Online Learning Update

by Education News

A recently-released report from Cengage Learning has examined open educational resources (OER) within higher education, including who makes use of the resources and why, as well as what the future holds for OER. The report, “Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape,” interviewed over 500 OER primary adopters, supplemental adopters, and non-adopters. Study results found that just 4% of higher education respondents use OER as primary materials. The majority of this use is within the topic of math with 13% and computing at 11%. Meanwhile, the lowest was found in English at 2% and psychology at 1%. In terms of supplemental material, OER is used by 5% of respondents overall. This includes 18% in computing, 13% in math, 8% in English, and 4% in psychology.

http://www.educationnews.org/higher-education/open-educational-resources-adopted-slowly-report-shows/

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eCampus News

Although 20 percent of engineering graduates are women, only 11 percent of professional engineers are women, according to the National Science Foundation. Women account for 47 percent of the labor force, and more than 40 percent of all four-year degrees granted in the last 5 years–making women’s representation in engineering even more troubling. The numbers are a stark reminder that there is much work to be done to bring gender balance to the fields of engineering and technology.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/news/can-done-retain-women-engineering/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Plenty of scholarly research has come out about massive open online courses since edX’s official introduction in 2012. What’s lesser covered is how the institutions running the MOOCs have used the data to improve learning in their regular courses. Part of the reason for that is that the colleges and universities involved in edX don’t necessarily have the resources — expertise, tools or understanding — to exploit the torrents of data their courses generate. Four smallish eastern liberal arts colleges working with edX — Colgate, Davidson, Hamilton and Wellesley — formed a collaborative in 2013 to share the cost and expertise of developing their online offerings, encourage cross-teaching among faculty, bulk up on the amount of data available for research and build systems for managing the MOOC data.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/14/the-challenge-of-understanding-mooc-data.aspx

By Cristi Ford and Sharon Goodall, EdSurge

In higher education, it’s paramount that we be able to recognize patterns and trends early in the life of a cutting-edge project. Innovation initiatives need time to mature from development through evaluation, the higher-ed culture generally eschews risk, and, in an era of competing agendas, tight budgets and impatient stakeholders, projects need to fail fast or pivot so that institutions can maximize their investment dollars. Luckily, identifying leading indicators for success in higher-ed innovation is easier than finding unicorns—the next $1 billion startups—or understanding the nuances of digital currency. If you pay early attention to certain aspects of your innovation work, you can more clearly forecast results and keep the initiative steering toward success.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-09-16-want-to-cut-innovation-risk-in-higher-ed-follow-these-indicators

by JOE PINSKER, the Atlantic

It is by now close to certain that there are millions of people currently in high school and college who are fine-tuning their skills for steady-looking careers that will, following technological breakthroughs, dissipate by the time they retire. A 2013 study out of Oxford—the one that’s most frequently cited in any discussion of the future of labor—estimated that just shy of half of American jobs were at risk of being swallowed up by advances in automation. In anticipation of changes like this, is there anything that today’s college students can do now to future-proof their careers? A panel of experts gives some (pretty dispiriting) advice to a generation that will come of age as automation does.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/how-can-todays-college-students-futureproof-their-careers/499244/

By Chelsea Legendre, MeriTalk

The e-learning market in the United States is forecast to grow by 15.64 percent by 2020. The “E-learning Markets in the US 2016-2020” report points to cloud-based solutions as a key trend over the next few years. This growth is due to “the introduction of education technology and online content into the curriculum,” said Jhansi Mary J, lead analyst at Technavio. “Cloud solutions have restructured the aspects of education such as content creation, content delivery, and accessibility, making it more productive, convenient, and effective.” New education technologies include 3-D printing, simulations, and Augmented Reality (AR). The trend is driven by both traditional and online schools, which is due in part to government involvement.

https://www.meritalk.com/articles/u-s-e-learning-market-to-exceed-48-billion-by-2020/

by Kellyn Willis, NWI

Online learning has become a staple in the life of a college student. Colleges are making classes, certificate programs, and degrees more convenient to every type of student without sacrificing the quality of the education. So what does a typical online course look like? According to Dr. Gina Rodriguez, vice president of academic affairs at Calumet College of St. Joseph, one of the most popular types of classes at her university is a hybrid class. “Hybrid courses are courses where students come to class and meet occasionally, but most work is done online,” she says. This gives students the opportunity to meet their professors and classmates, then continue to do the work online and on their own time. At Calumet College, this is offered in numerous graduate programs, and some undergraduate programs as well. “This is an area where we have moved forward significantly,” Rodriguez says.

