the eighteenth century. Lawson and Silver (1973,
p. 198) observe that ‘As the classics became vocationally “useless” so they
increasingly became the symbol of the gentleman’s education, for gentle-
men by definition did not have to work for a living’. They quote Kearney
(1970, p. 118): ‘A classical education … served to mark off the ruling elite
from those below it. The classical tag was a class shibboleth of unerring
simplicity’.
This association of different types or emphases of curriculum for differ-
ent social groups resonates today. Many countries with advanced higher
education systems stream their higher education and often upper second-
ary education into a career curriculum followed by most students, often
at advanced levels in institutions which are not designated universities,
and an academic or ‘general’ stream followed by a minority of students
who study at advanced level in universities. The most prominent streamed
or tracked system is Germany’s, but this broad arrangement is shared
by many other northern continental European countries and there are
echoes of streaming in the UK, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and
elsewhere. In contrast, the USA and some Canadian provinces maintain
a liberal arts and sciences curriculum in higher education, even in the
shorter lower level associate degrees offered by the less prestigious com-
munity colleges.
4.3 KNOWLEDGE
Section 8.6 notes that a new method for advancing knowledge devel-
oped from the middle of the fifteenth century to the end of the seven-
teenth century during a process that came to be known as the Scientific
Revolution. This led to a transformation of universities’ curriculum in the
last years of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth
century (Bockstaele 2004, p. 493), although the change was as delayed
(Murphy 1995, p. 26; Leikola 2004, p. 530; Green 2009, pp. 84, 194)
and contested (Frijhoff 1996a, p. 57) as it was profound. One reason for
the resistance to changing universities’ curriculum was that the classical
curriculum served a cultural role as the knowledge of the powerful, while
the new scientific curriculum is powerful knowledge. (The dyad ‘powerful
knowledge/knowledge of the powerful’ was introduced by Young [2009,
p. 13; see Beck 2013, p. 178].)
CURRICULUM 75
Universities had previously given mathematics little importance since it

was associated with practical or mechanical arts (Lawson and Silver 1973,
p. 125) such as computation for astronomy, business, navigation, and build-
ing. Universities gave mathematics more importance as a core discipline
of the new method from the eighteenth century, and the undergraduate
curriculum was based heavily on mathematics at Cambridge (Porter 1996,
p. 558) where Isaac Newton (1642–1727) had such an important and
distinguished influence. Natural philosophy developed from being aux-
iliary studies or parts of general education to independent disciplines of
mathematics, physics, astronomy, and chemistry studied in their own right
(Bockstaele 2004, p. 493). Biology was established as a separate discipline
in 1802 when it was defined in publications by Lamarck (1744–1829) and
Treviranus (1776–1864) (Leikola 2004, p. 519). The natural sciences were
systematized and became increasingly specialized (Klinge 2004, p. 129),
developing their own methods (Bockstaele 2004, p. 511). For the first time
the development of new knowledge or research became an explicit institu-
tional role, rather than an activity of some scholars working on their own ini-
tiative (Bockstaele 2004, p. 512; Klinge 2004, p. 129; Rüegg 2004, p. 12).
A signal event was the foundation of the University of Berlin in
1810. Frederick William III of Prussia (1770–1840) was inclined to
follow Napoleon’s example of establishing specialized professional col-
leges—grandes écoles. However, the scholar and statesperson Wilhelm
von Humboldt (1767–1835), brother of the great naturalist Alexander
(1769–1859), persuaded the king to found a university on the liberal ideas
of the theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834).
Schleiermacher argued that
the function of the university was not to pass on recognized and directly
usable knowledge such as the schools and colleges did, but rather to dem-
onstrate how this knowledge is discovered, “to stimulate the idea of science
in the minds of the students, to encourage them to take account of the
fundamental laws of science in all their thinking” (Rüegg 2004, p. 5).
Schleiermacher elaborated that the role of the university is:
to awaken the idea of scholarship in noble-minded youths already equipped

with knowledge of many kinds, to help them to a mastery of it in the par-
ticular field of knowledge to which they wish to devote themselves, so that
it becomes second nature for them to view everything from the perspective
of scholarship, and to see every individual thing not in isolation, but in its
76 G. MOODIE
closest scholarly connections, relating it constantly to the unity and entirety

of knowledge, so that in all their thought they learn to become aware of the
principles of scholarship, and thus themselves acquire the ability to carry out
research, to make discoveries, and to present these, gradually working things
out in themselves. This is the business of a university. (Schleiermacher 1808,
pp. 22–3; quoted in Charle 2004, p. 48)
The University of Berlin’s initial establishment did not quite reflect this
ideal since it introduced research into seminars only gradually (Charle
2004, p. 48). But the ideal espoused by the University of Berlin of incor-
porating research into core academic activities and its emphasis on sci-
ence were followed by existing and particularly new universities in the
USA, UK (Charle 2004, pp. 61–2), and many other countries. The expan-
sion and dissemination of knowledge is the main aspiration of the world
research university, the most prominent model of the university in the late
twentieth and early twenty-first century (Moodie 2009).
4.4 EXPANSION OF CAREERS

University education for careers changed and expanded greatly after 1800.
Much of this was due to the great expansion of knowledge following the
Scientific Revolution. But much also responded to changes in the econ-
omy and society, with governments greatly increasing their regulation of
occupations and their funding of university education (Luyendijk-Elshout
2004, p. 543).
Medical curriculum changed substantially over the course of the nine-
teenth century with the regulation of physicians, surgeons, and apothecar-
ies (Hamilton 1951; Shortt 1983; Luyendijk-Elshout 2004, p. 588), the
incorporation of new knowledge and the resolution of the contest between
what the US medical education reformer Abraham Flexner (1866–1959)
observed in Europe as ‘the logical model, which developed in universities,
and the natural model, which developed mainly in hospitals’ (Luyendijk-
Elshout 2004, p. 581). Medical students were introduced to basic sci-
ences such as chemistry and physics, chairs were established in surgery and
obstetrics, and specializations were taught in public health and forensic
medicine (Luyendijk-Elshout 2004, pp. 557, 571).
An editorial in the Lancet (1857, p. 585, cited in Roberts 2009, p. 41)
argued for the retention of university degrees for admission to medical
practice on the grounds that ‘we cannot but recognise the principle that all
CURRICULUM 77
callings are dignified in the scale of modern society exactly in proportion

to the mental powers exercised in each, and to the degree of cultivation
requisite for entering on the duties’. Accordingly, as specialized knowledge
and training were increasingly incorporated into the preparation of occu-
pations the preparatory programs were increasingly offered by universities,
usually taking over the role of specialized occupational colleges and often
being introduced to newly established universities before eventually being
introduced to traditional universities.
Thus, from the eighteenth century most European countries had or
strengthened mining schools, military academies for the technical training
of officers and schools for preparing civil engineers such as the École des
ponts et chaussées (School of bridges and roads) (Guagnini 2004, pp. 597,
599). These fields progressively migrated to universities. Developments
differed markedly between countries, with, for example, Scottish universi-
ties in the industrial heartlands of Glasgow and Edinburgh adopting tech-
nical education far more readily than Oxford and Cambridge which were
distant from England’s industrial north (Frijhoff 1996a, p. 58; Guagnini
2004, pp. 593, 613–4). By the end of the nineteenth century, universi-
ties in most European countries were preparing pharmacists, dentists, and
veterinarians (Luyendijk-Elshout 2004, pp. 553, 580) and since then uni-
versities have offered programs to prepare many other occupations.
Each wave of expansion of occupational programs in universities pro-
vokes criticisms that the new occupations are not sufficiently prestigious,
sophisticated, or ‘professional’ to warrant university preparation, and that
programs preparing graduates for the new careers will compromise uni-
versities’ main or other roles of cultivating students and/or advancing
knowledge (Muller and Young 2014, p. 128). Such criticisms tend to con-
centrate on the nature of the occupation newly proposed for admission
to the university. However, a better approach is to consider the nature of
knowledge and skills considered necessary or desirable to prepare people
for careers in the occupation and thus included in the university curricu-
lum. To do this, the chapter uses some concepts introduced by the British
sociologist Basil Bernstein (1924–2000), raised in Sect. 1.2.2.
The first, modest point, is that while universities should transmit aca-
demic disciplines or vertical discourses in Bernstein’s term they are not
needed to transmit everyday knowledge or horizontal discourses. Further,
the university curriculum should include academic disciplines which are
hierarchically structured such as the empirical sciences, disciplines which
are horizontally structured with strong grammars such as the social
78 G. MOODIE
sciences and disciplines which are horizontally structured with weak gram-
mars such as the humanities.
To construct a university curriculum to prepare graduates for an occu-
pation or a field of practice, the occupation must have what Young (2006,
p. 62) calls systematic procedural knowledge or established rules and prac-
tices for work in the occupation. Some systematic procedural knowledge
may be tacit or implicit in practice in which case it is acquired in practice
or on the job. But if all an occupation’s systematic procedural knowledge
were tacit normally there would not be much point in preparing practi-
tioners under the auspices of a university. The occupation therefore needs
a mechanism for making its systematic procedural knowledge explicit and
preferably codified. This is usually done by several expert practitioners
who develop canons of practice (Young and Muller 2014, p. 14) and there
is usually a process for considering and evaluating proposed canons.
The occupation also needs a procedure for certifying that a body of
knowledge is appropriate and necessary for practice. This has traditionally
been done by practitioners organizing themselves into an occupational
association which undertakes this role, among others. These processes of
developing canons, evaluating them, formulating them into an explicit
body of systematic procedural knowledge and adopting the body of
knowledge as a standard for the occupation normally takes an extended
time, so there normally needs to be a way of sustaining such effort, usually
continuously.
The field of practice’s knowledge has to be recontextualized by similar
decisions about selecting, sequencing, and pacing knowledge for a curricu-
lum. In addition, disciplinary knowledge that is the foundation for the field
of practice has to be recontextualized and incorporated in the curriculum.
This need not be pure disciplinary knowledge, but may be what Young
(2006, p. 62) calls occupationally recontextualized disciplinary knowl-
edge such as physics for engineers and biology for nurses. Bernstein (2000
[1996], p. 9) calls the interface between academic disciplines and a field of
practice a region, such as medicine, architecture, engineering, and informa-
tion science. ‘Regions … operate both in the intellectual field of the disci-
pline and in the field of external practice’ (Bernstein 2000 [1996], p. 52).
So to prepare graduates for an occupation in a university at least two
conditions should be met. The preparation should include sufficient
disciplinary knowledge of an appropriate level to warrant university
education. This disciplinary knowledge may be pedagogically recontex-
tualized disciplinary knowledge such as physics 101 or occupationally
CURRICULUM 79
recontextualized disciplinary knowledge such as physics for engineers. The

curriculum should also include sufficient explicit systematic occupational
procedural knowledge to warrant university preparation. There seem to
be some conditions suitable or perhaps necessary for developing explicit
systematic occupational procedural knowledge, but these are the concern
of the occupation, not the academy.
One could imagine in principle an occupation which had extensive
explicit systematic procedural knowledge of a high level which was not
based on either pure or applied disciplinary knowledge. This chapter argues
that such an occupation would not be suitable for university preparation
because disciplinary knowledge is needed to link the occupational prepara-
tion to the university. This link is to a body of knowledge which is shared
with at least some parts of the university and thus establishes common
interests with the university. Such an overlap of interests also calibrates the
level and amount of education for the occupation with university educa-
tion and thus provides at least the grounds for examining whether, if not
concluding that, the educational standards for preparing practitioners are
similar to those of the university. If similarity of standards is contentious
there are standard techniques for moderating curriculum, pedagogy, and
assessment. These can be applied between institutions or bodies but are
rather less difficult and contentious applied within institutions.
An occupation’s incorporation of pure or applied disciplinary knowl-
edge also engages it with the processes of renewing and advancing knowl-
edge—research. Some occupations such as the ‘learned’ occupations of
divinity, law, and medicine, and other occupations such as engineering
have long sustained a significant body of practitioners who advance knowl-
edge in their field. Other occupations have not enjoyed such a tradition,
but their knowledge may be renewed and advanced by incorporating and
adapting new disciplinary knowledge in their field. While many fields of
practice incorporate new knowledge from universities and elsewhere with-
out necessarily being directly associated with universities, such transfer is
usually easier and fuller within institutions.
These two conditions preserve universities’ curriculum as knowledge.
The conditions may also preserve universities’ curriculum as culture
depending on the range of occupations and thus disciplines represented in
the university, and perhaps also depending on how broadly ‘culture’ is con-
ceived. The conditions do not offer clear rules for deciding whether a pro-
posed curriculum should be accepted in a university, and leave much scope
for disagreement and for variation in decisions about whether to prepare
80 G. MOODIE
an occupation’s practitioners in a university. Some universities may prepare

for an occupation while others may not. An occupation may have multiple
forms of preparation, either over an extended time or during a transition
from one form to another. An example is airplane pilot. Some universities
offer a bachelor of aviation which prepares graduates as airplane pilots,
but most training is done by flight training schools which are independent
or associated with a commercial airline or air force. Nonetheless the con-
ditions offer grounds for rational argument and evidence central to the
university’s concerns, and may guide the development of a curriculum for
occupational preparation which are acceptable to the academy.
4.5 CURRICULUM FORM

The changes in curriculum that have been considered so far have been in
its content and orientation. These changes reflected changes in scholar-
ship and in the society supporting it: they were not the obvious result of
any new technology such as the introduction of printing in 1450. Printing
may have spread Humanism faster and wider than it was spread by manual
copying, but the intellectual movement was established and was gain-
ing in significance at least in Italy well before printing (Pedersen 1996,
p. 459). But arguably, printing is associated with a change in the form of
the curriculum.
Before the advent of printing, professors had access to only a few texts.
Professors’ lectures were an intensive study of one text, which perhaps
covered several subjects. Printing not only made existing books much
cheaper, it also made it economic to increase greatly the number of dif-
ferent texts. Instead of a professor having to concentrate on one text in a
series of lectures and analyze just it in great and exclusive depth, it was now
much easier to compare different authorities (Eisenstein 1997 [1979],
p. 432). Professors no longer always followed a standard text but some-
times constructed courses from different texts (Brockliss 1996, p. 600;
Blair 2008, p. 50; Siraisi 2008, p. 289). For example, at the University of
Padua between 1540 and 1768 there was a course in criminal law based
on extracts from the Digest (a compilation of extracts from the writings of
Roman jurists) and the Code (a selected compilation of extracts of imperial
Roman enactments) (Innis 1950, p. 136). The professors of the University
of Padua treated Aristotle’s texts separately but in 1591 the newly estab-
lished Jesuit schools offered an integrated survey of the Aristotelian texts
(Grendler 2002: 482).
CURRICULUM 81
Such change in form may also arise from broader social changes only
indirectly affected by technology. Examples are the move during the early
modern period from final assessment for admission to a degree at the end
of the program to the introduction of summative assessment at the end of
each year of undergraduate study; in the twentieth century, the division
of yearlong subjects into subjects of only one semester’s duration, known
as ‘modularization’ in the UK; and the Bologna process in continental
Europe from 1999, which among other things restructured programs into
three or four years of undergraduate study, one or two years of masters
programs so that a bachelor and a master’s degree takes five years, and a
doctoral program of three to four years (Moodie 2008, pp. 89–90). Each
of these changes was contentious at the time, and the more recent changes
remain contentious among some. Nonetheless, universities have retained
the substance of their curriculum through these changes in structure.
Indeed, the concept of curriculum has changed over time. Medieval
universities had specific requirements for students to be admitted to their
various degrees (Chap. 7 assessment), but no general expectation that all
students would complete those requirements. Many students, perhaps
around half, attended lectures for only a year or two to meet their interests
or purposes (Leader 1988, p. 36). Some 30 or 40 percent of students of
arts faculties in the Germanies in the fifteenth century earned a baccalaria-
tus and 10 percent earned a master’s degree (Verger 1992b, p. 147). Until
1500, ‘The vast majority’ of students did not attempt final assessment
since graduation was not needed to gain the advantages of a university
education (Schwinges 1992b, p. 196).
The modern idea of a curriculum was evident at the universities of
Leiden and Glasgow around 1643, when it referred to the whole program
of study followed by students. Programs were understood to have both
disciplina, a sense of structural coherence, and ordo, a sense of internal
sequencing (Hamilton 1989, p. 45). Hamilton (1989, p. 45) elaborates:
‘Thus, to speak of a post-Reformation “curriculum” is to point to an edu-
cational entity that exhibits both structural wholeness and sequential com-
pleteness. A “curriculum” should not only be “followed”; it should also
be “completed”’. Curriculum’s meaning as a planned sequence of instruc-
tion emerged over the twentieth century.
Current social, economic, and technological changes may stimu-
late more changes in the form of curriculum. Universities have credited
toward their degree studies at other universities since their foundation in
the Middle Ages. But the expansion of online courses and their greater
82 G. MOODIE
sophistication may increase greatly the number and proportion of stud-

ies at other institutions that are incorporated into university degrees. The
curriculum may be segmented differently and perhaps in smaller units
and it may be organized by different principles of curriculum coherence.
One may imagine how this may undermine curriculum’s contribution to
culture, knowledge, and/or careers, as critics have done. But this is not
necessary. At least in principle it should be possible to develop curriculum
which accommodates social, economic, and technological changes while
continuing to contribute to universities’ multiple roles.
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CHAPTER 5
Pedagogical Change
As Chap. 1 noted, there have been many predictions or calls for higher
education to be transformed by the new information and communication
technologies, and those observations are most about teaching–learning.
One argument is that since new technologies have already had big effects
on other activities such as entertainment and continue to transform them,
they are likely to have potential applications in education. A stronger ver-
sion of that argument is that since other activities have been transformed
by new technologies education will be similarly transformed once institu-
tionalized inertia or resistance is overcome or bypassed. Conversely, some
analysts suggest that new technologies may help address apparently intrac-
table big issues or problems in education such as the grossly inequitable
access of marginalized groups, high costs which increase faster than infla-
tion and the disconnect between education and areas such as employment
which it purportedly should serve. This interaction between technology
and education seems to have been almost continuous since the nineteenth
century, as is observed in Sect. 5.6 technology.
Despite frequent claims that higher education has not changed in a cen-
tury (Parr 2012) or even in ‘hundreds’ of years (Raths 2014), education
has changed markedly since universities’ medieval origins. For example,
teaching in classes graded by level is so entrenched and pervasive that many
are surprised to learn that it did not develop until the middle of the nine-
teenth century. This chapter describes some major changes in teaching–
learning from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century: the introduction

90 G. MOODIE
of practical classes, the formalization of levels of education, the move from

‘individual and successive’ instruction to ‘simultaneous instruction’ or
what is now commonly understood as classroom teaching, peer teaching,
and the impact of technology on education. As was discussed in Chap. 2,
students and society, the increasing costs of higher education is a press-
ing issue so one of the themes in the discussion of different pedagogical
changes is their potential to make teaching more efficient: cheaper but
with similar outcomes.
The chapter has these sections:
5.1 Medieval Origins

5.2 Peer Teaching
5.3 Practical Classes
5.4 Levels
5.5 Classroom Teaching
5.6 Technology
5.6.1 Writing
5.6.2 Printing
5.6.3 Blackboards
5.6.4 The Twentieth Century
5.6.5 The Digital Revolution
5.1 MEDIEVAL ORIGINS

Leader (1988, pp. 22–3) explains that a new student of Cambridge
University in 1250 began by putting himself under the discipline of a
master of arts, whom he paid, and who put the student’s name on the
matricula (class list or roll). After attending lectures and scholastic dis-
putations for four years, the student was presented to the congregation
of masters of arts and sought permission to ‘determine’, to be tested in
a public disputation (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 27). If his disputation
was satisfactory, the student became a bachelor of arts who shared some
of his master’s privileges of lecturing and presiding at disputations. After
three more years of study, the bachelor could supplicate the chancellor for
a license to ‘incept’ or become a master of arts (Lawson and Silver 1973,
p. 27). If this were granted, he formally mounted the steps (gradus, hence
graduation) to the master’s chair. Regardless of whether the newly admit-
ted master or inceptor wished to proceed to further study he was obliged
PEDAGOGICAL CHANGE 91
by oath to continue teaching for one or two years during his ‘regency’,
which is considered further below in Sect. 5.2 peer teaching. If he wished
to proceed to further study, the inceptor sought membership of one of the
higher faculties of theology, law, or medicine and passed through similar
stages of apprenticeship to gain a doctorate in his new faculty. Since the
Oxford masters who migrated to Cambridge in 1209 brought with them a
model of the university which they in turn had adopted from Paris (Leader
1988, p. 22) it is reasonable to infer that a broadly similar pattern was fol-
lowed at other medieval universities north of the Alps.
Cambridge’s standard academic calendar was divided into three terms
of two to three months each in winter, spring, and summer whose dates
were signified by feast days and religious holidays. By the fifteenth century,
Cambridge also had an optional autumn term. Term days were divided
into dies legibiles (days for ordinary lectures), non legibiles, dies disputabiles
(days for solemn disputations), and non disputabiles. Classes were held in
rented rooms or halls or in churches. Students sat on benches or on the
straw-covered floor (Bishop 1971, p. 285). At Cambridge, ordinary lec-
tures began after the hour of prime, which was about 6 a.m., and lasted
until tierce (about 9 a.m.), with the rest of the day reserved for extraordi-
nary lectures and informal exercises (Leader 1988, p. 30). Students nor-
mally heard the lectures of the master upon whose matricula they were
recorded, but could attend lectures delivered by other professors (Cobban
1988, p. 165). Section 4.1 noted that Paul of Venice (1369–1429)
attended three lectures daily at Oxford between 1390 and 1393: a lectio
ordinaria (ordinary lecture) on Holy Scripture by the master, a lecture on
the Sentences of Peter Lombard (c. 1096–1160) by a bachelor and a literal
explanation of the Bible by a bachelor. The last lecture was combined with
a daily disputation (Perreiah 1984, p. 94). London’s Inns of Court served
as a university for the capital and adopted similar teaching methods to the
universities with readings or lectures and moots, ‘a vocational adaptation
of the scholastic disputation or exercise’ (O’Day 1982, p. 155).
A Cambridge edict of 1483 required college professors to be in hall
from 6 to 8 a.m. to conduct a repetitio or recapitulation of the previous
day’s lectures before delivering the day’s lecture. All ‘baccalaurei et logis-
tae’ (bachelors and undergraduates) had to give a report of one chapter of
a logical or philosophical text in class each day and at the end of each week
submit these reports in writing and a written summary of the week’s lec-
tures to the viceprovost or one of the deans (Leader 1984, p. 114, 1988,
pp. 261, 287). A common exercise was the variation, in which students
92 G. MOODIE
presented arguments for and against two set questions which were pre-
sented under three and two headings or articuli. The variation ended with
the student’s general summary of the authorities used during the variation
(Fletcher 1967, p. 435). Colleges and halls also had their students practice
disputations, which were called several names indicating their different
types or occasions: domesticate, serotinae (evening), quotidinae (daily),
and mensales (table) (Clark 2006, p. 143). The Augustine Paul of Venice
was required take his turn in arguing or responding to the quaestio ordi-
naria (ordinary questions) at Oxford between 1390 and 1393 (Perreiah
1984, p. 94).
The statutes of the Collegium Sapientiae (College of Sciences) at the
University of Freiberg in about 1497 enjoin arts students to dispute
at least once a week every Sunday or Thursday after supper for about
one hour in turns as respondent in a sequence set by the presider, while
other students acted as opponents (Clark 2006, p. 144). Many Italian
Renaissance universities also required frequent ‘circular disputations’ (dis-
putations circulares). At the end of each lecture or once a week, professor
and students were required to gather in a circle outside the classroom to
dispute with one another and the professor over the conclusions reached
in the lecture (Grendler 2002, p. 158). The Valencian Humanist Juan Luis
Vives (1493–1540) wrote in 1531 that ‘They debate during dinner, they
debate after dinner; they debate in public, in private, everywhere all the
time’ (Durkheim 2006 [1902], p. 142), although this was probably col-
ored by Vives’ strong opposition to scholasticism (Moodie 2014, p. 463).
In any case, the end result was that students participated in numerous
disputations over the course of their studies. John Day, who undertook a
masters at Oxford’s Oriel College in the early seventeenth century, listed
over 100 disputation articles, which were on Aristotelian themes (O’Day
1982, p. 112).
Müller (1996, pp. 339–44) states that a typical day at the Sapienz or
college in Heidelberg in 1585 ‘was hardly any different’ from a day in
an English college of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. It began at
5 a.m. with a prayer read from the Old Testament and a psalm followed
by a prayer from the Heidelberg catechism. Then there was a period of
revision of the previous day’s material. Lectiones ordinariae (ordinary lec-
tures) started at 6 a.m. and went until 10 a.m. or until sext (12 noon)
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Lunch (prandium) began
with a benedictio et consecratio mensae (benediction and consecration of
the meal), was accompanied by Bible readings which were then explained
by a fellow student or a master and ended with a prayer. After lunch there
was time for recreation and then exercitia (exercises), repetitio (memoriza-
tion), and resumptio (recapitulation) (Schwinges 1992b, p. 233). Lectiones
extraordinariae (extraordinary lectures) started after nones (3 or 4 p.m.).
The evening meal was held at about 5 p.m. and was conducted along
similar lines as lunch. After the evening meal, there was more revision. At
8 p.m. there were religious songs, readings, and prayer and students went
to bed at around 9 p.m.
Universities in the Germanies developed the seminar as a method of
teaching in the early sixteenth century (Clark 2006, p. 147) which was later
to develop as the research seminar in the nineteenth century and thereafter
adopted by universities in many countries, becoming the dominant and
distinctive feature of graduate schools in the USA (Shils and Roberts 2004,
p. 171). In contrast, the tutorial system was singularly English, emerging
in colleges during the second half of the sixteenth century (Müller 1996,
p. 335; Vandermeersch 1996, p. 212). Colleges were initially founded to
support masters in their advanced scholarship. Cambridge’s Kings Hall,
established in 1317, was the first English college to admit undergradu-
ates (Leader 1988, p. 80) and other colleges started to admit numbers
of undergraduates from 1420 (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 59). Colleges
had longstanding connections with particular regions, perhaps deriving
rents from the region and recruiting high proportions of students from
the region. Oxford’s Queens’ college was associated with the northwest of
England, Oxford’s Jesus College with Wales and Cambridge colleges were
associated with the northeast and East Anglia (Green 2009, p. 85).
It seems at least possible that parents asked an Oxbridge college fel-
low who came from their district, who understood their regional accent
and dialect terms (Green 2009, p. 85), and who perhaps was known to
them to supervise their adolescent son while studying many miles distant
in a strange city. It seems likely that the fellow was entrusted with the
parents’ funds for their son’s education and keep (Cobban 1988, p. 194)
since the fellow’s main duties initially were to be surety for the student’s
debts, including those owed to the college, to protect the student’s gen-
eral welfare, and to ensure that the student conducted himself responsibly
(McConica 1986b, p. 693). These responsibilities could readily have been
extended over time to ensuring that the student attended to his studies,
perhaps by interrogating him on his learning and filling apparent gaps.
This would extend naturally to the fellow supervising the student’s learn-
ing and tutoring the student himself (McConica 1986b, p. 693).
94 G. MOODIE
These arrangements seem initially to have been private between par-

ents and the fellow (Cobban 1988, p. 194; McConica 1986a, p. 66). A
tutor might have five or six students to supervise who would share his
room or had rooms nearby in the same staircase (Lawson and Silver 1973,
p. 128). By the second half of the sixteenth century, every undergraduate
who came up to an Oxbridge college was appointed a tutor to supervise
their finances, behavior, welfare, and studies (McConica 1986a, p. 66). A
Cambridge statute of 1549 required that ‘tutors should diligently teach
their pupils, correct them, and not allow them to wander loosely in the city’
(Leader 1984, p. 119). John Whitgift (c. 1530–1604), later Archbishop
of Canterbury, kept accounts of his students’ expenses while he was a tutor
at Cambridge’s Trinity College in the 1570s. Whitgift bought books for
his students, paid for their room and board, paid their fees to the college
lectors, and also paid for other tutors from whom his students received
instruction (Leader 1984, p. 119).
Tutors got their students to recapitulate the contents of their lectures
to him and did the exercitiae (exercises) with him (Müller 1996, p. 335).
Richard Kidder (1633–1703), who was later to become Bishop of Bath
and Wells, described the conditions for younger students at Cambridge’s
Emanuel College while he was a student there in 1647:
The discipline was very strict and the examples which the young students
had in the master and fellows were conspicuous. … The tutors examined
their pupils very often every night, before prayers, of the study of that day.
They visited their chambers twice a week to see what hours they observed
and what company they kept. There was strict notion taken of those who
absented themselves from prayers and great encouragement given to those
who were pious and studious. The young scholars were kept to their exer-
cises and to the speaking of the Latin tongue in the hall at their meals.
(Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 141)
College tutors also started delivering lectures internal to the college in

addition to the ‘public’ lectures provided by the university (Leader 1988,
p. 119). As will be seen in Sect. 5.2 peer teaching below, many of the
university lectures were delivered by necessary regents—masters graduates
who lectured for one or two years without university pay as a condition of
their master’s degree. Oxford and Cambridge were rather slower than other
medieval universities to replace necessary regents with salaried professors,
which they did not achieve until toward the end of the fifteenth century
(Cobban 1988, p. 174). Cobban (1988, p. 174) suggests that this may
have been one of the reasons why Oxbridge colleges developed their own
teaching. Teaching in the colleges was well established by the late sixteenth
century (O’Day 1982, p. 85) and surpassed teaching in the university’s
public schools by the early seventeenth century (Curtis 1959, p. 101; Clark
2006, pp. 81–2), probably because students were not charged for attend-
ing college lectures, unlike necessary regents who charged students for
their lectures (Fletcher 1967, p. 427). Over time, attendance at university
lectures dwindled and became desultory by the beginning of the eighteenth
century (Clark 2006, p. 147). Oxbridge colleges ‘also became responsible
for admitting students to the university, which simply matriculated those
whom each college presented’ (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 129).
University education was largely oral during the Middle Ages and
Renaissance (Ong 2000 [1967], pp. 58–9; O’Day 1982, p. 44) and uni-
versities and schools were criticized for their excessive rote learning and
memorization (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 155; Hoskin 1979, p. 138).
Grafton and Jardine (1986, p. 155) observe that the classroom orations
of the 12-year-old King Edward VI (1537–1553) in 1549 ‘bring home
clearly to us the amount of arduous and repetitive drilling he was sub-
jected to by his teachers—eager to prove the worth of their pupil (and
ensure their own renown as teachers) by the mastery of Greek and Latin
he could display in his weekly exercises’. In his short, tract Of education
published in 1644 Milton (1608–1674) complained of the time ‘bestow’d
in pure trifling at Grammar and Sophistry’. Many pupils and the more
enlightened teachers complained ‘about the mindless repetition of tech-
nical tasks involved in the mastery of Latin grammar in many grammar
schools, backed by threats of flogging for those who failed to meet the
arbitrary targets set by teachers’ (Green 2009, p. 93; Murphy 1995, p. 9).
The first sermon preached by the boy bishop probably sometime between
1489 and 1496 complained about the various types of corporal punish-
ment masters meted out to their pupils:
This mayster gevyth commaundementes to the childe in his growynge age.

And he breke them he is sharpely correctyd. There is no fawte that he doth
but he is punysshed. Somtyme he wryngeth hym by the eeres. Somtyme he
geveth hym a stripe on the honde wyth the ferell. Some tyme beteth hym
sharpely with the rode. And so with commaundementes and sharpe correc-
cyon he geveth hym full instruccyon in the lawer scyence. (Nicholas and
Rimbault 1875, p. 7)
96 G. MOODIE
5.2 PEER TEACHING

Section 2.1 noted that contemporary cost pressures are encouraging
searches for more efficient forms of university education. Earlier societies
were poorer and were anxious to minimize the cost of education, even
when it was provided to only a small minority of the population. Some pre-
vious techniques to minimize educational costs that may inform current
discussions may be collected under the term ‘peer teaching’ (Goldschmid
and Goldschmid 1976), though they were rather different and at least
one form, regent masters, probably would not have been included in
Whitman’s (1998, p. 2) understanding of peer teachers.
As will be elaborated in Sect. 5.1, at least some medieval universities had
‘cursorie’ or cursory lectures in which bachelor graduates read set texts to
undergraduates to take notes or dictation (Fletcher 1967, p. 421; Fletcher
1968, p. 188; Fletcher 1992, p. 330; Leader 1988, p. 32; Catto 1992,
p. 196; Vandermeersch 1996, p. 211). Cursory lecturers were most likely
studying for their masters. Cursory lectures were necessary when manuscript
books were rare and expensive and quickly fell away once printing made
books ubiquitous and affordable for most students (Fletcher 1992, p. 331).
As a condition of graduating, masters candidates were required to take
an oath to lecture for one to two years after graduating (Vandermeersch
1996, p. 211; Verger 1992b, p. 145). These lecturers were called ‘nec-
essary regents’ and this was an onerous obligation for graduates who
were not studying for a doctorate (Fletcher 1967, p. 424; 1968, p. 185).
Regents charged students for attending their lectures (Leader 1983a,
p. 215). However, there was continuing pressure from masters graduates
to be exempted from some or all of their period of necessary regency,
the system did not ensure that lectures were delivered by the most able
and experienced lecturers (Leader 1983a, p. 216), and smaller universities,
especially those that recruited students only from their region, found that
they could not recruit enough masters to provide the lectures needed by
their undergraduates (Fletcher 1967, p. 428).
Consequently universities in southern Europe progressively replaced
necessary regents with salaried lecturers during the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries and by the beginning of the sixteenth century most
northern universities had replaced necessary regents by lecturers paid from
stipends allocated to them by the local municipal authority (Fletcher 1968,
p. 185) or from endowments attracted from local princes, town councils,
or other wealthy bodies (Fletcher 1967, p. 428). These salaried lecturers
were called lectores or professores interchangeably until the seventeenth

century (Vandermeersch 1996, p. 211). English universities replaced
necessary regents rather later (Cobban 1988, p. 171). Necessary regents
were no longer needed at Oxford University after the Lord Chancellor of
England William Waynflete (c 1398–1486) founded Magdalen College
with endowed lectureships in philosophy in 1458 (Fletcher 1967, p. 429),
free lectures in Greek and the humanities were offered by Corpus Christi
in 1517 and while Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530) spon-
sored lectureships at Oxford in the humanities from 1518 (Leader 1983a,
p. 216). Endowed lecturers replaced necessary regents at Cambridge
between 1488 and 1546 (Leader 1983a, p. 216; 1984, pp. 111, 246).
Cursory lecturers and necessary regents were a way of medieval uni-
versities minimizing their teaching costs (Cobban 1975, p. 155; Cobban
1988, p. 171; Vandermeersch 1996, p. 211). They are somewhat similar
to graduate teaching assistants who are engaged by US and Canadian uni-
versities in addition to graduate research assistants and graduate admin-
istrative assistants. Graduate assistants typically receive financial support
toward their graduate research program in the form of a stipend, remis-
sion of tuition fees, and health benefits in return for working ten hours a
week under the direction of a professor or senior administrator. Whitman
(1998, p. 2) did not consider graduate teaching assistants to be peer teach-
ers but junior faculty.
In his De modo in scholis servando written in 1523 which was published
as De liberis publice ad humanitatem informandis (On public education of
children toward the humanities) in 1551 the humanist pedagogue Giovita
Ravizza (1476–1553) advocated dividing pupils into groups of ten in
which the most able pupil led the group through exercise and recitations
(Carlsmith 2010, p. 48). The articles (capitoli) governing the school of
the Misericordia Maggiore confraternity in Bergamo, Italy, refer repeat-
edly to ‘older students tutoring younger ones in grammar and singing’
(Carlsmith 2010, p. 114). Thus article 19 of the 1566 capitoli provided:
And in order that the head teacher is not overburdened with more obliga-
tions than he ought to be, and can best devote himself to school and to the
aforementioned chierici [clerics] of the academy, it is decreed that four or six
chierici from the academy be elected, and that a portion of the twenty-five
other chierici [outside the academy] be assigned to each of them according
to the judgement of the head teacher, and they will teach them according
to the instructions of the reverend head teacher. (Carlsmith 2010, p. 114)
98 G. MOODIE
These foreshadowed the ‘monitorial’ method of mutual instruction

described by the Committee of Council on Education (1840, p. 51),
noted in Sect. 5.5. The monitorial system was developed independently
by Andrew Bell for his Madras orphanage noted above and by the English
Quaker educationalist Joseph Lancaster (1778–1838) (Lawson and Silver
1973, pp. 241–2), described in his Improvements in education published
in 1803. Bell distinguished between ‘mutual’ instruction where a more
advanced pupil taught the other members of their own class and ‘monito-
rial’ instruction which was led by a teaching assistant who may be only a
year more advanced and older than the pupils they taught. Bell noted that
by using juvenile teaching assistants rather than ushers or paid teachers
‘the asylum’s overall expenses were reduced by more than 60 per cent’
(Hamilton 1989, p. 80). The monitorial method systematized earlier
teachers’ frequent expedient recourse of getting more advanced pupils to
help the less advanced (Green 2009, p. 61). It was a cheap way of provid-
ing a ‘mechanical and narrow form of mass schooling which was easily
reproducible’, and was popular for 30 years (Green 2013, p. 257).
Interest in peer teaching revived in the 1960s (Whitman 1998, pp.
iii, 3) not because of its efficiency but because of its efficacy expressed
in the Latin proverb Qui docet, discit (One who teaches, learns), in the
French philosopher Joseph Joubert’s (1754–1824) epigram ‘To teach is
to learn twice’ (Whitman 1998, p. 1) and in Boyer’s (1990, p. 23) view
that ‘Teaching is the highest form of understanding’. Aristotle (1908)
[350 BCE] expressed a similar view in the Metaphysics: ‘And in general it
is a sign of the man who knows, that he can teach, and therefore we think
art [theory] more truly knowledge than experience is; for artists [theoreti-
cians/academics] can teach, and men of mere experience cannot’. This
was reversed by George Bernard Shaw (2008) [1903] as ‘He who can,
does. He who cannot, teaches’ which is now often rendered as ‘Those
who can, do; those who can’t, teach’. Peer tutoring is used extensively in
distance education and online programs and in moocs, and 34 percent of
moocs use peer grading (Kolowich and Newman 2013). Peer teaching
seems to have potential for wide use, for both its efficiency and efficacy.
5.3 PRACTICAL CLASSES

An important innovation in Renaissance pedagogy was the introduction
of practical classes, and more broadly the illustration of propositions from
experience rather than from ancient texts. This was pioneered by medical
faculties which introduced anatomy into the curriculum and illustrated

classes with dissections. Initially dissections were undertaken by an assis-
tant while the professor sat in his high chair somewhat removed from the
dissection table and read from a prescribed text, often Galen (Pettegree
2010, Kindle location 5644). This was revolutionized by Andreas Vesalius
(1514–1564) who was appointed to the chair of surgery and anatomy at
the University of Padua in 1537. Vesalius dissected cadavers personally,
explained to his students who surrounded the dissection table (Piñero
2006, p. 66), and made copious sketches as he proceeded (Pettegree
2010, Kindle location 5664). Vesalius’ great book of seven volumes De
humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body) published
in 1543 was not only a text book but also a practical dissection man-
ual (Henry 1997, p. 27). Vesalius’ innovation in anatomy teaching was
quickly adopted in the universities of Bologna, Rome, Pisa, Pavia, Ferrara,
and Naples (Piñero 2006, p. 66). Vesalius greatly increased interest in
anatomy, which led to the University of Padua building a theatrum ana-
tomicum (anatomy theater) in 1594, which was followed by universities at
Leiden (1596), Bologna (1637) and elsewhere. Dissections were attended
not only by medical students for whom they were intended but also by
fashionable members of the public (Principe 2011, p. 100).
Monasteries had kept medicinal gardens throughout the Middle Ages, and
medical schools extended this practice by establishing botanical gardens for
teaching and research. Botanical gardens were first established by Italian uni-
versities, which also established chairs in medical botany or more accurately
‘simples’ about medicinal plants, animals, and minerals. The first such chairs
were established at the universities of Padua in 1533 (Piñero 2006, pp. 66–7),
Pisa in 1544 and Bologna in 1567. Other medical schools to establish botani-
cal gardens were at Valencia in 1567, Leipzig (1580), Leiden (1587), Basle
(1588), Heidelberg (1593), Paris (1597), Montpellier (1598), and Oxford in
1621 (De Ridder-Symoens 1996a, p. 192; Principe 2011, p. 110).
The traditional methods for teaching the humanities were also challenged
in the mid-seventeenth century (Lawson and Silver 1973, p. 155). In Janua
linguarum reserata (The gate of languages unlocked) published in 1631
the distinguished philosopher and educator John Amos Comenius (1592–
1670) argued that languages should be taught, not by references to the
classical texts, but by referring to the experiences of everyday life. Comenius
argued that all language learning should be grounded in experience and
should accompany understanding the things to which language referred.
Janua was a radical departure from contemporary methods of language
100 G. MOODIE
instruction (Murphy 1995, p. 16) and attracted considerable notice. In

