an interdisciplinary group of librarians and researchers from Virginia Tech, Indiana University, and the University of Oklahoma convened to develop a series of three national forums on this topic, funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), as a project titled Developing Library Strategy for 3D and Virtual Reality Collection Development and Reuse (LIB3DVR) [8]
in addition to these ethical and legal concerns, there are also intellectual property issues identified that could impact how VR content is used in the future.
3.Participants identified a range of possible preservation strategies for dealing with these challenges and preservation considerations. Selection and documentation were seen as important activities for ensuring the long-term preservation of 3D/VR content.
Instructional Design focuses on instruction, User Experience Design focuses on the user, and Learning Experience Design focuses on the learner. This is not to say that IDs don’t care about learners, or that UX designers do not work on educational products, or that LXDs spend no time thinking about instruction or users. The difference lies in who these designers orient their process towards the most – instruction, user, learner.
ID as a field tends to be more scientific and organized, following academic frameworks
UX tends to be both scientific and artistic in its approach. UX designers are informed by academic theories and frameworks, but are also flexible and artistic in finding engaging, intuitive solutions to usability issues.
LXD tends to be more artistic than scientific. While LX designers care about the learning process deeply though understanding of related learning theories and cognitive processes of learners, their primary focus is on designing visually stunning, useful, and engaging learning experiences.
IDs are typically working on products such as Courses, e-learning modules, curriculum, workshops. UX designers are typically working on products such as mobile apps, websites, digital games, software. LXDs are typically working on all these things – courses, apps, AND other forms of learning experiences which could take the form of museum exhibits, summer camps, AR interactive booklets, children’s books, movies, toys and games or any other medium that can be used to generate a learning experience.
software tools are just like paintbrushes, they don’t make an artist. Some popular paintbrushes for IDs are Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Brainshark. For UX designers some popular tools are Adobe XD, Sketch, Figma, Balsamiq. For LXDs everything Adobe Creative Cloud has to offer – and many other ID/UX tools as well (depending on what the experience design needs) come in handy.
For IDs, one of the popular frameworks is ADDIE: Analyze, Design, Development, Implement, Evaluation
For UX designers, a popular framework quoted often is Design Thinking: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test
For LXDs, Neils floor outlines this LXD process: Question, Research, Design, Build, Test, Improve, Launch
EdSurge recently talked with Linda Sellheim, Education Lead at Epic Games
Interactive 3D is the ability to interact with the digital world the same way you do with the real world. These experiences can take many forms, from dynamic web-based content to immersive VR, AR or MR experiences. You know those realistic simulations of storms you see on the Weather Channel? That’s interactive 3D.
Burning Glass to identify the types of 3D skills needed in the workplace. They found that jobs requiring real-time 3D skills are growing 601 percent faster than the job market overall, and pay 57 percent above the average advertised salary
the topic of liberal education, in the company of two great advocates. On Thursday, January 28h, from 2-3 pm ET, we’ll be joined by professors Beth Benedix and Steven Volk, authors of the new book The Post-Pandemic Liberal Arts College: A Manifesto for Reinvention (publisher; our bookstore).
Beth Benedix teaches literature and religious studies at DePauw University. There she founded and directs The Castle, a nonprofit organization that partners with local public schools to build a culture of arts-integrated project-based learning, and TransformEdu, a consulting business that works with college educators to develop holistic, intentional and collaborative practices to energize the classroom.
She completed her B.A, M.A and Ph.D at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Steve Volk is Professor of History Emeritus at Oberlin College where he taught Latin American History and Museum Studies between 1986-2016. He founded the Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence (CTIE), Oberlin’s teaching and learning center, in 2007 and served as its director until retiring in July 2018. He was named Outstanding U.S. Baccalaureate Colleges Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Center for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) in 2011. In 2012, he was named a Great Lake College Association Teagle Peadagogy Fellow. In 2003 he received the Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award from the American Historical Association, and was recognized for his teaching leadership by the Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education. In 2001 he was commended by the Government of Chile for “his contributions in helping to restore democracy” in that country.
The 7th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN 2021) will be an innovative and interactive virtual gathering for a strengthening global network of researchers and practitioners collaborating to develop the scientific, technical, and applied potential of immersive learning. It is the premier scholarly event focusing on advances in the use of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and other extended reality (XR) technologies to support learners across the full span of learning–from K-12 through higher education to work-based, informal, and lifelong learning contexts.
