Abstract. Many people believe that information technology will bring massive
structural changes to the universities. This paper draws on concepts from
both computer science and social theory to explore what these structural
changes might be like. The point of departure is the observation that the
interaction between information technology and market economics creates
incentives to standardize the world. Standardization can be a force for
good or evil, depending on how it is done, and I consider in particular
the forces that operate on the *places* in which university teaching is done.
Information technology allows these places to be more diverse than in the
past, and a good rule of thumb is that the places in which learning occurs
should be analogous in their structure and workings to the places in which
the learned knowledge will be used. Universities can support this increased
diversity of learning places with appropriate structural reforms, including
decentralized governance and explicit attention to certain aspects of the
university organization, such as media services and the career center, that
have historically been marginalized.



The twentieth century has taught us to be skeptical of revolutions. Proposals
for revolutionary social change have invariably rested on superficial ideas
about the world, and as a result they have changed both too much and too
little, with tragic results. What, then, are we to make of the revolution
that