1658, Comenius published Orbis sensualium pictus (The visible world in pic-
tures), a textbook which translated Latin sentences into the vernacular and
illustrated them with wood cuts. The Bavarian teacher Christopher Hueber
had published a pictorial ABC book in 1477 (O’Day 1982, p. 54), but Orbis
pictus was possibly the most renowned and widely published school text
book and revolutionized language teaching (Murphy 1995, p. 39).
Klinge (2004, p. 144) notes that the university at Ingolstadt built an
astronomical observatory in 1637 and the university at Duisburg built
a chemical laboratory in 1654. The laboratorium was initially isolated
from the university’s main buildings or occupied basements. Laboratories
expanded and were moved to the quadrangle over time (Forgan 1989,
pp. 408–9). But generally teaching in natural philosophy and then the
empirical sciences lagged far behind research. Experimental demonstra-
tions using machines and instruments developed in the eighteenth century
(Bockstaele 2004, p. 493), but laboratory instruction in chemistry did
not become significant in France and Sweden until the beginning of the
nineteenth century. It was not important in Germany until 1824 when
on the recommendation of Alexander von Humboldt the Grand Duke
Ludwig I of Hessen appointed Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) as a profes-
sor extraordinarius in chemistry at the University of Giessen (Bockstaele
2004, p. 504). Liebig was one of the developers of the modern method of
chemistry laboratory teaching. Physics laboratories were not significant in
British universities until William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), was
appointed professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow in 1846 (Bockstaele
2004, p. 508). Oxford University established a readership in experimental
philosophy in 1810 but did not start practical classes in physics until 1867.
Cambridge’s first Cavendish professor of physics was not filled until 1871,
by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) (Bockstaele 2004, p. 507). Over
the nineteenth century laboratories came to command buildings designed
specifically for them such as Oxford’s Clarendon Laboratory built in
1872. Over the same period, university museums and libraries grew in
importance and became public institutions, some of national significance.
5.4 LEVELS
Modern education is organized by level at three levels of analysis. There
are different sectors: preschool, primary or elementary education, second-
ary education, undergraduate, and (post)graduate education; and almost
all students do not proceed to one sector until they have completed the
previous sector satisfactorily. Within each sector there are different grades
or years of education and pupils and students progress from one grade to
the next in sequence. This is recognized in the USA by the terms fresh-
man, sophomore, junior, and senior which designate the first through
fourth years of high school and undergraduate college or university, and
the division of university courses into lower division, upper division, mas-
ters, and doctoral. Within each year, the curriculum and pedagogy pro-
gresses from more simple to more complex.
There wasn’t such a clear hierarchy and progression through sectors,
years and levels of difficulty in the Middle Ages and early modern period.
Education had only a very broad hierarchy of levels (Frijhoff 1996a, p. 53)
and there wasn’t a series of well-defined stages through which all pupils
and students had to pass before proceeding to the next stage (Schwinges
1992a, p. 175). In England in the sixteenth century there were three
types of schooling which often overlapped. There were ‘petty’ schools
which taught basic literacy in the vernacular. More advanced instruction
in the vernacular, practical mathematics, and account keeping was taught
to those preparing for an apprenticeship in the lower forms of gram-
mar schools or in various schools which specialized in this preparation.
And there were ‘grammar’ schools which taught Latin, mostly in Latin
(Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 3583), as a preparation for admission to
one of the universities, the Inns of Court (Stone 1964, pp. 42–4) or polite
society. But there were considerable variations within types of schools,
with, for example, some grammar schools providing a solid grounding in
Latin and others offering only a rudimentary introduction (Green 2009,
p. 104).
School teachers took pupils at all levels and prescribed a program of
study appropriate to their attainment. Each pupil could therefore be
‘learning’ or memorizing a different text or passage. There was no need
for pupils to learn their texts in the teacher’s presence. Periodically, per-
haps once or twice a day, each pupil was questioned by the teacher or the
teacher’s assistant to check their progress, provide correction, and pre-
scribe the next stage of learning. Pupils were examined ‘one after another
according to their position on the benches’, in the words of John Baptist
de La Salle’s (1651–1719) Conduct of Christian schools of 1706, a hand-
book for the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. This form
of instruction came to be known as individual and successive (Hamilton
1989, p. 103). If a pupil were absent for a day or a week they just had
102 G. MOODIE
to pick up their learning where they had left off. Also, pupils were not
expected to remain at school to complete a specified program (Hamilton
1989, pp. 37–8), for a specified time or until a specified age. Within each
sector, teaching–learning was organized by subject matter as much as by
level. Thus Latin pupils were first taught how to conjugate verbs com-
pletely, then declensions, and then syntax (Brockliss 1996, p. 571).
This led to calls for reform of education. In his Declaratio de pueris
statim ac liberaliter instituendis (The liberal education of children) pub-
lished in 1529 Erasmus proposed elementary education that was graded
according to difficulty and which reflected children’s development
(Murphy 1995, p. 67). Comenius proposed four stages of formal edu-
cation. The first stage for the first six years of children’s lives would be
infants’ school which would train children’s character, foster proficiency in
the vernacular, develop basic senses, and promote piety and moral respon-
sibility. The second stage for pupils aged 7–11 would be vernacular school
which would teach the three Rs, singing, Latin, and another language.
The third stage for pupils aged 12–17 would be Latin school which would
teach Latin, Greek, Hebrew, mathematics, the sciences, the fine arts, and
the useful arts. The fourth stage for students aged 18–24 would be uni-
versity which would prepare students for the professions (Murphy 1995,
pp. 15–6).
By 1509, at least two institutions—the schools of the Roman Catholic
Brethren of the Common Life in the Netherlands and the Collège de
Montaigu of the University of Paris—divided students into classes gradu-
ated by levels of educational complexity according to students’ age and
attainment (Hamilton 1989, p. 41). Within a century, English school
teachers were organizing their schools into six to nine classes each with
different texts of classical authors to study (Green 2009, p. 221).
A new form of language instruction was developed from the 1520s
and early 1530s by a group of teachers that ‘included Mathurin Cordier
(c. 1480–1564), the German John Sturm (1507–1589) and the Scot
George Buchanan (1506–1582)’ (Brockliss 1996, p. 572). They devel-
oped their new method in Paris so the method was known as the Modus
et ordo Parisiensis (Parisian method and order). These teachers started to
teach languages ‘from carefully prepared grammatical manuals that set
down the rules simply and clearly’ (Brockliss 1996, p. 571). Students
were taken from the simplest to the most difficult elements of grammar
and then instructed in rhetoric, in response to the humanists’ insistence
that pupils be taught the style as well as grammar of expression. Courses
were sectioned into classes by level of attainment (Pettegree 2010, Kindle

location 3512), though pupils were still instructed individually and succes-
sively (Hamilton 1989, p. 7).
An example is given in a contract between the city leaders of Auch in
southwest France and the schoolmaster Massé in 1565 which specifies six
classes. The lowest class, the sixième (sixth), was taught basic literacy: let-
ters in Greek and Latin. In the cinquième (fifth) pupils were introduced to
more grammatical textbooks and to Cicero and Terence. Virgil and Ovid
were added in the quatrième (fourth). The troisème (third) introduced the
study of eloquence, the seconde (second) introduced Cicero’s De officiis
and Virgil’s Aeneid and the premier (first) and highest class was devoted to
the study of rhetoric (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 3512). The Jesuits
formalized and extended the sequential progression of studies in all of
their colleges in the second half of the sixteenth century, requiring pupils
to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of one level before promot-
ing them to the next (Carlsmith 2010, pp. 47–8).
The new pedagogy resulted in the production of new textbooks
(libri scholastici) graded at different levels to take students in sequence
from the most elementary to the most advanced level (Eisenstein 1997
[1979], pp. 102, 432). For example, the Welsh physician and mathema-
tician Robert Recorde (c. 1512–1558) published The Grounde of Artes,
teachings the Worke and Practise, of Arithmeticke, both in whole numbers
and fractions in 1543; The Pathway to Knowledge, containing the First
Principles of Geometry … bothe for the use of Instrumentes Geometricall
and Astronomicall, and also for Projection of Plattes in 1551; The Castle
of Knowledge, containing the Explication of the Sphere both Celestiall and
Materiall, etc. in 1556; and The Whetstone of Witte, whiche is the seconde
parte of Arithmeteke: containing the extraction of rootes; the cossike practise,
with the rule of equation; and the workes of Surde Nombers in 1557.
5.5 CLASSROOM TEACHING

What is currently understood as classroom teaching required three devel-
opments of premodern education. First, pupils had to be classified and
then grouped into reasonably similar levels of attainment. While educa-
tional levels and the classification of students had been developed in the
sixteenth century, each class(ification) could be of pupils working through
the same book and still cover a broad range of attainment (Hamilton
1989, p. 102). The educational reformer Andrew Bell (1753–1832) was
104 G. MOODIE
superintendent of the East India Company’s orphanage at Egmore, near

Madras from 1789 to 1796, where he introduced ‘equalized’ classifi-
cation, that is, ‘classes formed from scholars of presumed “equal profi-
ciency”’ (Hamilton 1989, p. 81). As the English Committee of Council
on Education (1840, pp. 51–2) later observed, the ‘careful division of the
school according to the attainments of the children’ and the ‘instruction
of the children in classes, carefully arranged according to their intellectual
proficiency’ were conditions for introducing ‘simultaneous instruction’.
Secondly, teachers had to teach pupils collectively by what was called
‘simultaneous instruction’. Hamilton (1989, pp. 84–5) traces this to the
ideas of the social reformer Robert Dale Owen (1801–1877) and the
educationalist David Stow (1793–1864) and in turn to the ideas Adam
Smith (1723–1790). Owen and Stow rejected individualistic teaching–
learning such as by ‘individual and successive’ instruction current during
their time in favor of collective teaching–learning. Owen (1972 [1824],
p. 175) sought to engender among his pupils ‘friendly emulation’ that
enabled them to ‘go … forward with their companions’. Stow (1836,
p. 22) argued that ‘sympathy of numbers’ afforded a ‘better and more
favourable opportunity for training … than possibly can be accomplished
singly and alone’. This reflected Smith’s argument in The theory of moral
sentiments published in 1759 that people are influenced by sympathy for
others and seek to emulate the more successful. Simultaneous instruction
was introduced in the 1830s and was described thus by Committee of
Council on Education (1840, p. 51):
The simultaneous method is distinguished from the method of mutual

instruction by arrangements which enable the children to receive instruc-
tion immediately from the master or one of his assistants, instead of from
the most advanced of their fellow-pupils, from which practice the method of
mutual instruction derives its name. Under the system of mutual instruction
a monitor is selected from the more advanced pupils, who instructs a class,
varying in size from 8 to 12 children in Lancastrian schools, and from 12
to 30 in National schools, in which classes the children are taught individu-
ally and in succession. In large schools the master’s time is much occupied
with general superintendence, and when he instructs a class he adopts the
method of individual and successive instruction. On the other hand, any
number of children under 40 or 50 may be instructed on the simultaneous
method in one class, even in departments of purely technical instruction. A
much larger number of children may thus be brought under the personal
care of the superior master, and may be trained by him intellectually and
morally. In such cases the instruction is not individual and successive, but is
simultaneous, the mind of each child being at all times under the influence
of the master. (Committee of Council on Education 1840, p. 51)
However, this simultaneous instruction was typically done in a gallery, a

big room of around perhaps 100 pupils in tiered seating, or at least in a
room shared with other lessons. A teacher might conduct ‘collective’ les-
sons in the same room as ‘individual’ lessons conducted by an assistant in
which each pupil was taught ‘in turn’ (Hamilton 1989, p. 10). In 1854,
schoolrooms were divided into three areas: standing areas for reading, sit-
ting areas for writing at desks, and galleries for simultaneous instruction
(Hamilton 1989, p. 107). The third condition for the modern form of
classroom teaching to emerge was for each group of pupils to be taught in
one room with one teacher, and this was achieved in England in the 1860s
and 1870s by a wave of school building in which a room was built for each
class (Hamilton 1989, pp. 10, 111).
5.6 TECHNOLOGY
There have been ambivalent attitudes to technology’s implications for
education. As noted in Chap. 1, universities and change, technophiles
argue for technology’s benefits for education and are often impatient at
educationalists’ alleged slowness to adopt technology’s claimed improve-
ment or even revolutionization of education. In contrast others argue that
technology undermines education or its benefits.
5.6.1 Writing
Plato (c. 425–c. 347 BCE) was an early critic of technology’s harmful
effect on mental ability; he argued that writing erodes peoples’ memory
and that it is inferior to memorization because people do not internalize
written words. In Phaedrus Plato (1925 [c 370 BCE]) argues:
[275a] and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your
affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really
possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those
who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust
in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves,
will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented
an elixir not of memory, but of reminding. (Plato 1925 [c 370 BCE])
106 G. MOODIE
5.6.2 Printing
In his Polemic against printing published in 1473, the Benedictine scribe
Filippo de Strata praised writing but condemned the then new technol-
ogy of printing: ‘Writing indeed, which brings in gold for us, should be
respected and held to be nobler than all goods, unless she has suffered
degradation in the brothel of the printing presses. She is a maiden with a
pen, a harlot in print’. De Strata (1986 [1473]) complained particularly
about printing’s facilitation of autodidacticism or at least the pretense of
autodidacticism:
This is what the printing presses do: they corrupt susceptible hearts. Yet the
(may we say) silly asses do not see this, and brutes rejoice in the fraudulent
title of teachers, exalting themselves with a song like this (be so good as to
listen):
O good citizen, rejoice: your city is well stuffed with books. For a small sum
men turn themselves into doctors in three years. Let thanks be rendered to the
printers!
Any uncultured person without Latin bawls these things. (De Strata
1986 [1473])
Coccio, one of the participants in Doni’s (1552–1553) fictional dialogue

set at I Marmi, Florence, complains that printing multiplied the number
of third-rate books:
I maintain that, because there’s so much untruth in the air, the number of
third-rate books too has soared. And, just when we thought we would take
wing, we have instead crashed to the ground, clutching sheets hot from the
press and besmirching our faces black with the still wet printing ink, with
the result that we are more often mocked than revered. (Doni 1552–1553)
Coccio claims that printing extended learning to ‘many people of low

extraction’. In a complaint that is reiterated whenever higher education
is expanded, Coccio argues that learning diverts people of low extraction
from their proper calling in the ‘mechanical crafts’ and that its expansion
reduces the rewards from learning:
Coming back to where I started, the abundance of books the printing press
has created has brought with it many disadvantages. … Many people of low
extraction who, once upon a time and to the greater advantage of the world,
would have devoted their efforts to mechanical crafts in keeping with their
abilities, are now lured by how easy it is to study and have begun to take up
reading: in consequence, noble and learned men are both less rewarded and
less esteemed. There are many who, refusing to rub shoulders in the sci-
ences with the hoi polloi, have ended up abandoning every sound discipline
and rot away in indolence and lewdness instead. In this way the dignity and
good reputation of literature have been belittled and the rewards too have
dwindled, given the ease and paltry effort required to become a man of
learning nowadays. (Doni 1552–1553)
Contrary to Drucker’s (1998) and Agarwal’s (edX 2012) extravagant

claims, while printing transformed many aspects of society, it was incor-
porated within rather than transformed universities (Moodie 2014). And
printing’s changes to universities took some time to develop. In the cen-
tury after printing was introduced in 1450 it was difficult to obtain Greek
and Hebrew texts for teaching. Students of Varino Favorino Camerte
(1450–1537) at Florence (in 1494?) did not have copies of his texts. In
1524, the Lutheran theologian Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) had
access to just one copy for his lectures on Demosthenes, from which he
had to dictate a few lines at the start of each lecture to be able to discuss
them (Füssel 2005 [1999], p. 106; Grafton and Jardine 1986, p. 112).
Grafton and Jardine (1986, p. 111) note that ‘as late as 1572 students in
the Collège de Reims in Paris were trying to follow Claude Mignault’s
lectures on Demosthenes on … printed texts that disagreed with the
one that he was using, so that his parsings did not fit the verbs in front
of them’. A friend of the Flemish grammarian Clenardus (1495–1542)
who was teaching Greek at Salamanca sought Clenardus’ advice on his
plan to teach Demosthenes’ On the Crown. Clenardus advised him to
reconsider:
The speech is long, and there are others you might be able to teach without
boring the students so much. They do like short texts. I cannot understand
why you do not teach Plato’s Laws, since you have fifty copies of it. It is
easier, and more fun, and would get you more students. Besides, I do not
think that you have fifty copies of Demosthenes there. Do not worry about
the size of the work. You only have to teach one or two books of it. (Grafton
and Jardine 1986, p. 112)
As Grafton and Jardine (1986, p. 113) who cite this correspondence note,
‘This is the language of classroom pragmatism with which any practising
teacher would be familiar’.
108 G. MOODIE
One might expect that the greatly increased availability of books

would reduce the emphasis on dictation and memorization inherited
from medieval pedagogy. Indeed, the Venetian humanist and editor
Hieronimo Squarciafico argued in 1477 that the ‘Abundance of books
makes men less studious’ by destroying memory and enfeebling the mind
by relieving it of too much work (Lowry 1979, pp. 29–31; cited in Ong
2003 [1982], p. 79). Similar complaints are made about the ubiquity of
calculators undermining mental arithmetic, the availability of spell check-
ers undermining peoples’ ability to spell from memory, the spread of
computer games and new media reducing peoples’ attention span, and
the popularity of the internet led Carr (2008) to ask: ‘Is Google making
us stupid?’
But dictation remained common until well into the eighteenth cen-
tury (Müller 1996, p. 344). While the ubiquity of books removed the
need for students to take dictation to acquire their own copy of key texts,
dictation was continued because it helped students retain the material, as
was observed repeatedly by the Jesuit authors of the two most reprinted
manuals on note-taking Francesco Sacchini (1570–1625) and Jeremias
Drexel (1581–1638) (Blair 2008, p. 64). Bavarian ministers tried to stop
dictation in lecture at the University of Ingolstadt in 1582, a prohibi-
tion which had to be renewed in 1746 (Clark 2006, p. 85). Many stu-
dent manuscripts from early seventeenth century Paris contain identical
full text of a course of lectures, indicating that these lecture notes were
taken by dictation. Blair (2008, pp. 49–50) argues that dictation became
the accepted norm for teaching in the arts faculties. University authorities
may also have insisted that when presenting themselves for their degree
candidates show evidence of taking dictation at lectures as a way of main-
taining attendance at lectures or checking the orthodoxy of the lectures
students attended. In about 1700, a commission of the University of Paris
inspected a master’s cahiers (a dictated transcription of his lectures) to
ensure that he was conforming to the Aristotelian orthodoxy (Brockliss
2006, p. 268). A Prussian decree even as late as 1781 forbade dictation
(Clark 2006, p. 85).
In 1840, the essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) argued that uni-
versities still had not realized the fundamental changes made possible by
printing:
To look at Teaching, for instance. Universities are a notable, respectable

product of the modern ages. Their existence, too, is modified, to the very
basis of it, by the existence of Books. Universities arose while there were yet
no Books procurable; while a man, for a single Book, had to give an estate
of land.
* * *
It is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance, facility of getting

Books, the whole conditions of the business from top to bottom were
changed. Once invented Printing, you metamorphosed all Universities, or
superseded them! The Teacher needed not now to gather men personally
round him, that he might speak to them what he knew: print it in a Book,
and all learners far and wide, for a trifle, had it each at his own fireside, much
more effectually to learn it!
* * *
But the limits of the two [speech and writing] have nowhere yet been
pointed out, ascertained; much less put in practice: the University which
would completely take-in that great new fact, of the existence of Printed
Books, and stand on a clear footing for the Nineteenth Century as the Paris
one did for the Thirteenth, has not yet come into existence. … But the place
where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books
themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have
done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of
Books. (Carlyle 1840, p. 192)
Ong (1958, pp. 313–4) points out that before printing it was not possible
for a teacher or professor to ask students to ‘Look at page seven, line three,
the fourth word’. First, very few students were able to afford manuscript
books. But even if they could, pagination and text layout was different for
each manuscript copy. Ironically, a similar problem has arisen with elec-
tronic books since different devices have different formats. Saenger (1997,
pp. 258–9) argues that students having access to copies of books in class
enabled lectures to cover more complex material and during the sixteenth
century ‘More students came to take their notes in printed copies of the
texts they studied, entering translations in the spaces between the lines
of Greek and scribbling the teacher’s discursive remarks in the margins’
(Grafton and Jardine 1986, p. 116). In 1515, students of the University of
Leipzig had evidently student editions of key texts which were published
with big margins and line spacing to provide spaces for interlinear and
110 G. MOODIE
marginal glosses and notes (Leonhardt 2008, p. 91). Printing increased

the reliance on illustrations in books (O’Day 1982, p. 54) and eventually
resulted in university education changing from being largely oral to being
based heavily on text (Ong 2000 [1967], p. 59; Rüegg 1992, p. 467).
One of the earliest pedagogical devices developed specifically for educa-
tion was the hornbook, introduced in 1467 (Ferster 2014, p. 2). A horn-
book was small board with a handle on which was pasted or held a sheet of
paper on which was written or printed a primer of basic learning materials
such as the alphabet, Lord’s prayer and the Roman numerals. The paper
was protected by a transparent horn put over it.
5.6.3 Blackboards
Blair (2008, p. 63) notes that blackboards, both portable and fixed to the
wall, made of wood or stone which were treated to be erasable, were used
in music instruction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However,
there is as yet no record of them being used in teaching the arts or sci-
ences before the eighteenth century. A Boston school reformer trusted
that the blackboard was ‘indispensible in every school’ in 1813 (Ferster
2014, p. 2). The anonymous correspondent N.S.L. (1841, p. 122) exem-
plified the long tradition of promoting the use of technology in education
with familiar claims that introducing the latest technology will improve
the efficacy and cut the costs of education radically if only teachers imple-
mented the technology properly. N.S.L.’s note to Boston’s Common
School Journal in 1841 stated:
The inventor or the introducer of the black-board system deserves to be

ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not among
the greatest benefactors of mankind; and so he will be regarded by all who
know its merits, and are familiar with schoolroom trials.
Let every town put in each of its schoolhouses, next summer, a good
black-board, and a good teacher, “who can use it”; and the effect will be
about the same as doubling the number of teachers and school hours, in that
town, or adding a hundred per cent. to the school tax, and all the effective
means of education which they possess. (N. S. L. 1841, p. 122)
In its first annual report in 1837, the Massachusetts Board of Education

praised the blackboard as an ‘invaluable and indispensible’ innovation
which enabled the ‘rapid and vivid communication of knowledge’ and
created opportunities for teachers to engage learners in ways that had been
unimaginable a generation earlier (Faust and Reif 2013).
5.6.4 The Twentieth Century

In 1913, Thomas Edison predicted that ‘books will soon to obsolete in the
schools. … It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with
the motion picture. Our school system will be completely changed in the
next ten years’ (Reiser 2001, p. 55). A decade later in 1922, undaunted
by the failure of his earlier prediction, Edison claimed that ‘the motion
picture is destined to revolutionise our educational system’ (Cuban 1986,
p. 9–11). The introduction of talkies led Devereux (1933, p. 101) to claim
that ‘the introduction of the use of the talking picture into education may
prove to be an event as epochal as the application of the principle of the
wheel to transportation or the application of steam power to the industrial
age’ (cited in Mishra et al. 2009, p. 48).
Sidney Pressey (1926, 1927), a long-time professor of psychology
at Ohio State University, invented the first ‘teaching machine’ in 1921
(Ferster 2014, p. 55). In a subsequent redesign, he ‘added a dispenser that
provided a small piece of candy when the student answered a certain num-
ber of questions correctly’ (Ferster 2014, p. 56), thus making its behavior-
ist foundations obvious. Pressey (1932) described ‘the coming “industrial
revolution” in education’ in terms remarkably similar to those that would
later be used for online learning:
Education is the one major activity in this country which is still in a crude
handicraft stage. But the economic depression may here work beneficially,
in that it may force the consideration of efficiency and the need for labor
saving devices in education. Education is a large-scale industry; it should
use quantity production methods. This does not mean, in any unfortunate
sense, the mechanization of education. It does mean freeing the teacher
from the drudgeries of her work so that she may do more real teaching, giv-
ing the pupil more adequate guidance in his learning. There may well be an
“industrial revolution” in education. The ultimate results should be highly
beneficial. Perhaps only by such means can universal education be made
effective. (Pressey 1932, cited in Watters 2015)
Skinner (1958) described a more elaborate teaching machine 26 years

later and was joined by ‘several psychologists (who probably should have
112 G. MOODIE
stayed in their laboratories) [who] created 1960s versions of the mod-

ern high-tech start-up, foreshadowing the later forays by computer sci-
entists into the educational business world. … By 1962, there were over
73 commercially available teaching machines of various shapes, sizes, and
theoretical persuasions’ (Ferster 2014, p. 80). Among the computer-based
programmed instruction that was to transform education in the 1960s was
Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO) (Mayer
2010, p. 182). PLATO was one of the more successful systems, being run
on several thousand terminals on nearly a dozen networked mainframe
computers throughout the world by the late 1970s (Bates 2015, p. 193).
Contemporary projects to automate teaching–learning are very similar to
the projects of the middle of the twentieth century but with much more
computing power: they are based on a behaviorist pedagogy and objectiv-
ist epistemology, yet advanced learning mostly develops and constructs
knowledge and skills which are open ended (Bates 2016).
Between WWI and WWII radio was proposed as a new educational
medium and over 200 colleges and universities were granted instruc-
tional radio licenses in the USA, but only one credit course was developed
(Finnegan 2006, p. 143). Television was to revolutionize education in
the 1960s. Eurich (1958, p. 336) claimed that television ‘is a resource
as important, if not more so, than the printed page’ and Pollock simi-
larly claimed that ‘It now seems clear … that television offers the greatest
opportunity for the advancement of education since the introduction of
printing by movable type’ (Zorbaugh 1958, p. 344). The US Government
and the Ford Foundation’s fund for the enhancement of education each
spent over $100 million during the 1960s to trial educational television for
over 300,000 students in over 250 school systems and 50 colleges and uni-
versities throughout the USA (Ferster 2014, p. 36). The report stated that
television ‘has been described, and rightly so, as the most important new
educational tool since the invention of moveable type’ (Ford Foundation
1961, p. 68). More pervasive in higher education, particularly in lectures,
have been slides, overhead transparencies and now PowerPoint, discussed
in Sect. 6.3 improving lectures.

Various technologies arising from the digital revolution have become
ubiquitous in higher education. The internet pervades higher educa-
tion. Email is used extensively in communications between teachers and
students. A technology specific to education which is also ubiquitous and

relatively recent is the learning management system (the first version of
Blackboard was launched in 1998) which is used routinely and extensively
in many subjects to promulgate the syllabus, download teaching materi-
als, access digital library resources, conduct group work, discuss issues of
interest in the discussion boards, post-assessment tasks, receive assessment
submissions, and record grades. In the early 1990s, 10 percent of US
courses used email as a communication tool. By 2000, nearly 80 percent
of courses used email, 58 percent used internet resources, 46 percent have
web components, and 56 percent of US colleges and universities offered
fully online courses (Finnegan 2006, p. 143).
US faculty are skeptical of fully online courses. The 2015 Inside Higher
Ed survey of faculty attitudes on technology surveyed a sample of 21,399
US faculty members in 2015 and attracted a response rate of 10 percent.
Only 17 percent strongly agreed (5 percent) or agreed (12 percent) that
‘For-credit online courses can achieve student learning outcomes that are
at least equivalent to those of in-person courses’ (Straumsheim et al. 2015,
p. 14). However, views were somewhat more positive among US faculty
who had taught online, with 11 percent strongly agreeing and 17 per-
cent agreeing that online courses can achieve student learning outcomes
that are at least equivalent to those of in-person courses. However, most
campus-based courses incorporate some online learning components,
known as blended learning.
The 2015 survey that found that US faculty were skeptical of fully
online courses also found that 85 percent of faculty always (77 percent)
or usually (8 percent) used their institution’s learning management sys-
tem (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle, OpenClass, and Desire2Learn) to share
syllabus information with students and 65 percent always (55 percent)
or usually (10 percent) used their institution’s learning management sys-
tem to record grades. Some 65 percent of respondents in a representative
sample of 10,000 students at US institutions surveyed in 2015 stated that
all, almost all or most of their instructors use technology during class to
supplement the learning material and encourage them to use online col-
laboration tools to communicate/collaborate (Dahlstrom and colleagues
2015, figure 4, p. 12). High proportions of students reported using vari-
ous technologies in at least one course, although over half of respondents
wished that faculty would use these technologies more and stated that
they could be a more effective student if they were more skilled at using
the technology: search tools to find references or other information online
114 G. MOODIE
for class work—approximately 90 percent, learning management system

80 percent, online collaboration tools 70 percent and using a laptop dur-
ing class 70 percent. Some 65 percent of students reported using a smart-
phone during class and online blogs or discussion/collaboration tools
related to class work (Dahlstrom and colleagues 2015, figure 11, p. 25).
A survey of universities and higher education colleges in the UK in 2014
found that online participation was optional for students in 39 percent of
all modules or units of study, 27 percent of units required students only to
interact with content for an online component of a face-to-face course, 21
percent required students to interact with content and communicate with
staff or other students as part of a face-to-face course, 9 percent of units
required students only to communication with staff or other students as
part of a face-to-face course and 3 percent of courses were fully online
(Walker et al. 2014, table 3.12, p. 35). More than half of an institution’s
courses used plagiarism detection software in 70 percent of institutions,
e-submission of assignments in 62 percent of institutions and provided
access to external web-based resources or digital repositories in 55 percent
of institutions (Walker et al. 2014, table 3.15, p. 39). This varied some-
what by type of institution, but more markedly by discipline: technology-
enhanced learning was used extensively by courses in medicine, nursing,
and health in 62 percent of institutions; in business courses in 40 percent
of institutions; in art, drama, education, law, music, psychology and social
sciences in around 26 percent of institutions; and in computing, engineer-
ing, geography, history, humanities, languages, and science in fewer than
15 percent of institutions (Walker et al. 2014, table 3.13a, p. 36).
Weller (2015a) writes:
Imagine turning off learning and teaching systems at a university (we’ll

ignore admin systems for now). Many universities would simply be unable
to function. … While I have many reservations about the way the VLE
path has panned out, this technology is central in just about all universities.
Even relatively uninteresting (from a pedagogic perspective) technologies
such as lecture capture can have a profound impact for many students.
(Weller 2015a)
As a result, higher education students spend considerable learning time

online. Baik et al. (2015) surveyed a structured sample of first-year under-
graduate students at eight Australian universities. In 2014, some 1739
students completed the survey from an initial sample of 13,882 students,
giving a response rate of 13 percent (Baik et al. 2015, pp. 16–7). Response

rates were somewhat higher for the corresponding survey in previous years.
Students reported using the internet for study an average of 4.2 hours per
week in the 2004 survey, 6.5 hours in 2009 and 9 hours per week in
2014 (Baik et al. 2015, p. 49). Since students reported spending a total
of an average of 18 hours per week on study related activities, half of their
study time was spent on the net in 2014. Some 98 percent of students
reported using their university’s online learning management system daily
or weekly and 88 percent reported using course specific internet-based
resources daily or weekly. In contrast, a comparatively modest 53 percent
of students reported having face-to-face discussion with other students
daily or weekly (Baik et al. 2015, table 4.5, p. 50).
Oliver et al. (2014, pp. 24–33) surveyed a much smaller group of
108 pre-tertiary and tertiary students from 36 countries, the three big-
gest sources being the UK (12 percent), the USA (11 percent) and India
(8.4 percent). Their findings were remarkably similar to those reported by
Australian first-year undergraduates: pre-tertiary students spent an aver-
age of 8.8 hours each week studying on a desktop computer connected to
the internet, which was 47 percent of all their study time, while tertiary
students spent 9.8 hours or 41 percent of their study time studying on a
computer. A survey of 535 students enrolled in Canadian post-secondary
education institutions in 2014 found that they spent one-third of their
education time online, in research which is conducted online 78 percent of
the time and homework which is conducted online 52 percent of the time.
The tasks students most commonly completed online were collaborating
with peers which was reported by 87 percent of respondents and com-
municating with professors and teaching assistants which was reported by
mentioned by 86 percent of respondents (Intel 2014).
The internet age has seen the development of several new pedagogi-
cal tools. Some such as simulations and Second Life serve much of the
role of practical classes. Many believe that massive open online courses
or other forms of online learning have the most potential to change the
organization of universities’ pedagogy if not core pedagogical practices.
Each of these technologies was acclaimed as the most important develop-
ment since Gutenberg’s printing press (Daniel and Uvali -Trumbi 2012,
p. 4). Less dramatic but more pervasive has been the spread of blended
learning. Yet the biggest change in pedagogy during the internet age has
probably been the expansion of workplace-based learning, cooperative
education, internships, and service learning. While these owe little directly
116 G. MOODIE
to technological developments, technology is transforming their mode,

for example, by employers using online learning systems for in-house
development and training.
It may be true that most people overestimate technology in the short
term and underestimate it in the long term, a dictum which has been
ascribed variously to Arthur C Clarke (Guri-Rosenblit 2009, p. 121), Roy
Amara (PC Magazine, no date), and Bill Gates (1995). We have read many
peoples’ exaggeration of technology’s short-term impact on education,
and may yet see digital technology’s substantial changing of education in
the long term. Alternatively, digital technologies may not be as useful in
education as some think.
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CHAPTER 6
Lectures
Lectures have long been criticized for being a poor method of teaching–
learning because they make students passive recipients rather than active
participants in their learning (Whitman 1998, p. 3). Most effective teaching–
learning activities ‘stimulate active, not passive, learning and encourage
students to be critical, creative thinkers, with the capacity to go on learn-
ing after their college days are over’ (Boyer 1990, p. 24). Bligh (2000
[1971], p. 3) summarized numerous studies of the effectiveness of lec-
tures to find that:
The lecture is as effective as any other method for transmitting information.

