by Megan Hamilton, MATC

In online courses, where a student completes a test off-campus without instructor supervision, online tests must be considered as open-book tests because students often have access to a wide variety of information resources. Furthermore, students with a mobile device would still be able to take pictures of the test questions as displayed on the computer monitor. Faculty concerned about cheating in online testing are encouraged to consider these countermeasures when creating their tests in Blackboard.

http://tlc.matc.edu/index.php/discouraging-cheating-in-online-tests/

by drbrucej – Affordable Quality Writing

The for-profit online school industry has received a great deal of attention over the past few years and the reasons have involved recruiting practices, low retention rates, and the failure to pay student loan rates. Recently there was an article about one online school that was being audited, specifically regarding the level of faculty to student interactions. This particular school offers competency-based online degree programs and students are completing their degrees without being enrolled in traditional online classes. The underlying reason for the audit is related to the programs being qualified to receive federal aid. In order for students to be eligible to receive federal aid there must be “significant instructor to student interactions” and if those interactions aren’t present the programs become ineligible for aid.

http://affordablequalitywriting.com/blog/2016/01/what-makes-online-class-real-students

by Talya Zax, Forward

That goal of building an ideal life, whether at home or at work, came up again and again in our conversation. If there’s one takeaway from Mattan Griffel, who last year was named to Forbes’s 30 Under 30 list in Education, it’s that he’s obsessed with making all things — online education, the process of building a startup, his company’s workplace culture, himself — better. Griffel’s position on the Forbes list is a symbol of the way in which the education industry is changing. In schools, the ratio of computers and iPads to students grows closer and closer to 1-to-1; more broadly, the Internet has opened up the world of self-education and continuing education in unprecedented ways.

http://forward.com/culture/332268/learning-to-build-a-business-in-one-month/

by the White House

President Obama is unveiling his plan to give all students across the country the chance to learn computer science (CS) in school. We’ve made real progress in education — over the past seven years, 49 States and Washington, D.C. have raised expectations by adopting higher standards to prepare all students for success in college and careers.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/30/fact-sheet-president-obama-announces-computer-science-all-initiative-0

by Tom Lindsay, Forbes

In his 2011 State of the State Address, then-Texas-Governor Rick Perry issued a bully-pulpit challenge to the Lone Star State’s public universities. He asked them to create bachelor’s degree programs that cost no more than $10,000 in tuition, fees, and books. He also asked that ten percent of Texas public university degrees awarded reach this price point. How would it be accomplished? Perry advised schools to reduce costs through offering some classes online as well as through awarding course credits based on competencies acquired outside the classroom, such as during military service and/or previous employment.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomlindsay/2016/01/30/pricing-revolution-texas-expands-its-affordable-bachelors-degree-program/#11d4a4ff7e45

by the Examiner

In her eBook, Jacqueline Myers nails the top 10 success strategies for distance learning in a way that students can understand and implement immediately. As promised, the book is written for college students of all types by a legitimate online college educator. Students get the core strategies of successful online learning, all in one easy-to-read guide. To make implementation of the strategies even easier, action step checklists have been included at the end of each chapter.

http://www.examiner.com/review/book-review-your-online-college-course-survival-guide-by-jacqueline-myers

by the Inquirer

No matter how far we progress in formal education, there is always a point at which taught learning becomes optional. With adulthood comes the agency to decide when school or university learning will end. While professional development can mean acquiring new skills, we generally reach a critical point where the frequency with which we learn new information and disciplines slows down. The growth of the e-learning technology market was predicted to reach $51 billion (around £36 billion) by 2016. This could revolutionise how, when, and where we learn and enable adults to achieve more than ever before.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/industry-voice-blog/2444215/the-future-of-technology-in-adult-learning

by ALISON

ALISON, the global free learning pioneer has launched a free course entitled “Zika Virus – What you need to know”. The course has been developed by ALISON Pedagogic experts within the guidance issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the US-based Centre for Disease Control (CDC). The course highlights the virus origins, how people become infected by it, its impact, and how to minimize your risk of acquiring the virus. WHO estimates that over one million Brazilians are now infected with the virus and that it will inevitably spread to North America. Mike Feerick, Founder & CEO of ALISON, stated, “Free Online Learning via ALISON is well placed to assist in developing public awareness of the risks of the Zika Virus. Our success of educating communities in West Africa about EBOLA tells us just how important our role can be.”

