Online Learning Update

by Emily Driscoll, FOXBusiness

Despite years of steady growth, college enrollment dropped by 0.2% in the fall of 2011, the first decline in 15 years, according to the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. The number of college students enrolled in at least one online course increased for the ninth straight year, according to the Babson Survey Research Group. The 2011 study reports that the number of students taking at least one online course has now surpassed six million and nearly one-third of all students in higher education are taking at least one online course. The college experience is slowly shifting off campus and into the internet as students seek out multiple sources for their educational experience, says Adam Newman, managing partner at Education Growth Advisors. “Colleges that fail to focus on supporting, and frankly exceeding, the academic needs and expectations of students will do so at their peril given the increasing number of plausible alternatives emerging,” he says.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/01/28/higher-education-trends-to-watch-for-in-2013/

By Britney Milazzo, Centre Daily

Penn State is jumping on the bandwagon with other global institutions and implementing Massive Open Online Courses, otherwise known as MOOCs — noncredited free online college-level courses aimed at large-scale participation. Vice President for Penn State Outreach Craig Weidemann said the university is in the process of starting the MOOC program that will be consistent with university priorities and reputation. He said this year would be a test year. “It’s great for innovation and access to knowledge, but will be challenging finding student success,” he said.

http://www.centredaily.com/2013/01/26/3478507/huge-open-online-classes-coming.html

By Lisa L. Martin and Barbara F. Walter, LA Times

The United States is leading a revolution in higher education. With the advent of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, U.S. universities will be increasingly exporting hundreds of college-level classes every year to the rest of the world. The implications of this are huge. There’s a potentially large implication that U.S. universities have missed: the ability to export gender equality, powerful female role models and more. Studies have shown, for example, that educating women leads to a reduction in poverty, fertility and violence, and increases in the health outcomes for families. Exporting classes taught by women could profoundly influence how young people around the world think about the roles women play in society.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-martin-online-gender-equality-20130125,0,159640.story

by Wagdy Sawahel, University World News

As a result of a sharp rise in academic digitisation programmes, booming enrolment in online higher education and the rapid adoption of self-paced e-learning, Africa has become the most dynamic e-learning market in the world – with Senegal in first place followed by Zambia, Zimbabwe and Kenya. This was outlined in a 24 January report by US-based international research company Ambient Insight, titledThe Africa Market for Self-paced e-Learning Products and Services: 2011-2016 forecast and analysis. The 68-page Africa regional report included five-year revenue forecasts for 16 countries: Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The study found that the overall growth rate for self-paced e-learning in Africa is 15.2%. Senegal has the highest growth rate in Africa at 30.4%, followed by Zambia, Zimbabwe and Kenya at 27.9%, 25.1% and 24.9% respectively.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130125105755921

By Peter Foster, Telegraph

Self-starting students in Britain and around the world will soon be able earn bona fide qualifications from some of America’s top Ivy League universities in a scheme that aims to give new credibility to the explosion in the popularity of online learning last year. The plan, which will be launched by edX, a consortium of universities led by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will enable their new online students to sit properly invigilated tests that will have hard currency with employers and universities. 2012 saw a phenomenal acceleration of interest in online education – so called Massive Open Online Courses, or Moocs – with leading US universities offering free courses by their top professors that attracted tens of thousands of subscribers each.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9825771/British-students-able-to-study-in-Ivy-League-through-online-courses.html

By Melissa Girgis, Miami Student

Online courses currently make up 1.3 percent of course offerings at Miami University, though a national and global trend suggests this percentage will increase significantly. As society becomes increasingly fast-paced and technology focused, the flexibility offered by online courses is attractive. Cheryl Young, director of Lifelong Learning, said she expects the percentage of online course offerings to rise 5 to 10 percent over the next three years. Over six million students are now learning online across the United States, according to Young, where is she getting this info? and nearly a third of all students across the country who are engaged in higher learning are taking at least one online course. In addition, partnership programs between the U.S. and universities abroad are becoming more common.

http://www.miamistudent.net/news/campus/online-course-offerings-expected-to-increase-at-miami-based-on-global-trend-1.2976186

by Ashwathi, One India Education

Its all known that it is a promising revolution in Online Education across World. In India, it leaves us incredibly hopeful about the future. Well, nothing has more potential to lift more people out of poverty-by providing them an affordable education in order to get a job or improve in the job they currently have. At present, there are more online courses popping out every session. India is playing a major role in the growth of online learning opportunities that are popping up throughout Asia. Over the past few decades, India has developed numerous world-class universities and colleges which are fast becoming destinations for some of Asia’s best and brightest, and their online programmes are experiencing a similar boom.

http://education.oneindia.in/news/2013/01/29/online-courses-flying-high-in-indian-universities-003849.html