Most lectures are not as effective as discussion for promoting thought.
Changing attitudes should not normally be the major objective of a
lecture.
1. Lectures are relatively ineffective for teaching values associated with sub-
ject matter.
2. Lectures are relatively ineffective for inspiring interest in a subject.
3. Lectures are relatively ineffective for personal and social adjustment.
Lectures are relatively ineffective for teaching behavioural skills. (Bligh
2000 [1971], p. 3)
Bligh reviewed studies of students’ note-taking during lectures, reported his

study of students’ heart rate during lectures, and noted studies of peoples’
performance of tasks over time to conclude that students’ performance is

124 G. MOODIE
high at the start of lectures, increases even higher in the first 5 minutes, and
gradually falls over the ensuing 20 minutes. Bligh (2000 [1971], p. 52)
suggests that ‘There is reason to think that a lecture of twenty to thirty
minutes is long enough unless there is varied stimulation’. A short break
of five minutes results in students’ performance recovering to a high level,
though not as high as at the start of the lecture, increasing over the next
few minutes then falling gradually to increase somewhat toward the end
of the lecture (Bligh 2000 [1971], figure 3.7, p. 53). While the effect of
the changes in students’ level of performance on their learning is equivocal
(Bligh 2000 [1971], p. 51; Wilson and Korn 2007, p. 87), Bligh’s perfor-
mance curve reflects many readers’ personal experience and there is solid
evidence of the benefits of a short break during lectures, particularly if it
engages students in active learning.
Lecturers complain that students no longer attend lectures. Hughes-
Warrington (2015a) reports a study in which the Australian National
University installed thermal counters in lecture theaters to find how many
people attended lectures over each week and over each semester. The uni-
versity found that by the second week of semester attendance at some
lectures was higher than their enrollment, but that attendance at many
lectures was substantially below their enrollment. Thus, for class A, the
enrollment was 400 students but only 275 people attended the lecture,
a fall of 31 percent; for class B, the enrollment was 450 and attendance
430 (−4 percent); for class C, enrollment was 280 and attendance 220
(−21 percent); while for class D, enrollment was 160 and attendance 205
(+28 percent). By week seven, attendance for class A had dropped to 70,
some 83 percent below enrollment; for class B attendance was 250 (−44
percent); for class C attendance was 110 (−61 percent); and for class D
attendance was 80 (−50 percent). The university records lectures and
Hughes-Warrington (2015b) reports that about 20 percent of students
are ‘time shifting’ their lectures by skipping live lectures and playing back
recordings at times more convenient for them. This is consistent with
many studies which find that recording lectures has little if any effect
on students’ attendance (Karnad 2013, pp. 12–14; Mahal 2012, p. 5).
Hughes-Warrington (2015b) summarizes: ‘On average, two thirds of stu-
dents are not attending and not downloading lectures beyond week three.
This pattern shows up regardless of the size, age or condition of the lec-
ture theatre, or indeed whether it has decent wireless coverage or not. Nor
does the discipline matter, or the level of the course taught’.
LECTURES 125
Critics of lectures are also impatient at their apparent fixity since the
Middle Ages, defying successive radical changes in society, economy, and
technology. However, lectures have not been as unchanging as some
claim. These issues are discussed in this chapter in these sections:
6.1 Early Lectures

6.2 Expectations of Lectures’ Redundancy
6.3 Improving Lectures
6.3.1 Lectures as a Production Of Knowledge

6.3.2 PowerPoint
6.3.3 Mobile Devices in Class
6.3.4 Active Learning
6.3.5 Flipped Classes
6.1 EARLY LECTURES

University lectures may have derived from sermons. University students
attended large numbers of sermons (Blair 2008, p. 43) and some clerics
who delivered sermons on Sundays taught students during the week.
The word ‘lecture’ (lectio, lectura, praelectio) (Müller 1996, p. 344)
derives from the Latin legere ‘to read’, from whence also derives lec-
tern. There were at least two and possibly three types of lectures in
Medieval universities. ‘Cursorie’ or cursory lectures were delivered by
bachelor graduates in at least some universities whose statutes required
graduates to read set texts to undergraduate students to take notes or
dictation (Fletcher 1967, pp. 421–3; Leader 1988, p. 32; Catto 1992,
p. 196; Parkes 1992, p. 330, citing Fletcher 1968, pp. 385–6). Hence
bachelor of arts graduates were ‘admitted to read some book of the
faculty of arts (admitti ad lecturam alicuius libri facultatis atrium)’
(Fletcher 1992, p. 330). At least some universities had dictation ses-
sions (pronunciare ad pennam [enunciation for the pen]) (Müller 1996,
p. 344; Schwinges 1992b, p. 232) or at the University of Paris legere
ad pennam (reading for the pen) or modo pronuntiantium (enunciation
mode) (Blair 2008, p. 45).
Cursory lectures or dictation sessions were needed when undergradu-
ates did not have access to set texts because manuscripts were far too
expensive and rare to be obtained by most students (Fletcher 1968, p. 79)
126 G. MOODIE
and because as was noted in Sect. 3.1, libraries were closed to under-
graduates. In 1494, a book cost from 12 to 54 days’ pay of a carpenter
or stonemason and from 18 to 81 days’ wages of a plumber (Fletcher
1968, p. 166). However, cursory lectures were clearly no longer needed
once printing made books readily accessible to all students (Curtis 1959,
p. 100; Fletcher 1967, p. 427, 1992, p. 331; Leader 1988, pp. 31–2).
Cursorie lectures were therefore ended at Oxford least by 1584 (Fletcher
1967, p. 427, 1992, p. 331).
Durkheim states that professors delivered another type of lecture, the
exposito, which was restricted to elucidating the arguments of the author
being presented. Durkheim observes that exposito lectures fell into dis-
use. He cites Cardinal Guillaume D’Estouville (1403/1412–1483) who
in 1452 reminded teachers at the University of Paris that they ought to
expound Aristotle’s text point by point, which Durkheim argues demon-
strates that this kind of exposition was being neglected (Durkheim 2006
[1902], p. 141).
Another type of lecture ‘cum questionibus’—with questions, or
expository lectures which posed problems and questions arising from
the text—was delivered by masters, initially as ‘necessary regents’ for at
least a year after graduating as masters (Fletcher 1967, 424) and later
by endowed lectureships or chairs. From the late Middle Ages, lectio-
nes ordinariae (ordinary lectures) or collegia publica or collegia ordina-
ria were delivered in the mornings by ordinary professors on the most
important texts such as Aristotle’s Organon or the Corpus juris civilis
(Body of civil law) and lectiones extraordinariae (extraordinary lectures)
were delivered in afternoons on less important texts by extraordinary
professors without their own chair (sedes) (Müller 1996, p. 344). The
lecturer lectured from a rostrum while the scholars sat on benches
according to social rank.
In lectures cum questionibus, the professor might begin by reading
out the section of the text to be discussed in the lecture followed by a
brief general explanation of its meaning. He (all masters and students
were men until the modern period) would then analyze each word of
the text, explaining grammatical, rhetorical, historical, and interpretive
points (Grendler 2002, p. 241) and debating key points (Durkheim 2006
[1902], p. 141). The canon lawyer Henry of Susa (Cardinal Hostiensis)
(c. 1200–1271) in around 1253 noted that lectura (lectures) on a legal
text comprised:
LECTURES 127
(1) a summary of the text (the causus); (2) reading out the text (littera) and
explaining difficulties; (3) showing parallels (similia) with other legal texts;
(4) quoting arguments against it (contraria) and disposing of them generally
by means of distinctions …; (5) stating and answering the questions arising
from the text read out; (6) pointing out notabilia—the most noteworthy
topics or associated ideas to be inferred from the text read out. (Garcia
1992, p. 398)
Expository lectures persisted after printed books became ubiqui-

tous despite major changes in their organization at least at Oxford and
Cambridge (Leader 1988, p. 247) and changes described in Sect. 4.2 to
lectures’ content from scholastic logic and philosophy to humanist logic
and litterae humaniores, and changes to the method of exegesis. In his
lectures at Paris in around 1570 the professor of cannon law Claude
Mignault (1536–1606) followed Guarino da Verona (1374–1460) and
Erasmus (1466–1536) in lecturing on the text as a whole. A lecture might
begin by introducing the text’s author (accessus ad auctorem), ‘describe
the circumstances which had called it forth’ (Grafton and Jardine 1986,
p. 174), outline the author’s sources, define the text’s genre, its relation
to the author’s other writings and assess the value of the author’s works
(Maclean 2009, p. 425). Mignault selected ‘for particular discussion a
number of interesting points: edifying anecdotes that would help to form
his students’ characters, novel facts that would make them well-informed,
elegant phrases and neat imitations that would … adorn their styles’
(Grafton and Jardine 1986, p. 174).
Lectures also persisted through the early modern period despite prob-
lems with attendance (Curtis 1959, p. 97; Leader 1988, p. 246; Fletcher
1968, p. 187) (then, as now!). Isaac Newton’s assistant from 1683 to
1689 was Humphrey Newton (1466–1536) who was unrelated to Isaac.
In two letters in 1727/1728 to the Member of Parliament and husband of
Isaac’s niece John Conduitt (1688–1737) Humphrey recalled:
at Term Time, when he read in ye Schools, as being Lucasianus Professor,

where so few went to hear Him, & fewer yt understood him, yt oftimes he
did in a manner, for want of Hearers, read to ye Walls. (17 January)
When he read in ye Schools, he usually staid about half an hour, when he
had no Auditrs he Comonly return’d in a 4thpart of that{illeg}|time| or less.
(14 February, The Newton Project 2013)
128 G. MOODIE
6.2 EXPECTATIONS OF LECTURES’ REDUNDANCY

At least some contemporaries of the printing press thought it would make
lectures and lecturers redundant. In 1483, the Augustinian biblical scholar
Jacobo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo (1434–1520) in his oft reprinted
Supplementum chronicarum (Supplement to world history) asked: ‘Why
should old men be preferred to their juniors now that it is possible for
the young by diligent study to acquire the same knowledge?’ (Eisenstein
1997 [1979], p. 66). In the 1550s, the Montpellier medical scholar Isaac
Joubert wrote that he prepared a new French edition of Guy de Chauliac’s
(c. 1300–1368) Inventarium sive chirurgia magna (Great inventory of
surgery) so that ‘those who have a natural bent for the surgeon’s calling’
could take advantage of ‘books which are silent instructors’ and ‘nowa-
days carry farther than public lectures’ (Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 539).
Likewise priests feared that they would be made redundant if ‘every lewde
man is becomen a clerke and talkys in his termys’ (Rose 2011, p. 13).
This view was echoed by subsequent generations. Boswell quotes
Johnson’s view maintained over 15 years that lectures were made redun-
dant by printing:
People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing
should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so
much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know
nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to
be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.—You might teach making
of shoes by lectures!. (February 1766)
Lectures were once useful; but now, when all can read, and books are so
numerous, lectures are unnecessary. If your attention fails, and you miss a
part of a lecture, it is lost; you cannot go back as you do upon a book. (15
April 1781, Boswell 1917 [1791])
Klinge (2004, p. 149) argues that by the nineteenth century, the lecture
became institutionalized as a feature of universities: it was expected of
professors and provision for them was expected on university campuses.
Yet subsequent generations have expected that lectures would be made
redundant, or argued that they should be displaced, by the most recent
big technological change: film, radio, television, cassettes, video, and now
the internet. The prophets of the death of the lecture may turn out to
be right this time, but any demise of the lecture is likely to be linger-
ing because of the reasons given by Klinge and because of their role in
LECTURES 129
supporting students’ persistence argued in Sect. 10.3. It is therefore worth

seeking to improve lectures, and from an improvement may develop the
teaching–learning activities which replace lectures.
6.3 IMPROVING LECTURES

If lectures cannot be relinquished they should at least be improved, argue
their critics. This section considers some of the several proposals that have
been made to improve lectures: to change them from a transmission to a pro-
duction of knowledge, improve PowerPoint, ban laptops and other mobile
devices in class, incorporate active learning activities, and to ‘flip’ classes.
6.3.1 Lectures as a Production of Knowledge

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1808, p. 63), whose influence on the found-
ing ideals of the University of Berlin was noted in Sect. 4.3, argued that
each instance of teaching should not be a transmission but a production
of knowledge:
The teacher must produce everything he says before his listeners: he must
not narrate what he knows, but rather reproduce his own way to knowledge,
the action itself. The listeners should not only collect knowledge. They
should directly observe the activity of intelligence producing knowledge
and, by observing it, learn how to do it themselves. (Schleiermacher 1808,
p. 63, quoted in Rüegg 2004, p. 21)
While it is true that simple narration is poor teaching and Schleiermacher’s

prescription may be appropriate for advanced graduate and research semi-
nars, it is not ideal at lower levels, for at least two reasons. First, produc-
ing knowledge is often difficult and time consuming. Deriving or proving
the formula for calculating the standard deviation, determining the date
of Gutenberg’s invention of printing or determining the effect of class
size on students’ learning each would require about 30 minutes’ develop-
ment for students with a sufficient background in algebra, Renaissance
European history, or education. This time and effort may be well spent in
classes on statistics, the history of printing, or educational administration,
but it would be a diversion for a class on educational assessment, the effect
of printing on education, or the politics of education. Secondly, as was
noted in Sect. 4.4, expansion of careers, the best sequence for developing
130 G. MOODIE
students’ understanding of a concept is not necessarily the sequence in

which it was developed nor the sequence in which it is derived in experts’
expositions of the concept (Winch 2013, p. 135).
6.3.2 PowerPoint
Most if not all, lecture theaters have a blackboard or its modern analog, a
whiteboard. Notwithstanding the view of N.S.L quoted in Sect. 5.6.3 that
blackboards used correctly would double education’s productivity, boards
have improved lectures only modestly. Slides were used extensively in
some lectures, for example, to show scientific specimens or fine art objects.
The overhead projector was invented in the 1870s, they were introduced
into US military training during WWII, used at the US Military Academy
at West Point after the war and introduced into civilian education in the
early 1960s (Smithsonian, no date). Chance (1960, p. 2) reported an
evaluation of ‘the overhead projector-transparency method’ in engineer-
ing descriptive geometry in 1960 which found that it saved 15 minutes
per 60 minute lecture over a comparable blackboard lecture (p. 36) and
that students who attended lectures with transparencies achieved an aver-
age final course grade of 79.3 percent, 4.4 points above the blackboard
group’s 74.9 percent, which was statistically significant at the 0.05 level of
confidence (p. 37).
PowerPoint was launched by Microsoft in 1988 and soon overtook
overhead slides. Whereas many lectures and presentations had no slide or
only a few transparencies to show a table of figures or a key illustration,
there is barely a lecture or any other presentation without a PowerPoint
show of numerous slides comprising multiple dot points related only by
sequence and hierarchy (Craig and Amernic 2006, p. 147). Presenters
have been criticized heavily for their poor use of PowerPoint, for exam-
ple, for using it as their teleprompter, displacing its ostensible purpose to
aid the audience’s comprehension (Godin 2001; Maxwell 2007, p. 40).
Norvig (2000) produced an amusing satire of many PowerPoint presenta-
tions in the Gettysburg PowerPoint presentation. Tufte (2006, pp. 4, 10)
argues that PowerPoint is not only mostly used poorly, but entirely ori-
ented toward the presenter rather than the audience, its limitations abbre-
viate text and tables to the mostly uninformative and often misleading, its
invariant linear sequence disguises nonlinear relations, the rigid hierarchy
of bullet points suppresses nonhierarchical relations between points and
that it is a very inefficient method for conveying information.
LECTURES 131
Sørensen (2015) notes that ‘A PowerPoint presentation locks the lec-

ture into a course that disregards any input other than the lecturer’s own
idea of the lecture conceived the day before. It cuts off the possibility of
improvisation and deviation, and the chance to adapt to student input
without veering off course’ and Isseks (2011, pp. 74–5) argues that ‘the
bulletization of education’ makes students passive, reduces the complexity
of knowledge, and makes classes rigid rather than responsive to students’
learning. Tufte (2006, p. 12) notes that people read from 300 to 1000
printed words per minute, lectures deliver from 100 to 160 words per
minute, but that a typical PowerPoint slide has 40 words, which takes
about 8 seconds to read. Some advocate a more recent presentation soft-
ware, Prezi, which was released in 2009 (Strasser 2014), but Prezi is simi-
larly limited in size and sequence (Harris 2011, p. 79) and it shares almost
all the other limitations of PowerPoint.
These strong criticisms are confounded by PowerPoint’s continued
pervasive use in lectures and by lecturers who attest to its benefits (Clark
2008). Many argue that Tufte’s criticisms are not fatal and that PowerPoint
may be effective in lectures and teaching generally despite its limitations.
Maxwell (2007, pp. 42, 43) argues that PowerPoint should not be used as
a lecture outline: it ‘should not be used as a mnemonic device, either for
teachers or students’. Maxwell mostly uses PowerPoint in his lectures in
modern European history to display primary sources:
One might compare effective PowerPoint lectures to a guided tour of a

museum: PowerPoint slides are the artifacts on display, and the lecture is
the tour guide’s commentary, during which questions may be asked and
answered. (Maxwell 2007, p. 50)
6.3.3 Mobile Devices in Class

There have been numerous criticisms of students using laptops, tablets,
cell phones, and other mobile computing devices in class. Students use
them during class to take notes and undertake other tasks related to their
learning, but also for activities unrelated to their class learning. Students’
use of laptops can distract not only their owners from learning but also
their neighbors even when the laptop is used for taking notes (Fried 2008),
leading to faculty banning laptops from their classes (Zhu and colleagues
2011, p. 4; Caron and Gely 2004, p. 557). Some articles that argue that
using laptops during lectures reduces students’ learning compare classes
132 G. MOODIE
without laptops with classes that are as similar as possible but in which
students use laptops (Hembrooke and Gay 2003, p. 9). They thus find
that a twenty-first century technology detracts from a nineteenth century
teaching–learning method. Thus only two out of the four faculty in Wurst
et al.’s (2008, p. 1771) study reported that they changed their teaching
to take account of their school issuing laptop computers to all incoming
freshmen.
Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) asked students to take notes on a
laptop or longhand on paper on a TED talk of 15 minutes. After a break of
30 minutes or a week, students were asked factual-recall questions and con-
ceptual-application questions or a selection of questions that were factual,
conceptual, inferences in the same domain (inferential), and inferences in a
new domain (application). Over three different experiments, students who
took notes longhand performed better than students who took notes on a
laptop and in most conditions performed materially and significantly bet-
ter. Laptop notes were from half to almost twice as long as shorthand notes
since students were able to type faster than they could write and laptop note
takers tended to transcribe lectures. Longhand notes were shorter and less
verbatim. The more the verbatim the notes overlapped with the lectures the
less well the note takers performed on the conceptual questions (Mueller
and Oppenheimer 2014, p. 1116). Laptop note takers tended to transcribe
the lectures even though in one condition they were advised not to:
We’re doing a study about how information is conveyed in the classroom.

We’d like you to take notes on a lecture, just like you would in class. People
who take class notes on laptops when they expect to be tested on the mate-
rial later tend to transcribe what they’re hearing without thinking about it
much. Please try not to do this as you take notes today. Take notes in your
own words and don’t just write down word-for-word what the speaker is
saying. (Mueller and Oppenheimer 2014, p. 1162)
However, as Jones (2014) observes, the request for students to ‘take notes
on a lecture, just like you would in class’ may have invited students to
replicate their normal practice of taking verbatim notes or students may
not have been able to take notes differently on a laptop without further
instruction and practice. As Jones observes:
Laptops do not make students take notes in a particular way. Rather, they
are tools that enable a wide range of note-taking practices, including both
summary and synthesis as well as verbatim transcription. Like any other
LECTURES 133
tool, however, students need to be trained how to use them effectively. As

this study suggests, when students are not provided this training, they may
develop habits that may not be beneficial to their learning. (Jones 2014)
Since most students already bring a laptop, tablet, or mobile phone to

class another approach is to ask students to use their device to complete
a short task such as online research or as a response system for quizzes in
class (Teaching Center Staff 2015; Bates 2015, p. 75). Anderson et al.
(2003) developed a classroom feedback system in which students used
laptops to give context specific feedback to the instructor somewhat more
sophisticated than clickers, which increased students’ interaction with the
material (third page of the paper). Caron and Gely (2004) distributed to
students hand-held devices which allowed students to text responses to
questions posed by the teacher to encourage active learning in class and
give students prompt feedback on their learning. Samson (2010) devel-
oped a web-based tool which asked students questions in class and allowed
them ‘to take notes and make drawings on PowerPoint slides, rate their
understanding of each slide, pose questions anonymously during the lec-
ture, and review the recorded lecture after class’ (Zhu et al. 2011, p. 2).
Samson (2010, p. 1) found that students felt more engaged with the class,
which was replicated in a study by Zhu et al. (2011, p. 2), and the tool
‘dramatically’ increased the number of students asking questions in class.
Pennebaker, Gosling and Ferrell (2013, p. 2) asked students to bring a
Wi-Fi-enabled device to their introductory psychology classes of 980 stu-
dents: ‘The first 10-minutes of each class were devoted to an 8-item daily
quiz. Seven of the questions covered material from the previous lecture
and readings. The remaining item was a personalized question consisting
of a question the student had answered incorrectly on a previous quiz’.
Pennebaker, Gosling and Ferrell did not assign a textbook to these classes
but provided readings online and occasionally conducted virtual discus-
sions in class. Pennebaker, Gosling and Ferrell (2013, p. 4) found that 96
percent of these students attended the first five weeks of class, whereas 88
percent attended previous classes without the quiz at the start of the class.
Over the next month, attendance at the classes with initial quiz remained
at 96 percent but attendance at the earlier classes had fallen to 80 percent.
By the last month, attendance at the quizzed class had fallen to 89 percent
but attendance at the unquizzed classes had fallen to 66 percent.
Pennebaker, Gosling and Ferrell (2013, p. 4) found that students in
the classes which opened with a quiz performed better in introductory
134 G. MOODIE
psychology than students in previous classes without the quiz at the start
of the class, they performed better in other classes the students took in
the same semester and they also performed better in the classes they took
in the following semester. Furthermore, Pennebaker, Gosling and Ferrell
(2013, pp. 3, 4) found that starting classes with a quiz halved the dif-
ference in attainment between upper-middle-class and lower-middle-class
students in introductory psychology, reduced the attainment gap by a third
in concurrent courses and reduced it by just under half in classes taken in
the following semester. Eddy and Hogan (2014, p. 453) also found that
active learning not only improved all students’ learning but also reduced
the gap between the performance of disadvantaged students and other stu-
dents. Pennebaker, Gosling and Ferrell (2013, pp. 4, 5) conclude that the
most likely explanation of the improved performance of students attending
classes with introductory quizzes is that they improved students’ atten-
dance and ability to regulate their own learning by setting learning goals,
preparing better for classes, keeping up with the material, and monitoring
their performance.
6.3.4 Active Learning

There is substantial evidence that students’ learning is not necessarily
improved by the technology that lecturers or students use during lec-
tures, but by the extent to which they incorporate active learning activi-
ties (Mulryan-Kyne 2010, p. 181; Freeman et al. 2014). Bates (2015,
Sect. 3.3.3) refers to research on student attention, memorizing, and
motivation:
These research studies have shown that in order to understand, analyze,

apply, and commit information to long-term memory, the learner must
actively engage with the material. In order for a lecture to be effective, it
must include activities that compel the student to mentally manipulate the
information. Many lecturers of course do this, by stopping and asking for
comments or questions throughout the lecture—but many do not. (Bates
2015, p. 74)
There are several ways to introduce active learning activities into lec-
tures that do not rely on students using equipment. One technique is
the pause procedure (the lecturer pauses for two minutes three times
during each lecture to give students time to catch up on their notes
LECTURES 135
and for students in adjacent seats to share notes, comments, and ask
each other questions) (Rowe 1976, p. 258; Ruhl et al. 1987). Bonwell
(1996, p. 35) suggests: punctuating lectures with short writes (asking
students to write a one-minute paper); think, pair, share (the lecturer
poses questions for students to consider, discuss with a fellow student,
then share their results with the class); formative quizzes; and inviting
students prepare short summaries of the lecture so far. In small lectures,
the lecturer may establish small discussion groups and circulate between
them to contribute to each group’s interactions, and in big lectures, the
lecturer may establish a feedback mechanism or buzz groups (Chalmers
et al. 2003, p. 4), which are groups of two or three students which for
5–10 minutes discuss a specific issue or question put to them by the
lecturer.
Among the 26 strategies suggested by the Australian Universities
Teaching User Centre for Educational and Professional Development (no
date) are tell your partner (each person in a pair explains a topic/concept/
answer to their partner who listens then ask questions); peer evaluation
(students in pairs swap their work and give each other feedback); and
sequencing (the lecturer provides information out of sequence which pairs
of students arrange in order). Lynch (2015 [2012], p. 4) suggests divide
and thrive (divide the lecture into two, one-half works on prepared tasks
individually or in pairs while the other works with the lecturer, the groups
swap, then come together). Herbert et al. (2003, p. 110) suggest ‘starting
a topic in one lecture and giving the students some provocative questions
to ponder for discussion in the next lecture’.
An example of how this may be done is the schedule Sylvia Edwards
often used for two-hour lectures in information systems she delivered at
the Queensland University of Technology:
Start: 5 minutes ‘settling in’

15–20 minutes teaching
5 minute task working in pairs
15–20 minutes teaching
10 minute break
15 minutes teaching
10–15 minutes pairs task or video
15 minutes teaching
End: 5 minutes summary and conclusion, and introduction to next week’s
tasks. (Herbert et al. 2003, p. 111)
136 G. MOODIE
6.3.5 Flipped Classes

Progressively extending active learning activities to take more of the lec-
ture period would be a relatively safe way of transitioning to an ‘inverted’
(Lage et al. 2000) or ‘flipped’ classroom, or at least incorporating much
of the idea of the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom moves all or
most information transmission out of class time, to be done by students
in their own time before the class by, for example, following a recorded
lecture or completing prescribed reading, and spending time in class in
active and social learning activities (Abeysekera and Dawson 2015, p. 3).
Flipped classrooms are championed by those who want active learning to
replace passive learning activities, who believe lectures are anachronistic,
and/or who advocate greater use of new technologies such as the internet
in university education. However, many professors are skeptical of flipped
classrooms, borne of their teaching experience:
More troubling are issues of student motivation; flipped classroom

approaches wager the success of in-class activities on the likelihood of stu-
dents completing their pre-class assigned work. This leads to the perennial
problems of student preparation: how do teachers know if students have
prepared, what they know and if the preparation was useful?. (Abeysekera
and Dawson 2015, p. 2)
As is argued in Sect. 10.3.8, education which is fully mediated, either

online or by more traditional distance education methods, have much
higher attrition rates than face-to-face education, especially among disad-
vantaged students and inexpert students such as those who recently left
school. Since recent school leavers are the big majority of current stu-
dents, it seems infeasible, uncaring, or inefficient to introduce a new form
of teaching–learning which has much poorer outcomes than the status
quo. But one can imagine a series of lectures over a semester, year, or
program which started as conventional lectures interspersed with a few
active learning activities which did not rely heavily on extensive prepara-
tion before the class. The active learning activities within lectures could
increase in duration and in their dependence on students completing work
before the class. By the end of the semester, year or program the lectures
could retain their form but incorporate much more active learning which
relied on students’ prior preparation, developing students’ capacity to
learn independently (Bates 2015, pp. 320, 375). Such lectures would not
be flipped so much as have a corner turned over.
LECTURES 137
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Teaching occasional paper number 30 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan),
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no30.
pdf. Accessed 9 September 2015.
K. Mahal (2012) Lecture capture in higher education. Research surrounding the
common concerns, benefits and trends in the use of lecture capture technology
and recommendations for consideration at UBC, http://www.ams.ubc.ca/
wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Lecture-Capture-in-Higher-Education-
AMS-Report.pdf, accessed 23 September 2015.
CHAPTER 7
Assessment
Chapter 4 briefly noted that quite small changes in assessment can have
important effects on students’ learning behavior (Elton and Laurillard
1979, p. 99) and that ‘assessment strategies have enormous implica-
tions for what is taught, and how effectively’ (Istance and Dumont 2010,
p. 324). This view is longstanding. Wordsworth (1910 [1877], p. 16)
opened Chap. 2 of his book on the English universities in the eighteenth
century by observing: ‘Before entering upon the details of the university
exercises and examinations, we ought to try to divest ourselves of a mod-
ern opinion, that study exists for examinations rather than examinations
for study’. Some of the changes in assessment reviewed in this chapter
reflected changes in curriculum and/or pedagogy. Other changes were
adopted for other reasons but affected curriculum and pedagogy, perhaps
unintentionally and imperceptibly at the time the changes were being
adopted.
The chapter starts by observing that, while early universities had clear
requirements for admission to their degrees, completing a degree and
therefore its required assessment was much less significant for medieval
students than it is for contemporary students. The chapter describes uni-
versities’ first major form of assessment, oral disputations, and observes
changes in the incidence, nature, form, and content of university assess-
ment. It argues that those changes reflected mainly changes in the cur-
riculum which in turn reflected changes in academic knowledge, which

144 G. MOODIE
developed most spectacularly from that constellation of changes identified

in retrospect as the Scientific Revolution, which is discussed in Sect. 8.6.
Assessment was also changed to cope with a marked increase in universi-
ties’ scale: the assessment methods that were convenient for perhaps doz-
ens of professors teaching and examining perhaps scores of students were
unmanageable for hundreds of students. Printing was useful in coping
with greatly increased numbers of examination candidates, but was not a
direct stimulus for the changes.
One of the longstanding issues of the twentieth century, which has con-
tinued into the twenty-first century, has been the recognition of credit for
previous study in another institution, and sometimes recognition of credit
for previous study in another program in the same institution is problem-
atic. This issue is discussed in Sect. 7.4; the chapter notes that this issue
had its analog in the Middle Ages, reflecting the intractability of the issue.
Current assessment systems require experts to devote considerable time
and effort in assessing each student. This imposes high costs and limits the
economies of scale available for moocs and any other form of high-volume
education. This is discussed in Sect. 7.5. The chapter has these sections:
7.1 Signification of Assessment

7.2 Disputations
7.3 Assessment Changes
7.4 Recognition of Credits
7.5 Seeking a New Economy of Scale
7.1 SIGNIFICATION OF ASSESSMENT

Section 4.5 noted that 30 or 40 percent of students of arts faculties in
the Germanies in the fifteenth century earned a baccalariatus and 10 per-
cent earned a master’s degree (Verger 1992b, p. 147) and that at least
until 1500 the ‘vast majority’ of students did not attempt final assess-
ment (Schwinges 1992b, p. 196). In part, this was because many students
could not afford to spend more than a year or two at university. But it
was also because many students could meet their educational, occupa-
tional, and social goals for university from attending just for one to two
years. While a degree was needed for some purposes it was not needed for
many others. For example, some time studying as an undergraduate, even
without completing the degree, was enough for entering lower posts in
the churches and for most teaching careers in the Middle Ages (Frijhoff
ASSESSMENT 145
1996b, p. 380). Occupations requiring ‘a university degree were rare until

well into the seventeenth century. It was often sufficient to be able to pro-
vide proof of a period of studies, attested by a testimonium signed by the
professor or dean’ (Frijhoff 1996b, p. 363).
There was not a clear hierarchy of educational establishments until the
modern period (Frijhoff 1996a, p. 54). Neither was there a strong sense
of progression and promotion within each educational institution, or in
universities, within each of the three degrees of bachelors, masters, and
doctorate (Hoskin 1979, p. 135). Completing assessment successfully was
therefore much less important in the Middle Ages than it is now. Students
were excluded from university for not paying required fees and for pro-
scribed behavior, but generally not for unsatisfactory academic progress.
7.2 DISPUTATIONS
Medieval scholars have been mocked for the sterile pedantry of their dis-
putations and by extension the derivative formalism of their scholarship,
particularly by early modern humanists who challenged and sought to
replace scholastics and scholasticism. For example, Bacon (1893, [1605]
book 1, paragraphs 2 and 6) claimed that after Erasmus ‘the learning
of the schoolmen [grew] to be utterly despised as barbarous’ with their
disputations ending ‘in monstrous altercations and barking questions’.
Scholastics were said to debate such futile questions as ‘How many angels
can dance on the head of a pin?’ and to quarrel over the number of teeth
in the mouth of a horse while rejecting the obvious recourse of looking in
a horse’s mouth. Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) included a treatise
on angels in his Summa theologica (Summary of theology) which he wrote
from 1265 to 1274. The treatise considers 13 questions on angels. For
example, question 50 is about ‘The substance of the angels absolutely
considered’, and the first two of five articles for this question are ‘Whether
an angel is altogether incorporeal?’ and ‘Whether an angel is composed of
matter and form?’ Aquinas’s question 52 is about ‘The angels in relation
to place’ and his third of three articles is: ‘Whether several angels can be at
the same time in the same place?’ (Aquinas, [1265-1274] (1947), p. 597).
Aquinas dealt with metaphysical questions, some of which may seem
trivial now, but were live in an age which sought to establish its fun-
damental understanding on logical and indeed rational foundations.
This followed Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109) ‘the father of scho-
lasticism’, who initially called his Proslogion (Discourse) Fides quaerens
146 G. MOODIE
intellectum (Faith seeking understanding) (Asztalos 1992, p. 411). The

aim was to develop theology as a systematic form of inquiry and rigor-
ous body of knowledge (Huff 1993, p. 107). Angels appear through-
out the Christian Bible as spiritual beings intermediate between God and
people: Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, Lucifer. Church fathers of the
late fourth century identified different categories of angels but disagreed
over whether they had physical presence or were entirely spiritual. Saint
Augustine (354-430) distinguished between the office of angel and their
nature, which is spirit. Aquinas was clearly dealing with these questions
in his treatise on angels. It is not known how important they were during
the Middle Ages, nor how much time if any universities spent disputing
angelology—the doctrine of angels. Aquinas’ treatise on angels is only
2 percent of the Summa. As will be noted below, some disputations were
to elucidate fallacies arising from linguistic ambiguity and others were to
illustrate flaws in reasoning. For such formal demonstrations the referents
of propositions in the real world were not so important as their linguistic
or logical properties, and scholars conducted some of these exercises with
jocular questions.
Section 5.1 noted that teachers drilled students in exercises which
may be considered formative assessment and perhaps necessary before a
teacher would allow a student to present for final assessment. Some of
those exercises and all final assessment for all degrees at medieval universi-
ties were based on the disputation. The section also noted that universities
scheduled dies disputabiles (days for solemn disputations). Students were
expected to participate in disputations variously as an ‘opponent’ who
advanced an argument and as a ‘respondent’ who challenged an argument
put by an opponent (Stray 2001, p. 34; Leader 1988, p. 22; Grendler
2002, p. 156; Perreiah 1984, p. 95; Clark 2006, p. 80). Once a student
had attended the requisite lectures, participated in the prescribed exer-
cises including disputations satisfactorily and was considered appropriate
for submission for a degree they were nominated to participate in a final
disputation (Fletcher 1967, p. 418). Disputations were required not only
of bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral candidates but also of professors who
were expected to dispute as part of their scholarly duties (Grendler 2002,
p. 177; Fletcher 1967, p. 448). For example, professors of the University
of Padua were required to engage in formal disputations twice a year,
before and after the Easter holidays (Grendler 2002, p. 156). Disputations
were important in building professors’ reputations for learning and for
attracting students to his lectures (Grendler 2002, pp. 153, 155).
ASSESSMENT 147
A notice was published a few days before the disputation, probably

by posting on the venue door and distribution among all the masters,
stating the time, venue, the dubia (doubts or problems) and corol-
laria (corollaries) to be disputed, and the names of the presiding mas-
ter and opponent (Matsen 1977, p. 170). All dubia refer to standard
texts in authorities, such as Aristotle, Ptolemy, Sacro Bosco, Cicero,
Hippocrates, Galen, or Avicenna. In Bologna in around 1500, arts stu-
dents disputed propositions such as: whether the heaven is composed of
matter and form, that there are only four elements, that there are only
three figures of syllogisms, and whether the brain is of a cold and moist
consistency (Matsen 1977, pp. 175–9). At Oxford in 1669 questions
included: ‘Do contraries best cure contraries? Affirmative’, ‘Can love-
philtres induce love? Negative’, ‘Is knowledge reminiscence? Negative’,
‘Are the planets inhabitable? Negative’. In 1693, questions included:
‘Is the world made of atoms? Negative’ and ‘Is the safety of the State
the supreme law? Affirmative’. Knowledge advanced considerably in
the ensuing century, but the form in which it was examined retained
a continuity with the Middle Ages. In 1774, questions were: ‘Are the
precepts of artificial logic useful for discerning truth? Affirmative’; ‘Is
human reason trustworthy? Affirmative’; ‘Is light a body? Affirmative’;
‘Is the Copernican system the true one? Affirmative’ and ‘Can the decli-
nations in the motion of the moon be explained by the theory of gravity?
Affirmative’ (Hoskin 1979, p. 139).
Disputations were distinguished by their role or purpose: demonstrative
or didactic disputation (disputatio demonstrativa vel didascalica), dialecti-
cal disputation (disputatio dialectica), sophistical disputation (disputatio
sophistica) which identified fallacies in arguments and trial disputation (dis-
putatio temptativa) (Perreiah 1984, p. 101). Sect. 5.1 noted that disputa-
tions serving a pedagogical role were called several names indicating their
different types or occasions: domesticate, serotinae (evening), quotidinae
(daily), mensales (table). Trial disputations tested the knowledge ‘of any-
one who pretends to know a subject’ and were expounded by Aristotle in
the Topics book VIII Chap. 5 (Perreiah 1984, p. 101).
Disputations were also distinguished by subject matter. A disputa-
tio de quodlibet (disputation about anything) was held once or twice
a year, particularly on holy and patrons’ days (Müller 1996, p. 345).
Disputations de quolibet were being staged in theology at Cambridge by
the early 1270s and at Oxford by the early 1280s and in Oxford’s arts
faculty in the fourteenth century (Cobban 1988, p. 170). The disputatio
148 G. MOODIE
ordinaria (ordinary disputations) were the big weekly disputations.

Two of the main types of ordinary disputations in the faculty of arts
were de sophismatibus or de problemate which debated logical questions
and de quaestione which were on areas of the quadrivium of arithmetic,
geometry, music, and astronomy. Undergraduates of two years’ stand-
ing were also expected to participate in disputatio de sophismatibus or
sophisma (from whence derives ‘sophisters’) (Cobban 1988, pp. 168–9).
This involved the detection and investigation of fallacies and inconsis-
tencies in arguments, which derived from Aristotle’s De sophisticis elen-
chis (Sophistical refutations) which identified 13 fallacies (Lawn 1993,
pp. 12, 39).
Masters presided at disputatio ordinaria and posed the quaestio dis-
putata, other masters and baccalarii opposed and responded, while the
simplices (beginners) probably restricted themselves to listening. People
would be summoned to the disputation by the ringing of a church bell
(Matsen 1977, p. 175). Proceedings could be opened by an oration by the
dean or presider (praeses) (Clark 2006, p. 78). In the late fourteenth cen-
tury, the opponent (opponens) would propose (proponere) the propositions
which comprised the initial doubt, give proofs (probationes) in support of
the propositions, pose (ponere) theses (conclusiones or positiones) to find the
solution to the doubt and summarize the solution (solutio) to the doubt
by listing for each of its propositions its replies (responsiones), concession
(concedo), denial (nego), or doubt (dubio). The respondent (respondens)
states whether he admits a thesis (conclusio or positio), concedes, denies,
or doubts each of the propositions proposed to him by the opponent,
and give his replies. The opponent and the respondent were bound by
the principles of scholastic logic such as the rules of obligations (obliga-
tiones) and insolubles (insolubilia) (Perreiah 1984, p. 97). Proceedings
would be closed by the presiding master or by a replicator who summed
up the disputation, reflected on participants’ performance (Fletcher 1967;
Cobban 1988, p. 446) and determined the theses and counter-theses with
a synthesis (Schwinges 1992b, p. 233). The custom for the regent master
(magister regens) to give a determination (determinatio) faded at Padua in
the later fourteenth century (Perreiah 1984, p. 96). More than one dubia
may be debated at one disputation. A disputation might last two hours or
more (Stray 2001, p. 34).
Disputations were mostly oral, although at least in theology at Paris in
the second half of the fourteenth century, before the oral disputation the
opponent sent his numbered theses to a few of his fellow baccalarii, each
ASSESSMENT 149
of whom replied with six theses they disputed (Perreiah 1984, p. 99).
Some colleagues (socii) served as recorders (amanuenses) of the viva voce
(Perreiah 1984, p. 102). Disputations were public, so all who were inter-
ested could attend, including occasionally members of the public and visit-
ing dignitaries (Clark 2006, p. 78). Disputations were well attended, being
popular as a form of scholarly jousting (Stray 2001, p. 34; Bishop 1971,
p. 285). They were sometimes rowdy, with good points being applauded.
Students learned from attending disputations how they were conducted
well, satisfactorily, and indifferently. Several if not all masters also attended
and could challenge the student advancing a thesis, for assessment was a
collective, not individual responsibility (McConica 1986a, p. 65).
Perreiah (1984, p. 87) illustrates the trial disputation (disputatio temp-
tativa), the disputation used for exercise and examination, in the begin-
ning of the fifteenth century with examples from Quadratura which
was composed by the Augustine Paul of Venice (1369–1429) at Padua
around 1400. By the end of the fourteenth century, two new elements
had been integrated into the disputation, the obligation (obligatio) and
the insoluble (insolubilia). Paul of Venice’s Logica parva (‘Little logic’)
gives nine rules of obligations.
1. Everything possible which is posited to you is to be admitted by you.

2. Everything posited to you and admitted by you [and] proposed during
the time of the obligation is to be conceded by you.
3. Everything following per se from what is posited and admitted or from
what is posited together with one or more conceded [sentences] and pro-
posed under the time of the obligation is to be conceded.
4. Everything inconsistent with what is posited together with a conceded
sentence or conceded sentences taken collectively or separately is to be
denied.
5. Everything following from what is posited together with the opposite
or opposites of what has been proposed and denied under the time of the
obligation is to be conceded.
6. Everything inconsistent with what has been posited together with the
opposite or opposites of what has been correctly denied is to be denied.
7. To every irrelevant proposition one is to respond according to its quality.
That is: if it is true, it is to be conceded. If it is false, it is to be denied. If it
is doubtful, it is to be doubted. An irrelevant proposition I call one which
neither follows from nor is inconsistent with [another proposition].
Corollary. Every false proposition that does not follow is to be denied, and
every true proposition that is not inconsistent is to be conceded.
150 G. MOODIE
8. Because a possible thing is posited, an impossible is not to be conceded

nor is a necessary thing to be denied. For nothing inconsistent is to be con-
ceded nor is something following to be denied.
9. When every part of a conjunctive (copulativa) proposition is conceded
the conjunction (copulativa) of which they or similar sentences are principal
parts is to be conceded. And when one part of a disjunctive proposition is
conceded, the disjunction of which it is a principal part [is to be conceded].
(Perreiah 1984, pp. 90–1)
Insolubles are statements which refer to their own truth or falsity such
as ‘Socrates says something false’ which is a categorical singular insoluble
and ‘God exists and no conjunctive proposition is true’ which is a con-
junctive hypothetical insoluble (Perreiah 1984, p. 93). Every insoluble
was presented with stipulations called a ‘case’ (casus). Two rules of insol-
ubles were:
1. Never admit a case from which an insoluble simply (simpliciter) originates.

2. Always admit a case from which an insoluble according to a condition
(secundum quid) originates. (Perreiah 1984, p. 93)
Perreiah chose his example from Quadratura Book III, Doubt Five:
‘Concerning the origin of material and personal supposition out of the
different locations of a term’. The arguments in the dubium are intention-
ally spurious: they rest on ambiguities of the Latin phrase non homo when
it occurs in the position of a subject or predicate and which may signify a
term ‘non-man’ or a thing ‘not a man’ (Perreiah 1984, p. 97). The dispu-
tation therefore illustrates Aristotle’s fallacy arising from amphibology or
syntactic ambiguity. This is an extract from an outline of Part I in which
Paul formulates the doubt:
1. You are not a man; therefore, you are a donkey.

