By Bradley Fuster, US News
In some states, online students can seamlessly transfer credits from one public school to another.Private, nonprofit institutions have traditionally been viewed as more prestigious and are generally more expensive, while state schools pride themselves on affordability, especially for in-state residents. But as online learning has evolved, students are having more difficulty seeing any real differences between public institutions and their private competitors.
By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal
The average cost of a data breach in the United States rose for the fourth straight year, hitting $225 per compromised record–the highest it has been since 2006, when the Ponemon Institute began to publish research on the topic. In education, which tends to be more heavily regulated regarding data privacy, the average “per capita” cost for 2017 in this country is even higher: $245. That’s considerably more than the worldwide per-record cost in education of $200. (Per capita represents the total cost of the data breach divided by the number of lost or stolen records.) According to Ponemon’s “2017 Cost of Data Breach Study,” the average total organizational cost across all segments, not just education, is $7.35 million, up almost five percent over last year’s $7 million. The average number of records exposed was 28,512.
https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/07/18/average-cost-per-record-of-us-data-breach-in-ed-245.aspx
Share on FacebookBy Hillary Miller, eLearning Inside
An initiative of Rice University, OpenStax was first launched in 2012 with the goal of cultivating peer-reviewed, high-quality textbooks that were low-cost in print and entirely free online. Today, the publisher provides titles for over 30 courses, including U.S. History, Macroeconomics, Anatomy and Physiology, and Microbiology. Each book is authored by a team of leading experts from universities all across the United States. The goal of OpenStax Tutor Beta is to provide instantaneous feedback and custom-tailored learning support for every learner. Students utilizing OpenStax Tutor don’t need to download any software to use the product; they simply log on to the OpenStax Tutor website to access their course textbook and complete their assignments.
https://news.elearninginside.com/new-openstax-tutor-beta-offers-personalized-learning/
Share on FacebookBY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News
A new survey reveals that fully-online students identified interaction with instructors, classmates as paramount to their learning experience. The research, compiled from a survey of 1,500 students who are seriously considering, currently enrolled in or have recently graduated from a fully online program aims to help higher-ed leaders and policymakers better understand both the traits of online college students and what they’re looking for in their educational experience. The Online College Students 2017: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences report, from The Learning House, Inc. and Aslanian Market Research, shows that online students are seeking interaction with their classmates and course instructors. In fact, more than half of survey respondents said interaction with the academic community is important.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/online-learning/social-perks-programs/
Share on Facebookby Matthew Lynch, tech Edvocate
Higher education is experiencing a time of rapid change. The traditional picture of a college-aged student sitting in a large lecture hall is no longer. Students complete their education at any age, in a variety of formats, and, sometimes, from multiple institutions. A recent study by the Babson Survey Research Group as reported in US News and World Report found that approximately 5.8 million students took at least one online class in 2014. The average age of someone enrolled in higher education now is 25. This change puts the focus on educational technologies that can provide solutions for classroom management, assessment, microlearning, affordability, and collaboration. These identified areas of need for higher education lead to 7 quality educational technology tools and apps for leading the way in an era of rapid change.
http://www.thetechedvocate.org/top-7-educational-technology-tools-apps-resources-higher-education/
Share on Facebookby Kelly Sheridan, Dark Reading
An underground ecosystem provides cybercriminals with online tutorials, tools, and credit card data they need to commit fraud. An ecosystem of payment card fraud will drive a projected $24 billion in losses by the end of 2018. Cybercriminals are working together to share tools, tutorials, and credit card data to scam victims. It turns out payment card fraudsters learn their skills as many professionals do: through online learning. Researchers at Digital Shadows discovered a Russian carding forum provides a course on how to commit fraud, complete with instructors, syllabus, webinars, and reading material. “We were surprised by the sophistication of the teaching site,” says Michael Marriott, research analyst at Digital Shadows. “There were weekly webinars, course material, links to software [students] could use, interactive Q&A sessions.”
Share on FacebookBy Jordan Friedman, US News
Many noncredit online courses, experts say, allow working adults to prep for certification exams in various fields. Many prospective online students aim to change careers or earn a promotion, but there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to get there, experts say. That might involve deciding between an online course or program that’s for college credit and one that’s not. That distinction is more relevant to some prospective online students than others, experts say. But for those making a choice, here are four factors to consider.
