The other day an opinion piece from The Conversation popped up in my news feed with the title, “Some unis are moving away from in-person lectures. Here’s why that’s not such a bad thing.”
This piece begins by referencing recent events in Australia. In particular, students and some staff have pushed back against a plan for the new, merged Adelaide University (formed from the University of Adelaide and UniSA) to replace most face-to-face lectures with online “digital activities” when the uni launches in 2026.
However, the author of this piece argues that abandoning face-to-face lectures is not necessarily a bad idea.
To make this point, the author first has a section on “The history of the lecture” which traces its roots back to ancient Greece, and then she says that it was a “cornerstone of universities in medieval times, where teachers would read to students directly from texts.” The author then notes that “More recent decades saw the lecture becoming a key part of student learning and engagement at universities.”
This is followed by a section entitled “But times have changed” where the author states the following:
Technology now means people don’t have to be physically on campus to hear a lecture.
Online learning was happening before COVID but the pandemic pushed universities further in this direction. While some institutions went back to on-campus delivery after lockdowns, others chose to move online or offer a combination. This changed how courses were delivered.
At the same time, university students have also changed. For students who enrol full-time and spend most of their week on campus, attending a regular lecture in person is straightforward. But many students today live far from campus. They may also have significant work or caring responsibilities, or disability which makes it challenging to attend in person.
About 40% of domestic undergraduate students are Indigenous, from a low socioeconomic background, from a rural or regional area, or have a disability. We also know a growing number of students are balancing paid work and study.
This is then followed by a section on “How do students learn?” which discusses some current ideas about effective pedagogy. To quote:
The lecture is based on the idea the teacher has all the knowledge, and transmits this to students, who soak this up largely passively. We now know there are more effective and equitable ways to teach and engage students.
For example, research suggests students should be able to refer to a lecture or tutorial in a way and at a time that suits them. This allows them to adjust the speed, or listen and relisten to the recording while making notes.
Data on how students learn (called learning analytics) also suggests videos should only be in short chunks, so students stay engaged with learning.
My as-yet unpublished research indicates Australian university students studying online value recorded content (such as videos from lecturers) because it’s flexible and supports their busy lives and personal circumstances.
Online tutorials and recordings can also help students with different learning styles, disabilities and English as a second language. For example, a student with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may not be able to sit in a lecture hall for 55 minutes without breaks.
There are links in the article, so please consult it to follow up on those if you are interested.
Finally, in a section on “What about making friends and group work?”, the author addresses concerns that online teaching/learning might be too impersonal by stating that “There are many ways teachers can facilitate this [meaning engagement with other humans], particularly for online learners. This can include structured social time at the start of tutorials, using chat functions and break-out rooms online for group work and discussions or online bulletin boards and forums.”
The reason why I am talking about this article is because I see it as a perfect demonstration of how I predict many professors will gradually be eliminated from universities.
When “courses” become uploaded “chucks of videos” and professors become “facilitators of engagement” for students who view those video chunks at home (at the last minute before a quiz at 2x speed), there’s really very little reason for that “professor” to have a PhD (and to have spent all the years and effort to get it).
In the background of all of this are of course capitalist forces. However, professors, many of whom profess to be critical of or even opposed to capitalism, will easily give in to these developments because they are made in the name of progressive causes (helping the indigenous and the disadvantaged, etc.).
You can also help the disadvantaged by making on-campus parking available and affordable, but professors will not rally together to demand that universities do things like that. Instead, they will look at this plan and think, “Wait, you mean I don’t need to teach? I just need to upload some video chunks and I can help the indigenous and disadvantaged? Ok! Sounds great!”
And, yea, it is kind of great for that first cohort that gets to benefit from this new system. But with the rise of AI, there won’t be a second cohort, because the same progressive logic for replacing lectures can be used to replace professors (“this AI-powered instructional app offers more individualized and supportive instruction that caters to the specific needs of underprivileged students, and they can access it at any time and from anywhere”, etc.).
And, of course, it also costs a fraction of what it costs to hire professors to be “engagement facilitators.”
First, the guy in the image lecturing on economics and sustainable development needs to stop encroaching on my turf.