Proof.
1.a There is no greater reason to predicate ‘you’ of ‘you’ (which is not a
man) than of another thing,
1.b ‘You’ and ‘non-man’ are disparate terms,
1.c Therefore, you are not a man.
1.d Therefore, you are a donkey.
2. You are not a man.
Proof.
2. a ‘Non-man’ truly and affirmatively, is predicated of you,
2. b Therefore, you are not a man. (Perreiah 1984, pp. 97–8)
ASSESSMENT 151
This is an outline of four theses which Paul poses to expose the ambigui-
ties in the arguments and hence to solve the dubium:
Thesis I: Just as affirmation and negation pertain only to terms so also predi-
cation pertains only to terms.
Thesis II: Material supposition which applies to terms of second intention
cannot occur in predicate position but only in subject position.
Thesis III: Something non-man-pointing to the term man-of you is truly
and affirmatively predicated.
Thesis IV: With respect to the term man the term ‘non-animal’ is on a
higher level; however, it is not the case that a non-animal is on a higher level
than the term man. (Perreiah 1984, p. 98)
This is a summary of the response:
1. I deny, ‘You are not a man’,

2. I concede, ‘Non-man is truly and affirmatively predicated of you’.
3. I deny, ‘It is not the case that man is truly and affirmatively predicated
of you’.
4. I deny, ‘“Man” truly and affirmatively is predicated of you and the same
man is not a man; therefore, non-man is truly and affirmatively predicated
of you’.
5. I deny, ‘You are man; therefore, you are not a man’,
6. I deny, ‘It is not the case that man is on a higher level than the term man’.
7. I deny, ‘The term non-man is on a higher level than the term man’.
8. I deny, ‘The term animal is not a man’. (Perreiah 1984, pp. 98–9)
The rules of obligations and insolubles thus regulate the patterns of dialecti-
cal argument. Almost every line of Quadratura includes a technical term of
obligations and insoluble: pono (pose), propono (set forth), admitto (admit),
nego (deny), concedo (concede), dubito (doubt). Other rules are used to
define more precisely concepts contained in the rules of obligations and
insoluble: those of supposition (suppositio), of ampliation (ampliatio), of
inference (consequentia), and of proof (probatio) (Perreiah 1984, p. 100).
7.3 ASSESSMENT CHANGES

Universities’ main summative assessment changed from medieval oral,
individualized, public, and collective disputations of questions in Latin
to modern, written, standardized, private, and individual answering of
152 G. MOODIE
questions in the vernacular. However, these changes were complicated

and achieved over several stages over an extended period until the nine-
teenth century.
Examinations started to include a written component at Cambridge
in 1560, which was among the earliest of European universities to do
so (Stray 2001, p. 36). Disputations came to be supplemented by an
oral interrogation, which increased in importance at Cambridge from
1710 (Stray 2001, p. 37). Questions were dictated to Cambridge stu-
dents to prepare a written answer from 1772. Problem questions for
some classes were printed from about 1790, and from 1828 all ques-
tions requiring a written answer were printed (Stray 2001, pp. 38, 46).
Assessment was of the student’s whole effort until 1792 when William
Farish (1759–1837), chair of mechanics at Cambridge from 1811 to his
death in 1837, started assigning marks to individual questions (Stray
2001, p. 40; Hoskin 1979, p. 144). While disputations at Oxford and
Cambridge were very similar, Oxford’s degree examinations were some-
what different. An Oxford statute of 1800 provided that degree exam-
inations were to be oral only, and public (Stray 2001, p. 43) and it
was not until after 1807 that written examinations start to take over at
Oxford (Hoskin 1979, p. 144).
Disputations declined in importance in Protestant universities from the
mid-eighteenth century (Clark 2006, p. 89) and became perfunctory at
Oxford and Cambridge by the end of the eighteenth century. They were
‘huddled’ or crowded through all at one time (Wordsworth 1910 [1877],
pp. 33, 213, fn. 2). Stock questions were selected from Thomas Johnson’s
Quaestiones philosophicae (Philosophical questions) published in 1735
(Wordsworth 1910 [1877], p. 34, fn. 4; Hoskin 1979, p. 139) which also
provided model arguments (Stray 2001, p. 40). Students passed down
copies of standard arguments called ‘strings’ at Oxford and ‘arguments’ at
Cambridge (Stray 2001, p. 40). Disputations were ended at Cambridge’s
arts faculty in 1839 and were ended in divinity, law, and physic in 1858
(Stray 2001, p. 38).
The number of students and Oxford and Cambridge rose sharply from
the 1820s, putting oral examinations under considerable pressure. As a
result, the universities introduced or greatly expanded written examinations
from the late 1820s. Viva voce examination was very limited at Cambridge
by the 1870s and all but ended by a change of regulations in 1882 (Stray
2001, p. 33). Vivas remained important at Oxford for longer, being
dropped by classics in 1884, in 1890 from Responsions exams, which were
ASSESSMENT 153
taken shortly after matriculation, but were still part of the compulsory
divinity examination until at least 1911 (Stray 2001, pp. 43–4).
The change in the form of assessment from disputing to answering
questions was associated with three corresponding changes in its content,
nature, and character. Oral examinations depended on oral expression,
particularly in Latin since vivas were still conducted in Latin at least until
1735; Latin was probably replaced by the vernacular in the 1750s and
1760s (Stray 2001, p. 37). The Royal Commission on Oxford of 1852
noted that written examinations in the vernacular increased the atten-
tion given to subject matter as well as to written composition, and in
mathematics attention shifted from geometry to algebraic analysis which
Stray (2001, p. 45) suggests probably encouraged the displacement of oral
examinations with written examinations.
The change in the form of assessment was also associated with a shift
from assessment which was individualized for students and conducted by
professors publicly and collectively (Stray 2001, p. 34) to assessment that
was standardized for students and conducted privately and individually.
Professors conducted oral assessments as a group and reached a collective
decision on candidates’ merits. They matched disputation opponents and
respondents by ability. In orals, examiners asked candidates different ques-
tions according to their ability (Stray 2001, p. 46). In written examina-
tions all candidates are given the same questions and they are assessed by
examiners working individually. Hence, Hoskin (1979, p. 135) stated that
‘the modern written examination is one of the most significant transfor-
mations in the history of educational practice’.
Collective oral assessment was partly an assessment of students’ char-
acter, culture, and socialization into the scholarly community. Students
commonly had to pass a religious test and swear oaths of obedience to the
college’s or university’s statutes. Individual written assessment is almost
exclusively of candidates’ cognitive ability. As Stray (2001, p. 40) observes,
the change of assessment was in its character from collegial gemeinschaft to
institutional gesellschaft.
Written assessment became the dominant form of university assessment
from the late nineteenth century. That assessment was invigilated exami-
nations. They were ‘final’ exams at the end of the program for admission
to the degree. Over the course of the twentieth century, this assessment
changed in three related ways: assessment was segmented by time or stage
of program to eventually become ‘continuous’, it was segmented by dis-
cipline or subject and the emphasis changed from invigilated examination
154 G. MOODIE
to assignments that are completed in the student’s own time and at their
own place.
Examinations were introduced at intermediate stages of qualifications,
typically initially at the end of each academic year, and passing the inter-
mediate examinations was a condition for progressing to the next stage
of the degree. End of program and then end of year examinations were
initially of the whole program’s or year’s learning. Different exams came
to be set for different parts of the program, segmented by discipline or
subject. It became possible to pass some of the examinations but not the
whole program’s or whole year’s exams. This led to a fragmentation of
study by years to a study by subjects. From the middle of the twentieth
century, universities started introducing additional intermediate assess-
ment at the end of each term or semester, which led to further fragmenta-
tion of study. This development is known in the UK as ‘modularization’
and started there from the late twentieth century and is still to be adopted
fully by some UK universities.
A second related change was to assess students separately for each
subject-term or subject-semester, which are typically called ‘courses’ in
North America and other countries which adopt proprietary student
information systems which impose this terminology on their adopting
institutions. Since students can complete satisfactorily some subjects or
courses and not others they are allocated credit by subject or course rather
than by year. Universities thereby effectively operate credit accumulation
schemes within each school. In principle this should facilitate credit trans-
fer between schools and universities, although this potential is not often
realized.
7.4 RECOGNITION OF CREDITS

Recognition of credit has been an enduring issue in higher education, its
prominence changing in relation to the attention given to other issues.
Governments are concerned to not fund or subsidize studies that are dupli-
cated or overlap substantially. This interest is enlivened by many constitu-
ents who complain at being required to complete what appears to them to
be ‘the same’ subject at different institutions, and sometimes in different
departments or faculties within the same institution. Sending institutions
resent that their credits are not recognized adequately by receiving insti-
tutions, while many faculty are concerned that students are granted fair
recognition of their previous work. A sense of the intractability of these
ASSESSMENT 155
issues may be gained by observing that recognition of credits has been a

longstanding, perhaps perennial issue for universities, being one of the
characteristics that developed with the concept of the university in the
twelfth century.
There were three aspects to the understanding of universities from their
origin. One was that they attracted students generally (studia generalia),
from a wide geographic area. This was in contrast to a studium particu-
lare (particular school) which recruited students from their particular or
local area (Cobban 1988, p. 3). Secondly, a studium generale offered not
only the propaedeutic or preparatory arts (Frijhoff 1996a, p. 54) but also
at least two of the three higher studies of theology, law, and medicine.
Thirdly, the license to teach issued by the institution was accepted without
further examination at other universities. The preeminent of these institu-
tions during the twelfth century were Paris, Bologna, and Salerno but oth-
ers claimed the title of studium generale (Haskins 1941, p. 281). In 1224
the great Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) established a
studium generale at Naples by imperial bull and in 1229 Ugolino di Conti
(c. 1145–1241) as Pope Gregory IX established by papal bull a studium
generale at Toulouse (Haskins 1994, p. 282). Before the end of the thir-
teenth century, it was generally accepted that no new studium generale
could be established without an imperial or papal bull.
Initially these bulls conferred on the new institution the privileges of an
established exemplar such as Paris or Bologna, but soon the main object
was to grant the institution the right to grant to masters the licentia ubique
docendi, a license to teach everywhere, or more specifically, in all univer-
sities without further examination (Moodie 2007, p. 103). In time, the
essence of the studium generale became the ius ubique docendi (Haskins
1994, p. 282). No other type of educational institution commanded status
in studio (standing in the school, or advanced standing in correspond-
ing institutions) (Schwinges 1992a, p. 176). However, the ius ubique
docendi was a statement of the formal standing of an institution, not a
reflection of its sister institutions’ acceptance of its qualifications. Thus,
while Oxford and Cambridge recognized each other’s qualifications, the
University of Paris complained that from 1292 to 1316, its degrees were
not recognized properly at Oxford, Montpellier, and elsewhere (Haskins
1994, p. 282, fn. 2) and ‘something akin to an academic tariff war raged
between Paris and Oxford in the early fourteenth century, each university
refusing to accept and licence the graduates of the other without fresh
examination’ (Cobban 1988, p. 6). This may have reflected substantive
156 G. MOODIE
differences in the length if not the content or pedagogy of the universities’

programs. Fletcher (1967, pp. 417–21) observes that while Oxford’s stat-
utes required arts student to attend for three years and two terms before
admission to a bachelor of arts, in the sixteenth century at Paris a master’s
degree required only three and a half years and at Vienna two years were
required for a bachelor’s and a further one year for a masters.
Papal designation of ius ubique docendi lost authority in Protestant
countries after the pope was denounced as the antichrist in 1520
(Pettibone 2007, pp. 85–8) and while the Emperor retained authority
in the Empire for several years, the Empire gradually lost territory and
local rulers assumed the prerogative of establishing universities in their
own territories (Frijhoff 1996a, p. 51). As a result, the ius ubique docendi
was recognized at best only within each principality. Recognition of work
done in another higher education institution has thus been an enduring
issue across centuries, in different types of institutions, and in very differ-
ent contexts. This suggests that the transfer of students and credits are
not problematic because contemporary universities and their faculty are
particularly self-interested or perverse, but because transfer raises endur-
ing issues.
7.5 SEEKING A NEW ECONOMY OF SCALE

Disciplinary knowledge is a description of the world which becomes
known through operations on the descriptions (Laurillard 2002, p. 71).
Knowledge is validated by its correspondence to the world it describes. A
learner may demonstrate their understanding of a description of the world
by restating the description in a way that corresponds to the world at least
as well as the initial description. A learner may gain direct feedback on
their description by devising and conducting an experiment to determine
whether their redescription of the world corresponds to the world as well
as the initial description they encountered. That is clearly impracticable
if not impossible for most learning. A learner may assess whether they
understand knowledge or have an appropriate level of skill by compar-
ing their knowledge or exercise of skill against that shown by experts.
Often a partial or complete failure of learning is obvious to the learner,
but sometimes it is not. A level of knowledge or skill in the knowledge
being learned is needed to be able to evaluate one’s own or anyone else’s
performance, and often an evaluation skill is also needed, in which case the
learner needs help to identify their learning lack.
ASSESSMENT 157
Most learners also need feedback on the level of learning expected of

them (Bates 2014). Many learners also need help diagnosing their learn-
ing difficulty and identifying means for overcoming it (Bates 2014). If the
first learning attempt was not (completely) successful the learner needs
to decide whether to retain their initial learning goal and, if so, there
needs to be a decision on whether the learner is to repeat their initial
learning activity or whether another learning activity needs to be identi-
fied and tried. Learners therefore rely on experts to give them feedback
on their performance, to diagnose learning difficulties, and to prescribe
means for overcoming those difficulties. Laurillard (2002, p. 71) con-
cludes that ‘there must be: a continuing iterative dialogue between teacher
and student, which reveals the participants’ conceptions, and the varia-
tions between them, and these in turn will determine the focus for future
dialogue’. Inexpert learners tend to need more help than more advanced
learners in identifying their learning difficulties and means for overcoming
them (Moodie, forthcoming).
The dream of teaching very big and indeed ‘massive’ numbers of stu-
dents online at little or even modest incremental cost depends on the
efficacy of online teaching–learning, which is considered in Chap. 10. The
dream also depends on finding a new and greatly increased economy of
scale in assessing students, both to support their own learning and for
certification. A typical undergraduate course in the USA might require
students to write two or three short papers or one bigger paper during
semester and take a mid-term and a final examination. Students in labo-
ratory courses are usually required to submit lab reports (Montgomery
2002, p. 34). Much of the mid-term test and perhaps some items of con-
tinuous assessment might be conducted online or at least use a form of
assessment that can be automated such as multiple-choice questions or fill
in the blanks.
Once the often considerable investment has been made in designing,
trialing, and revising short-answer test items, they can be loaded into a
system to assess students at little additional cost per student, producing a
strong economy of scale. But assessment that requires an extended contri-
bution from a student such as an essay, or a calculation or proof requiring
multiple steps requires extended evaluation by an expert. There are three
types of expertise required: expertise in the field being learned, exper-
tise in assessing learners’ performance, and expertise in supporting and
improving learners’ learning. An assessor might invest half an hour assess-
ing each student’s continuous assessment and an hour assessing their final
158 G. MOODIE
piece of assessment. This would mean that each student requires an aver-
age of 1.5 hours of expert assessment per course. One aim would be to
cut the amount of expert assessor’s time needed for each student, to say,
one hour per student. But importantly to improve the economy of scale,
another aim would be to remove the linear relation between number of
students and assessor work load so that each additional student requires
less than a proportional increase in assessment costs.
Laurillard (2002, p. 126) distinguishes between intrinsic feedback that
is internal to an action and extrinsic feedback that is external to the action,
which may be a commentary on the action. An example of intrinsic feed-
back is where a person who is hanging a picture moves the picture about
to place it at a pleasant position on a wall and tilts it up and down until
the picture appears horizontal. Moving the picture until it is well aligned is
intrinsic to locating the picture appropriately. In this example, the world—
the place of the picture relative to the wall—is experienced directly. But
the picture may be too big and the hanger too close to evaluate the pic-
ture’s position on the wall. The hanger may ask someone to direct them
to the position where the picture is appropriately placed and guide them
in tilting it up and down to get the picture horizontal. In this case, the
hanger responds to directions about whether the picture is too high or
whether it has been moved too far to the left and thus responds to extrin-
sic feedback (Moodie, forthcoming).
Learners need feedback that is intrinsic in that it reflects their under-
standing of the concept they are seeking to express (Laurillard 2002,
pp. 57–8) or the skill they are seeking to practice. Laurillard (2002, p. 138)
argues that intrinsic learning feedback has not yet been automated, for
example, with multiple-choice questions.
At the level of action, it can ask students to perform exercises whose input
the program can analyse in order to apply feedback. Too many tutorial
programs use the mcq format to define the task set for the students, so that
the input is easy to analyse. They provide only extrinsic feedback, of the
form ‘Yes, because …' where the reason is stated just in case the student
made a guess and did not know the actual reason for the correct answer,
or for wrong answers ‘No, because …' or sometimes ‘Try again’ in case
it was a trivial error. This is not intrinsic feedback, but extrinsic feedback
with more teaching attached … it will not do much to develop conceptual
understanding if the student is having conceptual difficulties. (Laurillard
2002, p. 138)
ASSESSMENT 159
One of the difficulties is the number of ways a learner may lack knowledge
or skill even in relatively simple areas such as arithmetic. Ferster (2014,
p. 120) notes that there are over 600 possible misunderstandings about
early addition and multiplication, and there would be many more about
subtraction and division. Each misunderstanding has to be identified,
explained, retested, and the learner has to be returned to the stage they
had reached before the misunderstanding was identified. The task would
be much more difficult for more sophisticated subjects such as biology,
chemistry, mathematics, and physics. At least at lower levels, these fields
are closed in the sense of having unambiguously right and wrong answers,
though there may be different acceptable ways of reaching right answers.
It is much more difficult again to identify and correct mistakes in the
humanities and social sciences which are not closed even at lower levels,
and at advanced levels all fields have areas of open understanding.
We have noted Laurillard’s argument that assessment or feedback on stu-
dents’ progress in learning, at least of moderately sophisticated knowledge
or skills, must be specific to each student’s understanding. We have also
noted that the diagnosis of and help with learning problems needs to be
specific not only to each student but also specific to each learning problem
that each student encounters. Feedback, diagnosis, and support are in turn
more effective if they are related to each student’s prior understanding. The
fact that this feedback, diagnosis, and learning support must be individual-
ized to each student establishes a limit to how much teaching–learning may
be automated since computer programs are a long way from being able to
provide individualized assessment, diagnosis, and learning support:
Furthermore, this kind of learner support is difficult to scale up, as it tends

to be relatively labour intensive and requires instructors with a deep level
of knowledge within the subject area. Thus, the need to provide adequate
levels of learner support cannot just be wished away, if we are to achieve
successful learning on a large scale. (Bates 2015, p. 461)
Of course, it is possible that intelligent knowledge-based systems or some

other means will be found of automating supporting students and giv-
ing them feedback on their learning. But this seems far away. Consider a
problem in both teaching and research: plagiarism. Plagiarism is the expres-
sion of another’s ideas without proper attribution. If I write: ‘Students’
learning is improved by using advance organizers which are introduced in
advance of the learning material itself and are also presented at a higher
160 G. MOODIE
level of abstraction, generality, and inclusiveness than the learning material’

without citing Ausubel (1968, p. 148) text matching software may readily
identify that I have plagiarized the italicized text. When, however, I write:
‘Students’ learning is improved by introducing material with a statement
which does not just summarize the substantive material but presents higher
level concepts which help learners organize the new knowledge’, the pla-
giarism detection program I am currently using does not identify this as
‘unoriginal text’: text matching software cannot not identify this idea as
Ausubel’s. Yet Ausubel should be cited as the source of the idea of advance
organizers in both formulations. Since the identification of plagiarism has
not yet been automated the automation of much more complex learn-
ing feedback, diagnosis, and support seems remote, though of course not
impossible (Moodie, forthcoming). The current understanding of assess-
ment and the sophistication of tools currently available therefore seem to
limit institutions to increasing expenditure on assessment proportionately
to each additional student they teach.
REFERENCES
T. Aquinas [1265–1274] (1947) Summa Theologica, translated by Fathers of the
English Dominican Province (Christian Classics Ethereal Library) http://
www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.html, accessed 21 October 2015.
M. Asztalos (1992) ‘The faculty of theology’, in H. De Ridder-Symoens, Hilde
D. P. Ausubel (1968) Educational psychology: a cognitive view (New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston).
F. Bacon (1893) [1605] Of the proficience and advancement of learning, divine
and human (London: Cassell & Company), http://www.gutenberg.org/
files/5500/5500-h/5500-h.htm, accessed 15 July 2013.
A. W. (T.) Bates (2014) Why learner support is an important component in the
design of teaching and learning, 26 August. http://www.tonybates.
ca/2014/08/26/why-learner-support-is-an-important-component-in-the-
design-of-teaching-and-learning/. Accessed 25 November 2014.
Penguin Books).
ASSESSMENT 161
W. Frijhoff (1996b) ‘Graduation and careers’ in H. De Ridder-Symoens (ed.) A
G. L. Haskins (1941) ‘The University of Oxford and the “Ius ubique docendi”’,
English Historical Review, 56(222), 281–92.
K. Hoskin (1979) ‘The examination, disciplinary power and rational schooling’,
135–46.
D. Istance and H. Dumont (2010) ‘Future directions for learning environments
in the 21st century’, in H. Dumont, D. Istance and F. Benavides (eds) The
nature of learning. Using research to inspire practice, pp. 317–338, OECD,
http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/thenatureoflearningusingresearchtoinspire-
practice.htm, accessed 28 April 2015.
D. Laurillard (2002) Rethinking university teaching: a conversational framework
for the effective use of learning technologies. 2nd edition (London and
New York: Routledge).
B. Lawn (1993) The rise and decline of the scholastic ‘Qauaestio Disputata’: with
special emphasis on its use in the teaching of medicine and science (Leiden:
Brill).
H. S. Matsen (1977) ‘Students’ “Arts” disputations at Bologna around 1500,
illustrated from the career of Alessandro Achillini (1463–1512)’, History of
K. Montgomery (2002) ‘Authentic tasks and rubrics: Going beyond traditional
assessments in college teaching’, College Teaching, 50(1), pp. 34–9.
162 G. MOODIE
G. Moodie (2007) ‘Regulating “university” and degree-granting authority: chang-

ing of the guard’, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 29(1),
103–17.
G. Moodie (forthcoming) ‘Progress and prospects of the online revolution in
higher education’, in S. Bohlinger, K. A. Dang and G. Klatt (eds) Education
policy (Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishers).
D. Pettibone (2007) ‘Martin Luther’s views on the Antichrist’, Journal of the
Adventist Theological Society, 18(1), 81–100.
Middle Ages, volume I, pp. 195–243 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
C. Stray (2001) ‘The shift from oral to written examination: Cambridge and
Oxford 1700-1900’, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice,
8(1), 33–50.
C. Wordswoth (1910) [1877] Scholae academicae: some account of the studies at
the English Universities in the eighteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), https://archive.org/details/scholaeacademica00word,
CHAPTER 8
Advancing Knowledge
Research seems to be changing, much with changes in technology. New

equipment, tools, and techniques are being developed. Established disci-
plinary boundaries are being changed, some are being reconfigured, and
some research is outside disciplinary boundaries, such as research which is
multidisciplinary (e.g., education and psychology), cross-disciplinary (the
psychology of education), interdisciplinary (educational psychology), and
transdisciplinary (learning). It is hard to know whether these changes are
part of the normal development of research or a fundamental change in
its nature. A useful perspective on this may be gained by observing the
changes to the methods for advancing knowledge in the Middle Ages and
comparing those with the Scientific Revolution, which many consider to
be a substantial change from previous methods for advancing knowledge.
Universities advanced knowledge during the Middle Ages by reading
closely and analyzing the authoritative texts then available, which were
importantly expanded during the Renaissance. The rediscovery of origi-
nal or at least much earlier versions of classical texts and the rediscovery
of ancient Greek texts new to European scholars from the middle of the
fourteenth century facilitated a new technique for advancing knowledge—
what is now called ‘research’—by returning ad fontes (back to the sources):
reading and analyzing authoritative texts in their initial form, preferably in
their original language, without subsequent glosses.

164 G. MOODIE
The extension of knowledge of natural phenomena during the Middle

Ages depended on the application, extension, and ultimately rejection of what
was understood as the Aristotelian method. From the middle of the sixteenth
century to the late eighteenth century, a new method of natural philosophy
was developed in Europe that came to be termed ‘experimental philosophy’
(Gaukroger 2006, p. 352). The development, expansion, and entrenchment
of this different method for discovering new knowledge and for testing claims
to new knowledge became known as the Scientific Revolution.
The contribution of technology to the Scientific Revolution is dis-
puted. This chapter argues that the printing press was at least an important
precursor of the Scientific Revolution, with other important antecedents,
and the following Chap. 9 will argue less contentiously that printing was
important in disseminating and entrenching the scientific advances of the
early modern period. The digital revolution has already transformed the
dissemination of research, and seems likely to continue to do so, as is
discussed in Chap. 9. It has also introduced new techniques and tools to
research in many fields such as big data and the digital humanities, but it
is not yet clear that research’s basic forms, processes, and values are being
transformed. The chapter has these sections:
8.1 Aristotelian Method

8.2 Scholars’ Tools: Literature Survey
8.3 Scholars’ Tools: Reliable Texts
8.4 Scholars’ Tools: Accurate Illustrations
8.5 Institutions
8.5.1 Patrons
8.5.2 Academies
8.5.3 Specialized Training Institutions
8.5.4 Role of Universities
8.6 The Scientific Revolution
8.6.1 The Two Books

8.6.2 Examination of Mathematical Abstractable Properties
8.6.3 ‘Experimental Philosophy’
8.6.4 Fragmentation of Disciplines
8.7 Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production

ADVANCING KNOWLEDGE 165
8.1 ARISTOTELIAN METHOD

Methods of extending knowledge advanced considerably during the
Middle Ages. Before the twelfth century, theologians developed knowl-
edge of religious texts by exegesis—by understanding different senses
of the text: literal, historical, allegorical, tropological, moral, anagogical,
and eschatological (Asztalos 1992, p. 411). The theologian and teacher
Anselm of Laon (died 1117) considered questions arising from the text
and Peter Abelard’s (1079–1142) Sic et non (Yes and no) is prominent in
introducing to textual analysis dialectic which juxtaposed contrasting or
contradictory positions and tried to reconcile differences. This developed
into the quaestiones considered in early lectures, discussed in Sect. 6.1.
As Sect. 4.1 noted, Aristotle elaborated in the Topics procedures for
the ‘discovery of knowledge’ which involved categorizing problems to
which could be applied specified techniques for analyzing appropriate
questions and identifying relevant evidence (Gaukroger 2006, p. 160).
In book E of the Metaphysics, Aristotle defined metaphysics as the study
of phenomena that do not change and have an independent existence,
‘physics’ or natural philosophy as the study of things that change and have
an independent existence (natural phenomena) and mathematics as the
study of those things that do not change and do not have an independent
existence, namely quantitative abstractions: numbers (discontinuous mag-
nitudes) and geometric shapes (continuous magnitudes). The Aristotelian
method was to establish a phenomenon’s essential properties to determine
what kind of thing it is and therefore what kind of inquiry to apply to it
(Gaukroger 2006, p. 400). This logic was adopted as a powerful method
for understanding relations between phenomena and resolving apparently
contradictory understandings, and after the twelfth century was applied
to all the academy’s fields of inquiry: theology, law, medicine, grammar,
and the natural sciences (Cobban 1975, pp. 19–20; Scott 2006, p. 9;
Gaukroger 2006, p. 136).
Toward the late Middle Ages scholars’ attention turned to Aristotle’s
later works such as the Prior Analytics and the Posterior Analytics, which
are concerned with the validity of reasoning from accepted or assumed
premises: syllogism. By the sixteenth century, scholars adopted Aristotle’s
method for testing knowledge claims as a method for advancing as well as
testing knowledge, overlooking the earlier method for advancing knowl-
edge propounded in the Topics (Gaukroger 2006, p. 160). By the late
sixteenth century, scholasticism was increasingly being viewed as sterile
166 G. MOODIE
disputation (Gaukroger 2006, p. 159). Scholars’ emergence from this

period to the great advances in knowledge of the natural world of the
Scientific Revolution depended on several prior developments, some of
them which arose directly or indirectly from the relatively new technology
of the printing press.
8.2 SCHOLARS’ TOOLS: LITERATURE SURVEY

Those who developed their research skills after, say, 1990, need some
imagination to understand the limitations of undertaking a literature sur-
vey before machine readable text; online catalogs; electronic databases of
articles, books, and data; search engines; and other manifold advantages
of the digital age. Of course, there are disadvantages of the digital age,
such as the explosion of material which it seems impossible to keep up
with—a difficulty that recalls the laments of early modern scholars such
as Leibniz and Doni at the proliferation of printed material, much of it
worthless, brought on by the introduction of printing noted in Sect. 3.2.
Nonetheless, few who can remember would relinquish the digital age for
surveying literature by visiting different libraries, some distant; flipping
through their card catalogs by author, title, and subject; and poring over
subject directories, catalogs of books in print, and the several other soon
to be forgotten tools of predigital literature searches.
Likewise, Goldschmidt (1943, p. 90) invites readers to imagine the chal-
lenges of surveying literature when it was not printed but in manuscript.
Let us try to visualize a medieval author at work in his study. Having con-
ceived the plan to compose a book, he would first of all proceed to collect
material and to accumulate notes. He would search for books on kindred
subjects, firstly in the library of his own monastery. If he found something
he could use, he would write out relevant chapters or entire pieces on sheets
of vellum, which he would keep in his cell to be made use of in due course.
If in the course of his reading he came upon a mention of a book which was
not available in his library, he would be anxious to find out where he could
obtain sight of it, not an easy matter in those days. He would write to friends
in other abbeys reputed to have big libraries to inquire whether they knew of
a copy, and he would have to wait a long time for their replies. A large part
of the extant correspondence of medieval scholars consists of such requests
for search after the whereabouts of some book, requests for copies of books
which are said to exist in the place of the addressee’s residence, requests for
the loan of books for copying purposes. (Goldschmidt 1943, p. 90)
Since there was no postal service correspondents had to wait until they
found a cleric or a merchant bound for the recipient’s town to carry a let-
ter or a small package for a fee. This further delayed correspondence. In
the middle of the fourteenth century, Petrarch sometimes kept his letters
more than a year waiting for a courier (Bishop 1971, p. 218). Next, the
scholar would want a copy of the relevant text:
When he had tracked down the desired book he had to take steps to get a
copy of it or of the relevant parts of it. If he could not borrow it, he would
either have to travel to the library where it was, or arrange for it to be copied
by a friend on the spot. In either case he would have to make provision of
the necessary vellum, which was a costly item. (Goldschmidt 1943, p. 90)
Manuscripts shorter than book length could be easily misplaced, lost, or

damaged. Goldschmidt (1943, pp. 94–5) describes how librarians would
therefore bind such manuscripts with other manuscripts.
But the shorter pieces, like Abelard’s Sic et Non or Alfred de Sareshel’a De
motu Cordis which only took a few pages, could never be transmitted except
in volumes of miscellaneous content. These volumes comprising many
pieces, which probably constituted the majority of the books in the library,
were created as units not by the authors or even by the scribes but by the
librarians or bookbinders (very often identical). They would assemble loose
peciae of similar size to preserve in one volume, and they would be guided
primarily by the format and secondarily as far as possible by the nature or
subject-matter of the texts, but practically never by considerations of author-
ship. They might endeavour to form volumes of homilies and sermons and
other volumes of grammar, logic, and astronomy, because these two cat-
egories would be placed in different sections of the library. But within these
categories they would not mind in the least binding a ninth-century author
text next to a thirteenth-century one. Nor would they mind, when some
old volume was falling to pieces, binding quires written centuries ago with
newly written ones, as long as they were approximately of the same size.
Once such a volume of tracts was constituted it became a unit in the library
and was liable to be copied for some other library from cover to cover: thus
a volume ‘written by several hands’ would become a volume written in one
uniform hand, in which form its composite nature would be less obvious.
(Goldschmidt 1943, pp. 94–5)
Goldschmidt (1943, pp. 96–7) explains how this further complicated our

scholars’ literature survey, and the ascription of authorship.
168 G. MOODIE
Whatever the method adopted, a volume containing twenty different pieces

by ten different authors would necessarily have to be listed under one name,
whatever the librarian might decide to do about the other nine names. And
if the first tract in the volume was by St Augustine, under St Augustine it
would go. If you wanted to see the volume you would have to ask for St
Augustine, even if it should be the fifth treatise in the volume you wanted
to consult, which might be by Hugo de Sancto Caro. And if you asked a
friend in another abbey to copy something for you which you had noted
on a former visit you would have to write to him: ‘Please copy the trea-
tise on fols. 50 to 70 in your “Augustinus”’. This would not necessarily
imply that the writer was not aware that the author of this treatise was not
Augustinus; whether he thought so or not, he would have to request this
book ‘ex Augustino’. In another library this same text, say the De duodecimo
abusivis, would be bound third in a volume beginning with something by
St Cyprian. There the same treatise would be ‘ex Cypriano’. This is but one
prolific source of ‘authorship’ attributions, which cause one and the same
text to be referred to by a variety of names. (Goldschmidt 1943, pp. 96–7)
Many manuscript books did not have titles as they are understood now but
were known by their conventional dicta probatoria, the opening words of
their second folio (Lovatt 2006, p. 169), as the Lord’s Prayer is still often
known as the Pater Noster or ‘Our Father’ and the Christian prayer seek-
ing the intervention of the Blessed Mother is known as the Ave Maria or
‘Hail Mary’.
8.3 SCHOLARS’ TOOLS: RELIABLE TEXTS

The scarcity of manuscripts before the introduction of printing meant
that everyone, including astronomers, mathematicians, and natural
philosophers, had to rely heavily on their memory to undertake even
standard operations. Multiplication tables, formulas, and records of com-
putation methods were not readily available and had to be memorized.
People relied on mnemonics, such as an Anglo-Norman ‘algorism’ of
the fourteenth century consisting of 137 rhymed couplets, mostly octo-
syllables in Old French, which sets out basic computational methods
(Karpinski and Staubach 1935). Finding the day of the week for a date
was an arduous mathematical and mnemonic feat before printed calen-
dars (Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 608). Determining the date of Easter
was particularly difficult. Oxford clerks who studied the computes from
the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries helped to memorize the 260
lines of hexameter required for the calculation by assigning verses to six

joints of each finger (Bosanquet 1917, p. 59, cited in Eisenstein 1997
[1979], p. 608). A notebook by a medical student or new graduate of
the University of Salamanca written up to 1504 contains descriptions of
medicinal materials in Castilian in verse as an aide-memoire (Ballester
2006, pp. 40–1).
Even when manuscripts were available, they contained many transcrip-
tion errors, which accumulated from copy to copy. Particularly when
a scribe was not familiar with the subject they were copying they were
likely to make mistakes in copying manuscripts which included diverse
Greek and Arabic expressions, medieval Latin abbreviations and neolo-
gisms (Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 697). Numerals were written in Roman
script and so were easily mistaken for letters (Benjamin and Toomer
1971, pp. xii–xiii, n 2., cited in Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 465, fn.34).
Thus, manuscript tables of astronomical observations were likely to suf-
fer from the ‘appallingly frequent scribal blunders … always present in
medieval astronomical tables which have not been copied by astronomers’
(cited in Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 465, fn. 34). Petrarch (1304–1374)
complained:
Who will discover a cure for the ignorance and vile sloth of these copyists,
who spoil everything and turn it to nonsense? If Cicero, Livy, and other
illustrious ancients were to return to life, do you think they would under-
stand their own works? There is no check upon these copyists, selected with-
out examination or test of their capacity. Workmen, husbandmen, weaver,
artisans are not indulged in the same liberty. (Cited in Lerner 1998, p. 97)
So before a scholar could use a manuscript they had to check all its tables,
formulas, and if it was crucial, its text. An astronomer who wanted to
predict equinoxes would have to check manuscript records going back
several years. Reforming the calendar, which was debated frequently in
the Middle Ages, required aligning observations which were made over
centuries and recorded in Greek and Arabic as well as Latin (Eisenstein
1997 [1979], p. 578). Printing enabled these problems to be overcome
once new processes were established to ensure the accuracy and authentic-
ity of the text.
Printing encouraged and supported greater accuracy in producing
texts. The scholar-printer Sebastian Gryphius (c. 1492–1556) was eager
to get editions of Hippocrates and Galen produced for the Lyons book
170 G. MOODIE
fair of 1532, but Rabelais (c. 1490–1553) who he had engaged to col-
late the texts observed that ‘One wrong word may now kill thousands of
men’ (Eisenstein (1997) [1979], pp. 567–8). Nonetheless, early printed
books had many mistakes of typesetting, formatting, and pagination.
Early print runs also comprised different versions. A corrector would
check a ‘revise’, a first impression of a page. But paper was too expen-
sive to throw away so the ‘revise’ would be used for a copy of the book.
Printers did not want a press and its crew to stand idle while a corrector
reviewed a revise so the shop would continue printing while the correc-
tor checked the revise. Thus, books comprised sheets in different states
of correction. As a result, no two copies of an edition were necessarily
the same, and even the modern concept of an ‘edition’ is anachronistic
(Johns 1998, p. 91). Johns (1998, pp. 31, 91) notes that as a result
there remains no pair of identical copies of Shakespeare’s first folio: in the
extant copies there are some 600 different typefaces, inconsistent spell-
ing and punctuation, erratic divisions and arrangement, mispaging and
irregular proofing. And there is no straightforward way of determining
which version is most correct.
The developing institutions for enforcing copy holders’ rights in the
text they owned were weak in the early modern period even within a juris-
diction, and an authority’s control could readily be evaded by printing
outside their jurisdiction. Piracy and plagiarism were therefore common
and a popular work would attract numerous unauthorized copies, epito-
mes, imitations, and translations. Luther’s Bible was beaten into print by
its first piracy (Johns 1998, p. 31). The printer of Shakespeare’s first folio
condemned previous editions as ‘stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed,
and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious imposters, that
expos’d them’ (Johns 1998, p. 215). Even the English Parliament had dif-
ficulty enforcing its printing licenses and ensuring that copies of speeches
and statutes were correct. Printers simply forged licenses and fabricated
purported Parliamentary texts. In 1653, a document circulated which
purported to dissolve Parliament, which in 1660 Parliament resolved was
‘a forgery’ (Johns 1998, p. 174).
Stephen Austen, the publisher of the second edition of Benjamin
Worster’s A compendious and methodical account of the principles of natu-
ral philosophy in 1730, advised in his note to the reader that notwith-
standing the inaccuracy of other ‘bookmenders’ the reader could verify
the accuracy of his imprint by checking the text against the author’s hand-
written corrections:
Some account may perhaps be expected of the Corrections and Additions in

this fecund Impression; and indeed the unfkilful Practice of Bookmenders
may demand this from us; fince Inftances are not wanting, where inlarged
Editions from feveral hands, have appeared of a lower Standard and lefs
Value than the Author’s firft Thoughts.
The Reader then may be convinced from the corrected Copy, that there
are not any Emendations (excepting in a few Literals) but fuch as have a
Sanction from the Author’s own hand Writing: And as to the Additions, no
Sentence or Paragraph has been inferted without the fame Evidence, direct-
ing the infertion to be made in every particular Page and Line.
This Exactnefs poffibly may be cenfured by fome as over-nice. (Austen,
in Worster 1730, p. viii)
Newton’s experimental assistant and Fellow of the Royal Society John

Desaguliers (1683–1744) deterred unauthorized translations of his work
by warning that ‘if any other Translations appears[sic], I shall write my
Name in each Book with my own hand’ (cited in Wigelsworth 2013,
p. 173). Johns (1998, p. 182) notes the paradox that the only really effec-
tive way of guaranteeing the authenticity of a printed text was with an
endorsement in manuscript. These and other techniques for ensuring
the authenticity and accuracy of printed texts resulted in subsequent edi-
tions being ‘exceedingly improved’ over successive editions (Evelyn 1881
[1666], p. 644). The related issue of the authoritativeness of publication
is considered in Sect. 9.6.
The introduction of printing relieved learned society of the major
investment of resources and scribal effort needed to even maintain the
existing stock of knowledge (Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 503). The devel-
opment and dissemination of accurate texts relieved scholars of the need
to memorize such great volumes of material (Ong 2003 [1982], p. 41),
and where a manuscript was available, of the considerable effort needed to
check its crucial details. Printing also greatly expanded the texts available
to scholars (Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 466).
8.4 SCHOLARS’ TOOLS: ACCURATE ILLUSTRATIONS

