Also, is it reasonable to believe that everyone who enrolls in college and does not graduate fails because the institution has somehow not “served” the student? Perhaps you have Utopian ideals that everyone who goes to school will be successful or the system has failed to do its job. That’s almost like saying every mentally handicapped student will become an Einstein or the system has failed them.

“…all of us out there in the wider world who have a stake in what happens inside the academy” I don’t know if I believe that anymore than I believe we all have a stake in what the military does. Some things are not in the public’s control because that would be foolish.

Let me explain:

I come from an Ivy League school and sent my children to them , but I would not send my children to one now or would give another dime for research done for my seed companies… The cost is an issue of course but consider the cost of “junk” and “dead” research not making it to commercialization is also huge. I believe most research is applied and little is pure research. Colleges love to churn government grants and do luke warm research and then try to transfer it as a seedling for new companies. There is no passion here but the craving for $$$$

In your vein, the connectivity, and maverick “hack” technology is pervasive today and should be allowed to take root. The DIY University can easily be a garage and a tiny fraction of the price to the taxpayer.

I tried to separate discussions of change within and outside existing institutions by taking them up in separate chapters, which many reviewers seemed to feel was a fine way of doing things. However, most of the “edupunks” are employed by or enrolled in existing institutions, and 99% of the edupunks and edupreneurs are at least graduates of existing institutions. That’s not so surprising, really, when you think about the ramifications of renewal and reinvention of an existing system that is so pervasive throughout our society.

On what DIY U *is*: I didn’t define it for a reason. It has to be different for each person. That’s the whole point of doing things yourself. And besides it’s way too early to pick a winner from existing innovations. That was absolutely my intention because I would sound like a nitwit making Nostradamus-like predictions about this stuff.

But in the end, I basically think you’re right that the book may be too superficial, or just may not be of much use to the readers of Couros’s journal and others who are deeply, deeply embedded in ed tech. I mean I interviewed and quote from the work of many of the authors in the very issue of the journal in which this review appears. My intent was to introduce your work to a much wider audience so that parents, students, prospective students, educators, policymakers, investors and businesspeople and employers, all of us out there in the wider world who have a stake in what happens inside the academy, would have some idea of what’s cooking.

Also, WRT choosing between “talking about how institutions are adapting and how people are adapting outside of institutions”…I hope the review doesn’t suggest that you *had to* choose. Rather, the point we tried to make was that the two notions are too frequently co-mingled, and neither is fleshed out enough. I think, as a result, one thing I’m seeing across various reviews, comments, etc. is that it’s never quite clear what “DIY U” *IS*. Is that a fair critique?