Following the success of iLRN 2020, our first fully online and in-VR conference, this year’s conference will once again be based on the iLRN Virtual Campus, powered by VirBELA, but with a range of activities taking place on various other XR simulation, gaming, and other platforms. Scholars and professionals working from informal and formal education settings as well as those representing diverse industry sectors are invited to participate in the conference, where they may share their research findings, experiences, and insights; network and establish partnerships to envision and shape the future of XR and immersive technologies for learning; and contribute to the emerging scholarly knowledge base on how these technologies can be used to create experiences that educate, engage, and excite learners.
Note: Last year’s iLRN conference drew over 3,600 attendees from across the globe, making the scheduling of sessions a challenge. This year’s conference activities will be spread over a four-week period so as to give attendees more opportunities to participate at times that are conducive to their local time zones.
##### TOPIC AREAS #####
XR and immersive learning in/for:
Serious Games • 3D Collaboration • eSports • AI & Machine Learning • Robotics • Digital Twins • Embodied Pedagogical Agents • Medical & Healthcare Education • Workforce & Industry • Cultural Heritage • Language Learning • K-12 STEM • Higher Ed & Workforce STEM • Museums & Libraries • Informal Learning • Community & Civic Engagement • Special Education • Geosciences • Data Visualization and Analytics • Assessment & Evaluation
##### SUBMISSION STREAMS & CATEGORIES #####
ACADEMIC STREAM (Refereed paper published in proceedings):
– Full (6-8 pages) paper for oral presentation
– Short paper (4-5 pages) for oral presentation
– Work-in-progress paper (2-3 pages) for poster presentation
– Doctoral colloquium paper (2-3 pages)
PRACTITIONER STREAM (Refereed paper published in proceedings):
– Oral presentation
– Poster presentation
– Guided virtual adventures
– Immersive learning project showcase
NONTRADITIONAL SESSION STREAM (1-2 page extended abstract describing session published in proceedings):
– Workshop
– Special session
– Panel session
##### SESSION TYPES & SESSION FORMATS #####
– Oral Presentation: Pre-recorded video + 60-minute live in-world discussion with
others presenting on similar/related topics (groupings of presenters into sessions determined by Program Committee)
– Poster Presentation: Live poster session in 3D virtual exhibition hall; pre-recorded video optional
– Doctoral Colloquium: 60-minute live in-world discussion with other doctoral researchers; pre-recorded video optional
– Guided Virtual Adventures: 60-minute small-group guided tours of to various social and collaborative XR/immersive environments and platforms
– Immersive Learning Project Showcase: WebXR space to assemble a collection of virtual artifacts, accessible to attendees throughout the conference
– Workshop: 1- or 2-hour live hands-on session
– Special Session: 30- or 60-minute live interactive session held in world; may optionally be linked to one or more papers
– Panel Session: 60-minute live in-world discussion with a self-formed group of 3-5 panelists (including a lead panelist who serves as a moderator)
Please see the conference website for templates and guidelines.
##### PROGRAM TRACKS #####
Papers and proposals may be submitted to one of 10 program tracks, the first nine of which correspond to the iLRN Houses of application, and the tenth of which is intended for papers making knowledge contributions to the learning sciences, computer science, and/or game studies that are not linked to any particular application area:
Track 1. Assessment and Evaluation (A&E)
Track 2. Early Childhood Development & Learning (ECDL)
Track 4. Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access, & Social Justice (IDEAS)
Track 5. K-12 STEM Education
Track 6. Language, Culture, & Heritage (LCH)
Track 7. Medical & Healthcare Education (MHE)
Track 8. Nature & Environmental Sciences (NES)
Track 9. Workforce Development & Industry Training (WDIT)
Track 10. Basic Research and Theory in Immersive Learning (not linked to any particular application area)
##### PAPER/PROPOSAL SUBMISSION & REVIEW #####
Papers for the Academic Stream and extended-abstract proposals for the Nontraditional Session Stream must be prepared in standard IEEE double-column US Letter format using Microsoft Word or LaTeX, and will be accepted only via the online submission system, accessible via the conference website (from which guidelines and templates are also available).
Proposals for the Practitioner Stream are to be submitted via an online form, also accessible from the conference website.
A blind peer-review process will be used to evaluate all submissions.
