Stephen Downes

Interesting post about "a Chatham House rules session at RBC headquarters... which attracted a good number of university and college presidents, as well as CEOs" coinciding with the release of their report on learning and research (see below). Notable in the coverage: Alex Usher picks up on the sentiment that "universities were being hamstrung... by professional regulatory bodies" (he lets this drop, but I'm sure we'll see more) and also that "when they think about how higher education affects their business, CEOs seem to think primarily about human capital (i.e. graduates). They talk a lot less about research." Usher also underlines the idea (oft-repeated in the past) that "technological adoption might be the product of governments and firms not having enough people to use new technologies properly." This speaks directly to procurement, and I'm sympathetic, but there's a lot at play here.