Online Learning Update

by Robert Nicholls, Market Business

A new system from MIT has outperformed human intuition using its algorithms. It’s amazing, and perhaps a little frightening: an MIT computer’s algorithms outperformed human intuition in a groundbreaking new test. The findings will be presented this upcoming week at the IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics. There are a number of tasks the researchers believe the computer could be helpful at. One example listed in the report is looking at statistics and predict if a student is likely to drop out of an online course. It’s just one of many examples where the machine could immediately be put to work.

http://www.themarketbusiness.com/2015-10-18-mits-unique-computer-system-aims-to-take-the-humans-out-of-data-analysis

by Fred Wasser, KNPR

Bob Murphy is the director of evaluation research at the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. He also wrote a book about online learning and the research on its effectiveness. “In general, the quality of the effectiveness research was pretty poor,” he said, “However, what we did find was that in general online learning, folks in online learning courses, did as well or better than adults and students in traditional courses.”

http://knpr.org/knpr/2015-10/online-learning-how-effective-it

By Kevin Gibbs and Claire Stuve, eCampus News

Two professors describe online learning platform features that can enable engaging online learning experiences—and why they’re critical to real success. High failure rates. Low retention. Disengaged students. These problems exist at many universities, but more and more institutions and instructors, like us, are leveraging online learning to turn that story around—but real success goes beyond just a format switch. As an instructor and an educational technologist, we want to see online learning reflect the quality of great teaching that takes place face-to-face.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/online-learning-engagement-223/

by Post-Bulletin

Lots of workers – 29 percent according to a recent survey by Spherion Staffing – are worried that they don’t have the skills to get ahead. There’s ample evidence, though, that many workers, including those who’ve already racked up college and post-graduate degrees, are taking courses to keep their skills marketable. “Across the board, from entry level jobs on up, there’s increasing demand for skills,” explains Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “Even a Ph.D.,” he notes, may need a course to “keep ahead of new processes.”

http://www.postbulletin.com/jobs/online-courses-offer-career-advancement/article_4ca90d6e-6916-11e5-8583-8b757cafc36a.html

by Kallen Diggs, Huffington Post

Many people have debated whether a college education is necessary to be a success. The education industry is changing and also reforming the beliefs that many once had about college. On average, millennials are taking six years to get their bachelor’s degree instead of four years. What does that mean for MBA students? Many people believe that an MBA can be a good requisite for entrepreneurs. However, most of us know that many people have become amazing entrepreneurs without an MBA degree. So, the question remains: Should millennial entrepreneurs pursue an MBA?Recently, the University of Illinois made their MBA courses available for free through the online education platform, Coursera. It can be a great opportunity for people to earn some credentials, which may be helpful as entrepreneurs. Students who are interested in getting the actual MBA degree need to apply for admission and pay about $20,000 in tuition. Paying $20,000 is quite a deal when you consider the average cost of an MBA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kallen-diggs/should-millennial-entrepr_b_8234666.html

By Knight Center

Hundreds of judges and other jurists (prosecutors, attorney, lawyers, etc) from Latin American and Caribbean countries have already signed up for a six-week Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in Spanish on the “International Legal Framework on Freedom of Expression, Access to Information and the Safety of Journalists.” The course that starts on October 26 is offered by UNESCO and the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in partnership with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin.

https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-16360-judges-can-take-online-course-freedom-expression-offered-unesco-and-knight-center

by Beth Porter, TechCrunch

People often express worry that the relative anonymity of online learning environments and the disconnected nature of being in a MOOC (massive online open course) leads to more opportunities for academic dishonesty and outright cheating. However, emerging and improving technologies may prove to offer more — not less — protection from would-be cheaters. All online learning environments collect data — copious amounts — about their learners, and software is especially good at revealing patterns that may signal that cheating is happening. Knowing that you might get caught can be a powerful deterrent. Likewise, several new technologies seek to prevent cheating from the outset. These include virtual proctoring, identity verification and problem randomization — all of which we explore in this article.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/15/how-software-helps-keep-online-learners-honest/