By AMBER SOUTH, Public Opinion Online

It is an age when the importance of higher education grows every day, yet more classes are moving out of the classroom and onto the World Wide Web. Known as distance education, this modern way of learning gives traditional students with other responsibilities more options for arranging a schedule. It gives working adults the ability to go back to school, often without entering a classroom. With its ability to reach more people than a traditional classroom, distance education is positioned to aid in the projection that by 2018, 65 percent of jobs will require some type of college education. “While distance education is not likely to replace traditional face-to-face programs and ‘bricks and mortar’ institutions, it is not possible for the U.S. to meet these goals and needs exclusively through traditional face-to-face means of higher education,” Lyman and Sax wrote.

http://www.publicopiniononline.com/latestnews/ci_22467844/shippensburg-university-sees-increase-classes-taken-online

By Errol Craig Sull, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Online teaching has many components, and all must come together smoothly for a productive, energetic, and enthusiastic class to result. If there is one factor more critical than others, though, it is student engagement, for without it, the entire course can be flat. No one—not you, not the students, not the institution—wants that. No one wants to see students seldom participating in a course, late in submitting assignments, or leaving dissatisfied.

http://chronicle.com/article/Student-Engagement-in-the/136897/

by Eric Hellweg, Harvard Business Review Blog

The advent of massively open online classes (MOOCs) is the single most important technological development of the millennium so far. I say this for two main reasons. First, for the enormously transformative impact MOOCs can have on literally billions of people in the world. Second, for the equally disruptive effect MOOCs will inevitably have on the global education industry. While at Davos, I was fortunate to attend an amazing panel — my favorite of the conference — with a murderer’s row of speakers. Moderated by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, the list of speakers: Larry Summers, former president of Harvard; Bill Gates; Peter Theil, a partner at Founder’s Fund; Rafael Reif, president of MIT; Sebastian Thrun, CEO of Udacity; Daphne Koller, CEO of Coursera, and a 12-year-old Pakistani girl who has taken a number of Stanford physics classes through Udacity. Below is a collection of some of the highlighted comments from this remarkable panel as well as a couple from audience members who were given an opportunity to comment.

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/2013/01/eight_brilliant_minds_on_the_f.html

By ALISON SMALE, NY Times

Dr. Koller said the value of a postgraduate education, no matter where it was gained, was shifting fast. “We have passed the stage in history,” she said, “where what you learn in college can last you for a lifetime.” After 15 years, she added, that learning is “obsolete.” In medicine, Mr. Borysiewicz argued, the span from the germ of a new idea to the bedside is typically about 17 years. That requires long-term thought, akin to the studiously elite admissions policies and research skills that have kept Britain’s top two universities among the world’s best for hundreds of years. But at Stanford, Dr. Koller is thinking in days, not centuries. Asked about the economic viability of Coursera, she outlined three potential sources of income: students paying an optional low fee ($59, for example) for a completed course; smaller colleges licensing the courses devised by the bigger universities; and employers subsidizing courses for their workers to bridge skill gaps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/business/davos-considers-learnings-next-wave.html

by Arooba Chaudhry & Sandy Van, Highlander News

It may be possible to obtain about one-tenth of a UC degree through online courses across the university system over the next five years, according a press release by UCOP. The UC anticipates the expansion of its web-based platform, the UC Online Education (UCOE) initiative, with the possible development of a systemwide online catalog. Continuing discussions about online education will occur in spring 2013 during a UC-wide summit, at the behest of UC President Mark Yudof. Contributing to trending public interest in online education, Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed 2013-2014 state budget dedicates $10 million to new technologies and online education across the UC and Cal State system. Current challenges include streamlining cross-campus enrollment and individual courses that are unique to a campus. UCOE retains an overarching cloud of uncertainty in its future, due to scattered discussions over a loose business model and fluctuating applicant base.

http://www.highlandernews.org/6851/uncertainty-lingers-in-uc-online-education/

By Ira Kantor / Boston Herald

Harvard Law School is logging on to a $60 million online education enterprise between its parent university and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by offering a free copyright course for students unable to set foot on the hallowed Ivy League campus. Classes start tomorrow for “HLS1x: Copyright,” taught by intellectual property law professor William Fisher. Though the 12-week edX course is only open to 500 people, more than 4,100 applied to participate in pre-recorded lectures, live 
webcasts, online forums and 80-minute seminars conducted by teaching fellows at the graduate school. “It takes me roughly a week to prepare each lecture,” Fisher said. “I’ve lectured on these topics for decades. Preparing one for this setting turns out to be hard.”

http://bostonherald.com/business/technology/technology_news/2013/01/study_harvard_law_just_go_online

