Higher education research frequently refers to the complex external conditions that give our old-fashioned universities a good reason to change. The underlying theoretical assumption of such framing is that organizations are open systems. This paper presents an alternative view, derived from the theory of social systems autopoiesis. It proposes that organizations, being open systems, are yet operationally closed, as all their activities and interactions with the environment are aspects of just one process: the recursive production of themselves, according to a pattern of their own identity. It is their identity that captures exactly what can and what cannot be sustained in their continuous self-production. Examining the organizational identity of universities within the theoretical framework of autopoiesis may hence shed new light on their resistance to change, explaining it as a systemic and social phenomenon, rather than an individual and psychological one. Since all processes of an autopoietic system are processes of its self-production, this paper argues that in the case of traditional European universities, the identity consists in the intertwinement of only two processes: (1) introducing continuous change in the scope of scientific knowledge and (2) educating new generations of scholars, who will carry on this activity. This surprisingly leaves at the wayside seemingly the most obvious “use of the university’: the adequate education of students for the job market.

Key words: European university, Traditional university, Social system, Autopoiesis, Organizational identity, Resistance to change

This chapter presents a theoretical model of online learning, the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, which is grounded in John Dewey’s progressive understanding of education. The CoI framework is a process model of online learning which views the online educational experience as arising from the interaction of three presences – social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. Each of these three elements in the CoI framework are described and related to Dewey’s work, and research findings and issues concerning them reviewed. The development of a common CoI survey measure that promises to address some of these issues is described and discussed. The chapter concludes with emerging findings from new studies which use the CoI survey, directions for future research, and practical uses of the CoI framework.

Radical constructvists believe that knowledge is not disembodied but intimately related to the action and experience the learner. It is always contextual and never separated from the knower. There is no objective reality that is independent of human mental activity. Radical constructivism shares many philosophical perspectives with the semiotic model of Stamper (1993) Semiotics claims that knowledge of the wodd is mediated through signs. A radical subjective synthesis of semiotics and radical constructivism leads to two axioms: There is no known reality without an agent, and the agent constructs reality through his action. This paper begins with a brief review of the philosophies of radical constructivism and semiotics, followed by a discussion of the implications of semiotics for radical constructivist leaming. It concludes with the design of a constructivist learning environment using the semiotic perspective as manifested by Stamper.

Key words: radical constructivian, semiotics, learning environment, collaborative, affordances, agents