Technical illustrations are very difficult to reproduce manually accurately
and intelligibly. Scribes were rarely expert in technical drawing (Henry
1997, p. 29) and often did not understand the points being made
by the illustrations they copied. Even the differences between white
and yellow clover were lost by inexpert reproductions of illustrations
172 G. MOODIE
(Ong 2000 [1967], p. 51). Since plants were then most often known
by their local names, it was very difficult for readers to know whether
a text was referring to a plant that they knew by another name locally
(Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 5375; Henry 1997, p. 29). William
Turner (?1508–1568) provided some help with the publication in 1548
of ‘The names of herbes in Greke, Latin, English, Duch & Frenche wyth
the commune names that Herbaries and Apotecaries vse’. Geometric
diagrams were frequently copied out of proportion, perhaps to fit the
page of the scribe’s manuscript, or because of the copyist’s lack of skill
in drawing. Scribes put labels in the wrong place in the diagrams they
copied, or often omitted some or all, frequently making the text either
unintelligible or intelligible only after considerable mental effort. Verbal
descriptions were thus often more accurate and reliable than illustra-
tions (Ong 2000 [1967], p. 51).
Printing from woodcuts is very old: it probably developed in China
before 220 BCE, and on paper by the ninth century. Woodcuts were
adopted in Europe by the thirteenth century and some manuscripts incor-
porate woodcuts. But woodcuts were expensive to produce. The design
and execution of a technical wood cut ‘required great technical skill and
could be extremely expensive. Often the artists had to work closely with
the author, in a way in which those who worked on woodcuts of the
Virgin for a theological book did not’ (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location
5060). Rarely would one manuscript justify commissioning a woodcut to
illustrate it specifically, and there was not a ready means for sharing rel-
evant woodcuts between scriptoria.
Printing greatly improved economies of scale for woodcuts, though
they remained expensive, and since both woodcuts and moveable type
are printed in relief they can be combined readily once technical difficul-
ties are overcome. Numerous books were printed with woodcut illustra-
tions from around 1480 (Füssel 2005 [1999], p. 106). Engraving was
invented in Germany by the 1430s. It is a more accurate method for mak-
ing illustrations and engraving plates last longer than woodblocks which
get worn after several impressions. Once technical difficulties were over-
come printing with engravings and moveable type became a very powerful
although always expensive way of reproducing and promulgating knowl-
edge of mathematical and natural phenomena.
It now became possible to produce books in which the text was
accompanied by naturalistic renditions of plants, animals, the human
body; by precise architectural plans and geometric diagrams of the
planets (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 5060); and by mathematical

diagrams, technical drawings, and maps which were reproduced accu-
rately. This became expected by the middle of the sixteenth century.
This fostered close observation of natural phenomena and knowledge
of phenomena beyond those who could understand the Latin or the
vernacular in which the text was written (Pettegree 2010, Kindle loca-
tion 5060). Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528) naturalistic woodcuts and
then engravings were pathbreaking and set new standards. They allowed
readers to identify specimens from illustrations rather than from pro-
lix descriptions and inconsistent names, encouraged authors to write
with more realism and invited readers to compare illustrations with real
specimens (Henry 1997, p. 29). This facilitated the identification and
the analysis of plants and other natural phenomena (Pettegree 2010,
Kindle locations 573, 5375; Wootton 2015, p. 184). In 1551, Turner
elaborated his earlier The names of herbes with ‘A new herball wherein
are conteyned the names of herbes in Greek, Latin, Englyth, Duch
Frenche, and in the Potecaries and Herbaries Latin, with the properties
degrees and naturall places of the fame’. Importantly, the New herball
also included woodcuts of each plant to greatly facilitate identification
(Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 5393).
Contemporaries appreciated the power of accurate illustrations. If a
picture was not quite worth a thousand words (Flanders 1911, p. 18), a
week reviewing figures and charts was worth at least half a year reading or
hearing text, according to the English diplomat and scholar Thomas Elyot
(c. 1490–1546) in his treatise on educating statesmen, The Boke called the
Gouvernour, which was published in 1531 and went through seven differ-
ent editions by 1580:
Finally, euery thinge that portraiture [drawing] may comprehende will be to

him delectable to rede or here. And where the liuely spirite, and that whiche
is called the grace of the thyng, is perfectly expressed, that thinge more per-
suadeth and stereth the beholder, and soner istructeth hym, than the dec-
laration in writynge or speakynge doth the reder or hearer. Experience we
haue therof in lernynge of geometry, astronomie, and cosmogrophie, called
in englisshe the discription of the worlde. In which studies I dare affirme a
man shal more profite, in one wike, by figures and chartis, well and perfectly
made, than he shall by the only reding or heryng the rules of that science
by the space of halfe a yere at the lest, wherfore the late writers deserue no
small commendation whiche added to the autors of those sciences apt and
propre figures. (Elyot 1907 [1531], p. 30)
174 G. MOODIE
Two centuries later Joseph Banks (1743–1820), the naturalist who was a
member of James Cook’s first great voyage (1768–1771), observed that
illustrations provided the life sciences with ‘one common measure which
speaks universally to all mankind’ (Smith 1950, p. 67, cited in Eisenstein
1997 [1979], p. 469). With printing, communication in natural philos-
ophy depended much more on equations, diagrams, tables, maps, and
charts that could not be conveyed by lecture or text but required silent
scanning to be understood and absorbed (Davies 1954, p. 12, cited in
Eisenstein 1997 [1979], p. 535).
Illustrations could also be copied with different levels of accuracy
and changed without the author’s authorization. Authors and printers
of illustrations, and stationers who distributed and often commissioned
and underwrote books, had to assure the credibility of their illustrations
by adopting strategies that were similar to those adopted for text (Johns
1998, p. 434). One such technique was collective witnessing and certi-
fication of events, perceptions, and illustrations by witnesses of authori-
tative credibility. Claude Perrault’s (1613–1688) Mémoires pour servir à
l’histoire naturelle des animaux (Memoirs for a natural history of animals)
published in 1671 was subtitled in its English translation as ‘containing
the anatomical descriptions of several creatures diffected by the Royal
Academy of Sciences at Paris’. The preface averred:
To a great number of particular Obfervations which we have made, we

added all the other Remarks which are common to us with other Authors,
and which we do not give for new; but only as being in fome fort confider-
able, by reafon of the certainty and credit, which the Teftimonies of fo many
Perfons who have contributed to thefe Defcriptions, may add to the Facts
which we do declare.
This fo precife exactnefs in relating all the particulars which we obferve,
is qualified with a like care to draw well the Figures, as well of the intire
Animals, as of their external Parts, and of all thofe which are inwardly
concealed. Thefe parts having been confidered, and examined with Eyes
affifted with Microfcopes, when need required, were inftantly defigned by
one of thofe upon whom the Company had impofed the charge of making
the Defcriptions; and they were not graved, till all thofe which were prefent
at the Diffections found that they were wholly conformable to what they
had feen. It was thought that it was a thing very advantagious for the per-
fection of thefe Figures to be done by a Hand which was guided by other
fciences than thofe of Painting, which are not alone sufficient. (Perrault
1688, eighth to ninth pages—pages unnumbered)
Perrault’s original concluded that he preferred the eye of the naturalist

above that of the artist ‘because what was important was not to repre-
sent well what one sees, but to see well what one wishes to represent’.
Alexander Pitfield’s (1659–1728) English translation published in 1688
was somewhat stronger in suggesting that the naturalist not only perceives
better but also selects what should be represented: ‘becaufe that in this
the Importance is not fo much to reprefent well what is feen, as to fee well
what should be reprefented’ (Kusukawa 2011, p. 279).
8.5 INSTITUTIONS
Major advances in science are often ascribed to heroes. Many have sub-
scribed to the observation of Bernard of Chartres (born eleventh cen-
tury—c. 1130) in 1126 reformulated by Newton in 1676 that ‘If I have
seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’ (Merton 1993
[1965], pp. 268–9). Scientific giants are typically portrayed as lone geniuses
(Christie 2015a), heroically prevailing over the indifference or ignorance
if not the hostility of a self-serving establishment. This book argues that
almost all intellectual achievement depends to varying extent on its social
environment, at least institutional contexts and usually institutional sup-
port. This is true especially of understanding natural phenomena, what
is now known as science: ‘science is a collective, collaborative enterprise’
(Christie 2015b). As Sect. 8.5.4 later notes, there is extensive debate over
the extent to which knowledge of natural phenomena advanced so greatly
during the early modern period because or in spite of universities. What
is generally accepted, however, is that contemporaneous with the great
advances in natural philosophy was the emergence of important new forms
of support for natural philosophers.
8.5.1 Patrons
Many city-states on the Italian peninsular changed from oligarchies to
hereditary houses of princes and dukes whose courts supported artists and
whose court physicians were augmented with court astrologers, architects,
and engineers; mathematicians acting as surveyors or controllers of weights
and measures, tutors, and scholars. Italian courts thereby became cen-
ters of intellectual activity outside universities, often with more financial
support than many universities (Pedersen 1996, p. 480). The practice of
patronizing artists and scholars spread among the increasingly wealthy and
176 G. MOODIE
urban aristocracy whose better pay and less onerous conditions attracted
natural philosophers from universities (Brockliss 1996, p. 616; Pedersen
1996, p. 470).
In 1471, the wealthy merchant, humanist, and astronomer Bernhard
Walther (1430–1504) supported Regiomontanus (1436–1476) in estab-
lishing an observatory and an associated press in Nuremberg, which was
already a center of scholarship, printing, and mechanical invention. The
new institution was separate from a university and a forebear of future
establishments and the separation of institutions for the advancement
of knowledge separate from those for the transmission of knowledge
(Pedersen 1996, pp. 471, 474).
Patronage of mathematicians, natural philosophers, and other scholars
expanded during the seventeenth century (Dear 2009 [2001], p. 106).
It was a new institution for valuing and supporting scholarship and intro-
duced new priorities and processes for supporting scholars. The new pri-
ority is encapsulated in the ‘potent cultural ideal’ established by patrons,
virtuosity, to which scientists seeking patronage had to conform (Eamon
1991, pp. 28, 33). Patrons expected their clients to enhance the patron’s
reputation by dazzling their competitors, in painting, architecture, music,
poetry, or natural philosophy. Clients were legitimated by their success in
this contest for their patrons. Natural philosophers did this by engaging in
debates, challenging other court philosophers of appropriate rank (Johns
1998, p. 25). Their patrons were considered above detail, and thus disin-
terested in their clients’ execution of their skill, allowing natural philoso-
phers to pursue their interests unconstrained by the limits of a university
(Gaukroger 2006, p. 209) but directed and to some extent limited to
activities, which would enhance their patron’s esteem (Johns 1998, p. 24).
8.5.2 Academies
Academies were widespread Renaissance cultural institutions alternative
to universities (Eamon 1991, p. 42). The Accademia Fiorentina origi-
nated in 1540 under the patronage of Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574)
and during the sixteenth century most Italian towns hosted one or more
academies of ‘curiosi’ and ‘dilettanti’ devoted to investigating general or
natural-philosophical matters (Pedersen 1996, p. 481). By 1600, nearly
400 academies had been founded in Italy alone, although most were local
and short-lived (Principe 2011, p. 123). In the seventeenth century, acad-
emies spread to other parts of Europe from Portugal to Poland (Burke
2000, p. 36), particularly in France and England. The Franciscan theo-

logian, philosopher, mathematician, and music theorist Marin Mersenne
(1588–1648) maintained an extensive correspondence through which
he collected and redistributed developments in natural philosophy across
Europe. In 1635, he established in Paris the informal Académie Parisienne
(Pedersen 1996, p. 482) which had nearly 140 correspondents and was
the precursor to the Académie Royale des Sciences (Royal Academy of
Sciences) which was founded in 1666 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–
1683), Louis XIV’s chief minister (Dear 2009 [2001], p. 112; Principe
2011, p. 127).
By 1645, a number of natural philosophers started meeting in London
first at a tavern and later at Gresham College and later a spin-off group
met in Oxford (Spangenburg and Moser 2004, p. 87) in Wadham College
or at the house of an apothecary where there were facilities for experi-
ments. These groups became known as the invisible or philosophical col-
lege and with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 were established
as the Philosophers’ Society with technicians and with greatly expanded
members from the nobility. The society obtained a royal charter in 1662
and a second charter in 1663 established it as the Royal Society of London
for the advancement of Natural Knowledge (O’Connor and Robertson
2004). The statutes provided that the Society would improve knowledge
of ‘“natural things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanick prac-
tices, Engines and Inventions by Experiments” and the further exami-
nation of scientific theories by experiment and reason’ (Pedersen 1996,
p. 483).
The Göttingen Königglich Societät der Wissenschaften (Society of sci-
ences) was founded in 1752. Its foundation had been delayed by the prior
needs of the University of Göttingen, which had been established in 1734.
The founding president of the society Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777)
held the university chair of medicine, anatomy, botany, and surgery. He
averted opposition to the society’s establishment by excluding from its
scope anatomy, botany, and chemistry which was guarded by the univer-
sity’s medical faculty (McClellan 1985, pp. 114–6) and by distinguishing
between the university as an academy for teaching and the society as an
academy for discovery (Pedersen 1996, p. 486). The champion of the
German Enlightenment Christian Wolff (1679–1754) also defined the
role of the academies as the production and dissemination of new knowl-
edge and discoveries in distinction to the teaching role of the universities
(Pedersen 1996, p. 486).
178 G. MOODIE
8.5.3 Specialized Training Institutions

Particularly in France but also on the Iberian peninsula and in Italy,
authorities established specialized training institutions in medicine and
natural philosophy but also in disciplines not taught in universities such as
agricultural technology, military tactics and strategy, engineering, camera-
listics, and the fine arts (Hammerstein 1996, p. 625).
8.5.4 Role of Universities

Printing greatly broadened the readers and at least by 1640 it expanded
the authors of texts, particularly by authors who were ‘illiterate’ in the eyes
of scholars because they knew as little Latin and Greek as Shakespeare.
Neither were these authors schooled in scholars’ logical disputation and so
used other forms of argument. University scholars were contemptuous of
these new writers, but universities came to be associated with increasingly
outdated subjects and methods of inquiry (Rose 2011, p. 15).
For these and other reasons many of the advances in natural philosophy,
in astronomy, and in mechanics that came to be known as the Scientific
Revolution happened outside universities. Oxford and Cambridge univer-
sities may have come ‘to be regarded as little more than seminaries for the
education of the clergy of the Established Church’ in 1575 (Mullinger
1884, p. 250) yet from the sixteenth century, university medical schools
maintained anatomy theaters and botanical gardens that promoted obser-
vation and empirical inquiry, and medical schools became the sites for
the revolution in the life sciences (Henry 1997, p. 35). Furthermore,
nearly all natural philosophers had been educated in a university (Dear
2009 [2001], p. 101). And the only disciplines which were ‘radically
reconstructed’ during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the
classical disciplines based in universities:
Mathematics made the transition from geometry and ‘the art of the coss’ to
algebra, analytic geometry, and calculus; astronomy acquired non-circular
orbits based on the newly central sun; the study of motion was transformed
by new fully quantitative laws; and optics gained a new theory of vision, the
first acceptable solution to the classical problem of refraction, and a drasti-
cally altered theory of colors. Statics, conceived as the theory of machines,
is an apparent exception. But as hydrostatics, the theory of fluids, it was
extended during the seventeenth century to pneumatics, the ‘sea of air’, and it
can therefore be included in the list of reconstructed fields. These conceptual
transformations of the classical sciences are the events through which the phys-
ical sciences participated in a more general revolution of Western thought. If,
therefore, one thinks of the Scientific Revolution as a revolution of ideas, it
is the changes in these traditional, quasi-mathematical fields which one must
seek to understand. Although other vitally important things also happened
to the sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the Scientific
Revolution was not merely a revolution in thought), they prove to be of a dif-
ferent and to some extent independent sort. (Kuhn 1976, pp. 9–10)
Kuhn (1976, pp. 15, 20) argues that the experimental philosophy devel-
oped by Francis Bacon (1561–1626) and his collaborators, mostly outside
universities, did not transform understanding of natural phenomena until
after what is generally understood as the peak or the first phase of the
Scientific Revolution because the new fields were so new and ‘lacked any
significant body of unified technical doctrine to reconstruct’:
If the possession of a body of consistent theory capable of producing refined

predictions is the mark of a developed scientific field, the Baconian sciences
remained underdeveloped throughout the seventeenth and much of the
eighteenth centuries. Both their research literature and their patterns of
growth were less like those of the contemporary classical sciences than like
those discoverable in a number of the social sciences today. By the middle
of the eighteenth century, however, experiment in these fields had become
more systematic, increasingly clustering about selected sets of phenomena
thought to be especially revealing. (Kuhn 1976, p. 15)
Porter (1996, p. 551) argues that the Scientific Revolution was stron-
gest in those fields in which there was a strong tradition of theory and
argument, which was derived from Aristotle though the new natural phi-
losophers rejected Aristotelianism. He observes that:
the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century was less successful in

those domains of inquiry which were marginal to the university. There was
great activity in chemical experiments, in navigation, in agriculture, in min-
ing and so forth, and this took place largely outside the university. But it was
not in these fields that whole new scientific disciplines emerged, replete with
powerful new theories. (Porter 1996, p. 551)
Wootton (2015, p. 216) notes that the telescope which was invented in
1608 is basically the same thing as the microscope, and both produced new
knowledge. Yet the telescope transformed astronomy ‘almost overnight’
180 G. MOODIE
while the microscope was adopted slowly and abandoned toward the end
of the seventeenth century. Wootton (2015, p. 216) observes:
The reason for this is simple: there was an established body of astronomical
theory, and what was seen with the telescope was at odds with it. Astronomers
could scarcely dispute the relevance of the telescope to their studies. But the
microscope brought into vision a world previously unknown; it was hard
to establish how the new information it produced related to established
knowledge. The telescope addressed directly issues that were already under
discussion; the microscope opened up new lines of enquiry whose relevance
to current concerns was not obvious. (Wootton 2015, p. 216)
And much of the body of astronomical theory and debate was produced
in universities, while the microscopic world had been the subject of a rela-
tively modest amount of speculation, in universities as elsewhere.
8.6 THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

The term ‘The Scientific Revolution’ was used by John Dewey (1859–
1952) in 1915, Harold J Laski (1893–1950) in 1936 (Wootton 2015,
p. 17) and by Alexandre Koyré (1892–1964) in 1935 (Shapin 1996, p. 2).
It is distinctive not because it was the first period of major advances in
knowledge of the physical world. Gaukroger (2006, pp. 17–8) observes:
Since classical antiquity, there have been a number of civilizations that

have witnessed a form of ‘scientific revolution’: rich, productive scientific
cultures in which fundamental and especially intractable mathematical,
physical, medical, astronomical, or other problems are opened up and dealt
with in an innovative and concerted fashion, producing cumulative results
over several generations. Among these, we can include Classical Greece and
the Hellenistic Greek diaspora; Arab-Islamic North Africa//Near East/
Iberian peninsula in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries; thirteenth-
and fourteenth-century Paris and Oxford; and China from the twelfth to the
fourteenth century. (Gaukroger 2006, pp. 17–8)
While contemporaries did not use the term ‘scientific revolution’ to

describe their developments in natural philosophy, they claimed they
were new: Kepler (1571–1630) published New astronomy in 1609, Bacon
(1561–1626) published New organon in 1620 and New Atlantis in
1627, Galileo (1564–1642) published his Discourses and demonstrations
concerning two new sciences in 1638, Pascal (1623–1662) published New

experiments about the void in 1647, Otto von Guericke (1602–1686) pub-
lished New Magdeburg experiments on empty space in 1660, and Boyle
(1627–1691) published New experiments physico-mechanical: touching the
spring of the air and their effects in 1660, New experiments and observations
upon cold in 1665, and New experiments and observations upon the icy noc-
tiluca in 1682 (Shapin 1996, p. 65). Thorndike (1951) notes some 200
such titles in the seventeenth century. In 1611, John Donne (1572–1631)
wrote that the ‘new Philosophy cals all in doubt’ (The epithalamions, anni-
versaires and epicedes).
Gaukroger (2006, p. 18) argues that what needs explanation is not why
the Scientific Revolution did not happen in, for example, China, medieval
Islam, or medieval Paris or Oxford, but why scientific development in the
West in the early modern era was sustained. The Scientific Revolution is
distinctive because it ‘breaks with the boom/bust pattern of all other sci-
entific cultures’ and continues with cumulative growth through the mod-
ern period to the present, uninterrupted by diversions to artistic, moral, or
other concerns. Gaukroger argues that this wasn’t because Western science
of the early modern period was unusually successful (p. 21), well supported
(the Royal Society almost collapsed within three years of its foundation
through poor attendance at meetings and lack of funds) (p. 36) or because
it generated practical benefits (p. 41). Rather, Gaukroger (2006, p. 507)
argues that European natural philosophy of the early modern period was
distinctive in rejecting Aristotelianism for an alternative organizing prin-
ciple of the Christian idea of a world designed by God.
8.6.1 The Two Books

Aristotle’s method for discovering knowledge that was so productive from
the twelfth century nonetheless excluded studies that became increasingly
important from the sixteenth century such as the practical mathematics
of mechanics, optics, and astronomy because they were not concerned
with natural phenomena as understood by Aristotelianism. Aristotle’s
method also excluded medicine and natural history because they did
not seek Aristotelian underlying principles (Gaukroger 2006, p. 229).
Furthermore, Aristotelianism was an obstacle to the Scientific Revolution’s
great advances in understanding physical phenomena with mathematical
methods since it held that physical phenomena could be investigated only
by physical principles and that the very different mathematical phenomena
182 G. MOODIE
could be investigated only by mathematical principles: ‘The general thrust

of the Aristotelian position is that physical enquiry or demonstration can-
not be pursued mathematically, any more than mathematical enquiry can
be pursued physically’ (Gaukroger 2006, p. 401).
The organizing principles of Aristotelianism were thus no longer ade-
quate to encompass all systematic inquiry, particularly of natural phenom-
ena. Scholars therefore turned to an alternative organizing principle, the
Christian idea of a world designed by God. For Psalm 19 opens: ‘The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy-
work’. It was by understanding God’s design that one knew the world.
Natural philosophy was understood to be the ‘handmaiden’ of theology,
as Aquinas argued (Dear 2009 [2001], p. 15) and the aim was ‘to find
God in all things’ according to the Jesuits’ motto (Principe 2011, p. 19).
The Christian idea restricted the forms of inquiry into natural phenom-
ena far less than Aristotelianism and fostered natural history (Gaukroger
2006, p. 455) as revealing God’s design (Henry 1997, pp. 31, 83). This
reflected the idea of St. Augustine and other early Christian writers that
God reveals himself in two ways, in the book of Scripture and in the book
of nature (Principe 2011, p. 37). The idea that natural philosophy was a
means of seeking evidence of God’s activity in nature became widespread
in the 1680s and 1690s (Gaukroger 2006, p. 505). Thus, Robert Boyle
(1627–1691) wrote in his Of the excellency and grounds of the corpuscular
of mechanical philosophy: ‘For as, if I miftake not, Plato faid, that the world
was God’s epiftle written to mankind, and might have added, confonantly
to another faying of his, it was written in mathematical letters’: (Boyle
1772 [1665], p. 77). Boyle and Kepler (1571–1630) described natural
philosophers as ‘priests of nature’ (Harrison 2005, p. 179).
Gaukroger (2006, p. 507) argues that this established a new and more
powerful justification for natural philosophy:
What emerged from this was a conception of revelation and natural philoso-
phy as being mutually reinforcing, a reinforcement consolidated through a
process of ‘triangulation’, towards the shared truth of revelation and natural
philosophy. In this way the nature of the natural-philosophical exercise was
transformed and provided with a unique vindication and legitimacy. The
combination of revelation and natural philosophy—the two ‘books’ super-
imposed in a single volume, as it were—produced a unique kind of enter-
prise, quite different from that of any other scientific culture, and one that
was largely responsible for the subsequent uniqueness of the development
of natural philosophy in the West. This uniqueness derives in large part from
the legitimatory aspirations that it takes on in the course of the seventeenth

century, and I have attempted to reconstruct how these legitimatory aspira-
tions were formed. The kind of momentum that lay behind the legitimatory
consolidation of the natural-philosophical enterprise from the seventeenth
century onwards, a momentum that marked it out from every other scien-
tific culture, was generated not by the intrinsic merits of its programme in
celestial mechanics or matter theory but by a natural-theological imperative.
(Gaukroger 2006, p. 507)
This more powerful legitimation of natural philosophy led to its consoli-

dation into the Scientific Revolution (Gaukroger 2006, pp. 505–7) and its
extension with new modes of inquiry.
8.6.2 Examination of Mathematical Abstractable Properties

Aristotelian physics sought to understand qualitative properties of phenom-
ena since they uncovered their essence and disclosed their material, formal,
efficient, and final causes (Principe 2011, p. 24), or different aspects of
their essential nature. Aristotelianism was not interested in the quantita-
tive properties of natural phenomena since they were contingent rather
than essential and descriptive rather than determinative and thus could not
lead to Aristotelian explanations (Dear 2009 [2001], pp. 64–5). In con-
trast, when describing motion Galileo did not concern himself with what
was moving and its qualities but considered its quantities, its mathemati-
cally abstractable properties: ‘Methodologically, what Galileo ignored is as
important as what he paid attention to. … By stripping away an object’s
characteristics of shape, colour and composition, Galileo gave idealized
mathematical descriptions of its behavior’ (Principe 2011, p. 73). The great
power of mathematics in explaining the motion of physical phenomena
from the microscopic to the macroscopic was demonstrated by Newton’s
great Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica (Mathematical principles
of natural philosophy) first published in 1687 (Henry 1997, p. 21).
8.6.3 ‘Experimental Philosophy’

The aim of Aristotelianism was to explain phenomena that were known or
readily observable, but by the seventeenth century natural philosophers
sought to discover new phenomena; there was thus a change of goal from
explanation to discovery of natural phenomena (Dear 2009 [2001], p. 6).
184 G. MOODIE
The abandonment of Aristotelianism was also associated with the pur-

suit of a form of natural philosophy from the 1660s which did not con-
form to a system but which came to be termed ‘experimental philosophy’
(Gaukroger 2006, p. 352). Natural philosophers had always observed and
sought to explain natural phenomena (Pettegree 2010, Kindle location
5245), and this expanded considerably from the early modern period. In
the sixteenth century, naturalists started collecting specimens of plants
rather than just describing them in situ. This decontextualized speci-
mens, aiding the construction of universal classification systems (Dear
2009 [2001], p. 123). For example, Jesuits established schools along the
newly established trade routes in China, India, and the Americas. Their
priests corresponded frequently with Rome, sending biological specimens,
astronomical observations, cultural artifacts, and extensive reports of local
knowledge and customs (Principe 2011, p. 19).
But the Scientific Revolution was more than a significant increase in
the observation of natural phenomena. First, observation was guided by
testing axioms derived from systematizing previous observations, as Bacon
explains in Novum organum scientiarum (New instrument of science) first
published in Latin in 1620:
There remains simple experience which, if taken as it comes, is called acci-

dent; if sought for, experiment. But this kind of experience is no better than
a broom without its band, as the saying is—a mere groping, as of men in
the dark, that feel all round them for the chance of finding their way, when
they had much better wait for daylight, or light a candle, and then go. But the
true method of experience, on the contrary, first lights the candle, and then
by means of the candle shows the way; commencing as it does with experi-
ence duly ordered and digested, not bungling or erratic, and from it educing
axioms, and from established axioms again new experiments; even as it was
not without order and method that the divine word operated on the created
mass. Let men therefore cease to wonder that the course of science is not
yet wholly run, seeing that they have gone altogether astray, either leaving
and abandoning experience entirely, or losing their way in it and wandering
round and round as in a labyrinth. Whereas a method rightly ordered leads
by an unbroken route through the woods of experience to the open ground
of axioms. (Bacon 1863b [1620], book 1, aphorism LXXXII)
Secondly, the design of experiments developed into ‘the experimental

method’, which involved constructing experiments to exclude as many
untested variables as possible. Experiments were designed, described, and
reported to allow them to be replicated any number of times, thus lending

authority to the findings (Henry 1997, p. 36). Huff (1993, p. 19) argues
that ‘modern science began in the seventeenth century with the fusion
of the mathematical movement of the Continent with the empirical and
experimental tradition of England’.
8.6.4 Fragmentation of Disciplines

The abandonment of an Aristotelian framework led to a fragmentation
of disciplines as new developments and discoveries did not fit neatly into
ideal Aristotelian categories (Maclean 2012, p. 234). What was known
in the sixteenth century as ‘natural philosophy’ (philosophia naturalis or,
often scientia naturalis, Dear 2009 [2001], p. 3) became reconstituted
as ‘science’ by the nineteenth century (Henry 1997, p. 5). The cumu-
lative growth and expansion of knowledge of natural phenomena since
the Scientific Revolution led to the fragmentation of the sancta quaedam
communitas eruditorum (holy community of teachers) in the nineteenth
century into several scientific disciplines with their own specialized jour-
nals, conferences, societies (Rüegg 2004, p. 9), terminology, method, and
degrees (Bockstaele 2004, pp. 511–2). The arts faculty divided into fac-
ulties of arts and sciences in European universities (Klinge 2004, p 132)
with schools or departments for each discipline. The institutionalization
of this deep disciplinary specialization of research within universities and
public research funding bodies and institutes has been very successful.
However, Gibbons et al. (1994) argue that it is being at least supple-
mented if not displaced by what they identify as a new form of knowledge
production they call ‘mode 2’.
8.7 TRANSDISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

The form of research that emerged from the Scientific Revolution is called
‘mode 1’ by Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott, and Trow
in The new production of knowledge: the dynamics of science and research
in contemporary societies (1994). Mode 1 knowledge production is aca-
demic, initiated by investigators and based in disciplines. It has a conti-
nuity of methods, problems, institutions, practitioners, and disciplinary
boundaries, although each may be changed by a major reconfiguration of
research which, however, is unusual. Gibbons et al. (1994) contrast this
with a form of knowledge production which they write emerged from the
186 G. MOODIE
mid-twentieth century. This form of knowledge production, which they

call ‘mode 2’, is driven by its context, focused on problems arising from
practice and is transdisciplinary. Limoges (1996, pp. 14–15) writes that:
‘We now speak of “context-driven” research, meaning “research carried
out in a context of application, arising from the very work of problem
solving and not governed by the paradigms of traditional disciplines of
knowledge”’. Mode 2 research involves multidisciplinary teams that work
together for short periods of time on specific problems.
Gibbons and some of his original collaborators extended their 1994
analysis in 2001 in Re-thinking science: knowledge and the public in an
age of uncertainty (Nowotny et al. 2001). They elaborated the objects of
mode 2 science such as the human genome project, introduced the con-
cept of the mode 2 society and of the agora—the new public space where
science, society, markets, and politics co-mingle—and they developed
their discussion of the validation of mode 2 science they had sketched in
The new production of knowledge. Throughout their works, Gibbons and
his colleagues contrast mode 1 and mode 2 knowledge production on
several characteristics, which are set out in an aide-memoire (Table 8.1).
Gibbons and colleagues’ work is clearly mode 1 research: it is conducted
by scholars, it is done in the academy, it is supported by grants from aca-
demic institutions and research funding councils, and it is disseminated
Table 8.1 Aide memoire of characteristics of mode 1 and mode 2 knowledge

production
Characteristic Mode 1 Mode 2
Problems Academic Contextual

Focus Discipline Problem
Knowledge production Discipline-based Transdisciplinary
Location Academy Application
Practitioners Specialists Wider group
Skills Homogeneous Heterogeneous
Groups Continuous Transient
Organization Hierarchical Heterarchical
Form Stable Transient
Structure Uni-form Diverse
Feedback Stakeholders Reflexive
Accountability Government Social
Quality control Peer Broad-based
Source: Derived from Gibbons et al. (1994), Gibbons (1997) and Nowotny et al. (2001)
in that most respectable of mode 1 forms in the humanities and social

sciences, the scholarly monograph. However, universities are not only the
subject of Gibbons’ recent research, but also its object, which is far too
unusual as is observed in Re-thinking science and elsewhere. Indeed, The
new production of knowledge and Re-thinking science seem ambivalent and
perhaps even equivocal about whether universities as institutions can prac-
tice mode 2 research at all. Of course, many individuals and perhaps even
teams based in universities are active participants in mode 2 research, but
their institutions seem entrenched in mode 1 norms and practices.
The new production of knowledge (p. 60) describes how IBM was locked
into other design configurations and had to establish an independent team
to make personal computers. Clark (1988) argues in Creating entrepre-
neurial universities that universities are most successful in fostering inno-
vations inconsistent with or at least divergent from their established norms
by developing them outside the academic establishment and protected
from its normalizing power. But Gibbons et al. (1994, p. 148) observe in
The new production of knowledge:
Even if the extreme disciplinary conservatism found inside many university

structures were overcome by moving research outside universities and closer
to real world problems, it is not obvious that by transferring research to
new institutes, centres and units, a more transdisciplinary research mode
would emerge. Experience shows that in governmental laboratories set up
for problem-solving and close interaction with industry, the internal dynam-
ics of specialisation tend toward university-like rigidities.
While the notion of mode 2 knowledge production has attracted consid-

erable interest, it has not been universally accepted in the terms put by
Gibbons and his colleagues. Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000, p. 116)
argue:
The so-called Mode 2 is not new; it is the original format of science before
its academic institutionalization in the 19th century. Another question to be
answered is why Mode 1 has arisen after Mode 2: the original organizational
and institutional basis of science, consisting of networks and invisible col-
leges. Where have these ideas, of the scientist as the isolated individual and of
science separated from the interests of society, come from? Mode 2 represents
the material base of science, how it actually operates. Mode 1 is a construct,
built upon that base in order to justify autonomy for science, especially in an
earlier era when it was still a fragile institution and needed all the help it could
get. (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000, p. 116, references omitted)
188 G. MOODIE
In the same article Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000, p. 111) introduce

the idea of the ‘triple helix’ of the nation-state, academia, and industry to
explain innovation, the development of new technology and knowledge
transfer. Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff (2000, p. 118) argue that ‘The Triple
Helix overlay provides a model at the level of social structure for the expla-
nation of Mode 2 as an historically emerging structure for the production
of scientific knowledge, and its relation to Mode 1’. Whatever the merits
of the debate, mode 2 knowledge production emerged from the modes of
production and the economy generally, not directly from new technologies,
although new technologies may facilitate different modes of production.
It is of course possible that in the twenty-first century there is or will be
as big a change to knowledge production as occurred from the sixteenth
century signaled by the change from ‘natural philosophy’ to ‘science’. New
technologies are introducing new techniques and tools to research in many
fields such as big data (collections of data too big to be handled and ana-
lyzed in conventional databases systems, Ware and Mabe 2015, p. 148) and
the digital humanities (the use of digital tools in humanities disciplines),
and disciplines and their boundaries are being changed and reconfigured in
response to these new techniques and society’s changing needs and struc-
ture. But in view of the great achievements still being made in what is now
understood as traditional research it would be imprudent to change too
much to what may turn out to be promising cul de sacs. A better approach
would be to invest new effort in any potentially transformational approaches
in new structures insulated from the research establishment and increase
investment in the new knowledge production process if it seems successful.
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CHAPTER 9
Texto
Disseminating Knowledge
There is general agreement that the modes, methods, and forms for dis-
seminating knowledge have changed substantially recently and are chang-
ing still. There is also general agreement that much of this change is
stimulated by changes in technology, and particularly by the extension of
information and communication technologies. The convenience and effi-
ciency with which electronic versions of articles may be searched, stored,
and accessed is reducing the number of print collections of journals that
are maintained and consulted. Search engines have introduced new ways of
identifying relevant literature. It is also clear that path dependence (David
1985, p. 332) or the legacy of past and current systems inhibits transfer to
or adoption of better systems. What is rather less clear is how these changes
may further develop and some future directions are contested vigorously.
This chapter puts these issues in an historical context. It notes that
books greatly expanded following the introduction of printing, which
itself spread with remarkable speed throughout Europe and later the
Americas. Electronic books have expanded strongly since 2007 when
the popular e-book reader Kindle was released, but e-books have not
displaced print books (yet). Many readers have strong preferences for
electronic or print books and their future is contested. Printing greatly
expanded the production of small printed works such as pamphlets,
broadsides, ballads, handbills, newssheets, and other ephemera, some of
it scurrilous, obscene, seditious, blasphemous, defamatory, or deceptive.
Some, however, were informed and influential, such as Martin Luther’s

194 G. MOODIE
(1483–1546) Ninety-Five Theses written in 1517, and indeed printing

greatly expanded the production and sale of indulgences, which were
among the church practices the theses disputed. These publications have
their analogs in blogs and much other material published on the World
Wide Web, which is of equally variable quality and value.
Printing also led to the development of an entirely new form of
scholarly communication: the journal. Journals have been critical to the
advancement and dissemination of research. But just as the scholarly jour-
nal emerged after the development of printing, so it may not continue in
its present form long after the expansion of the internet. Journals in their
present form may thus turn out to be an artifact of Gutenberg. One of the
contested futures of journals is opening access to research publications,
which is considered as part of open scholarship in Sect. 9.4.2. This and
other changes following the expansion of information and communication
technologies is leading to the reforming of some institutions and bodies
disseminating knowledge, and perhaps to the formation of new dissemi-
nating institutions, which is considered in the last Sect. 9.5.
These issues are considered in these sections:
9.1 Books
9.1.1 The Explosion of Print

9.1.2 Printed Books’ Continuing Though Declining Importance
9.1.3 E-books
9.1.4 Scholarly Publishers
9.1.5 Future of Printed Books
9.2 Unrefereed Publications

9.3 Journals
9.3.1 Journals’ Early Development

9.3.2 Changes in Publishers
9.3.3 Changes in How Researchers Maintain Currency
9.3.4 Future of Journals
9.4 Open Scholarship
9.4.1 Open Source Software

9.4.2 Open Access to Research Publications
DISSEMINATING KNOWLEDGE 195
9.4.3 Open Data

9.4.4 Open Research
9.4.5 Open Educational Resources
9.4.6 Open Education
9.5 Re- and New Forms of Dissemination

9.6 Credibility of Publication
9.1 BOOKS
Books enjoyed a considerable and sustained expansion from the intro-
duction of the printing press and subsequent technological advances.
However, journals have been displacing books as the main means for dis-
seminating research findings in many disciplines, and the internet and
e-books are displacing some genres of print books. This is leading schol-
arly publishers to consider new ways of fulfilling and financing their mis-
sions. Much, perhaps most of this change is being driven by changes in
technology. But much also is reflecting changes in the way academe is
managing the dissemination of knowledge and its reward, leading aca-
demics to prefer journal articles over books, even in disciplines which have
hitherto long favored books.
9.1.1 The Explosion of Print

Within 30 years of Gutenberg’s proving of printing with moveable type,
by around 1450, printing presses were operating in more than 110 towns
throughout Western Europe, including around fifty in Italy, about thirty
in Germany, nine in France, eight in each of Holland and Spain, five in
each of Belgium and Switzerland, four in England, two in Bohemia, and
one in Poland (Febvre and Martin 1990 [1958], p. 182). The number of
European towns with a printing press doubled to over 200 within a decade
(Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 191) and within 50 years of Gutenberg’s
press, there were presses in at least 236 towns (Febvre and Martin 1990
[1958], p. 186).
Printing greatly increased the supply of books. Buringh and van Zanden
(2009, pp. 416–7) estimate that about 2.7 million books were produced
in Western Europe in the fourteenth century. This increased by almost
100 times to 217.4 million in the sixteenth century. The number of books
produced in Europe increased from about 508 per million people in the
196 G. MOODIE
fourteenth century to 4000 per million people in the second half of the
fifteenth century and 17,500 per million people in the first half of the six-
teenth century (Buringh and van Zanden 2009, pp. 420–1).
Most early printings were of liturgical works such as the Missal which
had 1200 editions until 1500, the Breviary (400 editions) and the Bible, of
which about 100 editions were printed in Latin, and 30 versions were printed
in vernacular languages from 1450 to 1500 (Pedersen 1996, p. 458). In
addition, there were 3000 editions, comprising 1000 titles by 650 differ-
ent authors, on astrology, natural philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and
technology. Many of the books were by classical authors, but there were also
many grammar and arithmetic primers, and the printing of books in ver-
nacular languages greatly expanded the audience of scholarly ideas (Pedersen
1996, p. 458–9; Pettegree 2010, Kindle location 6448; Drake 1970, p. 48).
The increased availability of books encouraged literacy. From ‘patchy’
and ‘doubtful’ evidence, Stone (1969, p. 125) concludes that literacy
increased rapidly in England in the first 200 years following the introduc-
tion of the printing press, so that by 1675 about 40 percent of men were
literate throughout the whole country, ranging from about 10 percent in
remote rural backwaters to up to 66 percent in the cities. Stone (1969,
p. 136) ascribes this to Humanist theories of elite and mass education, the
desire of Puritans for access to the Bible, a new demand for an educated
nobility for state service and an educated gentry for the professions, edu-
cational charity by wealthy merchants, and ‘the enormous impact of the
printing press’. Increased literacy was the result of expanded education,
which in turn increased the demand for books.
While printing greatly increased the supply of books, it created a new
demand for scholarly authors to get published. The distinguished profes-
sor of Greek at the University of Tübingen Martin Crusius (1526–1607)
lamented in his diary at the end of the sixteenth century ‘If God would give
me a publisher!’ (‘Deo typographum dante’) and Maclean (2012, p. 47)
who recounted this quote notes that this difficulty was shared by most
university teachers and university scholars of the early modern period. And
many contemporary authors repeat Crusius’ cry!
9.1.2 Printed Books’ Continuing Though Declining Importance