##### IMPORTANT DATES #####
– Main round submission deadline – all submission types welcome: 2021-01-15
– Notification of review outcomes from main submission round: 2021-04-01
– Late round submission deadline – Work-in-progress papers, practitioner presentations, and nontraditional sessions only: 2021-04-08
– Camera-ready papers for proceedings due – Full and short papers: 2021-04-15
– Presenter registration deadline – Full and short papers (also deadline for early-bird registration rates): 2021-04-15
– Notification of review outcomes from late submission round: 2021-04-19
– Camera-ready work-in-progress papers and nontraditional session extended abstracts for proceedings due; final practitioner abstracts for conference program due: 2021-05-03
– Deadline for uploading presentation materials (videos, slides for oral presentations, posters for poster presentations): 2021-05-10
– Conference opening: 2021-05-17
– Conference closing: 2021-06-10
*Full and short papers can only be submitted in the main round.
##### PUBLICATION & INDEXING #####
All accepted and registered papers in the Academic Stream that are presented at iLRN 2021 and all extended abstracts describing the Nontraditional Sessions presented at the conference will be published in the conference proceedings and submitted to the IEEE Xplore(r) digital library.
Content loaded into Xplore is made available by IEEE to its abstracting and indexing partners, including Elsevier (Scopus, EiCompendex), Clarivate Analytics (CPCI–part of Web of Science) and others, for potential inclusion in their respective databases. In addition, the authors of selected papers may be invited to submit revised and expanded versions of their papers for possible publication in the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies (2019 JCR Impact Factor: 2.714), the Journal of Universal Computer Science (2019 JCR Impact Factor: 0.91), or another Scopus and/or Web of Science-indexed journal, subject to the relevant journal’s regular editorial and peer-review policies and procedures.
##### CONTACT #####
Inquiries regarding the iLRN 2020 conference should be directed to the Conference Secretariat at conference@immersivelrn.org.
Presentation 1: Inspiring Faculty (+ Students) with Tales of Immersive Tech (Practitioner Presentation #106)
Authors: Nicholas Smerker
Immersive technologies – 360º video, virtual and augmented realities – are being discussed in many corners of higher education. For an instructor who is familiar with the terms, at least in passing, learning more about why they and their students should care can be challenging, at best. In order to create a font of inspiration, the IMEX Lab team within Teaching and Learning with Technology at Penn State devised its Get Inspired web resource. Building on a similar repository for making technology stories at the sister Maker Commons website, the IMEX Lab Get Inspired landing page invites faculty to discover real world examples of how cutting edge XR tools are being used every day. In addition to very approachable video content and a short summary calling out why our team chose the story, there are also instructional designer-developed Assignment Ideas that allow for quick deployment of exercises related to – though not always relying upon – the technologies highlighted in a given Get Inspired story.
Presentation 2: Lessons Learned from Over A Decade of Designing and Teaching Immersive VR in Higher Education Online Courses (Practitioner Presentation #101)
Authors: Eileen Oconnor
This presentation overviews the design and instruction in immersive virtual reality environments created by the author beginning with Second Life and progressing to open source venues. It will highlight the diversity of VR environment developed, the challenges that were overcome, and the accomplishment of students who created their own VR environments for K12, college and corporate settings. The instruction and design materials created to enable this 100% online master’s program accomplishment will be shared; an institute launched in 2018 for emerging technology study will be noted.
Presentation 3: Virtual Reality Student Teaching Experience: A Live, Remote Option for Learning Teaching Skills During Campus Closure and Social Distancing (Practitioner Presentation #110)
Summary: During the Coronavirus pandemic, Ithaca College teacher education majors needed a classroom of students in order to practice teaching and receive feedback, but the campus was closed, and gatherings forbidden. Students were unable to participate in live practice teaching required for their program. We developed a virtual reality pilot project to allow students to experiment in two third-party social VR programs, AltSpaceVR and Rumii. Social VR platforms allow a live, embodied experience that mimics in-person events to give students a more realistic, robust and synchronous teaching practice opportunity. We documented the process and lessons learned to inform, develop and scale next generation efforts.
