Backing into change

Purpose - This paper aims to alert readers to issues that may be overlooked in assessing fundamental changes in the post-secondary arena.Design methodology approach - Posits that the internet changes the nature of the university as fundamentally as one saw when the Bible was published on the movable type press.Findings - Open access courses and journals put knowledge into the Socratic Agora, changing the roles of faculty as both educators and researchers. Since knowledge is available with the click of a mouse, the linear Kindergarten to Bachelor's curriculum has been deconstructed and integrated with work and play since age is not a barrier to access. Also, few may opt for a hand-crafted, packaged, on-campus experience. As the current faculty, cyber immigrants, retires, the emerging cyber natives will form self-organizing communities of interest practice and the function of the university must be reinvented.Originality value - The paper is of value to administrators, policy analysts, researchers in the arena of education, funding agencies, foundations and politicians involved with educational change.