Journals gradually replaced books as the main means for disseminating
research in the experimental sciences, but books have remained important,
in science as in most other disciplines, for teaching and for disseminating
knowledge to a wider public. An electronic survey of 5261 US faculty

members at four-year colleges and universities in the fall of 2012 found
that respondents assigned textbooks or textbook chapters often or occa-
sionally to be read by students in a lower division undergraduate course
by around 95 percent of sciences respondents, over 90 percent of social
sciences respondents, and just over 80 percent of humanities respondents,
and by only slightly fewer respondents for upper division undergradu-
ate courses (Housewright et al. 2013, figure 2, p. 17; figure 3, p. 18).
However, the circulation of printed books at US academic and research
libraries fell from 26 to 37 percent from 1991 to 2007 (Anderson 2011,
p. 38). Anderson (2011, p. 39) calculates much bigger falls in book circu-
lation per student. Around half of books in US academic research libraries
have never been borrowed for as long as data are available (Jaguszewski
and Williams 2013, p. 5). A combination of increased expenditure on
journal subscriptions and constraints on library budgets has seen the ratio
of US academic libraries’ spending on serials and books change from
55:45 in 1986 to 75:25 in 2011 (Crow 2014 [2012] pp. 6–7).
Books remain important for disseminating research in many of the
humanities disciplines and in some of the social sciences. However,
recently printed scholarly books have come under increasing pressure as a
means of disseminating expert knowledge, for multiple reasons. Some of
the social sciences, particularly those that use quantitative or experimental
methods, are following mathematics and the experimental sciences in dis-
seminating more of their research by journal articles and less by scholarly
monographs. The 2012 US faculty survey found that while peer-reviewed
journals and journal articles were very important in the research of respon-
dents in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, scholarly mono-
graphs or edited volumes published by an academic publisher were very
important for around 90 percent of respondents in the humanities, 65
percent in the social sciences, and 55 percent in the sciences (Housewright
et al. 2013, figure 1, p. 15).
This is broadly consistent with a more recent but narrower web sur-
vey of 2231 humanities and social science researchers based in the UK in
2014, which found that while 66 percent of humanities researchers had
published a monograph only 48 percent of social sciences researchers had
published a monograph (JISC Collections, no date, figure 1, p. 2). This
was strongly related by career stage, with 89 percent of full professors
having published a monograph, 67 percent of associate professors, and
46 percent of assistant professors (figure 2, p. 2). Some 98 percent of
198 G. MOODIE
respondents consider it ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to publish journal

articles. Some 95 percent of humanities researchers consider publishing
monographs important, compared to 72 percent of social scientists (table 6,
p. 4). Some 69 percent of humanities researchers had read a scholarly
book in the few days preceding the survey, compared to 52 percent of
social scientists, and 74 percent of all respondents said that their main
purpose in reading it was for research and writing (p. 5).
9.1.3 E-books
Printed books are also coming under pressure from the internet and more
recently from electronic books, e-books. Sales of nonfiction print books
started falling in the USA from 2007, before e-books had big sales. The
biggest falls were of sales of travel books, which fell by 50 percent from
2007 to 2014 and of reference works, which fell by 37 percent over this
period (Nowell 2015, slides 13–4). Sales of reference and travel books fell
so early and so much presumably because the information they publish
is available so conveniently on the World Wide Web. The Association of
American Publishers (2015) reported that e-book sales increased from
approximately 17 percent of all book sales in the first half of 2011 to a
still modest 23 percent in the first half of 2015. Nonfiction is only about
18 percent of US e-book sales; by far the biggest e-books sales are adult
fiction, which are about 65 percent of all e-book sales, and juvenile fiction
about 14 percent of e-book sales (Nowell 2015, slide 6).
The modest sales of nonfiction e-books in the USA reflect scholars’
preference for printed books. Just over 80 percent of respondents to the
2012 US faculty survey stated that it was much or somewhat easier to
read a book ‘from cover to cover in depth’ in print than in digital form,
but around 70 percent responded that it was much or somewhat easier
to search for a particular topic in digital form than in print (Housewright
et al. 2013, figure 14, p. 32). Fewer than 20 percent of respondents
strongly agreed that ‘Within the next five years, the use of e-books will be
so prevalent among faculty and students that it will not be necessary to
maintain library collections of hard-copy books’ (Housewright et al. 2013,
figure 16, p. 34). Some 87 percent of UK humanities and social sciences
researchers in 2014 preferred to read a book in print, with a somewhat
lower 77 percent of early career researchers preferring print, although 83
percent read electronic books even though it was not their preferred for-
mat (JISC Collections, no date, pp. 14–5).
A representative sample of 10,000 students of US universities in 2015

found that 70 percent used e-books or e-textbooks in at least one course,
but that almost half wished that faculty would use them more and said that
they could be a more effective student if they were better skilled at using
them (Dahlstrom and colleagues 2015, figure 11, p. 25). A survey of 527
students at San Jose State University found that 67 percent had used both
e-textbooks and printed textbooks. However, 57 percent reported prefer-
ring print books, 23 percent preferred e-books, and 21 percent preferred
both formats (Burnett 2015).
This preference for print is supported by a survey, which found that
‘print books are still the best suited to the optical, cognitive, and meta-
cognitive requirements of the reading brain’ (Tanner 2014). Baron
(2014) found from a survey that over 90 percent of students in the USA,
Germany, and Japan found it easier to concentrate when reading hard
copy than on screen, it seems at least partly because reading on a digital
device discourages pausing and reviewing text, encourages skimming, has
distractions, and invites multitasking: 88 percent of US students reported
that they were likely to multitask when reading on screen, compared to 26
percent when reading in print. Baron (2015) argues that that the digital
age discourages extended reading and writing, epitomized by the internet
expression: ‘tl;dr’— too long; didn’t read.
Notwithstanding researchers’ preference for print books, high pro-
portions use e-books. From 56 to 64 percent of UK researchers in the
humanities, social sciences, and experimental sciences reported that they
‘occasionally’ or ‘often’ used e-books in the previous six months, and for
US researchers this was somewhat higher: humanities 66 percent, social
sciences 73 percent, and experimental sciences 72 percent (Schonfeld and
Wulfson 2013, figure 4, third page). However, rather lower proportions
of researchers strongly agreed that ‘Electronic versions of scholarly mono-
graphs play a very important role in my research’: UK researchers from 36
to 39 percent and USA researchers: humanities 45 percent, social sciences
57 percent, and experimental sciences 61 percent (Schonfeld and Wulfson
2013, figure 3, third page).
Some researchers’ use of e-books is likely to be of collections accessible
publicly on the web. Project Gutenberg (2015) was founded in 1971 to
digitize books out of copyright and by 2015, it had 50,000 items in its
collection, adding over 50 new e-books to its collection each week. Project
Gutenberg books may be read online or downloaded in various formats.
Google Books was launched in 2004 and has scanned over 25 million
200 G. MOODIE
books out of just under 130 million books which it estimated existed in
2010 (Taycher 2010). Books in the public domain are available for ‘full
view’ which includes reading and copying the full text online and printing
and downloading the book. Some publishers grant permission for users to
‘preview’ or read online a specified number or proportion of the pages of
books for which they own copyright, but not permission to copy, print, or
download those pages. For books in copyright not authorized for preview,
Google offers a ‘snippet view’ of a few lines around a term searched by a
user. Some books are listed by Google Books but have not yet been digi-
tized. For each book Google shows its metadata, which is much the same
as the bibliographic information recorded in library catalogs, additional
information about the book, and related works such as the publisher’s
blurb, and often links to libraries from which the book may be borrowed
or booksellers from which the book may be bought.
Digital editions of books are very useful at least as a supplement to
print books. They are much easier to search and are easier to find if they
are on the web. Even Google Book’s snippet view is helpful in readily
tracking down familiar passages, checking citations, and identifying unfa-
miliar books, which may be relevant to an interest. But the big major-
ity of researchers’ and students’ preference for reading books in print
suggest that the demand for printed books will persist for some time.
Furthermore, digital editions are not markedly cheaper to produce than
print editions. Day (1998, p. 3) divides the conventional publishing pro-
cess into three components: (1) file preparation, which involves evaluation
and selection, copyediting, typesetting, and proofreading and the transfer
of a file to the printer; (2) delivery mechanism, which involves printing,
binding, shipping, and warehousing; and (3) marketing, taking orders,
customer relations, collecting money, and paying royalties. Day (1998,
p. 3) argues that the only substantive savings in digital editions are in the
delivery mechanism, which he estimates to be about 25 percent of total
publishing costs at the University of Michigan Press and which he notes
may be a little lower at Rutgers University Press (Wasserman 1998).
Relevant costs of print books not included in Day’s analysis are librar-
ies’ costs of preparing books for circulation by attaching a call number, a
scanning code, and a security strip or tag; of holding books on shelves; and
of book circulation—checking out books to patrons, managing returns,
and reshelving them. Libraries avoid or at least greatly reduce most of
these costs with e-books. Libraries are also able to scale up their collection
of e-books much more readily than of print books. If a book has a surge of
demand, for example, because it is newly prescribed for a course, a library

may readily increase the number of e-readers authorized for the book.
Indeed, some publishers offer libraries prices which vary by the number of
e-readers or downloads over a period, subject to any limit decided by the
library. In contrast, increasing the number of print books held by a library
may take weeks, months if stocks are available only overseas, and possibly
much longer if the book is out of print. Librarians may therefore prefer
to stock e-books to print books, despite their readers’ preference for print
books, since this may reduce costs and thus increase or at least maintain
the size of their collections. Some libraries have hybrid collections: one or
two print copies and an e-book for remote, out of hours, and high-volume
access.
9.1.4 Scholarly Publishers

University presses have maintained a modest though remarkably stable
proportion of titles published in the USA. In 1949, university presses
published 727 titles, which was approximately 8 percent of all titles
published in the USA that year. In 2006, university presses published
between 10,000 and 12,000 books, which was still approximately 8
percent of books published in that year (Dalton 2006, p. 255), and is
less than a third of the number of scholarly monographs published by
commercial scholarly presses (Greco et al. 2012, p. 375). However, the
number of each title sold by US university presses has fallen dramati-
cally, from about 1660 copies in the five years after publication in 1969
to 1000 copies in 1984 to below 500 in 2006 (Dalton 2006, p. 259;
Willinsky 2009).
This fall in the number of each scholarly title sold is due at least partly
to academic libraries cutting their purchases of print books dramatically,
by 250 percent from their peak according to Wasserman (1998, p. 2).
Instead, libraries are building their collections cooperatively, key extracts
are being photocopied (Dalton 2006, p. 261), and 102 of the 125 mem-
bers of the North American Association of Research Libraries reported
that their interlibrary loans per student increased by 170 percent from
1986 to 2011, in contrast to the number of monographs purchased per
student which fell by 33 percent over this period (Association of Research
Libraries, no date, graph 5). Reduced sales reduces the economy of scale
of the remaining print production and increases the cost of each book
printed, further depressing sales.
202 G. MOODIE
From their analysis of the Yankee Book Peddler Library Service’s

database of book purchases Greco et al. (2012) found that US univer-
sity presses sales channels are somewhat different from professional and
scholarly commercial presses. In 2011, university presses gained only
7 percent of their total sales from digital books, less than a third of the
23 percent gained by professional and scholarly commercial presses. Of
print sales, scholarly presses gained 22 percent of their net revenue from
colleges, almost twice the 12 percent of professional and scholarly commer-
cial presses. This difference in print sales to colleges was almost balanced
by revenue from sales direct to consumers, which was 17 percent of total
revenue for scholarly presses but 24 percent for professional and scholarly
commercial presses (Greco et al. 2012, table 4, p. 373, table 5, p. 374).
The Association of American University Presses’ task force on eco-
nomic models for scholarly publishing (AAUP 2011) reports several new
ways of supporting book publishing by university presses, many in collab-
oration with libraries and with the support of foundations and university
administrations. Some of these involve publishing at least one version of
a book open access. For example, some university presses offer electronic
versions of their titles free which attracts demand for their print edition
for which they charge, which they report meets their revenue targets.
However, it is not clear that any of the new ‘business models’ the task
force sketches would maintain current volumes of publishing scholarly
books, even by university presses, and few seem applicable to commercial
publishers which are less likely to be supported by foundations and uni-
versity administrations.
9.1.5 Future of Printed Books

It seems probable that print books’ role in disseminating knowledge is
plateauing if not declining. Part of print books’ decline in relative impor-
tance is a direct result of technological change, as e-books are expanding
into roles and markets that might previously have been explored by print
books and as some genres such as reference works are being replaced by
web sites and digital databases. But scholarly monographs are also declin-
ing because researchers are following the empirical sciences in investing
more effort and prominence to journal articles. This is partly due to social
sciences and humanities disciplines adopting quantitative and empirical
methods in at least some of their work. But it seems that scholarly books
are also declining due to changing expectations and behaviors in academe.
Faculty are expected to produce more to gain and retain their appoint-
ments and grants, and importantly, they are expected to produce more
frequently. Journal articles are far better suited to this closer monitoring of
performance than books because they can be produced in months rather
than the years that a book may take.
9.2 UNREFEREED PUBLICATIONS

Unrefereed publications of various types have long been important for
disseminating knowledge to those who are not expert in the field or who
are seeking to become expert in the field by formal study. The introduc-
tion of printing in 1450 greatly expanded not only books but also pam-
phlets, newsletters, and other ephemera (Raven 2007, p. 193). In England
2000 pamphlets were printed in 1642 and over 700 newspapers were pub-
lished in 1645. In the two decades from 1640 to 1660 England published
about 22,000 pamphlets and newsletters, over 1000 items a year (Stone
1969, p. 99). Not only is this form of dissemination important for the
general public, upon whom teachers and researchers depend for support
directly or indirectly, but also unrefereed publications are important for
disseminating knowledge to researchers seeking to keep up with develop-
ments outside their field. Contemporary examples are Scientific American
(2015) which was founded in 1845 and New Scientist which was founded
in 1956 and whose website had 3.6 million unique users in 2014 (Reed
Business Information 2015).
Researchers’ publication of material for general readers differs mark-
edly by field. A survey of 2454 UK researchers in 2015 found that the
proportion of respondents who had written at least one article, book, or
item for the electronic media for the public in the last 12 months was
60 percent in the art and humanities, 54 percent in the social sciences,
34 percent in the clinical and biosciences, and 29 percent in engineering
and physical sciences (Hamlyn et al. 2015, table 2.3, p. 18). However,
the authors (Hamlyn et al. 2015, p. 10) note that these proportions may
overstate researchers’ unrefereed publications since those who most value
public engagement in research may have been more likely to respond to
the survey. Even so, the proportion of scientists reporting that they had
written for a general audience increased from 25 percent in 2006 to 32
percent in 2015 (Hamlyn et al. 2015, table 2.2, p. 17). Rather higher
proportions of researchers had communicated about their research to the
general public via social media, although this, too, differed by broad field:
204 G. MOODIE
arts and humanities 71 percent, social sciences 65 percent, engineering

and physical sciences 53 percent, and clinical and biological sciences 50
percent (Hamlyn et al. 2015, p. 10). Part of those disciplinary differences
is due to researchers’ willingness to engage more generally than their spe-
cialization. As one respondent to the survey wrote: ‘A lot of my research
is in the area of complicated geometry and it’s pretty hard to get other
mathematicians involved, never mind the general public! The cryptology
side is more interesting to the public’ (Hamlyn et al. 2015, p. 25).
The internet has greatly expanded the ways in which knowledge may be
disseminated. A popular new form is the weblog or blog, many of which
are a combination of diary and newsletter. In February 2014, there were
around 172 million Tumblr and 75.8 million WordPress blogs. ‘Blogger’
is reputedly the most popular blogging service but does not publish statis-
tics (Wikipedia, no date). WordPress.com (no date) reports that over 409
million people view more than 20.3 billion pages it hosts each month, tens
of thousands of new WordPress sites were created every day in 2014 and
that its users produce about 53.1 million new posts and 43.5 million new
comments each month. Shaohui and Lihua (2008, p. 1084) argue that
blogs are distinctive in sharing thoughts rather than just information, in
not being linear but hyperlinked and aggregated in different orders, and
in being subjective rather than seeking objectivity.
Notwithstanding the much improved quality, ease and lower cost
with which it is possible to participate in virtual meetings by streaming
media such as webcasting, researchers still exchange and discuss results in
face-to-face conferences, whose cost and inconvenience themselves have
reduced with improved transport. Scholarly conferences originated in the
natural sciences in the nineteenth century, extending to most other fields
by the twentieth century, which coincided with the expansion of scholarly
publishing and improved mail services (Klinge 2004, p. 130). An elec-
tronic survey of 5261 respondents of US faculty members at four-year
colleges and universities in the fall of 2012 found that around 90 percent
of respondents stated that it was very important that their primary schol-
arly society for their field or discipline organizes conferences and other
in-person meetings, just over 80 percent stated that it was very important
that their society publishes peer-reviewed scholarly journals and around
65 percent stated that it was very important that their society defines and
advocates for the field’s values and policy priorities (Housewright et al.
2013, figure 45, p. 77). This suggests that face-to-face interaction serves a
role beyond just exchanging information, an issue taken up in Sect. 10.3.
9.3 JOURNALS
Journals emerged during the Scientific Revolution and are closely associ-
ated with modern science. However, their form was shaped strongly by
the technology then available for reproducing text, printing, and subse-
quently by the technology and system developed to disseminate texts and
other small items, postal services. Both the production and dissemination
of text have been transformed by the digital revolution and this will prob-
ably have implications for the journal form. However, it is not clear what
aspects of the journal form are contingent artifacts of print and post and
what are enduring characteristics of effective research dissemination.
9.3.1 Journals’ Early Development

As noted in Sect. 1.1, scholars have long communicated their findings and
thoughts to each other in letters, which were expected to be read to or to
circulate among a wider audience, sometimes by being copied. The letters
of Cicero (106–43 BCE), Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE–65 CE), and
Paul the Apostle (c. 5–67 CE) were clearly written to be read to others
(Broman 2013, p. 6). Petrarch wrote his letters to be read and copied to
other scholars (Rüegg 1996, p. 16). Henry Oldenburg (c. 1619–1677),
the first foreign correspondent and joint secretary of the Royal Society of
London, maintained an extensive correspondence with scholars through-
out Europe. Printing made it possible to disseminate these reports much
more widely and eventually systematically among scholars, thus advancing
scholarship considerably. Oldenburg edited and published the first issue of
the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society in March 1665.
While the Philosophical transactions can claim to be the first scientific
journal, it was anticipated as the first scholarly journal by the Journal des
sçavans (Journal of scholars), which was launched in Paris two months ear-
lier in January 1665. Its founder and editor Denis de Sallo (1626–1669)
followed the model proposed by Francois Eudes de Mezeray (1610–1683)
of a gazette of developments in the republic of letters, complementing the
very successful Gazette of public affairs founded in 1631 by Théophraste
Renaudot (1586–1653) (Brown 1972, p. 367; Broman 2013, p. 6).
Other early journals were the Acta eruditorum (Teachers’ journal) which
was first published in 1682 in Leipzig and had Leibniz as one of its main
contributors (Pedersen 1996, p. 486), Nouvelles de la république des lettres
(News from the republic of letters) which was based in Amsterdam and
206 G. MOODIE
began publication in 1684, and the Giornale de’ letterati d’Italia (Journal
of Italian scholars) which was launched in 1710 (Broman 2013, p. 12).
Journals greatly expanded the influence of the academies that published
them (Pedersen 1996, p. 486). In addition, many learned journals were
started by booksellers and publishers seeking to advertise their products
with digests of recent publications (Eisenstein 2011, p. 92), but scholars
were able to disseminate their results much more quickly by journal arti-
cles than by books and journals soon overtook books as the main means
of disseminating results in the sciences (Kruse 2006, p. 336). However,
traditional scholars thought that these advantages of speed and brevity
degraded scholarship, initially giving journals an ambiguous standing
within the republic of letters (Verhaart 2013, p. 73). Pierre-Daniel Huet
(1630–1721), a co-founder of the Academie du Physique (Academy of
Physics) in Caen in Normandy, wrote to a friend in 1698:
You would be appalled if you knew what decadence letters have fallen into
in France … since I have been alive, I have seen the sciences declining con-
tinually. I don’t see they are managing any better in Holland, England is the
place defending itself the best. In the Preface of the little treatise I wrote,
I could not help but speak against the barbarousness of this century, of
which all these Abridgements of books people are publishing in Paris, in
Rotterdam, in Leipzig, are the indubitable proofs. … When in Rome peo-
ple made Abridgements of the great Latin works, and at Constantinople of
the great Greek works, barbarity followed close behind. (Cited in Verhaart
2013, p. 73)
9.3.2 Changes in Publishers

Mabe (2003, p. 193) analyzed Ulrich’s periodicals directory on CD-ROM
to find that the number of active peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific
journals has increased by an almost constant 3.46 percent per annum for
the three centuries since 1665. Before WWII, most scholarly journals were
published by scientific societies. By the mid-1990s, some 40 percent of
articles were published by commercial publishers, 25 percent by scientific/
professional societies, and 16 percent by university presses and educational
publishers (Larivière et al. 2015, p. 2). Later, likely from 2000 to 2005
(Ware 2016), some 64 percent of articles were published by commercial
publishers, including in journals published on behalf of scholarly societies,
30 percent by societies, 4 percent by university presses and 2 percent by
other publishers (Ware and Mabe 2015, p. 33).
Journal article publishing became much more concentrated with digital

publishing. Larivière et al. (2015, p. 2) examined 44,483,425 documents
of all types published from 1973 to 2013 in journals indexed in Thomson
Reuters’ Web of Science which includes the Science Citation Index Expanded,
the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts and Humanities Citation
Index. They found that the five biggest publishers of journal articles in the
natural and medical sciences published just over 20 percent of articles in
1973, which increased to 30 percent in 1996, to 50 percent in 2009 and 53
percent in 2013 (Larivière et al. 2015, p. 3). The five biggest publishers of
articles in the social sciences and humanities published less than 10 percent
of articles from 1973 to 1990 and they increased their share to 15 percent in
the mid-1990s to more than 51 percent in 2013. However, there is consider-
able variation between disciplines. The top five publishers’ share of psychol-
ogy journal papers increased from around 15 percent in 1973 to 71 percent
in 2015 and their share of chemistry papers increased from 40 percent in
1975 to 71 percent in 2015. In contrast, the top five publishers’ share of
physics papers increased from 20 percent in 1973 to only 35 percent in 2000
and thereafter, their share of papers in the humanities was only 20 percent
and of arts papers only 10 percent in 2013 (Larivière et al. 2015, pp. 6–7).
9.3.3 Changes in How Researchers Maintain Currency

While electronic versions of journals are used increasingly widely, a minor-
ity of respondents to the 2012 US faculty survey wanted their library
to retain print versions of journals. Respondents strongly agreeing that
it ‘would be fine’ for their library to cancel their print subscription but
retain their electronic subscription increased from 40 percent in 2003 to
only around 50 percent in 2012 for humanities respondents, although it
increased from around 55 percent in 2003 to 70 percent in 2012 for social
scientists and from around 55 percent in 2003 to 75 percent in 2012 for
scientists (Housewright et al. 2013, figure 8, p. 27). The proportion of
respondents strongly agreeing in 2012 that they are ‘completely comfort-
able’ with the journals they use regularly ceasing their print versions and
publishing only electronically was only 40 percent in the humanities, 55
percent in the social sciences, and still only 60 percent in the sciences
(Housewright et al. 2013, figure 9, p. 27).
Researchers are changing from browsing to searching the literature.
From 2011 to 2013, Long and Schonfeld (2013, pp. 8–9) interviewed 23
research support professionals such as librarians, 33 research chemists and
208 G. MOODIE
conducted a national survey of academic chemists in the UK. Long and

Schonfeld (2013, pp. 23–4) write that ‘Most interviewees who graduated
before the age of digital journals reported that they used to visit the library
once or twice a week to look through all of the new journal issues that had
arrived. This forced them to set aside time to read the literature, and it
was sometimes also a social activity that they would do with colleagues’. In
2013 only 22 percent of respondents stated that RSS (rich site summary
or really simple syndication) feeds or email alerts from publishers were
important to them as a means of learning about research. More important
means of learning about research were chemistry-specific search engines
which were considered important by 76 percent of respondents, read-
ing review articles (65 percent), conferences and meetings (55 percent),
general purpose search engines including Google and Google Scholar (48
percent) and informal conversations with colleagues (37 percent) (Long
and Schonfeld 2013, figure 3, p. 23).
Over 35 percent of respondents to the US faculty survey in 2012 stated
that they started research in the academic literature in a specific electronic
research resource/computer database in 2003 and this increased to over
40 percent by 2006 and remained over 40 percent through to 2012. Some
20 percent of respondents started with a general purpose search engine
on the internet or World Wide Web in 2003 and this steadily increased
to around 35 percent in 2012. This was balanced by respondents who
started with their online library catalog which fell from around 30 per-
cent in 2003 to just under 20 percent in 2012 (Housewright et al. 2013,
figure 4, p. 21). However, these searching strategies differed markedly by
broad field. The proportions of humanities, social sciences, and sciences
respondents who started with a general search engine were from 30 to 35
percent. But starting with their online library catalog ranged from around
30 percent of humanities respondents to 15 percent of respondents in
the social sciences and 5 percent in the sciences, which was balanced with
those who started with a specific electronic research resource/computer
database which ranged from around 35 percent of respondents in the
humanities to 45 percent in the social sciences and 55 percent in the sci-
ences (Housewright et al. 2013, figure 5, p. 22).
Around 70 percent of humanities, social sciences, and sciences respon-
dents stated that attending conferences or workshops was very important
for keeping up with scholarship in their field. Reading materials suggested
by other scholars was very important for 75 percent of humanities schol-
ars, 70 percent of social scientists, and 55 percent of scientists. Regularly
skimming new issues of key journals was very important for 65 percent
respondents in the humanities, 70 percent of social scientists, and 55 per-
cent of scientists. Regularly skimming table of contents alerts of key jour-
nals was important for 50 percent of humanities respondents, 65 percent
of social scientists, and 55 percent of scientists. Following the work of
key scholars was important for just over 60 percent of researchers in the
humanities, 55 percent of social scientists, and 50 percent of scientists
(Housewright et al. 2013, figure 7, p. 25).
9.3.4 Future of Journals

The Research Information Network (2008, pp. 30–3) estimates the
total cost of the ‘research value chain’: it comprises research production
which the network estimates to be 66 percent of the total value chain,
publication and distribution 6.4 percent, access provision 2.1 percent,
user search and print 16.4 percent and reading 33.9 percent. Excluding
the cost of research production and users’ costs of searching, printing,
and reading leaves three major cost components of disseminating arti-
cles: the noncash costs of peer reviewers’ time (22 percent); direct fixed
costs such as maintaining the journal’s web site and its content man-
agement system (21 percent); and libraries’ costs in providing access
such as acquisition, cataloging, and maintaining a search engine and
databases (25 percent). The remaining dissemination costs are variable
costs (11 percent) such as copy editing, tagging, and semantic enrich-
ment (Ware and Mabe 2015, p. 16), printing, sales administration, and
online user management; indirect costs (11 percent) such as marketing,
customer service, management, other administration, and depreciation;
and the publisher’s surplus of 9.6 percent, which the network estimated
at 18 percent of revenue or $US 770 per paper in 2008 (Ware and
Mabe 2015, p. 67).
The future of scholarly journals may not be an extrapolation of the
last 20 years, for two reasons. While the internet has greatly increased the
economies of scale and led to the consolidation of journal publishing and
its increasing concentration into big publishers, it has also greatly lowered
the barriers of entry to publishing articles and journals. This has led to
the development of alternatives to subscription journals, considered in
Sect. 9.4.1 Open access. It has also led to suggestions that writing and
publishing articles might be reconceived, which is considered in Sect. 9.5
Reformed and new forms of dissemination.
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9.4 OPEN SCHOLARSHIP

The dissemination of knowledge is being changed by a number of dif-
ferent, somewhat separate but nonetheless related developments, which
collectively have been called ‘open scholarship’ (Anderson 2009). These
are discussed further in the following sections, with open-source software,
which is often considered the progenitor of these developments:

9.4.3 Open Data
9.4.4 Open Research
9.4.6 Open Education.
Each of these developments seeks to increase public engagement in

extending knowledge by research or education. While each develop-
ment has the goal of extending engagement by members of the public
as the strongest case of public engagement, in effect most of the most
engaged are people with a sustained commitment who have developed
at least some expertise in the field, though they may not be employed as
researchers. These developments are called ‘open’ because they seek to
remove barriers to extending knowledge. Downes (2013) notes that the
single English word ‘open’ has three senses, which correspond to three
French words:
ouvert—this is the sense of ‘open admissions’ in education, where there is no

academic barrier to admission to study;
gratis—this is the sense of ‘open access’, where there is no fee or charge
required to access a resource; and
libre—this is the sense of ‘open educational resource’, where a resource that
one has accessed to may be reused in any way desired without limitation.
Weller (2015c) observes that open access journals, open educational

resources, open textbooks, and moocs have in common what he calls the
‘open flip’. In the traditional mode, the cost of producing these resources
is recovered at the time they are used, nominally from users, but often
ultimately from governments which subsidize users. In the ‘open’ mode
governments fund the production of these resources and thus are able to
ensure that they are made available without charging users. He argues that
forms of openness are mutually reinforcing (Weller 2015b).

Open source software is not only free but its source code is open to anyone
to copy, augment, or modify. The idea is that software is developed more
quickly, efficiently, and surely if it is developed collectively by interested
people (Chalmers 2012; Weller 2014, pp. 38–9). The Linux operating sys-
tem and Arduino electronics are examples of open-source developments.
The idea has been extended to biological open source with tools such
as the beta-glucuronidase gene, which is a key indicator of gene activity
used in plant genetic engineering (Chalmers 2012). Its inventor Richard
Jefferson (1956–) gave research laboratories free access to the tool but
charged for its commercial use, from which he established Cambia (no
date), an independent nonprofit institute which seeks to ‘democratize
innovation: to create a more equitable and inclusive capability to solve
problems using science and technology’.

Most journal articles are the result of research funded directly or indirectly
by the public. Their quality control, in the form of peer review, is also
mostly funded by the public (Larivière et al. 2015, pp. 11–2) since most
journal reviewers are researchers employed by universities or research orga-
nizations largely funded by the public directly or indirectly through grants,
subsidies, and subsidized loans for student tuition fees. From the Research
Information Network’s (2008, pp. 30–3) estimates, the public funds some
95 percent of the cost of producing an article, yet the public does not have
ready access to the results of the research they fund because most publish-
ers restrict access to most journal articles to subscribers and people willing
to pay for each view or download of an article. The current system also
seems perverse from the point of view of universities. Their staff provides
most of the content and quality control for journals, yet they need to pay
significant subscriptions to give their staff access to content provided and
checked by their staff collectively. Krumholz (2015) likened this to a res-
taurant in which patrons provide the ingredients, cook the meal, and then
pay the bill. Laurie Taylor (2012) satirized the arrangement thus:
212 G. MOODIE
SANDWICHES ARE US
‘A commercial breakthrough’. That was how Desmond Ponzi, the man-
ager of our staff snack bar, The Big Hub, described the fundamental changes
he is making to his current ‘retailing strategy’.
From now on, customers will be required to make their own sand-
wiches at home and then transport these to the snack bar, where Mr Ponzi
and his staff will bundle them up together with a whole set of different
and largely unappetising sandwiches (mango and Spam, taramasalata, and
marmalade) and then sell them on to other customers at an extraordi-
narily high price.
Our reporter asked Mr Ponzi how he had hit upon such an idea. There
was after all something very original about a retailing venture that required
sandwich consumers to pay a great deal of money for sandwiches that Mr
Ponzi had acquired for absolutely nothing from sandwich makers.
Mr Ponzi conceded that the idea had not been entirely his own but had
come to him ‘in a flash’ while he was browsing through the journals section
of the university library. (Taylor 2012)
This has been one stimulus for open access: to make the results of research
accessible to members of the public without their having to pay directly
with a subscription or a view charge. A second stimulus is the ease with
which researchers and their institutions may load their articles on a web
page, which can be readily found by navigating to the page directly or,
more likely, by entering an appropriate term into a search engine. Also,
there is now open-source software for institutions to build a repository
(Björk et al. 2014, p. 240) and there are open source journal publishing
systems that allow anyone with access to a server to manage a journal
(Lagoze et al. 2015, p. 1059). Open access may be provided in, broadly,
two ways: open access journals and open access repositories (Suber 2012
[2004]). A publisher may not charge readers to access all or part of a
journal, which is known as gold open access (Guédon 2004, p. 316, fn. 6,
p. 326). Such publishers may rely on voluntary contributions of time and
resources; be sponsored by a society, institution, or foundation; or they
may charge authors an article processing charge, which is typically paid by
their research funder or institution.
The publisher may publish the article in a journal or on a web site
where all the articles are open access, or in a hybrid journal in which only
some articles are open access and the rest may be obtained only by the
reader paying. In 2010, fully open access journals charged a mean article
processing charge of $904 with a standard deviation of $742 (Solomon
and Björk 2012, table 1, p. 1488). However, charges differed markedly

by discipline: biomedicine—around $1100, earth sciences $700, technol-
ogy and engineering $550, social sciences $550, general science journals
$400, and arts and humanities $250 (Solomon and Björk 2012, figure 4,
p. 1491). Around half of subscription journals are hybrid, offering authors
the option of paying an article processing charge of around $3000 to
make their article open (Björk 2012, p. 1502). Some argue that current
hybrid gold open access fees are too high. Nicholson (2013) reports that
a commercial journal publisher charges $34.87 for access to his review of
a book which costs $23, and that the publisher offered to make the review
gold open access for $2950, which works out at $2.65 a word. However,
less than 2 percent of articles in hybrid journals are open access (Björk
2012, p. 1502). Gold open access shifts the cost of journal publishing
from readers or their intermediaries such as libraries at the point of con-
sumption to authors or their intermediaries such as their employer at the
point of production.
Gold open access article processing charges are quite separate from pub-
lication, page, and color print charges that some journals charge authors
for publishing their article without making it open access. Publication and
page charges are imposed by one-fifth of the top 25 journals in health and
life sciences, a quarter of physical sciences and engineering journals but by
no journal in the humanities and social sciences in RIN’s (2015, p. 20)
sample of journals in which UK researchers publish. Publication and page
charges may amount to around $2500. Many journals in all disciplines
charge for color prints, of from around $350 to $550 per illustration (RIN
2015, p. 20).
The second form of open access, known as green open access (Guédon
2004, p. 316, fn. 6, p. 326), is provided by authors or their institution
loading articles onto a website which is freely available to the public.
Around 30 percent of green open access papers are on authors’ or their
department’s web page, from 24 to 44 percent are on their institution’s
repository and from 29 to 43 percent are on subject repositories, with
many papers on more than one site (Björk et al. 2014, p. 244). Since
2002 higher proportions of papers have been lodged on subject and
institutional repositories as institutions have successively invited, encour-
aged, enjoined, exhorted, and some institutions and funding bodies have
required authors to submit their publications to these repositories. Almost
30 million people have established pages on Academia.edu, which was
launched in 2008, upon which they have loaded over eight million papers.
214 G. MOODIE
Academia.edu attracts over 36 million unique visitors a month (Academia

2015). ResearchGate (2015) was also founded in 2008 and has over eight
million members who have established records of over 80 million publica-
tions of which over 19 million are full text.
There are also green open access subject repositories, most prominently
arXiv which was founded in 1991 for papers in physics, mathematics, com-
puter science, astronomy, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative
finance; the Social Science Research Network which was founded in 1994
and holds abstracts and papers in the social sciences; and PubMed Central
which was founded in 2000 for articles in the biomedical and life sci-
ences. By the end of 2014, arXiv held 97,517 papers and was receiving
8126 a month (Cornell University 2014). By the end of 2015, Social
Science Research Network had 642,800 paper abstracts and 537,100
downloadable full-text documents in Adobe Acrobat pdf format (Social
Science Electronic Publishing, no date) and ‘well over’ one million pdfs
were downloaded in November 2015 (Gordon 2015). In 2015, PubMed
Central held 3.7 million articles (National Center for Biotechnology
Information, no date). In 2011, PubMed Central had approximately
500,000 unique visitors on a typical week day who downloaded one mil-
lion articles. By 2014, PubMed Central had almost one million unique
visitors per day who downloaded over two million articles (OECD 2015a,
p. 25). The directory of academic open access repositories listed just over
3013 repositories on its site at the end of 2015, some 84 percent of which
were institutional, 10 percent disciplinary, 3 percent aggregated data from
several subsidiary repositories and 3 percent were government repositories.
As a condition of publishing an article publishers require authors to
assign to the publisher either copyright or a license in the article which
restricts authors’ right to republish their article in the form in which
it was published by the publisher, but most allow authors to lodge a
prepublication version of their article on a web site. Authors can simply
determine what archive options are allowed by entering the name of their
journal in the SHERPA/RoMEO (Securing a Hybrid Environment for
Research Preservation and Access/Rights Metadata for Open Archiving)
web site hosted by the University of Nottingham (2015). Each journal is
color coded according to the version of the paper, the author is allowed
to archive and the entry for each journal summarizes the general archiving
conditions and has a link to the publisher’s copyright agreement.
Laakso (2014, table 4, p. 486) reports that publishers allow authors
to lodge on a web site the publisher’s version of their paper for only
11 percent of papers included in his study. But publishers allow authors

to self-archive the version of the paper they first submitted to the jour-
nal for 83 percent of articles included in his study, they allow authors to
self-archive immediately the version of their paper revised after referees’
comments and accepted for publication for 65 percent of articles, and
allow self-archive of the accepted version of a further 16 percent of articles
after an embargo or delay of from 6 to 18 months. Embargos differ mark-
edly by discipline. Publishers allow authors to self-archive accepted papers
immediately for 78 percent of articles in the physical sciences, 60 percent
of articles in the life sciences, 51 percent in the health sciences, but only
45 percent of articles in the social sciences. The most common embargo
is 12 months in the life and health sciences but 18 months in the social
sciences (Laakso 2014, table 6, p. 489).
Many readers seek green access to articles before the publisher’s
embargo expires so open access proponents such as Stevan Harnad advo-
cate the use of a request a copy button (Sale et al. 2014, third to fifth
pages). This puts a ‘Request a copy’ button next to the article’s biblio-
graphic record or metadata in the repository. If a user clicks the ‘Request
a copy’ button they are asked to certify that they propose to use the article
for a purpose consistent with the fair use (USA) or fair dealing (UK and
most other Commonwealth countries) requirements of the jurisdiction in
which the repository is based. Typically, requesters specify that they plan
to use the article for research, study, criticism, or news reporting. The
reader then enters their email address and presses ‘Confirm’ whereupon
the system sends a request to the author. If the author clicks ‘Agree’ the
system sends a copy of the article it has archived on closed access to
the reader, while if the author clicks ‘Deny’ the system sends an email to the
requester informing them that their request has been denied.
Some 62 percent of respondents to the survey of British humanities
and social sciences researchers discussed in Sect. 10.1 reported that they
were ‘familiar’ with open access and the same proportion stated that
they were positive or very positive toward open access for journals but
only 48 percent stated that they were positive toward open access for
books (JISC Collections, no date, figure 22, p. 17). This differs markedly
by career stage with 77 percent of postdoctoral researchers being positive
about open access for journals and 66 percent positive toward open access
for books (JISC Collections, no date, figure 24, p. 18). It also differs mark-
edly by discipline, with social scientists being more positive about open
access for journals (68 percent) and books (59 percent) than humanities
216 G. MOODIE
scholars, 56 percent of whom were positive about open access for journals
and 40 percent about open access for books (JISC Collections, no date,
figure 26, p. 19).
However, currently only a minority of recent articles are open access.
Ware and Mabe (2015, p. 156) estimate that about 12 percent of articles
are gold open access, at least another 12 percent are green open access and
perhaps 5 percent are open after a delay. Björk et al. (2010, pp. 2–3) identi-
fied a random sample of articles published in refereed journals in 2008 and
used Google to search for open access copies in September and October
2009, more than a year after the article was published and therefore after
most embargos. Earth sciences had the most open access articles, 33 per-
cent, of which 7 percent were gold open access and 26 percent green open
access. Medicine had 14 percent of its articles gold open access and 8 per-
cent green for a total of 22 percent open access. The discipline with the
lowest proportion of open access articles examined by Björk et al. (2010,
figure 4, p. 8) was chemistry and chemical engineering, which had 6 percent
of its articles gold open access and 7 percent green. In a subsequent study,
Björk et al. (2014, p. 243) found that only around 12 percent of all recent
peer-reviewed articles are available as green open access. Nonetheless, open
access is challenging traditional publishing models (AAUP 2011, p. 10).
There have been many studies of the effect of open access on the num-
ber of times articles are read and cited, with studies typically finding that
articles made open access by html are downloaded twice as many times as
articles with closed access and that pdfs are downloaded 60 percent more,
and that open access articles are cited from three to eight times more than
closed access articles (Ware and Mabe 2015, p. 129). However, Ware and
Mabe (2015, p. 130) note that almost all citations are by academics who
can access closed access articles through their institution’s library. They
suggest that the increased citations of open access articles observed by
many studies may be due to open access articles being available for longer,
to authors being more likely to archive their better work or to more highly
cited authors posting more papers than others.
Recent attention on scholarly book publishing has concentrated more
on its viability than opening access to books. However, some scholarly
books are open access because they have been funded by their parent insti-
tution, by a scholarly society, foundation or publication fees, or have been
cross-subsidized by sales of print editions or other publisher revenue. In
2015, the Directory of Open Access Books (no date) had meta data and
links to 3789 scholarly peer-reviewed books from 134 publishers.
9.4.3 Open Data

