Until then, computers had mostly been used for word processing and “simple question-and-answer games” to test knowledge. By 1995, however, Medicine students could work through 51 modules on the 25 PCs in the faculty’s computer room. “Complex multimedia programs that can replace entire lab practicals”, reported this newspaper.
And the greatest revolution was yet to come – the internet. It would “drastically change” teaching, predicted Frans Ronteltap, head of the Computer-Assisted Education project at the medical faculty, in the same article. Unlike some of his colleagues, he wasn’t worried about the prospect of students gaining access to sources from around the world. “They will undoubtedly come across material that conflicts with what they are taught here, but why should that matter?” He added, “It’s better to teach them how to navigate that wealth of information intelligently than to shield them from it.”
Heavy dose of reluctance
Swap out “the internet” for “artificial intelligence” and the statement will sound familiar to lecturers today. “We have to move with the times. AI is here to stay. And if students can use it critically, it can be beneficial”, said Anke Moerland, vice-dean for research at the Faculty of Law, last October. Observant spoke to her about new guidelines for AI use at the Faculty of Law, a “living document” designed to keep pace with the rapidly evolving technology and the students using it.
One might expect young people to be tech-savvy, but that was not always the case. “Most of them start at zero, with a heavy dose of reluctance”, grumbled Dean of Psychology Louis Boon about first-year students’ IT skills in April 1997. “Our students know very little. Faculties will have to do a lot of remedial teaching in the first year.” Computer classes, in other words – almost unimaginable today.
Only faculty with a mouse arm
Students must have started spending a lot more time at screens though, because two years later, a new problem arose. More and more people began to suffer from a painful strain injury from too much computer use, often referred to as a “mouse arm”. The Faculty of Arts and Culture, now Arts and Social Sciences, was the first to develop policy in response. Students suffering from RSI were given fifty per cent extra time in exams, computer desks became height-adjustable, and periodic reminders urged computer users to take breaks.
The condition would eventually become widespread: one year later, UM felt compelled to set up a dedicated reporting point at a cost of two hundred thousand guilders. But the director of the Faculty of Arts and Culture at the time, Ben van Wersch, felt like they were “the only faculty in the Netherlands, or even in Europe, dealing with this problem”. And this was despite the fact that his faculty was already ahead of the curve in preventive measures. “I recently visited the computer rooms at Economics and Law. Don’t even get me started. All our chairs are height-adjustable, but over there, they still use ordinary conference chairs.”