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/education/online-learning-an-appealing-alternative-to-traditional-college-experience/article_05aa7337-0805-5dc9-9643-e985dec11e95.html

BY ALTHEA E. PERLEY,

Beginning this coming January, Miami University is lowering tuition costs for online classes by 20 percent during summer and winter terms for Ohio residents. Announced in the June minutes from the Board of Trustees meeting, under the Ohio State House Bill 64 Affordability Act, the institution received a 5 percent reduction cost and wants to pay it forward to its students. “It wasn’t advertised, it wouldn’t be in our purview to leverage the bill or the advertising, however as an institution we are excited to lower the cost for our students,” said Dave Sauter, university registrar.

http://patch.com/ohio/miamiuniversity-oxford/miami-university-lowers-online-tuition-winter-summer-terms

by Simon Sharwood, the Register

Australia’s digital technologies curriculum has been welcome by everyone as fine idea, but has also sparked worries from teachers about how they’ll skill up to handle the new lessons. The nation’s States are taking different approaches to training teachers and applying different levels of resources to the task. Google, as is its wont, thinks the internet is the best way to train teachers since 2013. Now the company says it has expanded its online resources with Professional Learning In a Box resources covering:

Algorithms

Visual Programming

Binary 101

Makey Makey Project Workshop

Game Development Workshop

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/13/google_australia_extends_online_classes_for_tech_teachers/

By Heather Somerville, Reuters

Silicon Valley is creating a crash course in self-driving car technology to address a shortage of engineers with help from a startup in a different field: online education. In about a year’s time, a Lincoln sedan will be driving itself from Mountain View to San Francisco, using software developed by 250 or so students enrolled at education start-up Udacity, if all goes according to plan. Udacity bought the Lincoln already equipped with the digital interface needed in autonomous vehicles; students will write the code. Udacity’s course, which costs $2,400 for three, 12-week terms, starts next month and was designed by company co-founder Sebastian Thrun, who launched Google’s driverless car program.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-udacity-autonomous-idUSKCN11J24G

By BRAINERD DISPATCH

Central Lakes College is offering its first online course through its honors program. The course, Intercultural Communication, will be followed next school year with another online honors course called Interpersonal Communication. “Online courses work best for a lot of students, including some in our technical programs, so we wanted to make sure these students had access to our honors program,” said Adam Marcotte, English instructor and honors program coordinator, in a news release. Previously, honors courses were only offered in face-to-face class settings.

http://www.brainerddispatch.com/news/4114855-clc-adds-online-course-honors-program

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

A new study from Gallup suggests that students who are exposed to nurturing faculty and engaging internship or extracurricular experiences have double the amount of professional satisfaction in their post-collegiate lives. The survey of more than 60,000 college graduates reveals that these elements, which could be classified as customer service elements in the college setting, promote key metrics of individual purpose and well-being in financial, social and emotional areas of life. Gallup recommends that colleges increase their focus on mentoring and career development to help students make stronger connections between college preparation and their success in working and personal development.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/poll-reveals-connections-between-college-professional-engagement/426277/

by Public Agenda

Americans are increasingly uncertain about the necessity of college for success in the workforce, according to our recent survey, funded by The Kresge Foundation. For many years, when we asked the public the question, “Do you think that a college education is necessary for a person to be successful in today’s work world,” an increasing percentage of Americans said yes. That trend has shifted since the Great Recession. Now, just 42 percent of Americans say college is necessary for workforce success, a 13 percent drop from 2009. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say there are many ways to succeed in today’s world without a college degree, a 14 percent increase from 2009.