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NY Times

Lord knows there’s a lot of bad news in the world today to get you down, but there is one big thing happening that leaves me incredibly hopeful about the future, and that is the budding revolution in global online higher education. Nothing has more potential to lift more people out of poverty — by providing them an affordable education to get a job or improve in the job they have. Nothing has more potential to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems. And nothing has more potential to enable us to reimagine higher education than the massive open online course, or MOOC, platforms that are being developed by the likes of Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and companies like Coursera and Udacity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/friedman-revolution-hits-the-universities.html

by Boston Globe Editorial

Just as the advent of the Internet has transformed the media landscape, it’s likely that future students will see a substantial amount of online instruction as an acceptable part of a college education. Future employers are bound to follow suit. Many big-name research universities believe that online courses create opportunities to extend their reach; MIT and Harvard, for example, are leading an initiative called edX, whose offerings have attracted thousands of enrollees. For less renowned universities, the potential disruption is greater, as students are drawn to cheaper online alternatives. The rush is already on: Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education noted a move by a group of public universities, mainly in the South and West, to issue credits for students who take open online courses.

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2013/01/27/online-classes-gain-acceptance-colleges-must-adapt/QMDDTRakIN4Ceo30zUKLKI/story.html

By TAMAR LEWIN, NY Times

In an unusual arrangement with a commercial company, dozens of public universities plan to offer an introductory online course free and for credit to anyone worldwide, in the hope that those who pass will pay tuition to complete a degree program. The universities — including Arizona State, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Arkansas system — will choose which of their existing online courses to convert to a massive open online course, or MOOC, in the new program, called MOOC2Degree. The proliferation of free online courses from top universities like Harvard and Stanford over the past year has prompted great interest in online learning. But those courses, so far, have generally not carried credit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/education/public-universities-to-offer-free-online-classes-for-credit.html?_r=0

by Walker Moskop, The Tennessean

Starting in March, Vanderbilt professor David Owens will begin teaching a class that could fill half of the seats at LP Field. The course is about managing innovation and creativity, and it is the same one that Owens has taught to a few dozen students at a time for years. Now, through an agreement with the online education company Coursera, Owens will be teaching one of five courses as part of a pilot program at Vanderbilt offering material — information that historically required tuition payments to access — free of charge to anyone in the world with a broadband connection.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130122/BUSINESS01/301220047/Vanderbilt-tests-water-free-online-courses?nclick_check=1

by SASHA COTTERELL, Aggie News

Joining the growing number of other nationally ranked universities that offer online courses, the UC system is beginning to offer online courses to UC students through UC Online Education (UCOE). In its first year, UCOE enrolled over 1,700 students. UCOE is free for students who are already attending a UC; non-UC students, however, must pay a fee. “One of the things we hope is that it will be another source of funding to the university,” said Keith Williams, UCOE interim director. Williams also added that it will be useful for high school students or community college students who are looking for courses they can get credit for.

http://www.theaggie.org/2013/01/22/uc-online-aims-to-increase-number-of-courses-offered-online/

By KELLIE WOODHOUSE, AnnArbor.com

Interested in learning about corporate finance? Statistics? Information studies? You can now download five University of Michigan courses to your iPhone, iPad or iPod to peruse at your own pace.  The courses are free. They can be downloaded using the iTunes U app, a program that offers free education content. They’re also available online at Open.Michigan.

http://www.annarbor.com/news/watch-university-of-michigan-courses-for-free-on-your-smart-device/

By ANDREA JOHNSON, Minot Daily News

Gary Ross, chairman of the business administration department, said online students are able to access the archived recordings of individual classes at any time. Ross also makes the recordings available to face-to-face students who are unable to attend a class for some reason, but only for up to a week because he wants those students to attend class. Different professors have different policies on attendance and use of the recorded classes, he said. Professors and students said the new delivery method is both cheaper, since it could mean that face-to-face classes and online classes can be scheduled at the same time and in the same class, and offers more flexibility for students.

http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/572573/MSU-students–professors-enjoy-online-classroom.html?nav=5010

by Catherine Barnao, GW Hatchet

The University is poised to join its most prestigious peers and offer free online courses available to anyone in the world, but some top administrators are skeptical – which could cause the plans to hit a wall. Across GW’s colleges, there is uncertainty about the courses’ academic potential. Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Dean Peg Barratt said she has reservations about the courses that could potentially be taught to tens of thousands of students from across the globe. She said because of their enormous class sizes, the quality of education may not be up to par. “We in Columbian College spend a lot of time building the partnerships between students and our faculty, and you’ve had a lot of small classes where that is possible and you’ve gotten to know your professors,” Barratt, who leads GW’s largest college, said. “A MOOC isn’t about that.” University President Steven Knapp has shared that sentiment in past interviews, casting doubt on the effectiveness of the large-scale online courses.

http://www.gwhatchet.com/2013/01/21/administrators-doubt-advantages-of-free-online-courses/