http://news.sys-con.com/node/3656708

by Nick Morrison, Forbes

Universities have long been wrestling with the internet. On the one hand it represents a huge opportunity, in the shape of an enormous resource and new methods of delivery; on the other it represents a huge threat, in the shape of an enormous resource and new methods of delivery. But a pilot program at one of the world’s top universities is providing evidence that blended learning could be the future of higher education. Starting last semester, undergraduates in the engineering faculty at Imperial College London have been taking online business courses. While online courses are nothing new, the idea of delivering them to students who are physically present in the university is unusual.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2016/01/29/blended-learning-the-future-of-higher-education/#37761e5e2708

by Amy X. Wang, Quartz

Online learning, in 2016, is no longer the cautious experiment it once was. Universities all over the world are warming up to the idea of internet-based degree programs, while free online education—popularly offered in the form of massive open online courses, or MOOCs—remains a booming area. There are obvious benefits: Online courses are accessible to anyone with a computer, (usually) cheaper than a brick-and-mortar education, and can be helpful to those who are in the middle of their careers or have other full-time commitments. But e-learning is still lacking in certain key areas. One of its drawbacks is a heavy skew toward certain subjects—a problem that results not from uneven offerings, but from a lopsided modern mindset about the role of education, and the inherent pitfalls of trying to learn from the internet in the first place.

http://qz.com/594710/turns-out-some-subjects-really-cant-be-taught-online/

By Travis Grandy, Inside Higher Ed

As I build my course in preparation for this summer, one of the challenges I anticipate is how I can create similar kinds of active learning experiences for students without the benefit of in-person meetings. This started my thought process about ways to foreground collaboration in an online class. Today, my post will discuss some approaches to designing online activities that promote active learning and team-building skills. Although I’ll focus on some example activities intended for an online class, they can also be adapted for blended classes as well. What follows are a few activities that I’ll be working to adapt for my online class. Hopefully they’ll give you some ideas too!

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/build-more-collaboration-your-online-class

by Track.in

This is surely a big leap forward and a positive one at that. According to reports, Flipkart has started hiring fresh graduates based on the capabilities they have built through Udacity’s Nanodegree Programs. And yes, these graduates did not have to face any in-person interviews. This move clearly shows that Indian companies (especially startups) are open to move away from traditional hiring methods and are looking at people who are building their expertise through online education portals like Udacity! Peeyush Ranjan, CTO at Flipkart said, “The kind of disruptive work that we do at Flipkart demands a world-class talent pool and we are constantly on the lookout for experts who can solve the problems of Indian consumers. The conventional hiring process often comes down to the performance of the candidate on that specific day, which may not be a true reflection of their skills and temperament. This is where a partner like Udacity comes into the picture.”

http://trak.in/tags/business/2016/01/28/flipkart-interview-hiring-nanodegree-udacity/

By Laura Devaney, eCampusNews

A partnership between two universities seeks to predict where students will struggle academically to help better inform instructor strategies. A method of analyzing what students post in academic forums, and using those posts to help instructors identify where students are struggling most with reading materials, could help improve learning and instruction. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and MIT are using a new method to analyze students’ online academic forum posts to predict questions so teachers can intervene.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/students-online-posts-682/

by Seb Murray, Business Because

Business Because speaks to executives of edX, Coursera, Udacity, FutureLearn and ALISON to get their predictions for how online learning will be shaped in 2016. Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, says that employers and universities will increasingly accept certificates for Mooc courses. Udacity is so confident it can find users jobs that it is guaranteeing them placement, or will refund their tuition. Vish Makhijani, COO of Udacity, says “For us, helping people learn so they can advance their careers is the cornerstone of online education.” Julia Stiglitz, director of business development and international at Coursera, which has 17 million users, anticipates rapid growth in mobile and tablet learning.