By Roger Riddell, Education Dive

The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday unveiled the Educational Quality Through Innovation Partnerships (EQUIP) program, an experimental pathway to Title IV funding for partnerships between higher ed institutions and nontraditional programs. The program has been brewing for some time under the experimental sites initiative, though it will remain limited to about 10 applications from applicable partnerships. Likely candidates for participation in the pilot include coding bootcamps, MOOC providers, and various short-term certificate and corporate training programs, and according to Inside Higher Ed, inclusion will also give institutions freedom from a federal aid ban on colleges that outsource over half of their content or instruction to an unaccredited third party.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/ed-dept-pilot-opens-aid-to-alternative-credentialing/407333/

by Esme Nicholson, WBEZ

A new university in Berlin is exclusively geared to refugees. Kiron University relies on existing online courses and aims to be tuition-free and accessible to asylum seekers worldwide. Markus Kressler pulls up a virtual seminar on mechanical engineering, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, on his laptop. The 25-year-old is a co-founder of Kiron University, a Berlin-based program for refugees that taps into open-source online lectures from other universities. Kiron University students take courses online for the first two years, working toward a bachelor’s degree while they apply for asylum and acquire the paperwork and qualifications needed to enter a partner university, local to where they are, to complete the degree. “Basically, everyone can already log into these courses,” Kressler says. “What we do is we just take these courses, bundle them into degree programs and make cooperation with real universities so that they also recognize these courses in order to really get a degree in the end.”

http://www.wbez.org/news/migrants-pour-germany-launches-online-university-them-113386

By PAUL SULLIVAN, NY Times

Gqyatri Ganesh, director of development at the Christian Hospital, a rural hospital in Mungeli, India, says she hopes to get better at tapping into the international network of donors that could help sustain the hospital. Paolo Pagaduan, a project manager with the World Wildlife Fund in the Philippines, says he is trying to learn a new role at the organization. Both have signed up for courses at the new nonprofit group Philanthropy University, started by Amr Al-Dabbagh, a Saudi businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Dabbagh donated several million dollars to see if a learning initiative could improve the lives of 100 million people by 2020.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/your-money/online-university-helps-philanthropic-groups-and-their-leaders.html?_r=0

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

University of Toledo professors Claire Stuve and Kevin Gibbs are highlighting the importance of a synchronous component to online courses, of monitoring student interaction, and of collecting data for constant improvement when aiming for student success online. In a piece for eCampus News, the duo write that synchronous element gives students a chance to interact with their peers and instructors, virtually, in real time, meeting the needs of traditional and nontraditional students with recorded interactions to be reviewed later. Tracking how students engage with course materials, how long they watch videos, and whether they review gives instructors data for early warnings and helps crystallize the power of technology in student outcomes.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/u-of-toledo-instructors-identify-keys-to-online-learning-success/407486/

Elizabeth Mulherrin, Evolllution

Institutions can improve their engagement with adult students by focusing on collecting and analyzing data analytics, which in turn can have a significant impact on student outcomes and success. The first installment of this series, Personalization at Scale: Two Institutional Journeys, described the similarities and differences between two adult-serving online institutions, and the organizational capacity for leveraging data and technology to support learners. UMUC and Capella are continuously exploring how data analytics can identify and support learners’ needs, especially in the first term, to set them up for success. Both UMUC and Capella use internally developed and third-party tools as part of this process, and both also leverage the learning management systems (LMS) that their institutions use to deliver orientation and similar courses. By using the same LMS that is used for academic courses, learners have the opportunity to become familiar with the technology that they will use throughout their degree program.

http://evolllution.com/technology/metrics/personalization-at-scale-using-metrics-to-improve-the-student-experience/

by Jeff Swiatek, Indianapolis Star

Eli Lilly University? That’s pushing it. But the drug maker’s inner academic side might be coming out. Eli Lilly and Co. said Tuesday it has developed a college-level course that will be offered at participating colleges. The online course, not surprisingly, deals with drug discovery and development. Lilly said it developed the graduate-level course with experts at 10 academic institutions. Lilly footed the bill, which it didn’t disclose, and the academic experts donated their time, said Lilly spokesman Mark Taylor. Lilly will unveil the e-learning course, called “Making Medicines: The Process of Drug Development,” at an American Osteopathic Association conference in Florida this weekend and launch the course in 2016. It will be offered as an elective at participating colleges.