Sunday, June 21 • 8:00am – 9:00am Escape the (Class)room games in OpenSim or Second Life FULLhttps://ilrn2020.sched.com/event/ceKP/escape-the-classroom-games-in-opensim-or-second-lifePre-registration for this tour is required as places are limited. Joining instructions will be emailed to registrants ahead of the scheduled tour time.The Guided Virtual Adventure tour will take you to EduNation in Second Life to experience an Escape room game. For one hour, a group of participants engage in voice communication and try to solve puzzles, riddles or conundrums and follow clues to eventually escape the space. These scenarios are designed for problem solving and negotiating language and are ideal for language education. They are fun and exciting and the clock ticking adds to game play.Tour guide(s)/leader(s): Philp Heike, let’s talk online sprl, Belgium
Presentation 1: Evaluating the impact of multimodal Collaborative Virtual Environments on user’s spatial knowledge and experience of gamified educational tasks (Full Paper #91)
Authors: Ioannis Doumanis and Daphne Economou
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Several research projects in spatial cognition have suggested Virtual Environments (VEs) as an effective way of facilitating mental map development of a physical space. In the study reported in this paper, we evaluated the effectiveness of multimodal real-time interaction in distilling understanding of the VE after completing gamified educational tasks. We also measure the impact of these design elements on the user’s experience of educational tasks. The VE used reassembles an art gallery and it was built using REVERIE (Real and Virtual Engagement In Realistic Immersive Environment) a framework designed to enable multimodal communication on the Web. We compared the impact of REVERIE VG with an educational platform called Edu-Simulation for the same gamified educational tasks. We found that the multimodal VE had no impact on the ability of students to retain a mental model of the virtual space. However, we also found that students thought that it was easier to build a mental map of the virtual space in REVERIE VG. This means that using a multimodal CVE in a gamified educational experience does not benefit spatial performance, but also it does not cause distraction. The paper ends with future work and conclusions and suggestions for improving mental map construction and user experience in multimodal CVEs.
Presentation 2: A case study on student’s perception of the virtual game supported collaborative learning (Full Paper #42)
Authors: Xiuli Huang, Juhou He and Hongyan Wang
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The English education course in China aims to help students establish the English skills to enhance their international competitiveness. However, in traditional English classes, students often lack the linguistic environment to apply the English skills they learned in their textbook. Virtual reality (VR) technology can set up an immersive English language environment and then promote the learners to use English by presenting different collaborative communication tasks. In this paper, spherical video-based virtual reality technology was applied to build a linguistic environment and a collaborative learning strategy was adopted to promote their communication. Additionally, a mixed-methods research approach was used to analyze students’ achievement between a traditional classroom and a virtual reality supported collaborative classroom and their perception towards the two approaches. The experimental results revealed that the virtual reality supported collaborative classroom was able to enhance the students’ achievement. Moreover, by analyzing the interview, students’ attitudes towards the virtual reality supported collaborative class were reported and the use of language learning strategies in virtual reality supported collaborative class was represented. These findings could be valuable references for those who intend to create opportunities for students to collaborate and communicate in the target language in their classroom and then improve their language skills
Presentation 1: Reducing Cognitive Load through the Worked Example Effect within a Serious Game Environment (Full Paper #19)
Authors: Bernadette Spieler, Naomi Pfaff and Wolfgang Slany
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Novices often struggle to represent problems mentally; the unfamiliar process can exhaust their cognitive resources, creating frustration that deters them from learning. By improving novices’ mental representation of problems, worked examples improve both problem-solving skills and transfer performance. Programming requires both skills. In programming, it is not sufficient to simply understand how Stackoverflow examples work; programmers have to be able to adapt the principles and apply them to their own programs. This paper shows evidence in support of the theory that worked examples are the most efficient mode of instruction for novices. In the present study, 42 students were asked to solve the tutorial The Magic Word, a game especially for girls created with the Catrobat programming environment. While the experimental group was presented with a series of worked examples of code, the control groups were instructed through theoretical text examples. The final task was a transfer question. While the average score was not significantly better in the worked example condition, the fact that participants in this experimental group finished significantly faster than the control group suggests that their overall performance was better than that of their counterparts.
Presentation 2: A literature review of e-government services with gamification elements (Full Paper #56)
Authors: Ruth S. Contreras-Espinosa and Alejandro Blanco-M
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Nowadays several democracies are facing the growing problem of a breach in communication between its citizens and their political representatives, resulting in low citizen’s engagement in the participation of political decision making and on public consultations. Therefore, it is fundamental to generate a constructive relationship between both public administration and the citizens by solving its needs. This document contains a useful literature review of the gamification topic and e-government services. The documents contain a background of those concepts and conduct a selection and analysis of the different applications found. A set of three lines of research gaps are found with a potential impact on future studies.
