The greatest strength of online learning is the anytime and anywhere characteristic, but the online aspect is also our greatest vulnerability.

We tend to think often about the worldwide reach and impact of online learning. Through online, we have the power to change lives and societies. However, we are seriously vulnerable, more so, one might argue, than our campus-based colleagues. The online digital nature of our field is such that we are subject to outages and cyberattacks. One might be able to convene a campus-based class without the network, without an LMS, without asynchronous communication features. But without these capabilities, our online classes would be crippled.

In the early days of online learning — the mid and late 1990s — I recall setting up a telephone bridge with bulletin board software to enable a rudimentary backup to a potential disruption of the internet. Contingency plans included contacting students via phone or snail mail with instructions on how to connect through dial-up modem connections. As enrollments grew larger, we obtained high-speed DVD copying devices so that copies of courseware could be distributed via snail mail in case of network disruption. This involved altering the course display so that it was not dependent on the LMS system. We then implemented VM server solutions at remote locations to provide backup emulation and virtualization. And much of our software moved to the cloud with relatively robust backups in place. All of these actions are part of the historical record of attempts to assure continuity of the online learning programs. Yet today, despite our ever more sophisticated backups and hardened security, we remain vulnerable to network disruption at the user side, software corruption, personal identity theft, intellectual property theft and a host of other vulnerabilities through nefarious actors and actions.

On the geopolitical front, on Nov. 1, Russia implemented its sovereign internet law, effectively enabling the government to cut off all outside internet sources to the country. Russia is only the latest; a number of other countries have put similar measures in place. Even more recently, Iran blocked the entire net, not just foreign sites, but for nearly all of the country. Our international students are left to struggle with such interruptions.

As we move toward the integration of more “smart” AI applications such as neural networks, other concerning strategies are emerging. Intelligent chat boxes, “smart” assistant programs and learner face- or voice-recognition programs all carry vulnerabilities due to the emergence of adversarial machine learning, creating another approach to compromising our online learning programs. Matthew Harris does an excellent job of introducing the principles of adversarial machine learning in his article in Towards Data Science: “Essentially, attacks on neural networks involve the introduction of strategically placed noise designed to fool the network by falsely stimulating activation potentials that are important to produce certain outcomes.” These approaches can enable altering the artificial intelligence perception of inputs and sources without directly breaking into the computer or coding.

How do we prepare for such incursions in the 2020s? The first step may be to identify the problem. I serve on a systemwide cybersecurity task force for my university. We are looking at vulnerabilities, impacts and solutions. It is unlikely that any single task force will be able to anticipate every single potential eventuality. Certainly, this is a moving target with technologies, networks and applications constantly evolving. As Dan Carfagno reports in his enlightening article “Why Is Higher Education the Target for Cyber Attacks?” “Cyber-attacks will not happen the same way in the future. Hackers have learned over time to adapt to changes in security methods. Some more pressing problems today faced by IT departments will include hackers using their entry for creating severe disruptions to university operations and affect more than just data.”

Taking action to protect the university is not a single simple action. It takes a multiprong approach that is constantly assessed and reassessed, as hackers are constantly evolving their methods in higher education attacks.

Ongoing proactive vigilance is necessary to assure that we are meeting the challenge. The consequences of failing to create an effective comprehensive program put students, faculty and the credibility of the university at risk. It is important that all parts of the university are engaged in this process so that all interests and vulnerabilities are represented.

What are you doing to advance cybersecurity at your university? Have you begun benchmarking your practices against other universities? What practices have you targeted? I plan to continue to follow and write on this topic, so let me know what you and your peers are doing to lead in this field.

This article originally was published in Inside Higher Ed’s Inside Digital Learning blog.

Do it yourself is more than just a trend for crafts and home improvements — it is an ethos that has reached higher education.

DIY has become pervasive in our culture. In part it is fueled by the internet, most particularly by YouTube. In part it is energized by time and money savings. It is further driven by the possibility of personalization and customization to meet individual needs just in time and just in place. More than 50 percent of the DIY-ers are between 24 and 44 years of age, and the numbers are growing. This trend is immutable now; it is continuing to grow in numbers and expand into new fields every year.

For centuries the personalized individual education came in the form of books. In the last half of the 20th century, there were “How to …” books and the “ … for Dummies” books. They were aimed at more superficial learning, often conveying far less than a college course or curriculum in the field. More often these books provided little depth of understanding or wider ramifications than a specific construct, process or skill. For deeper and broader understanding, learners continued to seek formal education at institutions of higher learning.

The advent of the internet and its robust integration into scholarly and academic fields has enabled do-it-yourself approaches online. The pervasive DIY mind-set has spilled over into independent learning online, as Dian Schaffhauser writes:

A do-it-yourself mindset is changing the face of education worldwide, according to new survey results. Learners are “patching together” their education from a “menu of options,” including self-teaching, short courses and bootcamps, and they believe that self-service instruction will become even more prevalent for lifelong learning. In the United Sates specifically, 84 percent of people said learning would become even more self-service the older they get.

One of the first to leverage the power of the internet for learning was Salman Khan, who created Khan Academy more than 15 years ago. The mini-videos and his clear explanation of classroom subject concepts became a hit with K-12 educators, parents and students alike. Over the years, Khan Academy has expanded to provide a broad curriculum and multiple options for learning.

The rise of Coursera, edX and the ever-expanding host of at-scale online learning options have enabled learners to pursue learning à la carte. The options are in the thousands, and the costs are minimal. Millions of learners worldwide are taking advantage of the low cost, easy access and high quality of these offerings. The Pearson and Harris Insights & Analytics survey reveals that DIY reskilling and upskilling is even more prevalent in developing countries: “More than anywhere else in the world, people in China, Brazil, India and Hispano-America believe education is driving the global economy. Over two-thirds of learners in these countries have been looking to re-skill in the past two years, compared to only 31 per cent of Americans and 24 per cent of British learners.”

College and university enrollments in the U.S. have dropped the past eight straight years. Over the same period, through 2018, total cumulative enrollments in MOOCs grew to 101 million.

Perhaps we have not been losing learners in the U.S. at all. In fact, there may be millions more postsecondary learners in the U.S. than ever before; they are simply not enrolling directly in colleges and universities, but instead choosing to DIY via MOOCs and other online, nondegree modes.

What are the takeaways if we understand that a growing number of learners are choosing to do it themselves rather than leaving it to colleges to develop full curriculum content? Should we do more research on just what students (and employers) are seeking? Should we break our degrees into stackable certifications? Should we look more closely at heutagogical approaches rather than adrogogical approaches in our design and teaching? Heutagogy is the study and practice of self-determined learning.

As enrollments decline nationally, so many individual universities continue to experience declines year after year. Is it not worth considering these broad societal changes that are moving students toward skilling and upskilling via DIY, rather than marketing the same degrees in the same structure that is producing losses year after year? Who is leading this initiative at your university?

This article originally was published on December 4 in Inside Higher Ed’s Inside Digital Learning blog.