Many also argue that not only should the results of research be open
to the public which funded it, but also the data generated by research.
The argument is similar to the argument supporting open access: that
the public should have access to the research it funds. Further, the Royal
Society (2012, pp. 38–41) argues that giving the public access to research
data would increase transparency, communication, and trust in research;
increase citizens’ involvement in science; and increase the integrity of
research by exposing bad practice and fraud. However, achieving these
benefits requires more than just making data available to the public, but
making it available to the public in a form in which it can be understood:
The changes that are needed go to the heart of the scientific enterprise and
are much more than a requirement to publish or disclose more data. Realising
the benefits of open data requires effective communication through a more
intelligent openness: data must be accessible and readily located; they must
be intelligible to those who wish to scrutinise them; data must be assessable
so that judgments can be made about their reliability and the competence
of those who created them; and they must be usable by others. For data
to meet these requirements it must be supported by explanatory metadata
(data about data). As a first step towards this intelligent openness, data that
underpin a journal article should be made concurrently available in an acces-
sible database. (Royal Society 2012, p. 7)
The OECD (2015a, p. 55) notes that research data ‘vary enormously in
type and volume, as well as in use and long-term value’, which would
warrant being made open in different ways. The OECD identifies four
types of research data. Observational data record historical information
or one-time phenomena and are collected by telescopes, satellites, sensor
networks, demographic, and other surveys. Experimental data are col-
lected from controlled experiments, for example, from clinical trials, bio-
medical, and pharmaceutical testing and from high-throughput machines
such as accelerators. Computational data are generated from large-scale
computational simulations. Reference data typically are used multiple tiles
by different researchers, and often are highly curated. Examples are data
from mapping the human genome, documentation of proteins stored in
the worldwide protein data bank and longitudinal data on economic and
social status stored in the panel study of income dynamics (PSID 2015)
(OECD 2015a, pp. 55–6). The OECD (2015a, p. 56) notes that it is
218 G. MOODIE
often necessary to store not only data, but also the methods used to collect
it. The OECD (2007) has adopted 13 principles and guidelines for access
to research data from public funding: openness, flexibility, transparency,
legal conformity, protection of intellectual property, formal responsibility,
professionalism, interoperability, quality, security, efficiency, accountabil-
ity, and sustainability.
9.4.4 Open Research

More effort has been invested earlier in extending public use of the prod-
ucts of research—publications and data—than in engaging the public in
research directly. Research may be made open to public participation by, for
example, collecting samples or observations of natural phenomena, review-
ing data already collected, translating text, digitizing text, and reviewing
and indexing historical or government records (National Science Week
Team 2015; Pyne 2016). This is a continuation of the role that the public
has long had in contributing to research. Printing expanded this role in
the mid-sixteenth century, when readers of works in fields now known as
astronomy, botany, geography, and zoology sent corrections, new obser-
vations, and even specimens to authors so that they may be incorporated
in subsequent editions of their book (Eisenstein 1997 [1979], pp. 487,
520, 539, 687; Drake 1970, p. 46). The internet may similarly expand
public engagement in research.
A technique for extending public engagement in research is open note-
book research (Bradley 2006) in which a researcher makes available:
a URL to a laboratory notebook (like this) that is freely available and

indexed on common search engines. It does not necessarily have to look
like a paper notebook but it is essential that all of the information available
to the researchers to make their conclusions is equally available to the rest
of the world. Basically, no insider information. (Bradley 2006, referring to
Mirza 2006)
Researchers may also invite public engagement with their research ideas
and grant proposals, and indeed some small projects have been funded
by public subscription or crowd funding as it is now known. Research
Ideas and Outcomes (no date) is a journal established in 2015 which pub-
lishes on one integrated platform research ideas, grant proposals, meth-
ods, workflows, software, data, project reports, research articles, and peer
reviews. The journal is published by Pensoft Publishers and is funded from

article processing charges of, for example, $109 for a research poster or a
conference abstract, $206 for a research idea or a PhD project plan, $271
for a Wikipedia article or a book review, $597 for a research article, and
$706 for a grant proposal.

Some teachers invest considerable effort in creating educational mate-
rial to explain concepts that many learners in many different contexts
also seek to learn. Once having created good educational material or
even a good learning object, which are learning materials for a single
learning objective, it seems a pity not to share it with other teachers
and learners. Conversely, there seems little point in a teacher creating
materials to explain a concept if it is already done well by existing mate-
rials. Open educational resources are such materials used in teaching–
learning that are available freely, normally via the internet (UNESCO
2002). They include videos of lectures and supporting material such as
slides for whole courses such as MIT (2015) makes available through
its OpenCourseWare site, learning materials, textbooks, videos, and
learning objects (Polsani 2003), YouTube clips, animations, simulations,
diagrams, graphics, assessment materials such as tests with automated
answers, PowerPoint slides, lecture notes (Bates 2015, p. 343) and maps,
graphs, and tables.
Some 71 percent of respondents in a stratified random sample of
approximately 10,000 US students in 2013 said that they used freely
available course content/open educational resources in the past year,
although only about 10 percent of these students use open educational
resources ‘all the time’ (Dahlstrom et al. 2013, p. 12). If one adopts
Bates’ broad understanding of open educational resources to include
PowerPoint slides, diagrams, and graphics, there is likely to be a rea-
sonably broad use of open educational resources since most lectures
include PowerPoint slides, many of which include illustrations, diagrams,
or tables incorporated from other materials, and many teachers use
assessment items developed by others. Nonetheless, open educational
resources are still probably being used considerably below their potential
(Bates 2015, p. 346).
Teachers may not use open educational resources to their full poten-
tial because they think that using them devalues their identity and status
220 G. MOODIE
as experts (Weller 2011, p. 106), because they consider themselves

co-creators and not just transmitters of knowledge and they think using
open educational resources would deskill them from ‘artists’ to artisans’
(Bates 2015, p. 346). However, teachers readily base their courses on
textbooks developed by other authors; indeed, most undergraduate
courses are recontextualizations of textbooks written and produced by
someone else. It is true that most textbooks are proprietary and thus are
not open, but there are several open textbook projects which are expand-
ing strongly.
OpenStax, which is based at Rice University, publishes peer-reviewed
open textbooks which are free online and of modest cost in print. In 2015,
OpenStax had 19 textbooks available and planned to add another five in
2016 (Rice University 2016). In 2015, OpenStax texts were used in 20
percent of degree-granting US colleges and universities, in 2500 courses,
double the number of courses in the previous year. OpenStax expected
its books to be used by almost 400,000 students in 2016 (Boyd 2016).
British Columbia’s open textbook project BCcampus (no date) had 137
college and university textbooks available in January 2016, which had been
adopted in at least 300 courses by more than 45 faculty in 19 institutions
(Jhangiani et al. 2016, p. 6; Bates 2015b). BCcampus supports educa-
tors in modifying their textbooks with an authoring guide. The University
of Minnesota had over 200 titles in its open academics textbook library
in 2016, many of them BCcampus texts (Center for Open Education,
no date).
A more likely obstacle to the uptake of open educational resources
other than textbooks is what Wiley (2004) [2013] calls the reusability
paradox. People understand new material by connecting it to what they
already know: one of teachers’ roles is to put new material in the context
of what their students already know. The more that new material is located
within a student’s context the easier it is for the student to absorb the
new material (Bates 2015, p. 346); however, the more deeply a resource
is embedded in one context the less usable it is in another context. This is
the reusability paradox: the inverse relation between pedagogical effective-
ness and reusability (Wiley 2004 [2013]). The reusability paradox may be
restated epigrammatically: the more a learning object is useful in one con-
text the less it is usable in a different context; if a learning object is reusable
in many contexts, it is not particularly useful in any (Norman 2013). Wiley
(2001) considers the different constraints on the reusability of simple and
complex learning objects.
9.4.6 Open Education

Downes (2013) notes that when he and George Siemens discussed the
development of moocs in 2008, they contemplated progressively more
open education, which increased students’ participation in the construc-
tion of their learning:
• first, open access to educational resources, such as texts, guides, exer-
cises, and the like;
• next, open access to curriculum, including course content and learning
design;
• third, open access to criteria for success, or rubrics (which could then be
used by ourselves or by others to conduct assessments);
• fourth, open assessments (this was something we were not able to pro-
vide in our early courses);
• fifth open credentials. (Downes 2013)
The various forms and levels of educational openness offer learners differ-
ent opportunities for constructing their learning, which in turn depend
on learners’ different capacities for managing their learning. Massive open
online courses offer learners considerable flexibility in the timing and loca-
tion of their learning, and give learners complete discretion in the effort
they invest in their learning. This requires learners to have considerable
self-discipline and to be able to manage their learning for them to learn
much from a mooc, and consequently moocs have very low completion
rates and most mooc participants are already adept learners, since the big
majority have studied higher education before undertaking a mooc. In con-
trast, the relatively inflexible construction of school education gives pupils
little discretion in the time, place or pacing of their learning; it gives pupils
little involvement in the construction of the curriculum or of their learning
experiences; and it seeks to ensure that pupils invest considerable effort in
their learning. Yet most school systems are reasonably successful in ensur-
ing that most pupils achieve the learning goals that systems set for them.
9.5 RE- AND NEW FORMS OF DISSEMINATION

There is an amusing YouTube video of a one-year-old child treating a glossy
print magazine as an iPad that doesn’t work. She taps and pinches the mag-
azine’s pages to find that images do not change or have a hyperlink and that
pages must be turned manually (YouTube 2011). Likewise, current forms
and means for disseminating knowledge might not just be automated, but
be reformed or displaced by new forms enabled by new technologies.
222 G. MOODIE
Krumholz (2015) proclaims ‘the end of journals’ because they are too
slow; too static; too limited; too unreliable; too parochial by sex, ethnicity
and nationality; too focused on the wrong measures, such as the journal
impact factor; too powerful; too expensive; and too dependent on a flawed
business model. He argues that the journal format is too limited and does
not readily allow for iterative change stimulated by readers’ observations.
Krumholz notes that there is little transparency, scrutiny, or evaluation of
peer review and editors’ decisions, and that routine statistics are not usu-
ally published. These issues and changes in technology and society and its
economy are thought to be destabilizing the ‘scholarly infrastructure’ sup-
porting journals (Lagoze et al. 2015, p. 1052). Less radically, Schonfeld
(2013, p. 3) argues that the unit of dissemination is no longer the journal
or the journal issue but the journal article, most of which now have their
own digital object identifier which allows users to navigate to an article
directly rather than through successive layers of the journal home page, its
volume number, and its issue number.
Hitchcock and Kelly (2013) propose, essentially, that each ‘journal’
article have an online file which includes successive versions of the article,
reviews, and comments by peers, and certificates of quality or ‘badges’
affixed by journal editors, institutions, professional societies, and consor-
tia of scholars. Gershman envisages authors posting papers to a subject
repository. Authors would submit their paper to a journal by sending a link
to the paper in the repository. The journal’s editorial and peer review would
be done as currently, but if it is accepted the journal’s imprimatur would be
attached to the paper (Schmitt 2014) and presumably the ‘journal’ would
have a web site listing the papers it has accepted. An open access quality
assured journal whose content is held on one or more repositories is known
as an overlay journal (Moyle and Polydoratou 2007; Ginsparg 1996).
Yet Larivière et al. (2015, p. 2) observe that while digitization has
‘improved access, searchability and navigation within and between’ arti-
cles, it has not yet changed their basic form. The most popular format for
articles is the pdf (portable document format), which essentially mimics
print format. In a paper they call ‘The “Paper” of the future’ Goodman
and colleagues (no date) demonstrate the features they envisage of the
paper of the future: a long-lasting rich record of scholarly discourse
enhanced with deep data and links to computer code, interactive figures,
audio, video, and commenting. The ‘paper’ starts with a link to a video
demonstration of the paper. Its web site has a folder of all the ‘paper’s files,
a history of all its versions and files of all previous versions, an index, and
the ability for readers to attach comments. More radically, Wojick (1975,
2013) proposes a tree which relates not papers but issues, concepts, or
propositions. Knowledge would be disseminated by adding issues and
links to the tree and by redrawing the tree.
Publishers such as the parent company of the publisher of this book
Macmillan Publishers extended their textbooks with complementary tests,
teachers’ manuals and by including in some of their texts a sleeve contain-
ing a compact disc of audio-visual materials and interactive quizzes. They
are now publishing a range of digital learning tools such as adaptive digital
tutorials, adaptive exercises, adaptive quizzing platform, digital texts with
interactive e-books, activities, and videos (Burnett 2015). This is leading
publishers to reform their educational technology and educational pub-
lishing divisions such as Macmillan’s establishment of Macmillan Learning
(Michaels 2015). Other big publishers Pearson (2013) are also changing
their emphasis, from print to digital and from products to services; and
McGraw-Hill Education (2014) seeks to concentrate on digital learning.
Such new or reforming of the unit of publication (journal, issue, article,
concept), the form of publication (print or digital object, service or activ-
ity) and of publishers is an outcome not just of technological change, but
is also shaped by the nature of the knowledge disseminated since different
forms are adopted for news, popular knowledge, and fiction. We also see
from the forgoing and from the next Sect. 10.6 that the form of dis-
semination is also shaped by the methods available and used for managing
knowledge, such as establishing its reliability, accuracy, authenticity, and
authority. The future forms of disseminating knowledge will be shaped
by the interaction of all three factors: resources including technology, the
nature of knowledge, and the method for managing it.
9.6 CREDIBILITY OF PUBLICATION

Whatever form publications take, readers will still need indicators of the
credibility of publication, though the form of those indicators may change
with the form of publication. Sections 9.3 and 9.4 noted that printing
made it much easier to reproduce texts and illustrations reliably, though it
came with new problems of ensuring the accuracy and authenticity of the
publication. Accuracy and authenticity are only part of what is needed to
establish a publication’s credibility. Contemporary readers take for granted
that the phenomena reported in the scholarly literature were observed as
described. Researchers make mistakes, there are a few instances of fudging
224 G. MOODIE
results and occasionally outright fraud is detected, but generally readers

still trust the results reported in the scholarly literature, though they may
dispute its significance or interpretation. This was very different in the
early modern period. Texts were full of accounts of events and of natural
phenomena which were rewrites of earlier texts which in turn recorded
oral accounts of unknown accuracy, where gaps in accounts were filled
by inference if not by imagination. The first accounts of experiments and
observations of natural phenomena had to establish the veracity of their
accounts. William Gilbert (1544–1603) sought to do so by stating in his
De magnete published in 1600 that ‘there was no description or expla-
nation in the book that he had not verified several times “with his own
eyes”’ (Nef 1958, p. 27). But more than mere self-referential assertion
was needed to assure readers of the veracity of the author’s accounts.
In The plan of the great instauration Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
(1863a) [1620] claims to be more cautious than previous writers on natu-
ral history:
For I admit nothing but on the faith of eyes, or at least of careful and severe
examination, so that nothing is exaggerated for wonder’s sake, but what I
state is sound and without mixture of fables or vanity. All received or current
falsehoods also (which by strange negligence have been allowed for many
ages to prevail and become established) I proscribe and brand by name, that
the sciences may be no more troubled with them. (Bacon 1863a [1620])
Furthermore, Bacon reported new sophisticated experiments carefully so

that they may be reviewed critically:
Moreover, whenever I come to a new experiment of any subtlety (though it

be in my own opinion certain and approved), I nevertheless subjoin a clear
account of the manner in which I made it, that men, knowing exactly how
each point was made out, may see whether there be any error connected
with it and may arouse themselves to devise proofs more trustworthy and
exquisite, if such can be found; and finally, I interpose everywhere admoni-
tions and scruples and cautions, with a religious care to eject, repress, and, as
it were, exorcise every kind of phantasm. (Bacon 1863a [1620])
The Royal Society of London established a register to record observations,

experiments including experiments that were thought to have failed and
suggestions for future experiments, theories, and papers. The register also
recorded the name of the person communicating the finding to the society
and date it was communicated (Johns 1998, pp. 476, 485). From May,
1661 members were expected to present to the society a copy of any work
they published, which a fellow would ‘peruse’, abstract, or translate and
report on to a subsequent meeting (Johns 1998, pp. 482–3). The most
common means for assuring readers of the authoritativeness of a publica-
tion is to have it reviewed by experts in the field. The minutes of the coun-
cil of the Royal Society of 1 March 1664 provide ‘that the Philofophical
Tranfactions, to be compofed by Mr OLDENBURG, be printed the
firft Monday of every month, if he have fufficient matter for it; and that
the tract be licenfed by the council of the fociety, being firft reviewed by
fome of the members of the same’ (Birch 1756, p. 18). The Royal Society
(2011) understands that this makes the Philosophical Transactions the
first peer-reviewed journal. In time, the Philosophical Transactions gained
authority over the society’s register in establishing priority and became a
public journal of record (Johns 1998, p. 501).
Natural philosophers sought to bolster the acceptance of their accounts
by adopting the processes of the authoritative tribunals of fact, the law
courts. Thus, Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Robert Boyle (1627–1691),
John Wilkins (1614–1672), and other fellows of the Royal Society
carefully recorded the witnesses of their experiments as evidence of the
accuracy of their reports (Henry 1997, pp. 87–8; Johns 1998, p. 470).
The social standing of the witnesses was important, since a gentleman was
considered free from interest (Johns 1998, pp. 346, 470). The philosophy
supporting this method was explicated by Locke (1632–1704) in volume
II of An essay concerning human understanding, published in 1689:
4. The Grounds of Probability are two: Conformity with our own

Experience, or the Testimony of others.
Probability then, being to supply the defect of our knowledge, and to
guide us where that fails, is always conversant about propositions whereof
we have no certainty, but only some inducements to receive them for true.
The grounds of it are, in short, these two following:
First, The conformity of anything with our own knowledge, observation,
and experience.
Secondly, The testimony of others, vouching their observation and expe-
rience. In the testimony of others is to be considered: 1. The number. 2.
The integrity. 3. The skill of the witnesses. 4. The design of the author,
where it is a testimony out of a book cited. 5. The consistency of the parts,
and circumstances of the relation. 6. Contrary testimonies. (Locke 2004,
[1689], volume II, book IV, chapter XV)
226 G. MOODIE
Boyle recorded experiments in such detail that reading his accounts was
like ‘virtual witnessing’ the experiments (Shapin 1984, 1996, p. 108).
This allowed the procedure or experiment to be replicated (Shapin 1996,
p. 107). There was no need to trust the author or their witnesses on the
veracity and accuracy of the account since readers could at least in principle
follow the same procedure and see the results for themselves (Gaukroger
2006, p. 164). There was thus a coincidence of the method of discovery,
method of presentation, and the method of verification.
Historians similarly sought to support the veracity of their accounts
by adopting some of the language and forms of the law court. Prosper
Marchand (1678–1756) suggested that readers of his Histoire de l’origine
et des prémiers progrès de l’imprimerie (History of the origin and early
progress of printing) published in 1740 were the ‘judge’ who ‘should
believe only what they see proved’ by the ‘procedures’ producing ‘proofs’
(Johns 1998, p 357). His text was supported by extensive citations and
notes and other contemporary historians cited ‘witnesses’ and their ‘tes-
timony’ complemented with ‘a paraphernalia of footnotes, endnotes,
appendices, and citations that would become characteristic of later histori-
cal scholarship’ (Johns 1998, p. 346).
However, the progress of research would be much slowed if readers had
to verify all results upon which they rely by replicating the study which gen-
erated those results. Historians consult the primary sources upon which
they rely directly and check results which seem unusual, but for much of
their work they rely on authoritative secondary sources. However, the dis-
semination of research results may be reformed, it would seem important
to maintain a system which assured readers of the rigor of the publications
they consult (Ware and Mabe 2015, p. 155). Readers would of course
continue to consult publications whose rigor was not vouchsafed, but they
would not rely on their rigor without further evaluation.
It is also useful to have some indication of the importance of a publi-
cation. While researchers review authoritative papers that seem relevant,
they also benefit from being directed to papers which may not be in their
precise field but which their peers consider important. Currently checking
publications for rigor and recommending by importance are done in the
same process, peer review, and are signaled by being published in venues
with different prominence, such as journals with different impact factors
and book imprints with different standing. But assessment of rigor may
be separated from evaluation of importance, as does the multidisciplinary
science and medicine gold open access journal PLOS ONE (no date).
Some argue that peer review before publication unnecessarily delays the
dissemination of results and restricts publications to those that conform to
norms and conventions which may block the publication of radical work.
They advocate instead peer review after papers are published. Further, the
importance of papers may be determined not by the journals in which they
are published or even which journals badge them, but by the number of
times they are cited, or even by the number of ‘likes’ they attract. These
less structured indicators of the authoritativeness of publication require
more sophistication and expertise to interpret, and people not expert in
the field they are investigating would probably need simpler and quicker
indicators of the authoritativeness and importance of the material they are
consulting.
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2015.
CHAPTER 10
Progress and Prospects
This chapter draws together the argument introduced in Chap. 1 and

elaborated in the following chapters that explains changes in the transmis-
sion and dissemination of knowledge by the interaction of three factors:
resources—financial, technological, physical;
knowledge—nature, structure, level; and
methods available for managing knowledge.
The chapter applies this argument to seek to understand the effects on
universities of the digital revolution. It focuses on an apparent anomaly,
that all the characteristics of face-to-face campus-based education can be
at least replicated and many of them can be surpassed by mediated online
learning, yet face-to-face education remains the dominant form of teach-
ing–learning and achieves much higher rates of completion for most stu-
dents than most forms of mediated education. The chapter and the book
conclude that either the available technologies, pedagogies, or both are
not yet sufficiently developed to transform the transmission of disciplinary
knowledge that is the core of higher education. This argument is made in
these sections:
10.1 Progress
10.1.1 Before the Gutenberg Revolution

10.1.2 Following the Explosion of Print

238 G. MOODIE
10.1.3 Following the Scientific Revolution

10.2 Learning Disciplinary Knowledge
10.2.1 Interaction
10.2.2 Feedback
10.2.3 Hierarchical
10.2.4 Managed
10.3 Advantages of Face-to-Face Education
10.3.1 Young or Inexpert Learners

10.3.2 Social Structure and Discipline
10.3.3 Modeling Desired Behavior
10.3.4 Oral and Readily Incorporates Text
10.3.5 Affective Interaction
10.3.6 Greater Perceptual and Psychological Proximity
10.3.7 Informal, Spontaneous, and Serendipitous Discussions
10.3.8 Attrition
10.4 Ways of Learning
10.4.1 Imitation or Observational Learning

10.4.2 Directed Learning
10.4.3 Guided Independent Learning
10.4.4 Autonomous Learning
10.4.5 Relative Strengths and Weaknesses
10.5 Prospects: The Limits of Pedagogy
10.1 PROGRESS
The several extravagant claims for technology’s impact on higher educa-
tion noted in Chap. 1 have not been supported by the evidence examined
in previous chapters. While the Gutenberg revolution transformed soci-
ety generally, the new technology was absorbed into existing university
practices rather than revolutionized them (Moodie 2014, p. 465). The
Scientific Revolution transformed universities’ curriculum; it introduced
PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS 239
an important new pedagogy, the practical class; and it was associated

with changes in assessment from oral, individualized, public, and collec-
tive disputations of questions in Latin to written, standardized, private,
and individual answering of questions in the vernacular. These substantial
changes were not the direct result of new technologies, but of changes
in the nature of knowledge and the way it is advanced and validated.
Digital technologies have not yet transformed either higher education’s
curriculum or its pedagogy. Rather, the digital revolution’s implications
for universities seem broadly similar to the Gutenberg revolution. While
digital technologies are transforming society generally, they have been
incorporated within existing educational processes and structures rather
than transform them (Dumont and Istance 2010, p. 21; Finnegan 2006,
p. 144). Throughout the three revolutions of print, science, and digitiza-
tion, lectures have remained resilient, perhaps stubbornly so, although
there are perhaps indications that this may be changing.
10.1.1 Before the Gutenberg Revolution

Universities developed with the urbanization of Europe to provide the
skilled workforce needed for an increasingly complex society: officials for
the church and state, lawyers, administrators, clerks, and physicians. Most
students of early universities were the sons of men who made a comfort-
able living this way; of comfortable peasants, yeomen, stewards, and arti-
sans; some were the sons of landed or other inherited wealth; and many
came from poorer circumstances whose studies were supported variously
by scrimping parents, a wealthy relative, local patron, college foundation,
and by working and other expedients while studying. A big university in
Gutenberg’s time such as Bologna, Cambridge, Oxford, and Paris fre-
quently matriculated from 400 to 500 students annually and had a total
of at least 1000 students. Almost every European country had a medium-
sized university such as Edinburgh which frequently matriculated 150–
200 students annually, and there were several small universities such as
Glasgow which barely matriculated 50 students a year.
Universities and their colleges assembled collections of manuscripts
to share a scarce resource among masters and professors, generally not
undergraduates. Their initial role was lending books but by Gutenberg’s
time around half of libraries’ collections of around 400 manuscripts were
chained as references. In principle, medieval universities’ undergraduate
curriculum comprised the seven liberal arts, starting with the trivium of
240 G. MOODIE
the verbal arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic; proceeded to the qua-
drivium of the mathematical arts of arithmetic, music, geometry, and
astronomy; and finished with the three philosophies: natural, moral, and
metaphysical. In practice, undergraduates spent their first two years on
logic and grammar, and the following two years on natural philosophy.
Aristotle formed the core of the curriculum. This was a vocational cur-
riculum for a society that needed people skilled in sophisticated oral and
written argument and expression.
Teaching and assessment were in Latin and predominantly oral.
Bachelors delivered cursory lectures on the main texts for undergraduates
to absorb and note. Masters’ expository lectures were an intensive study
of one text, often one which had been covered by a series of cursory lec-
tures. Since books were so rarely available for ready reference scholars at
all levels were expected to memorize big parts of key texts. Masters drilled
students on their recollection of the previous day’s and week’s lectures,
and students practiced disputations extensively. Universities’ requirements
for students to be admitted to the various degrees covered the whole pro-
gram of work of several years: there was no concept of passing by years or
other stages. The final piece of assessment was a disputation which might
elucidate fallacies arising from linguistic ambiguity or identify flaws in rea-
soning. But during Gutenberg’s time only a minority of students com-
pleted the whole program and graduated: many students could meet their
educational, occupational, and social goals for university from attending
just for one to two years.
Knowledge was advanced by the intensive analysis of texts and their ratio-
nal or logical implications. The main aim was to explain phenomena which
were well known rather than to discover new phenomena which would
require further explanation. But in this scholars were limited by the scarcity
of texts held locally; the difficulty of discovering, locating, and consulting
texts held by other libraries; the unreliability of manually copied texts; and
the inaccuracy and unreliability of manually copied illustrations. Scholars
maintained extensive correspondence with fellow scholars in Europe but
the main method for disseminating new knowledge was the book.
10.1.2 Following the Explosion of Print

Gutenberg’s proving of printing with moveable type in 1450 brought
about major changes in the dissemination of information and ideas which
in turn affected society and its organization in the short, medium, and long
terms. Printing presses spread remarkably quickly across Europe, and print
was soon used by the church and state to extend and deepen their reach
over the penitent and subjects, and to strengthen their internal bureaucra-
cies. Printing allowed people to read the Bible and other religious texts
for themselves, and thus was an important tool of the Reformation and
Counter Reformation. Most early printed books were in Latin, but print-
ers soon expanded their markets and book readership considerably by
printing in the vernacular. Printers maximized their economies of scale by
choosing one of a region’s dialects as the vernacular printed language of
that market, and standardized the vernacular. Printing’s promulgation and
standardization of strong vernaculars contributed to the rise of national-
ism. Printing was arguably the first form of mass production in a proto
industrial process and its products the first commodity.
Universities and their enrollments expanded from around 1450 for about
two centuries to serve an expanding economy; to support the expanding
functions of government which needed more notaries, secretaries, and lit-
erate public officials; to support churches in their sectarian contests; and to
serve societies that were more commercial, trading, and interacting more
outside their region, and were more sophisticated. University students
changed from predominantly clerical to aristocratic in Northern Europe,
and merchants’ sons joined the sons of the landed wealthy in universities
south of the Alps. Access for poorer students seemed to have decreased.
Libraries lost their role as the stores of scare manuscripts after printing
made books abundant and became stagnant if not moribund. Universities’
curriculum changed substantially from Gutenberg’s time under the influ-
ence of humanists, from scholastic logic and philosophy to humanist logic
and litterae humaniores, though universities retained their heavy reliance
on Aristotle.
Cursory lectures were made redundant by the increased availability
of printed books. Masters no longer always followed a standard text in
their expository lectures but sometimes constructed courses from dif-
ferent texts. The curriculum was reoriented from texts which presented
a number of subjects to subjects which were presented by a number of
texts. Universities in the Germanies developed the seminar as a method of
teaching which was to develop as the research seminar in the nineteenth
century. In contrast, the colleges of two English universities developed the
tutorial system which was distinctive of them. Latin remained the domi-
nant language of instruction and scholarship, and disputation the most
important method for assessing knowledge. However, scholars started
242 G. MOODIE
looking beyond Aristotle for methods for extending knowledge. Printing

greatly expanded scholars’ readership, not only among other neophyte
and advanced scholars, but also among the small Latin-reading public.
10.1.3 Following the Scientific Revolution

University enrollments declined from around 1650, a century after the
emergence of the Scientific Revolution, and continued to be depressed for
more than a century, which may have been due to a weakening economy,
to universities being on the periphery of the new disciplines, to universi-
ties being less relevant to new commercial and professional needs, and to
more alternatives for advanced training. University and college libraries
revived during the Scientific Revolution but nearly all university libraries
remained small and of little importance until the eighteenth century when
they sought to be comprehensive collections of books which had by then
become so numerous that professors could no longer aspire to hold all the
books relevant to their work.
The Scientific Revolution led to a transformation of universities’ cur-
riculum in the last years of the eighteenth century and the first decades of
the nineteenth, although the change was as delayed and contested as it was
profound. Universities gave mathematics more importance as a core disci-
pline of the new method from the eighteenth century, natural philosophy
developed from auxiliary studies or parts of general education to indepen-
dent disciplines of physics, astronomy, and chemistry which were studied
in their own right, and biology was established as a separate discipline
in 1802. Lectures persisted but universities introduced practical classes,
and more broadly lecturers illustrated propositions from experience rather
than from ancient texts. Vernaculars displaced Latin as the language of
university instruction from the mid-seventeenth century and as the lan-
guage of international scholarly communication and dissemination from
the eighteenth century. Disputations came to be supplemented by an oral
interrogation and examinations started to include a written component.
Some of the changes in assessment were consequences of the changes in
curriculum and pedagogy brought about by the Scientific Revolution,
some depended on printing, but others were due to universities’ increased
size and other broader changes.
The Scientific Revolution was above all a revolution in the way knowl-
edge was advanced, from seeking to explain known to discovering new
natural phenomena; from an Aristotelian understanding of the qualitative
and essential properties of phenomena to examining their mathematically

abstractable properties; from examining natural phenomena—phenom-
ena as they appeared in nature—to examining phenomena in experiments
artificially constructed and controlled; and from an Aristotelian program
to a Christian one that sought to understand God’s design, to under-
stand God’s book of Scripture by understanding his creation, the book
of nature. With the Scientific Revolution came a new way of disseminat-
ing knowledge that depended on a technology that had been proved 215
years earlier: scholarly journals.

By the onset of the digital revolution many wealthy societies were well
advanced in the transition from mass to universal or open access higher
education in Trow’s (1973, 2007 [2005]) terms. In these societies, over
half of the population from which most university students are drawn par-
ticipate in higher education. Universal or open access higher education is
qualitatively different in functions, student access, curriculum, pedagogy,
and other characteristics from mass higher education in which from 16 to
50 percent of the relevant age group participates, which is qualitatively
different again from elite higher education in which less than 16 percent
of the age group participates. While participating in higher education is a
mark of privilege in elite systems and institutions it becomes an advantage
in mass systems and institutions, and not participating in universal higher
education is a disadvantage.
As contemporary universities have broadened their enrollments, they
have also broadened the subjects they teach and the occupations for which
they prepare graduates. Some of these subjects and occupations are directly
related to the digital age such as computer science, media studies, media
technology, games technology, and animation. But these are just additions
to an existing curriculum rather than transformations of it. Current social,
economic, and technological changes may stimulate more changes in the
form of curriculum. Universities have credited toward their degrees stud-
ies at other universities since their foundation in the Middle Ages. But the
expansion of online courses and their greater sophistication may increase
greatly the number and proportion of studies at other institutions that are
incorporated into university degrees. The curriculum may be segmented
differently and perhaps in smaller units and it may be organized by differ-
ent principles of curriculum coherence.
244 G. MOODIE
Technology has not been involved directly in these transformations of

higher education—indeed, that is one of the criticisms and frustrations of
higher education’s critics. Higher education’s two modern transforma-
tions from elite to mass after WWII and from mass to universal, say, from
the 1990s, have been due to changes in the economy which have increased
the need for workers with higher skills and increased the capacity to fund
higher education, and to changes in social expectations of participation
in higher education. Technological change has been central to the eco-
nomic changes which have been driving and funding higher education’s
transformations. But so too have changes in social organization and insti-
tutions, encapsulated in the term ‘neoliberalism’. Economic change has
also been driven by globalization, which is also changing higher educa-
tion directly. Globalization also has technological, social, and institutional
drivers. Globalization is enabled not only by improvements in transport
and communications, but also by social attitudes to increased exchanges
beyond local, regional, and national boundaries, and the establishment of
institutions to support these exchanges. Technology may further change
methods of work and social organization which may in turn change edu-
cation, as Saljö (2004, p. 492) anticipates, but as he observes, this would
not be digital technologies improving or enhancing learning directly, but
would be an indirect effect of technology on education.
Digital technology has transformed higher education institutions’
administration, as it has transformed the administration of governments,
businesses, and other bureaucracies. It has also transformed the way
university administrators, faculty, and students communicate with each
other. The digital revolution is affecting academic libraries directly: their
content is moving from print to electronic and their services now include
supporting what are known broadly as ‘digital literacies’. Libraries have
developed a new role as the manager of their university’s digital reposi-
tory of research publications, and this may extend to shaping the pro-
duction of research publications. They also potentially have a new role
in managing collections of and access to open educational resources.
But as we have seen, digital technology has not yet transformed either
higher education’s curriculum or its pedagogy. Still less has it trans-
formed higher education’s structure, organization, economies of scale,
and financing—its business model. Selwyn was referring to Wikipedia’s
impact on higher education, but his observation may apply to digital
technologies generally: ‘hype and excitement’ has faded to ‘mundane
domestication’ (Ross 2015).
Digital technologies are transforming the production and dissemina-

tion of photographs, recorded music, film, and other entertainment and
they are transforming the production and dissemination of news and
analysis. The transformation of these areas cannot be extended simply by
analogy to higher education because higher education is concerned with
the advancement, dissemination, and reproduction of disciplinary knowl-
edge, which as was discussed in Chap. 1 is fundamentally different from
entertainment and the information that is the subject of news and current
affairs.
10.2 LEARNING DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE

Learning the disciplinary knowledge described in Sect. 1.2.2 is intentional,
formal, and systematic, all of which at least in principle are independent
of study mode. Some learning is unintentional and unconscious, such as
a child learning their first language or an adult absorbing popular culture.
But learning disciplinary knowledge is intentional: it requires the learner’s
conscious and sustained effort. That effort must be invested in an activity
that is likely to result in learning. Learning is thus an interaction between
the learner and the activity (de Corte 2010, p. 40). Some learning activi-
ties involve the use of resources or tools for which learners may need help
using, called ‘procedural scaffolding’ by Hannafin et al. (1999, p. 133,
cited by Stavredes and Herder 2013, p. 161).
Some learning is informal, such as when a person is shown how to
operate a phone or learns a new function on a software package. But
learning disciplinary knowledge is formal: it has objectives, is organized,
is structured, and is institutionalized in schools, colleges, and universi-
ties (OECD 2015b). Inexpert learners generally need more structure than
expert learners (Jaggars 2013, p. 601). Formal learning requires learners’
motivation and effort. In addition, formal learning requires feedback on
whether the learner achieved the learning goal—assessment (Sharples and
colleagues 2013, p. 6). Formal learning is systematic (UNESCO 2012,
p. 11) in that it follows a curriculum that is specified for each learning
activity, unit, and program (Skilbeck et al. 1998, p. 61; OECD 2014b,
p. 397). A curriculum embeds learning goals but inexpert learners often
need their learning goals to be made explicit.
Four additional characteristics of learning disciplinary knowledge are
central to the prospects of its automation: interaction, feedback, hierarchi-
cal development, and learning management.
246 G. MOODIE
10.2.1 Interaction
Daniel (2004), with many others, argues that most learners need inter-
active activities which ‘involve people and their social systems’. By
‘interactive’ Daniel (2004) means ‘a situation where an activity by the
student evokes a response by another human being—a teacher, a tutor,
or another student—that is specifically tailored to that particular student’.
Anderson (2003, p. 6) cites some evidence suggesting ‘value in “vicari-
ous interaction”, in which non-active participants gain from observing
and empathizing with active participants’. Trigwell and Shale (2004,
p. 532) argue that the ‘bridge between teaching knowledge and the stu-
dent learning that results from that knowledge’ is ‘pedagogic resonance’:
the ‘dynamic, reciprocal, fluid engagement’ between teacher and students.
Learners undertake some learning activities independently, such as read-
ing a book, watching a TV program, writing an essay, and doing math-
ematical calculations (Daniel 2004). But Holmberg (1989) argued that
well-designed learning materials embed a guided didactic conversation so
that even activities conducted independently may incorporate simulated
interaction.
Many learners benefit from being challenged to go beyond their cur-
rent level of thinking or practice to acquire deeper understanding or a
higher level of skill (Bates 2014). The difference between what a learner
can learn independently and what they may learn with the guidance or
collaboration of more capable peers was identified by Vygotsky (1978,
pp. 86–7) as the zone of proximal development. Such learning support or
‘cognitive scaffolding’ includes ‘gaining the learner’s attention, simplify-
ing the learner’s role in completing the task, keeping learners focused on
the task, emphasizing relevant features of the task, alleviating frustration,
and modeling the task’ (Stavredes and Herder 2013, p. 98).
10.2.2 Feedback
Important learning provokes learners to question their understanding
and requires them to adjust their prior understanding to incorporate new
ideas (Bates 2015, p. 346). Learners may need help working through
complex problems, correcting misconceptions, or identifying key con-
cepts and ideas, called ‘conceptual scaffolding’ (Hannafin et al. 1999,
p. 131, cited by Stavredes and Herder 2013, p. 161). Helping learn-
ers with their ‘approaches to learning tasks or problems’, for example,
by offering alternative approaches, is ‘strategic scaffolding’ (Hannafin

et al. 1999, pp. 132–4, cited by Stavredes and Herder 2013, p. 162). It
requires what Shulman (1986, p. 9, 1987, p. 15) calls ‘pedagogic content
knowledge’:
We expect a math major to understand mathematics or a history specialist

to comprehend history. But the key to distinguishing the knowledge base of
teaching lies at the intersection of content and pedagogy, in the capacity of
a teacher to transform the content knowledge he or she possesses into forms
that are pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the variations in ability
and background presented by the students. (Shulman 1987, p. 15)
Formal learning is assessed summatively to support certification of

learning (Sharples and colleagues 2013, p. 6) and to give learners feed-
back on their learning, and should also be assessed formatively to give
learners feedback on their progress at important stages of their learn-
ing. However, even the most frequent formative assessment is episodic
(Wiliam 2010, p. 150), yet feedback on learners’ motivation, effort, and
learning needs to be almost continuous. Expert learners check the prog-
ress of their learning themselves, but inexpert learners need to be at least
reminded and often also supported in checking their effort and learning
(Wiliam 2010, p. 138; Hinton and Fischer 2010, p. 125). Section 7.5
noted that students need frequent expert feedback on their learning
success and how to extend it. The section concluded that the current
understanding of assessment and the sophistication of tools currently
available seem to require a substantial investment of an expert’s time
to assess learners’ learning and seem to limit institutions to increasing
expenditure on assessment proportionately to each additional student
they teach.
10.2.3 Hierarchical
While much formal learning is a succession of learning goals that extend
knowledge and skill, formal learning is also hierarchical: it deepens learn-
ers’ knowledge and skill. The hierarchical structure of knowledge and
skill is not apparent and has to be presented explicitly (Laurillard 2002,
p. 199). Learning also often involves acquiring the concepts and pro-
cesses that people in a field use to think about the field (Garrison et al.
2000, p. 95). One such skill is evaluating the authoritativeness of material
248 G. MOODIE
and the validity of arguments (Saljö 2004, p. 493), a skill which is per-
haps more salient now with the net increasing greatly the availability and
accessibility of material ‘which is unreliable; biased; at best incomplete;
inconsistent; contradictory’ (Moore 2009 [2007], p. 399). Gredler
(2005, p. 166) argues that learning may involve three levels of cogni-
tive strategies. Level 1 cognitive strategies are those to complete learning
activities. Level 2 strategies are general problem solving strategies such
as simplifying a problem, breaking it down into parts, and relating it to
known solutions. A third level cognitive strategy is a ‘strategy to select
strategies’.
10.2.4 Managed
Gagné (1985 [1965], pp. 25–6) described learner motivation, direction,
and assessment as ‘the management of learning and the learning situation’.
A distinctive characteristic of formal learning is that it seeks to develop
learners’ management of their learning (Tight 1996, p. 103) to reduce
their dependence on teachers, schools, and other educational institutions
(Long 1990, p. 20), to develop learners from dependent to independent
or ‘self-directed’ learners. The aim is for students to learn how to learn
(Dabbagh 2007, p. 219). Knowles (1975, p. 18) elaborates:
In its broadest meaning, ‘self-directed learning’ describes a process in which

individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diag-
nosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human
and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropri-
ate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes. (Knowles 1975,
p. 18)
Thus, Laurillard (2002, p. 138) argues that one of the aims of educa-
tion should be to develop learners’ ability to internalize extrinsic feedback
on their learning progress. Subsequently Laurillard (2012, p. 28) argued
that students’ effectiveness in regulating their learning has to be devel-
oped through their successive encounters with a formal learning environ-
ment in which they are encouraged to be an agent of their own learning
and are able to develop their capacity for self-regulation. Stavredes and
Herder (2013, p. 161) argue that cognitive scaffolding applied over time
helps learners to become self-regulated—able to motivate themselves, plan
their learning, locate and use resources to support their learning, assess
their progress, and adjust strategies. This is also known as ‘meta-learning’

(Saljö 2004, p. 493) or ‘metacognition’: a person’s awareness of and abil-
ity to manage their cognitive processes, ‘the ability to anticipate, detect,
and correct or “repair” understanding needs as they emerge’ (Schraw
and Dennison 1994, cited by West et al. 2013, p. 133). Oliver et al.
(2014, p. 18) describe this as the ‘use of a self-oriented feedback loop, in
which students monitor the effectiveness of their learning strategies and
respond to feedback with changes in self-perceptions or learning strate-
gies’. Following Candy’s (1991) four dimensions of self-directed learn-
ing, Cheurprakobkit et al. (2002, p. 257) summarize these attributes as
‘“self-” behaviors (e.g., self-discipline, self-monitoring, self-initiative, and
self-management)’.
Grow (1991/1996, p. 129) posits four stages of self-directed learn-
ing. At the first stage, learners depend on their teacher as an authority
and coach to overcome learners’ deficiencies and resistance. Examples
of dependent learning are coaching with immediate feedback, drill, and
informational lecture. In Grow’s second stage of self-directed learning,
students are interested and teachers are motivators and guides who set
goals and propose learning strategies. An example is a lecture plus guided
discussion. In the third stage, learners are involved and teachers are facili-
tators. Examples are a discussion facilitated by the teacher who partici-
pates as an equal, seminars, and group projects. Grow’s fourth stage is
where learners are self-directed and teachers are a consultant or delegator.
Examples are internships, dissertations, individual work, and self-directed
study-group.
Grow (1991, p. 127) states that ‘the ability to be self-directed is
situational in that one may be self-directed in one subject, a dependent
learner in another. Self-direction, however, is not entirely situational;
it is partly a personal trait analogous to maturity. Once developed, cer-
tain aspects of self-direction are transferrable to new situations’. Kerr
et al. (2006, p. 101) found that ‘students with high independent learn-
ing scores had significantly higher course grades than low independent
learners’ where ‘independent learning consists of items that assess one’s
ability to manage time, balance multiple tasks, set goals, and one’s
disposition regarding self-discipline, self-motivation, and personal
responsibility’.
The discussion so far has applied equally to formal learning in an activ-
ity, a course, and a program. But the duration and amount of these seg-
ments of learning differ markedly. A formal learning activity might last
250 G. MOODIE
from a few minutes to an hour or more; courses are normally conducted

over a semester of around 12–14 weeks; and undergraduate higher edu-
cation programs normally take three to four years. Each class is at least
one learning activity but many well-designed classes include two or three
different learning activities in an hour. So learners might undertake from
50 to 100 learning activities in each course, from 500 to 1000 activi-
ties in a year and from 2000 to 3000 learning activities in a program.
A course is an order of magnitude longer than a learning activity, and a
program is an order of magnitude longer and has an order of magnitude
more learning activities than a course. Thus individual learning activities,
courses, and programs make qualitatively different demands of learners
in planning, concentrating on, and managing the time they spend on
their learning.
10.3 ADVANTAGES OF FACE-TO-FACE EDUCATION

All the discussion in this chapter so far has been independent of teaching–
learning mode: ostensibly, the discussion can apply equally to face-to-face
teaching–learning, synchronous mediated teaching–learning such as via
videoconference, and asynchronous-mediated teaching–learning such as
by stored video and text via the internet (Bates 2014). Online learning has
developed considerably, and as Chap. 1 opened, extravagant claims have
been made for it. Bates (2015, p. 315) therefore asks:
However, online learning has now become so prevalent and effective in so

many contexts that it is time to ask:
what are the unique characteristics of face-to-face teaching that make it
pedagogically different from online learning?
It is possible of course that there is nothing pedagogically unique about
face-to-face teaching, but given the rhetoric around ‘the magic of the cam-
pus’ (Sharma 2013) and the hugely expensive fees associated with elite
campus-based teaching, or indeed the high cost of publicly funded campus-
based education, it is about time that we had some evidence-based theory
about what makes face-to-face teaching so special. (Bates 2015, p. 315)
This section considers seven advantages claimed for face-to-face educa-

tion over education that is online or mediated through another medium
(Moodie, forthcoming). The first advantage seems the most important
and enduring.
10.3.1 Young or Inexpert Learners

Face-to-face teaching–learning seems unavoidable for particularly young
or inexpert learners who need someone to gain their attention, simplify
their role in completing the learning activity, keep them focused on the
activity, emphasize relevant features of the activity, alleviate frustration,
and model the learning (Stavredes and Herder 2013, p. 98). Inexpert
learners also need someone to check their learning progress and give them
very frequent feedback on it. Learners start learning face to face and have
to spend several years learning face to face before they develop skills of
self-directed learning. Face-to-face learning is the first and either the only
or the main mode in which most learners have learned formally. It there-
fore has the considerable advantage of familiarity and learners have accom-
modated its inflexibilities in the place, time, and schedule of learning.
Also, learners have considerable time and support to develop the skills
to manage face-to-face learning: arrive at school on time, get to class on
time, and pay attention in class. In contrast, the skills of online or blended
learning are not developed at school where pupils would have considerable
support to develop and practice these new skills (Bates 2015, pp. 319–20).
Instead, most learners’ introduction to online learning is online, when
direct, immediate and face to face support is least likely to be available.
Face-to-face education is so entrenched that some imagination is needed
to identify the skills and arrangements needed to make it successful.
It is a useful trick in judging the essential qualities of innovations to imagine

the change process in reverse. If we were now converting from electronic
meetings to place-based meetings, tutors would find it immensely difficult
by comparison to adjust to the travel, the strain of responding immediately
to questions, the problem of how to end a discussion in reasonable time.
(Laurillard 2002, p. 149)
Indeed, until the high Middle Ages universities had difficulty organiz-
ing teaching space and ensuring that professors taught for the specified
times. Until around the fifteenth century, ‘professors of Italian universi-
ties lectured wherever they could, sometimes in private homes and some-
times in wretched rented quarters’ (Grendler 2002: 161). The commune
of Bologna employed a beadle to check lectures daily and professors who
delivered a lecture lasting only half the required time of one or two hours
were fined ten soldi (one lira).
252 G. MOODIE
10.3.2 Social Structure and Discipline

The inflexibilities in the place, time, and schedule of learning imposed
by face-to-face education have advantages in providing a social struc-
ture and discipline to support learning over an extended period. We
noted above that courses offered over a semester and programs taking
several years make qualitatively greater demands on learners to plan,
concentrate on, and manage their learning than individual learning
activities which may last from several minutes to an hour or more. Face
to face’s strict schedule of learning (Song and Hill 2007, p. 34) provides
a structure and discipline which many learners need. It is the flexibility
of online learning that reduces its social structure and discipline in sup-
port of learning:
An additional advantage of campus based study is the inherent discipline and

structure it provides for students. Studying at a distance requires a good deal
of self-discipline and organization, in order to manage the time for study
against competing demands. Much of this organizational function is pro-
vided for students on campus, for instance with timetabled lectures, tutorials
and so on, and the culture of academic discipline within which students are
situated. (Weller 2002, pp. 27–8)
10.3.3 Modeling Desired Behavior

Face-to-face education facilitates teachers modeling desired face-to-face
behavior. With so much interaction now online arguably, learners would
benefit from role models of desirable online behavior.
10.3.4 Oral and Readily Incorporates Text

Face to face is mostly oral, which is fast paced, spontaneous, and less struc-
tured than communication by text, but readily incorporates text on white-
boards, slides, and handouts. Oral communication has many advantages
over communication by text (Garrison et al. 2000, p. 90) but of course,
oral communication is not unique to face-to-face education. Teletutorials
or tutorials over the telephone have been incorporated into distance edu-
cation programs since the 1970s and videoconference classes have been
offered since the late 1990s. Incorporating text into videoconferences and
webinars is possible but not always easy.
10.3.5 Affective Interaction

Face-to-face education facilitates affective interaction by providing mul-
tiple nonverbal or paralinguistic cues and paraverbal language. Many have
observed the advantages of paralinguistic cues such as facial expression
and tone of voice (Garrison et al. 2000, p. 91; Weller 2002, p. 9). For
example, Bates (2015, p. 401) notes this disadvantage of online students.
They do not get the important non-verbal cues from the instructor or other
students, such as the stare at a stupid question, the intensity in presentation
that shows the passion of the instructor for the topic, the ‘throwaway’ com-
ment that indicates the instructor doesn’t have much time for a particular
idea, or the nodding of other students’ heads when another student makes a
good point or asks a pertinent question. (Bates 2015, 401)
Further, ‘paraverbal language such as back channelling and other con-

firmatory utterances’ establish students’ feeling of ‘immediacy’ in their
access to teachers (Wheeler and Reid 2009 [2005], pp. 418–9). Weller
(2002) notes that nonverbal cues are provided even in lectures:
When attending a lecture one is participating in an experience, often in a

subtle manner, since it is not the explicit interaction that may be found in
a smaller tutorial session. The lecturer may react to the audience, changing
what he or she intended to say, relaxing after a joke gets a good response, or
going over an explanation again when encountering a sea of blank faces. The
members of the audience also have a connection with each other, and will
see how others are reacting to the lecture. None of these subtle interactions
occur with the broadcast lecture. (Weller 2002, p. 9)
Of course, paralinguistic cues and paraverbal language are also conveyed

by videoconference. Videoconferencing technology is improving and in
particular, greatly increased bandwidths are becoming more commonly
available. It seems likely that if it is not possible now, it will soon be pos-
sible to convey voice tones and facial expressions as clearly remotely as by
face to face from the back of a big lecture theater.
10.3.6 Greater Perceptual and Psychological Proximity

The fewer ‘perceptual distances’ and less ‘psychological distance’ between
students and teacher in face-to-face education was noted by Wheeler and
Reid (2009 [2005]: 411). At least some of the perceptual and psychological
254 G. MOODIE
proximity of face-to-face education is due to it not being mediated by an

online or other medium (Anderson 2003, p. 7; Slevin 2002, p. 79, cited by
Wheeler and Reid 2009 [2005], 412), and presumably some is due to the
closer physical proximity of face-to-face education.
10.3.7 Informal, Spontaneous, and Serendipitous Discussions

Campus-based education allows informal, spontaneous, and serendipitous
discussions with fellow students and teachers (Bates 2015, p. 401; Weller
2002, p. 9) but these discussions can also be had online.
10.3.8 Attrition
Some of the differences between face to face and mediated education dis-
cussed so far may be more contingent than necessary, some may be more
or less important, and there may be other differences which have not been
noted. But there is strong evidence for a marked difference between face
to face and mediated education in the much higher attrition rates for medi-
ated education found in numerous studies of different forms of mediated
education, many of them of a high quality (Woodley and Simpson 2014,
p. 460). Higher attrition rates are reported for mediated education by:
Angelino et al. (2007, p. 2); Rovai and Downey (2010, p. 145); Lee and
McLoughlin (2010, p. 63); Hart (2012, pp. 19, 39); Jaggars and Bailey
(2013); Oliver et al. (2014, p. 16) and the numerous studies cited in each
of these papers. Wheeler and Reid (2009 [2005], p. 411) suggest that
from a third to a half of distance students drop out because of students’
‘perceptual distances’, their ‘psychological distance’ from their teacher,
their physical separation from their institution, and because of students’
‘loss of motivation, social isolation, and the stress of independent study’.
Almost all commentators agree that student attrition is a failure of edu-
cation. It wastes effort and resources invested by institutions, former stu-
dents, and the governments and other bodies which support them. Failing
or dropping out of education leaves former students with negative feel-
ings about education and themselves which discourage further attempts at
formal learning. Most therefore agree that attrition should be minimized,
and much effort is invested by many people in reducing attrition. Many
books and articles have been written on the subject, it is the subject of the
Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, and
numerous workshops are held on the issue.
But a very different view is adopted by the champions of moocs, who

argue that mooc participants engage as deeply and for as long as they
choose, and that this meets participants’ purposes, rather than complet-
ing the program established by the mooc designers. On this argument,
the benefits gained from the 90 percent of participants who do not com-
plete moocs is as much a success as the 10 percent who complete moocs.
Further, they note that the number of mooc participants is so big that a
completion rate of even 10 percent results in far more people completing
a mooc than those who complete conventional or full service courses.
This is close to a freemium pricing strategy in which, for example,
Gillette gave away razors to sell disposable blades; cell phones, videogame
consoles, and coffee makers are given away or sold cheaply to sell monthly
plans, video games and coffee sachets; and in which basic software is given
away to create a demand for enhanced versions or services (Anderson
2008a). Anderson (2008b) contrasts freemium with the traditional free
sample:
instead of giving away 1 % of your product to sell 99 %, you give away 99 %
of your product to sell 1 %. The reason this makes sense is that for digital
products, where the marginal cost is close to zero, the 99 % cost you little
and allow you to reach a huge market. So the 1 % you convert, is 1 % of a
big number. (Anderson 2008b)
Applying this approach to education would indeed be a major if not radical

change. It would require developing or converting programs to ones, like
moocs, where the marginal or incremental cost of each additional student
is close to zero. It would also require a major change in outlook by stu-
dents so that they were not discouraged by previous incomplete attempts
at learning. Such an approach would seem potentially applicable only to
post compulsory education since presumably no society which currently
relies on near universal adult literacy, numeracy, and general education
up to primary or secondary level could continue in its present form with
high proportions of adults not achieving this level of education or achiev-
ing it only after an extended delay. It may have only limited application
even to higher education. The OECD (2015c, Table A3.1, 72) estimates
that an average of 45 percent of people in OECD countries will graduate
at least once from tertiary education in their lifetime, ranging from 68
percent in Japan and over 50 percent in Slovenia, Aotearoa New Zealand,
Denmark and the USA to around 35 percent in Germany, Sweden, and the
256 G. MOODIE
Netherlands and 10 percent in Luxembourg. Presumably whatever form

of higher education is offered would have to achieve close to these attain-
ment rates to meet their society’s needs, but this seems unlikely with cur-
rent forms of higher education which have low incremental student costs.
10.4 WAYS OF LEARNING

It is often useful, as has been done in this chapter so far, to separate the
analysis of levels of learner autonomy from modes of teaching–learning,
such as face to face, synchronous mediated, asynchronous mediated, and
blended learning. It is possible for independent learners to learn face to
face and it seems plausible at least in principle for dependent learners to
learn by asynchronous-mediated learning. But in practice, there is a coin-
cidence of learner autonomy and learning mode: dependent learners learn
best face to face, and mediated learning is most successful for autono-
mous learners. This section posits four ways of learning which associates
learning modes with levels of learner autonomy. Together they follow
two hierarchies, from immediate to mediated learning modes, and from
dependent to autonomous learners. They are a useful summary of the
strengths, weaknesses, and potential applications of different teaching–
learning modes.
10.4.1 Imitation or Observational Learning

Imitation is the way that infants learn language and that children and
adults learn much of their social behavior. It also seems to be used to learn
skills that are not fully abstracted or conceptualized and hence are not well
articulated, such as the physician’s skill of diagnosis and the lawyer’s skill
of advocacy. Some descriptions of apprenticeships and others of doctoral
programs also seem to include at least elements of imitation. Bandura
(1969, p. 118 quoted in Klausmeier and Goodwin 1971, p. 33) lists other
terms used to refer to this form of learning: modeling, observational learn-
ing, identification, copying, vicarious learning, social facilitation, conta-
gion, and role playing.
Observational learning has the considerable advantage of being effective
despite the learner having developed little or no learning skill and without
the teacher or model having to articulate the lesson they seek to convey.
Indeed, it seems that observational learning sometimes occurs without any
conscious effort of either the model or the learner. Observational learn-

ing has two obvious disadvantages, though. It relies heavily on trial and
error and hence is a very inefficient form of learning. Even if the learner
learns perfectly the activity the first time it is presented, it is still necessary
for the whole activity to be run through at least once to be presented
by the model and normally a second time to be practiced by the learner.
Observational learning is therefore very time consuming.
In observational learning, the model and the learner are normally con-
tiguous in time and place, but this is not necessary. The main require-
ment for contiguity seems to be in identifying and correcting the learner’s
mistakes. But one may imagine a person who is learning a language being
asked to repeat phrases onto a digital file and sending their file to the
teacher. The teacher could assess the learner’s efforts and return correc-
tions with the file. This is hardly an efficient form of learning, but never-
theless seems at least possible.
10.4.2 Directed Learning

Directed learning is what typically happens in structured classrooms in
the middle years of secondary school and in its various adaptations in
other levels of education, including higher education, and in workplace
training. The essential elements of directed learning are a highly struc-
tured presentation of the material to be learned, a continuous monitor-
ing of learners’ attention, and ideally a continuous monitoring of their
comprehension.
Learners need some basic learning skills to benefit from directed learn-
ing: an understanding of the language of instruction, an ability to under-
stand concepts or abstractions, an attention span of about half an hour and
sufficient self-discipline to complete set tasks, although even these may be
completed under close supervision. Directed learning has the considerable
advantage of not requiring learners to have advanced learning skills and
not requiring a high level of motivation and self-discipline.
Arguably, classroom teaching is not essential to directed learning. One
may imagine a set of lessons stored on computer that learners were required
complete. The computer would ‘mark the roll’ as the student logged on
to the lesson and take the student through the lesson, monitoring their
attention and comprehension with frequent questions. Classroom teach-
ing may therefore be only one way of presenting directed learning.
258 G. MOODIE
10.4.3 Guided Independent Learning

‘Guided independent learning’ is derived from the term ‘guided indepen-
dent study’ which Empire State College (2016) uses to refer to one of its
forms of teaching–learning, although it is used in a somewhat different
sense here. Here it refers to the teaching–learning mode of what are now
conventional forms of distance or mediated education: students are pro-
vided with structured learning activities that they work through at their
own pace, with varying levels but relatively limited interaction with the
teacher and other students, and then present for assessment. However,
guided independent learning may be various combinations of face to face
and mediated interaction. Guided independent learning may also have
various levels of guidance, from the weekly activities and reflective ques-
tions of a well-designed program for undergraduates to a reading list and
fortnightly meetings for a graduate student.
Guided independent learning has the considerable advantage of being
independent of time and place. It is therefore very attractive to students
with work, family, or other heavy commitments on their time. It is effec-
tive in many fields of study, although there is disagreement on the limits of
its efficacy. Guided independent learning transfers responsibility for learn-
ing from the teacher to the learner. It is therefore efficient for the teacher
and for the teaching institution but since it requires more effort from the
learner, some learners may consider it less efficient for them.
By transferring much of the responsibility for teaching–learning to the
learner, guided independent learning also increases the learner’s auton-
omy and control over their learning. However, it requires from the learner
considerable capacity for and skill in managing their own learning. This is
perhaps the reason for its general lack of success with younger students and
why many learners consider this form of teaching–learning less favorably
than classroom instruction. Some teachers also consider guided indepen-
dent learning a poorer form of education than classroom teaching because
it does not convey the affective skills such as face-to-face presentation and
discussion that they consider an important part of education.
10.4.4 Autonomous Learning

Autonomous learning may require an educational environment and
resources but it does not require a formal structure presented by a teacher.
10.4.5 Relative Strengths and Weaknesses

The relative strengths and weaknesses of these ways of learning may be
contrasted by considering the different ways a visitor may find a place on
campus. They may meet a guide at an appointed time and place who takes
them to their destination. That would be like imitation or observational
learning. The campus guide may remain stationary and point directions
to the visitor, which would be like directed learning. Or the invitation to
attend the campus may be accompanied by a map and instructions, which
would be like guided independent learning. Autonomous learning would
be where the visitor finds their own way, using such campus directories,
signposts, building names, and other aids they may find and be able to
interpret.
This rather simple example illustrates the benefits of observational learn-
ing and directed learning: it is effective for unskilled learners, progress may
be closely monitored, and there are opportunities to convey useful infor-
mation and attitudes incidentally to achieving the primary goal. It also
illustrates how guided independent learning relies on the learner already
having some ability to manage the achievement of their learning goal.
However, once learners have mastered asynchronous-mediated learning,
they prefer improvements to that mode rather than incorporating aspects
of face-to-face education. While the 65 online students who responded to
Sheridan and Kelly’s (2010, p. 8) survey ‘generally placed high value on
communication and the instructor’s responsiveness, they did not place as
much importance on synchronous or face-to-face communication’ such
as synchronous chat sessions or their instructor being available by tele-
phone. Sheridan and Kelly noted that this is consistent with Brinkerhoff
and Koroghlanian’s (2007) 249 online students who did not accord much
importance to a face-to-face meeting at the beginning of the course nor to
a scheduled weekly time for synchronous communication.
10.5 PROSPECTS: THE LIMITS OF PEDAGOGY

New technologies can provide the resources for new ways of teach-
ing–learning, as railways transported mail quickly and efficiently for the
newly established universal mail services, which enabled correspondence
courses to develop. But we have seen that there can be major pedagogi-
cal developments independent of technological change. The change
260 G. MOODIE
from individual and successive to simultaneous instruction described in

Sect. 5.5 transformed school and other forms of education which now use
classroom teaching. Classroom teaching required changes in school archi-
tecture, a topic of great interest in the nineteenth century, with the build-
ing of schools with smaller single teacher rooms instead of the big galleries
which held the whole school for individual and successive instruction. But
the technology to do this had been available long before classroom teach-
ing was developed. Classroom teaching did not depend on the emergence
of a new technology to be developed and certainly wasn’t stimulated by
the availability of a new technology.
We have also seen that the nature, structure, and level of knowledge to
be taught shapes pedagogical possibilities. We have noted that the diagno-
sis of and help with learning problems needs to be specific not only to each
learner but also specific to each learning problem that each learner encoun-
ters. We also noted in Sect. 7.5 Laurillard’s argument that assessment or
feedback on learners’ progress in learning, at least of moderately sophisti-
cated knowledge or skills, must be specific to each learner’s understanding.
The fact that this learning support and feedback must be individualized
to each learner establishes a limit to how much teaching–learning may be
automated since computer programs are a long way from being able to pro-
vide individualized learning support and assessment (Bates 2015, p. 461):
At the same time, although computer programs can go some way to provid-
ing learner support, many of the most important functions of learner sup-
port associated with high-level conceptual learning and skills development
still need to be provided by an expert teacher or instructor, whether present
or at a distance. Furthermore, this kind of learner support is difficult to scale
up, as it tends to be relatively labour intensive and requires instructors with
a deep level of knowledge within the subject area. Thus, the need to provide
adequate levels of learner support cannot just be wished away, if we are to
achieve successful learning on a large scale. (Bates 2015, p. 461)
We have noted that information and communication technologies are

used extensively in higher education but are yet to revolutionize it as some
predict or advocate. Garrett et al. (2005, p. 14) argue for the OECD:
One reason for the scepticism [of the pedagogic value of online learning]
probably lies in the fact that e-learning has not really revolutionised learn-
ing and teaching to date. … The limited impact of ICT in the classroom
setting to date cannot be imputed to a limited usage of ICT in the tertiary
education sector, as was often the case in the early 1990s. The adoption of
learning management systems (LMS)—that is software designed to provide
a range of administrative and pedagogic services related to formal education
settings (e.g. enrolment data, access to electronic course materials, faculty/
student interaction, assessment)—appears to be one of the prominent fea-
tures of e-learning development in tertiary education worldwide. This is
clearly illustrated by both OECD/CERI and Observatory findings.
* * *
The limited impact of IT in the classroom seen to date should not be dis-
missed as a lack of innovation or change in tertiary education as a whole:
even if IT does not induce any change in the classroom, it is changing the
learning experience of students by relaxing time and space constraints as
well as providing easier access to information (online journals and e-books;
student portals; etc.) and greater flexibility of participation. (Garrett and
colleagues 2005, pp. 14–5)
This may be because digital technologies may not be as useful in education

as some think. Alternatively, digital technologies and pedagogies may have
not yet developed sufficiently to take advantage of the potential of the
new technologies (Schleicher 2015, p. 3). Education may be at the stage
of early films, which were ‘filmed plays’ (Ferster 2014, p. xiii) and only
later developed as a distinctive form, often adapting earlier forms such
as novels and plays substantially to suit the new technology. McLuhan
(1964, p. 292) argues that in general society uses new types of media
initially to replicate existing forms before learning how to exploit their
new potential, illustrated by the early names for new technologies such as
‘wireless’ and ‘horseless carriage’. Some new technologies are presented
using old technologies as metaphors (Stephens 2011, p. 1138) or analo-
gies. Thus, most smart electronic communication devices such as phones,
tablets, and laptops have a keyboard derived from a typewriter, the graphi-
cal user interfaces of personal computers and their derivatives have a ‘desk-
top’ with files, scissors, a clipboard (Stephens 2011, p. 1138), paintbrush,
and ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ functions. Interestingly, Microsoft Office’s icon for
saving a file is not a filing cabinet but a 3.5-inch floppy disc, which were
made redundant by Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives in about 2005.
The review of the pedagogical characteristics of face to face and medi-
ated teaching–learning found two characteristics which limit the automa-
tion of teaching–learning and thus achieving the economies of scale sought
262 G. MOODIE
by some online learning champions. One limit, at least for learning mod-
erately sophisticated knowledge and skills, is for feedback on or assessment
of learning to be specific to each learner’s understanding. The second limit
is the apparent necessity for the diagnosis of learning problems and the
provision of help to learners to be specific not only to each learner, but to
each learner’s learning problem. Of course, it is possible that intelligent
knowledge-based systems or some other means will be found of automat-
ing support for learners and giving them feedback on their learning. But
this seems far away.
We also noted that face-to-face teaching–learning is the first and domi-
nant mode of formal learning. It therefore is familiar to learners who have
been schooled in its demands and have accommodated its inflexibilities
in the place, time, and schedule of learning. Face-to-face education also
combines text and oral communication which can be highly interactive, it
provides multiple nonverbal or paralinguistic cues which support affective
interaction, and it provides a social structure and discipline to support
learning over an extended period. Each of these may be done by forms
of mediated education, but nonetheless their combination results in face-
to-face education having markedly higher completion than mediated edu-
cation. Adopting a form of education which was cheaper but had lower
completion would risk many societies’ progress toward universal higher
education. This may change as the technology and pedagogy of mediated
education improve or are better understood. Such a change would not be
the outcome just of new technologies or other resources, but also of a new
pedagogy, since changes in the transmission and dissemination of knowl-
edge result from the interaction of three factors: financial, technological,
and physical resources; the nature, structure, and level of knowledge; and
the methods available for managing knowledge. Until that is achieved,
face-to-face education with little economy of scale seems likely to continue
being the dominant mode of formal education.
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INDEX
A C
Apprenticeship, 36, 66, 67, 91, 101, 256 Cambridge, 11, 16, 17, 32, 34,
Aquinas, 145, 146, 182 35, 41, 42, 49–53, 66, 68,
Arabic, 67, 169 71, 73, 75, 94, 97, 100,
Architecture, 66, 78, 176, 260 127, 152, 155, 178,
Aristotle, 39, 49, 67–9, 71, 73, 80, 188
98, 126, 147, 148, 150, 165–6, Chemistry, 4, 75, 76, 100, 159, 177,
179, 181, 240, 242 207, 208, 216, 242
Arithmetic, 18, 66, 103, 108, 148, China, 172, 180, 181, 184
159, 196, 240 Church, 2, 6, 8, 32–5, 39, 40, 66, 67,
Astronomy, 66, 75, 148, 167, 178–81, 72, 73, 91, 148, 178, 194, 239,
214, 218, 240, 242 241
Classics, 74, 152
Computer, 18, 47, 48, 108, 112, 115,
B 132, 159, 208, 214, 222, 257,
Bacon, 15, 145, 179, 180, 184, 260, 261
224, 225
Baumol, 30, 31
Berlin, 63, 75, 76, 129 D
Bernstein, 11, 12, 14, 64, 77, 78 Digital, 2–4, 7–10, 15, 22, 23,
Bible, 6, 39, 68, 91, 92, 146, 170, 48, 56–8, 64, 90, 112–16,
196, 241 164, 166, 188, 198–200,
Biology, 75, 78, 159, 214, 242 202, 205, 223, 237–9,
Bologna, 35, 36, 39, 65, 81, 99, 147, 243–5, 261
155, 239, 251 Disruptive innovation, 1

Higher Education, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-54943-3
274 INDEX
E L
Edinburgh, 35, 52, 77, 239 Law, 36, 55, 65, 67, 69, 72, 79, 126,
Elite higher education, 243 147, 152, 155, 226
Encyclopedia, 6, 54, 55 Letters, 3, 4, 9, 42, 55, 70, 71, 103,
England, 4, 7, 16, 34, 36, 49, 50, 64, 105, 167, 169, 182, 205, 206
72, 77, 93, 97, 101, 105, 177, Logic, 64, 66, 68, 71, 73, 112, 127,
185, 196, 203 147–9, 240, 241
Enlightenment, 6, 47, 177 London, 15, 16, 23, 36, 67, 177, 224
Erasmus, 6, 37, 40, 71, 127, 145 Luther, 6, 71
F M
France, 4, 12, 13, 33, 38, 50, 53, 55, Manuscript, 5–7, 11, 19, 22, 40, 49,
69, 70, 100, 103, 108, 177, 178, 96, 109, 166, 168, 169, 171, 172
195, 206 Mass higher education, 243
Freemium, 255 Mathematics, 68, 72, 75, 101, 102,
153, 159, 165, 181, 183, 196,
197, 214, 242, 247
G Medicine, 36, 39, 55, 65–7, 76, 78,
Geography, 39, 55, 73, 114, 218 79, 91, 114, 155, 178, 181, 196,
Germany, 4, 38, 48, 50, 64, 72, 74, 216, 226
100, 172, 195, 199, 255 Mode 1, 185–8
Glasgow, 35, 42, 77, 81, 100 Mode 2, 185–8
Grammar, 12, 34, 36, 37, 41, 66, 68, Moocs, 2, 98, 144, 210, 221, 255
71, 77, 78, 95, 97, 101, 102, Music, 2, 10, 55, 66, 114, 148, 176,
107, 165, 167, 196, 240 177, 240, 245
Greek, 4, 41, 49, 67, 70–2, 97, 102,
103, 107, 109, 163, 169, 173,
178, 180, 196, 206 N
Natural philosophy, 8, 42, 66–8, 75,
100, 164, 165, 170, 174–5,
H 180–85, 188, 240, 242
Harvard, 1, 47, 73 Newton, 8, 32, 40, 75, 127, 175
Hebrew, 72, 73, 102, 107
Humanism, 6, 55, 72, 73, 80
O
Online learning, 5, 18, 23, 111, 113,
I 115, 116, 237, 250, 251
International education, Oxford, 11, 16, 17, 32, 34, 35, 41,
19, 29, 37 42, 49–53, 66, 68, 71, 73, 75,
Italy, 4, 50, 52, 68, 80, 97, 176, 94, 97, 100, 127, 152, 155, 178,
178, 195 188
INDEX 275
P Shakespeare, 170, 178

Padua, 35, 36, 52, 53, 69, 80, 99, Sorbonne, 33, 50
146, 148, 149
Paris, 16, 32, 34, 35, 50, 65, 67, 91,
99, 102, 107, 108, 155, 156, T
174, 177, 180, 181, 206 Technology, 1, 2, 10, 11, 15,
Peer review, 8, 15, 211, 222, 226, 227 20–3, 30, 31, 47, 56, 67, 80,
Physics, 13, 75, 76, 78, 79, 100, 159, 89, 90, 105–16, 163, 164,
165, 183, 206, 207, 214, 242 166, 178, 188, 193, 195, 196,
Programmed logic for automatic 205, 211, 238, 243, 244, 253,
teaching operations (PLATO), 4, 260
18, 105, 112, 182 Theology, 33, 55, 65, 68, 145–7, 160,
Protestant, 34, 36, 72, 73, 156 165, 188
Trivium, 66, 239
Trow, 30, 185, 243
Q
Quadrivium, 66, 148, 240
U
Universal higher education,
R 243, 262
Randomized controlled trials, 18, 19
Reformation, 6, 40, 72, 81, 241
Renaissance, 41, 70, 72, 98, 176 V
Rhetoric, 66, 70–3, 102, 103, 250 Vocational education, 35
Roman, 36, 65, 67, 70, 72, 80, 102,
110, 155, 169
Rome, 69, 99, 184, 206 W
Royal Society of London, 15, 177, William & Mary, 73
205, 224 Writing, 4, 5, 11, 18, 67, 70, 71, 74,
Ryle, 12 80, 90, 91, 105, 106, 109, 127,
171, 198–9, 209, 246
S
Salerno, 155 Y
Scriptura continua, 4, 49, 50 Yale, 73

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© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Cover image © PureStock/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

8 Advancing Knowledge 163

9 Disseminating Knowledge 193

9.3.3 Changes in How Researchers Maintain Currency 207

10 Progress and Prospects 237

10.4.3 Guided Independent Learning 258

Table 8.1 Aide memoire of characteristics of mode 1 and mode 2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

1.1 Three Information Revolutions

1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution

1.2 Three Factors Shaping Change in Universities

1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources

1.1 THREE INFORMATION REVOLUTIONS

The Scientific Revolution gave rise to a new form of scholarly communi-

1.1.1 Gutenberg Revolution

1.1.2 The Scientific Revolution

(1642–1726) Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica (Mathematical

1.1.3 Digital Revolution

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized

The third element of the digital revolution is the digital transmission of

1.2 THREE FACTORS SHAPING CHANGE IN UNIVERSITIES

1.2.1 Financial, Technological, and Physical Resources

1.2.2 Nature, Structure, and Level of Knowledge

its context, tacit, and multilayered. Importantly for Bernstein, horizontal

propositional knowledge involves knowing when and how to use it to

1.2.3 Methods Available for Managing Knowledge

discussed in the following Sect. 1.3. So taking advantage of a new technol-

unfortunately there are only scanty records and accounts of education

introducing computers in classes (discussed in Sect. 6.3.3), ‘flipped’ classes

1.4 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARGUMENT

Chapter 2 Students and Society

B. Bernstein (1999) Vertical and horizontal discourse: an essay, British Journal of

C. Winch (2013) ‘Curriculum design and epistemic ascent’, Journal of Philosophy

Behind much of the impetus to adopt new technologies in education from

2.1 Contemporary Cost Pressures

2.1.1 Cost Disease

2.2 Early Tuition and Financial Aid

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 29

2.1 CONTEMPORARY COST PRESSURES

2.1.1 Cost Disease

2.1.2 Increasing Participation

Where half of an age group participates in higher education a baccalaure-

2.1.3 Balance Between Subsidy and Fees

2.2 EARLY TUITION FEES AND FINANCIAL AID

Most students were supported at university by their immediate or

At least initially, the church’s encouragement of education did not

universities such as Bologna and Padua students tended to be lay, older,

provided that 20 sons of ‘noble and powerful personages, being friends

2.4 THE LANGUAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP

This in turn would facilitate multiple interpretations of scripture. Thomas

P. Burke (2000) A social history of knowledge: from Gutenberg to Diderot

P. Gerbod (2004) ‘Relations with authority’ in W. Rüegg (ed.) A history of the

P. Stotz (2008) ‘Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) and the ancient languages’, in

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 47

Libraries do indeed seem to be losing their role as physical repositories

Throughout their long history in Western universities libraries have been

3.1 To Deal with a Scarcity of Books

Universities first collected manuscripts (from libri manu scripti ‘books