Second, I doubt that I’m the first person to think this way, but offhand I don’t have any sources to cite, so here goes: I see education as following the same technological progression as other forms of communication.
One-to-one: in-person, master and apprentice in the same physical space.
One-to-many: teacher and students might be in the same physical space (agora, lecture hall) or might not be (printing press, broadcast media like radio and TV, Khan Academy and Crash Course, MOOCs).
Many-to-many: teachers and students never in the same physical space (social media, AI).
Once the innovation cat is out of the technology bag, I doubt it’s possible to stuff the cat back in. Therefore I disagree with people like Ted Gioia, who is a smart guy, but who thinks that the way to counter AI is to make universities more like Oxford in the 13th century (https://chadraymond.substack.com/p/the-death-of-curiosity).
A follow-up to my follow-up regarding Ted Gioia: Oxford University is giving ChatGPT-5 to all students and staff.
“Professor Freya Johnston, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, added: ‘Generative AI is also helping us to explore new ways of engaging with students, alongside our renowned face-to-face teaching and tutorial model.’”
I think that the deeper meaning of that statement is obvious.
Full story is at https://cherwell.org/2025/09/19/oxford-chatgpt-ai-universtity/.
A side-note first: The universities that are making ChatGPT etc. available to students and staff are all using “safety” as a major justification. I find that to be absurd when it comes to students, especially when the “unsafe” versions, whatever that means, are freely or affordably available.
Ok, maybe certain sensitive research needs to use AI in “safer” settings, but that isn’t how universities are pitching this. They are pitching it in a way to allay more general fears. It shows that universities are going to go full speed ahead with AI regardless of any consequences, and “safety,” as vague as that is, is the best overarching justification that they can come up with.
On that note, this announcement by Oxford, and the linked new “Policy for using Generative AI in Research: guidelines for researchers and professional staff,” is huge! This means that it’s indeed “full speed ahead!!” with AI. As I read the policy, it basically says, “Yes, you can do (pretty much) everything with AI, but the final output is your reseponsibility, and you have to declare what you did with AI, and you should try to avoid violating copyrights in the process.”
https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/support-researchers/research-practice/policy-generative-ai-research?fbclid=IwY2xjawM6Id1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBDMnFTbGNDWGF6QkZjemJpAR65n6oPaJeW7P9t7akOc1fWprSS2l6rgjSo60dbVts0cv7E4lVXzz0CZ_fmNQ_aem_mMikfxEMOhFVoH4RdrZh5A
This is what it says the policy covers, which means that these things are allowed, but you have to declare that AI was used:
interpret and analyse data (including audio and image files) and texts,
undertake a literature review or translation,
identify research gaps,
formulate research aims,
develop hypotheses,
assist with generating ideas or to develop one’s own thinking,
generate code and synthetic data,
undertake transcription of interviews, meetings etc. to save time and effort rather than overcoming barriers (see exclusions below)
produce documents using other people’s work or from transcripts or recordings.
My prediction here is that these guidelines will be about as important as teaching and service are at most universities around the world. Theoretically, profs are supposed to excel equally in research, teaching and service, but from what I’ve seen, research output is all that matters at many/most universities, and just as poor teaching never holds people back when it comes to things like tenure and promotion, no one is going to try to police the extent to which one adheres to any AI guidelines unless there is some egregious error that is discovered or, more likely, someone on a research team calls out someone else on a research team that s/he doesn’t like. But in general, people will just write “Some use of AI was made in drafting the literature review section, etc.” and there will be no way to know how much of it was written by AI, and no one will care either, because everyone will be doing the same thing.
I’ve known that this is one possible approach to dealing with AI, that is, letting people use it as much as they want, but then they of course have to be responsible for the output. However, this is the first time that I’ve seen that policy come out from a major university, and combined with making the latest model of ChatGPT available to staff and students.
Finally, as with all other university practices, it is clear that the sciences are in the driver’s seat here, and text-based disciplines are tied to the bumper and getting dragged along behind. I can therefore also predict that profs in text-based fields will scream that “We are different than the sciences!,” and administrators will nod their heads and say “Yes, we know,” but those pleas will have no effect.
Buckle up, everyone, because this is going to be a crazy ride that will take us to a place we have never been, and there will be no going back to Kansas. . .