http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/3751/five-edtech-trends-for-2016

by ANYA KAMENETZ, NPR

Anne Boring, an economist and the lead author of the paper, was hired by her university in Paris, Sciences Po, to conduct quantitative analysis of gender bias. Through her conversations with instructors and students, she became suspicious of what she calls “double standards” applying to male and female instructors. Philip Stark, associate dean of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, is a co-author of the paper along with Kellie Ottoboni. “Trying to adjust for the bias to make SET ‘fair’ is hopeless,” says Stark, “(even if they measured effectiveness, and there’s lots of evidence that they don’t).” Boring acknowledges that “SETs can contain some information that can be valuable.” But, she adds, they are too biased to be used in a high-stakes way as a measure of teacher effectiveness.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/25/463846130/why-women-professors-get-lower-ratings

by Jon Brodkin – Ars Technica

Millimeter wave tech will achieve high speeds, launching first in Boston. A startup led by the founder of Aereo says it plans to sell wireless Internet service with speeds of 1Gbps in Boston and then other cities. Project Decibel’s “Starry” Internet service “will launch its first beta in the Greater Boston area in the summer of 2016,” with additional cities being announced later in the year, the company said. Project Decibel is based both in Boston and New York City.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/aereo-founders-next-business-wireless-gigabit-home-internet/

By Dennis Pierce, Campus Technology

Alternate Reality Learning Experience (ARLE) is a new type of alternate reality game in which participants weave in and out of a fictional story and reality as they learn. “In gaming, you fail 80 percent of the time, and you enjoy the experience and come back for more,” Jeff Borden St. Leo University’s chief innovation officer, said. “This lets you put students in situations where they fail, and learn from their failure, safely. At the same time, the authenticity of the learning experience is off the charts.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/01/27/alternate-reality-gaming-spices-up-professional-development.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, eCampus News

Ballhaus likes what he sees at the company he now leads, especially the breadth of its offerings and its capabilities. Analytics is an exciting new space for us and for our clients. When we think about what our clients are really trying to accomplish, it’s outcomes — and the ability to use analytics to help them improve those outcomes. For instance, I just met with one of our customers, which is one of the largest universities in the world in terms of student count. A big challenge is that they have hundreds of thousands of passive students. So getting through the heart of understanding why they’re passive, what has happened, some of the trends that led them from being active to being passive and things they can do to bring those passive learners back into the active educational community to improve outcomes, is a great example of the role that analytics can play in improving our client’s ability to achieve better outcomes .It’s an area that we’ll continue to invest in and continue to develop.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/01/27/new-blackboard-ceo-bill-ballhaus-reflects-on-his-first-weeks-at-the-helm.aspx

By Andrew Barbour, eCampus News

The Harvard Division of Continuing Education (HDCE) opted to build a customized, cloud-based version of Opencast, an open source video-capture and distribution product previously known as Matterhorn. “Other Harvard units use lecture capture as a review tool for students who don’t come to class, are sick, or need a study tool, but our distance-education group actually sells access to these lectures,” said Gabriel Russell, a video, software, and systems engineer at Harvard. “Lecture capture is a primary learning tool for our students, so we need to make sure the product meets their needs.”

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/harvard-lecture-capture-928/

by the Foundation for Blended and Online Learning

The Foundation for Blended and Online Learning today released details on its scholarship, grant, and research programs designed to advance the availability and quality of digital learning in the U.S. The Foundation for Blended and Online Learning will strive to achieve three main goals:

Provide post-secondary scholarships to students;

Launch a grant program for educators and organizations making significant progress in teaching and instruction;

Advance the field of digital learning through research and intentional collaboration with key stakeholders.

http://www.blendedandonlinelearning.org/

By Marie Solis, identities.mic

After a semester of pop quizzes, all-nighters and 12-page research papers, college students have only one card to play against their professors: the course evaluation. While students may think they’re dealing evenly, a new study shows most are harder on their female instructors. French economist Anne Boring led the study which resulted in two sets of results: one for French students and another for American students. According to NPR, male French students gave their male professors higher ratings overall after being randomly assigned male and female instructors across a range of different courses. In the study with American students, Boring and her colleagues built in an extra control: Students would never meet their professor. Instead, they took an online course in which they were only told their instructor’s name. Half of the male professors who participated in the study were given female names.

http://mic.com/articles/133460/student-course-evaluations-are-biased-against-female-professors-study-says#.AIiRWdLMY