http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2015/10/13/eli-lilly-starts-online-course-drug-development/73879342/

by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

As massive open online course providers specialize in disciplines and delivery modes, universities are looking for new opportunities to experiment. The trend appears to be benefiting edX. Many colleges have “double-dipped” by joining both Coursera and edX, two major MOOC providers, since MOOCs went mainstream in 2012. For example, the California Institute of Technology, Rice University and the University of Toronto all partnered with Coursera in July 2012 and then joined edX in 2013. Similarly, Peking University in Beijing first partnered with edX in May 2013, then with Coursera three months later. But among colleges and universities in the U.S., movement from one MOOC platform to the next is a one-way street. According to an Inside Higher Ed analysis, at least 10 of the institutions that first partnered with Coursera have since joined edX. Not a single edX institution has gone the other way.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/13/colleges-explain-why-they-double-dipped-moocs

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Clint Schmidt, COO of Bloc, questions partnerships between coding bootcamps and accredited institutions as a “dangerous backdoor to access federal student loans.” In an article for LinkedIn, Bloc argues that funding opportunity would give bootcamps a chance to go after easy money, focusing less on student outcomes, like some for-profit colleges have been accused of doing. He suggests one accountability measure — asking a board of experienced developers to review portfolios of bootcamp graduates and ensure they actually got the job-ready skills they meant to pay for.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/bootcamp-coo-questions-why-peer-programs-are-chasing-accreditation/407233/

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

Through a new app called MyPath, students at Brandman University can earn a bachelor’s degree at their own pace without purchasing a single textbook. The private, nonprofit institution within the Chapman University System primarily serves working adults at 25 campuses throughout California and Washington, as well as online. Brandman partnered with Flat World Knowledge to create MyPath, which incorporates adaptive learning, game-based learning, data analytics and social learning in a competency-based education model. Course content is available any time, anywhere using an iPad or laptop computer; all materials are embedded into the MyPath platform, with no textbooks required. Students work at their own pace, applying previous learning and work experience toward earning their degree.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/10/05/brandman-u-launches-new-online-learning-platform-with-no-textbooks-required.aspx

by Larry Press, a New Domain

An intriguing survey just out from the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute shows that an overwhelming number of high school students now are taking online classes on their own initiative. The numbers present three striking things. First, it’s clear students aren’t waiting for school prompts to pursue online classes. They’re doing it all by themselves in high numbers. Second, the students that attend historically black colleges take more online courses than other schools. Third, there’s a clear trend that online classes are increasing in popularity. Whether on their own accord or at a school’s requirement, online classes are being utilized by a large percentage of incoming freshman.

http://anewdomain.net/2015/09/23/larry-press-online-classes-rise/

by mUmbrella

NewsmartThe Wall Street Journal has launched a subscription-based online tutorial service to help people speak better business English. The service, called Newsmart, takes articles and videos from the Journal, and users must complete comprehension, grammar and vocabulary exercises about these stories. The service is gamified, with a leadership board function encouraging competition between users. The service costs $7.50 a month for a subscription online or as an app for Android or iOS phones. Newsmart is available to individuals or companies, which can sign up for Newsmart Pro, an advanced version with data analytics that monitor performance against international English certifications such as TOEIC and TOEFL.

http://www.mumbrella.asia/2015/10/wall-street-journal-enters-e-learning-space-with-business-english-tutorials-for-subscribers/

by Ruth Campbell, Odessa American

Four years ago, Odessa College’s biology department was the fourth largest at the school. It is now the largest, thanks to the demand for health care workers in the area. During the past five years, the biology department has grown by 42 percent and online biology courses by 190 percent, biology professor Chet Cooper said. The subject’s popularity also could be due to the enthusiasm of the department’s professors who go in and out of each other’s offices and will even let other professors observe them in class and give them a chance to teach for a few minutes in each other’s classes, Cooper said.

http://www.oaoa.com/news/education/odessa_college/article_dfb33d68-6f70-11e5-9bea-9f4bade12696.html

by Amy Ahearn, EdSurge

Trying to retrofit MOOCs designed for individual learning to facilitate collaboration is tougher than it might seem. As any good teacher will tell you, activities for groups have to be designed differently than assignments for individuals. If you try to give a group of fourth graders a single worksheet to complete, not much meaningful learning will occur. We think the same principle applies to online course design. Here are seven tips we’d give to instructional designers looking to build community around online courses:

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-10-11-seven-tips-for-creating-community-in-online-courses