Presentation 1: Connecting User Experience to Learning in an Evaluation of an Immersive, Interactive, Multimodal Augmented Reality Virtual Diorama in a Natural History Museum & the Importance of Story (Full Paper #51)
Authors: Maria Harrington
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Reported are the findings of user experience and learning outcomes from a July 2019 study of an immersive, interactive, multimodal augmented reality (AR) application, used in the context of a museum. The AR Perpetual Garden App is unique in creating an immersive multisensory experience of data. It allowed scientifically naïve visitors to walk into a virtual diorama constructed as a data visualization of a springtime woodland understory, and interact with multimodal information directly through their senses. The user interface comprised of two different AR data visualization scenarios reinforced with data based ambient bioacoustics, an audio story of the curator’s narrative, and interactive access to plant facts. While actual learning and dwell times were the same between the AR app and the control condition, the AR experience received higher ratings on perceived learning. The AR interface design features of “Story” and “Plant Info” showed significant correlations with actual learning outcomes, while “Ease of Use” and “3D Plants” showed significant correlations with perceived learning. As such, designers and developers of AR apps can generalize these findings to inform future designs.
Presentation 2: The Naturalist’s Workshop: Virtual Reality Interaction with a Natural Science Educational Collection (Short Paper #11)
Authors: Colin Patrick Keenan, Cynthia Lincoln, Adam Rogers, Victoria Gerson, Jack Wingo, Mikhael Vasquez-Kool and Richard L. Blanton
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For experiential educators who utilize or maintain physical collections, The Naturalist’s Workshop is an exemplar virtual reality platform to interact with digitized collections in an intuitive and playful way. The Naturalist’s Workshop is a purpose-developed application for the Oculus Quest standalone virtual reality headset for use by museum visitors on the floor of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences under the supervision of a volunteer attendant. Within the application, museum visitors are seated at a virtual desk. Using their hand controllers and head-mounted display, they explore drawers containing botanical specimens and tools-of-the-trade of a naturalist. While exploring, the participant can receive new information about any specimen by dropping it into a virtual examination tray. 360-degree photography and three-dimensionally scanned specimens are used to allow user-motivated, immersive experience of botanical meta-data such as specimen collection coordinates.
Presentation 3: 360˚ Videos: Entry level Immersive Media for Libraries and Education (Practitioner Presentation #132)
Authors: Diane Michaud
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Within the continuum of XR Technologies, 360˚ videos are relatively easy to produce and need only an inexpensive mobile VR viewer to provide a sense of immersion. 360˚ videos present an opportunity to reveal “behind the scenes” spaces that are normally inaccessible to users of academic libraries. This can promote engagement with unique special collections and specific library services. In December 2019, with little previous experience, I led the production of a short 360˚video tour, a walk-through of our institution’s archives. This was a first attempt; there are plans to transform it into a more interactive, user-driven exploration. The beta version successfully generated interest, but the enhanced version will also help prepare uninitiated users for the process of examining unique archival documents and artefacts. This presentation will cover the lessons learned, and what we would do differently for our next immersive video production. Additionally, I will propose that the medium of 360˚ video is ideal for many institutions’ current or recent predicament with campuses shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Online or immersive 360˚ video can be used for virtual tours of libraries and/or other campus spaces. Virtual tours would retain their value beyond current campus shutdowns as there will always be prospective students and families who cannot easily make a trip to campus. These virtual tours would provide a welcome alternative as they eliminate the financial burden of travel and can be taken at any time.
For a limited time, free registration is being offered to faculty, students, and staff of educational institutions (including K-12 schools/districts, universities, colleges, museums, and libraries) who wish to attend but will NOT be presenting at the conference or publishing in the proceedings. To take advantage of this offer, you must register by April 19, 2020 using an email address associated with your educational institution:
No further Academic Full and Short paper submissions are being considered at this stage.
##### INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING OR REVIEWING? #####
A range of volunteer opportunities are available, including conference internships for undergraduate and graduate students. Some of the roles currently available include session chair/facilitator, moderator, audio-visual/technical support, virtual event greeter/usher, virtual event photographer, virtual event videographer/livestreamer, 2D artist / illustrator
Expressions of interest are also being solicited from scholars and practitioners wishing to join the iLRN 2020 Program Committee to peer review papers and proposals received in the late submission round (closing April 19, 2020). The late-round submissions will be no longer than 3 pages in length, and each Program Committee member will be asked to review no more than two submissions.
