I would be interested to read subscriber's views on the issue, and the
practice, of charging for Web access in higher education.
With the recent arrival of charges to British universities by HEFCE for
internet services using the 'transatlantic link' between the UK and North
America (every megabyte of data which arrives from N America or routed
through there actually costs about 2p) the universities seem to be
looking for ways to a) minimise these costs and b) potentially, pass them
onto users. At Brunel, for example, Web access, from 1st September 1998,
must pass through a 'cache' system; a university 'cache' stores the most
recently accessed 'foreign' sites, and brings them to you more cheaply
from the local server. In addition, users are already being encouraged to
turn off graphics to reduce download times, and to rethink the use of web
teaching materials that have many transatlantic links to them. Our
instructions here say "Without specifically restricting student access,
reading lists should be parsimonious with far-flung links"
Although the cost of web access to 'foreign' sites off-campus will be
borne by the central university administration for this academic year,
there is the threat that users, or more likely their Departments, will be
asked to contribute directly to these costs next year. This would indeed
be consistent with the principles of 'devolved budgeting' in operation in
this and other higher education institutions in the UK. Since our own,
and similar, Departments never have much money to spare (if any), I
would envisage us being forced to charge or to apply restrictions on
student use of the Web (and possibly email), and perhaps on staff use
too, within one to two years.
One might argue that this simply places university users on a par with
those who pay by the hour, or the month, for an internet service prover
at home - and we have enjoyed free access for too long. I don't
personally agree.
Two questions.
1. Other other institutions heading down a similar path? Will your access
be centrally funded or are Departments being asked to pay?
2. What are its implications? I will start with one possibility.
The Web has effectively collapsed 'space' for teaching and research,
over a four year period. This may change, if the costs of downloading
sites from distant places is eventually passed onto students and staff.
We will again _think_ where a web site is based and whether we can afford
to download it. Thus, less 'surfing'. This might be cost efficient, but
it destroys some benefits of the web. It could lead to less reliance on
it as a means of knowledge generation and dissemination. A good model for
this is the fate of the Inter-Library Loan system, for ordering items not
held in stock by your library. As soon as users are forced to pay for
ILLs themselves (again, as has happened at Brunel) the numbers of books
and articles ordered by student fall dramatically (and more use was made
of the Web by students, precisely because it is free...a vicious circle)
comments welcome.
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Dr. Simon Batterbury (back from Colorado!)
Dept. of Geography & Earth Sciences
Brunel University
Uxbridge Middx. UB8 3PH, UK
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo
tel +1895 274000 fax +1895 303217
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