Building Better Universities

Building Better Universities provides a wide-ranging summary and critical review of the increasing number of groundbreaking initiatives undertaken by universities and colleges around the world. It suggests that we have reached a key moment for the higher education sector in which the services, location, scale, ownership, and distinctiveness of education are being altered dramatically, whether universities and colleges want it or not. These shifts are affecting traditional assumptions about both the future 'shape' of higher education institutions, and the roles of-and relationships between-learners, teachers, researchers, managers, businesses, communities and other stakeholders.
Building Better Universities aims to bridge the gap between educational ideas about what the university is, or should be 'for', and its day-to-day practices and organisation. It roams across strategic, operational, and institutional issues; space planning and building design; and technological change, in order to bring together issues that are often dealt with separately. By analysing the many challenges faced by higher education in the contemporary period, and exploring the various ways universities and colleges are responding, this powerful book aims to support a 'step-change' in debates over the future of higher education, and to enable senior managers and faculty to develop more strategic and creative ways of enabling effective twenty-first-century learning in their own institutions.

Jos Boys is a freelance consultant. She was previously Teaching Fellow in the Faculty of Art, Design and Social Sciences at Northumbria University, UK. Jos trained originally in architecture, followed by many years' experience teaching design and contextual studies in a variety of higher educational institutions at different levels. She has also worked as an educational technologist and academic developer, developing ways to enhance learning through both technology-rich and pedagogically sound resources and delivery. She has been a consultant for the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and has written several books on higher education, including Towards Creative Learning Spaces: re-thinking the architecture of post-compulsory education (Routledge 2010) and, with Peter Ford, The e-Revolution and Post-Compulsory Education: Using business models to deliver quality education (Routledge 2007).

List of Figures List of Textboxes Introduction: the shifting boundaries of higher education Chapter 1: Re-shaping universities and colleges Theme 1.1: Alternative universities? Theme 1.2: Radical restructuring Theme 1.3 Enhancing the student offer Chapter 2: New patterns of public and private competition and collaboration Theme 2.1: Hybrid non-profit and for-profit entities Theme 2.2: Social enterprise and civic engagement Theme 2.3: Widening participation Theme 2.4: Improving student performance Chapter 3: Responding to internationalization Theme 3.1: International collaborations Theme 3.2: International networks Theme 3.3: Developing global citizens Chapter 4: Changing learning spaces Theme 4.1: Comprehensive campus re-design Theme 4.2: Re-designing processes Theme 4.3: Creating hybrid spaces Chapter 5: Beyond virtual learning environments Theme 5.1: The massification of eLearning Theme 5.2: Seamless virtual and physical integration Theme 5.3: Increasing digital literacy Theme 5.4: Using big data Theme 5.5: Open badging Chapter 6: The implications of new technologies for learning Theme 6.1: Changing learning and teaching methods? Theme 6.2: Open sourcing and sharing Theme 6.3: Embodied learning Conclusion: Learning in a post-university world?