##### INTERESTED IN SPONSORING OR EXHIBITING? #####
A number of sponsorship and exhibition opportunities are available for organizations to:
– Meet and interact with key educational stakeholders
– Showcase their products and services
– Connect and collaborate with top researchers / scientists
– Build and strengthen customer / client relationships.
Packages range from US$500 for a basic virtual exhibit booth to US$15,000 for an exclusive Gold Sponsorship.
Blended Reality, a cross-curricular applied research program through which they create interactive experiences using virtual reality, augmented reality and 3D printing tools. Yale is one of about 20 colleges participating in the HP/Educause Campus of the Future project investigating the use of this technology in higher education.
Interdisciplinary student and professor teams at Yale have developed projects that include using motion capture and artificial intelligence to generate dance choreography, converting museum exhibits into detailed digital replicas, and making an app that uses augmented reality to simulate injuries on the mannequins medical students use for training.
The perspectives and skills of art and humanities students have been critical to the success of these efforts, says Justin Berry, faculty member at the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media and principal investigator for the HP Blended Reality grant.
Michael Porter, a professor at the Harvard Business School. The scholar who in some respects became his successor, Clayton M. Christensen, entered a doctoral program at the Harvard Business School in 1989 and joined the faculty in 1992. Christensen was interested in why companies fail. In his 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” he argued that, very often, it isn’t because their executives made bad decisions but because they made good good decisions, the same kind of good decisions that had made those companies successful for decades. (The “innovator’s dilemma” is that “doing the right thing is the wrong thing.”)
Christensen called “disruptive innovation”: the selling of a cheaper, poorer-quality product that initially reaches less profitable customers but eventually takes over and devours an entire industry.
Christensen has co-written books urging disruptive innovation in higher education (“The Innovative University”), public schools (“Disrupting Class”), and health care (“The Innovator’s Prescription”).
Startups are ruthless and leaderless and unrestrained, and they seem so tiny and powerless, until you realize, but only after it’s too late, that they’re devastatingly dangerous: Bang! Ka-boom! Think of it this way: the Times is a nation-state; BuzzFeed is stateless. Disruptive innovation is competitive strategy for an age seized by terror.
Replacing “progress” with “innovation” skirts the question of whether a novelty is an improvement: the world may not be getting better and better but our devices are getting newer and newer.
The word “innovate”—to make new—used to have chiefly negative connotations: it signified excessive novelty, without purpose or end.
Joseph Schumpeter, in his landmark study of business cycles, used the word to mean bringing new products to market, a usage that spread slowly, and only in the specialized literatures of economics and business.
Disruptive innovation can reliably be seen only after the fact.
Christensen has compared the theory of disruptive innovation to a theory of nature: the theory of evolution. But among the many differences between disruption and evolution is that the advocates of disruption have an affinity for circular arguments.
Like the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the meltdown didn’t dim the fervor for disruption; instead, it fuelled it, because these products of disruption contributed to the panic on which the theory of disruption thrives.
People aren’t disk drives. Public schools, colleges and universities, churches, museums, and many hospitals, all of which have been subjected to disruptive innovation, have revenues and expenses and infrastructures, but they aren’t industries in the same way that manufacturers of hard-disk drives or truck engines or drygoods are industries. Journalism isn’t an industry in that sense, either.
Historically, institutions like museums, hospitals, schools, and universities have been supported by patronage, donations made by individuals or funding from church or state. The press has generally supported itself by charging subscribers and selling advertising. (Underwriting by corporations and foundations is a funding source of more recent vintage.) Charging for admission, membership, subscriptions and, for some, earning profits are similarities these institutions have with businesses. Still, that doesn’t make them industries, which turn things into commodities and sell them for gain.
Christensen and Eyring’s recommendations for the disruption of the modern university include a “mix of face-to-face and online learning.” The publication of “The Innovative University,” in 2011, contributed to a frenzy for Massive Open Online Courses, or moocs, at colleges and universities across the country, including a collaboration between Harvard and M.I.T., which was announced in May of 2012. Shortly afterward, the University of Virginia’s panicked board of trustees attempted to fire the president, charging her with jeopardizing the institution’s future by failing to disruptively innovate with sufficient speed;