http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/public-opinion-higher-education-2016

By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal

A University of California Irvine research project may be the first of its kind to measure the impact and feasibility of the use of robots to bring homebound students into the classroom when they can’t be there physically. The use of “virtual inclusion” through telepresence has been used for nearly two decades. More recently, the idea is that chronically ill students use some kind of robotic device on campus that can be operated from home to allow him or her to participate in class, interact with fellow students and navigate through school.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/12/robots-give-chronically-ill-kids-valuable-social-ties-with-school.aspx

By Sri Ravipati, Campus Technology

A new technology pilot program at Pennsylvania State University enables students to attend and participate in class without ever stepping inside the classroom. The research institution is piloting the BeamPro Smart Presence System from Suitable Technologies, which allows students to be present through a robot that can be remotely operated via computer application. Users can steer the BeamPro robots inside or outside of the classroom – they can even command the robot to take an elevator to another floor or travel around campus.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/08/penn-state-students-attend-class-via-robot.aspx

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

Online educators have a new way to document their skills in online teaching. Quality Matters (QM), a nonprofit organization providing quality standards, professional development, course/program review and more, has added a new Teaching Online Certificate (TOC) to its lineup of certifications for quality assurance in online learning. “QM has recognized from its beginning that quality course design is a necessary, but not sufficient, component for a high quality student experience. Quality teaching matters, too,” said Deb Adair, QM’s executive director, in a press release. “Our new TOC follows the QM tradition of building on well-researched criteria and identifying practical competencies in alignment with those criteria. It represents our first foray into Quality Matters for Teaching.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/13/quality-matters-intros-new-teaching-online-certificate.aspx

By Harriette Spiegel, Campus Technology

Digital accessibility is a hot topic in higher education these days, and training faculty in creating accessible digital materials is on the mind of every instructional designer or educational technology team. The question of how to accomplish this training is a topic in itself, but this article outlines some of the most common issues that confront faculty when making their course content accessible. These issues are Headings, Alt Text, Meaningful Hyperlinks and Tables.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/13/essentials-of-digital-accessibility.aspx

by WISH-TV

Enrollment in Indiana University online courses and programs has continued its rapid growth this year. The university said some 27,000 IU students and one in every four students on the seven campuses administrated by the university, are taking at least one online course this fall. Faculty on all IU campuses have collaborated to develop courses and new online degree programs.

http://wishtv.com/2016/09/12/indiana-university-seeing-fast-growth-in-online-courses/

By Rachael Cusick, Slate

I may have drawn the longest possible straw in online learning. I was signed up for a scaled-down, hybrid-classroom approach to distance learning. The course material was engaging, and so was the instructor. The professor stood a few feet away from me, and I had unlimited time to ask questions before and after the class itself. But though we were in the same room, even I had trouble paying attention while the professor stared into her computer, trying to simultaneously engage those of us in the room as well as those students more than 250 miles away. Every week, it looked like half my peers back at the ranch were dozing or updating their fantasy sports leagues instead of paying attention. I marveled at the ones who powered through and remained engaged throughout the whole section—and a lot of them did. My ultimate peeve with this technology-dependent learning platform was digital hand-raising

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/09/the_difficulty_of_creating_community_in_distance_education_courses.html

By Rhiannon Winner, ULoop

Online college courses are appealing to many students, whether it’s because they’re cheaper than in-person classes or because they’re flexible enough to be molded to your schedule. Whatever sparked your interest in them, it’s best to be honest with yourself and see if you’re right for online learning before diving in. Are you organized? Organization is a key part of online learning. No professor will be around to hand out copies of the syllabus or remind you to store certain papers in the right folder. You’ll need to meticulously keep track of assignment due dates and make sure you’re pacing yourself so that you finish on time. If you’ve always been the kind of student with a color-coded note system and dozens of binders, you’d do well to keep that up when taking online courses.

http://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/212917/Do-You-Have-What-It-Takes-To-Tackle-College-Courses-Online