"Those stumbling out of James Hilton’s rapid-fire speech at last week’s Educause meeting might have been forgiven if they weren’t sure whether to return to their campuses absolutely terrified or terrifically excited about the explosion of technological innovation in higher education.
Hilton, associate provost for academic, information and instructional technology affairs at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, described a landscape in which ‘disruptive forces’ are radically altering the state of publishing, threatening to diminish the role of libraries, and rendering obsolete traditional methods of delivering information. Those forces threaten to relegate colleges to the periphery of society, he suggested.
But the technological advances are also creating enormous opportunities for colleges and universities to become key players in democratizing the collection and sharing of knowledge, Lipton said, offering ‘hope amid the disruption.’…
The great risk to colleges and universities, Hilton warned, is that they view themselves as providers of information rather than knowledge. While higher education has ‘profited from the fact that we’re seen as gateways to information,’ the ease with which people are now and will increasingly be able to get information from other sources makes that an insufficient role for colleges to play, he said."
More at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/10/25/hilton