Share on Facebookby Matthew Lynch, tech Edvocate
Social Media has undeniably become a part of our everyday lives. Grandmothers and 12-years old alike are opening Facebook accounts, and there are Facebook pages even for people’s dogs and cats. Companies are using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other social media sites for marketing and advertising. Universities are now also using social media pages because people are reading and accessing social media sites daily. How can universities and colleges best take advantage of the benefits that social media has to offer in our technology-heavy 21st century?
http://www.thetechedvocate.org/5-best-social-media-practices-higher-education/
Share on Facebookby Futurism
Google Brain and data science platform Kaggle have announced an “AI Fight Club” to train machine learning systems on how to combat malicious AI. As computer systems become smarter, cyberattacks also become tougher to defend against, and this contest could help illuminate unforeseen vulnerabilities. This AI fight club will feature three adversarial challenges. The first (non-targeted adversarial attack) involves getting algorithms to confuse a machine learning system so it won’t work properly. Another battle (targeted adversarial attack) requires training one AI to force another to classify data incorrectly. The third challenge (defense against adversarial attacks) focuses on beefing up a smart system’s defenses.
https://futurism.com/googles-ai-fight-club-will-train-systems-to-defend-against-future-cyberattacks/
Share on Facebookby Amy Burroughs, EdTech Magazine
The future of higher education will likely be crafted by both incremental changes and a drastic rethinking of the institutional model, according to the predictions of Jeff Selingo, Washington Post columnist and author of three books, most recently, There Is Life After College. “We have to think of new models to serve lifelong learners,” said Selingo, who delivered the keynote address on Wednesday at the Campus Tech conference in Chicago. The challenge? Educators may not be prepared for the extent of change that’s ahead.
Share on Facebookby Pat Donachie, Education Dive
A research project from Arizona State University’s EdPlus Action Lab is seeking to consider whether schools are overpaying for the online learning they offer, and whether the sustainability of online courses in higher ed could be better assured if those courses were scaled, according to Campus Technology. Though the research report is not yet finalized, principle researcher Lou Pugliese shared some initial findings, including a drastic change in the definition of who learns online to include a far more diverse student population than the conventional four-year undergraduate student earning a degree. Pugliese stressed that it is important for colleges and universities is to consider moving from a decentralized to a centralized approach for digital learning operating models, noting there is more quality control and a greater opportunity for strong professional development, which will help to cut costs over time.
http://www.educationdive.com/news/are-schools-overpaying-for-online-learning/447521/
Share on FacebookBy Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed
I’m trying to make sense of the relationship between two trends. Maybe you can help. The first trend is retail store closings. The second trend is classroom utilization. The question I have is if the first trend tells us anything about the second? According to a recent report, The Higher Education Scheduling Index put out by Ad Astra Information Systems, higher ed classrooms are significantly underutilized. Do we expect that classroom demand, and utilization, will increase in the next decade? Are the same forces that are driving the closure of retail stores also important in understanding why physical classrooms are so underutilized? Or are these separate and distinct trends, without any shared underlying causes?
Share on FacebookBY MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News
From two-way collaboration to growing data demands, online learning promises even more tech innovation for the upcoming term. When talking about online learning, every passing year brings new advancements in technology and pedagogy—often with successful student learning results. As online learning as a whole is expected to increase in the foreseeable future, it’s critical for faculty and higher ed stakeholders to ponder new usability and functionality within this trendy mode of learning. In recent research conducted by ProProfs, a professional LMS provider, the company identified the top 9 online learning predictions for the rest of the year. Their infographic helps guide online learning enthusiasts and teachers through the eLearning trends and predictions that their research reveals will play a key role in learning for the upcoming term; with the aim of helping learning and development specialists get a clearer picture of the global eLearning landscape, and in turn help them make necessary changes in their existing strategies.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/featured/featured-on-ecampus-news/online-learning-predictions/
Share on FacebookBy Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
It’s time to get serious about growing online education programs if your institution wants them to be sustainable. This Arizona State University research project is examining the costs and benefits of scaling digital learning in order to share replicable return-on-investment mechanics and tools for any school willing to take on the challenge. What differentiates the lab from other initiatives of its ilk is an emphasis on seeking outcomes that can be put to work. “I got into this research business when I came to ASU about a year-and-a-half ago,” explained Pugliese. “What I found is that most of the research that’s out there — no matter what — is not really actionable. There wasn’t a takeaway from much of the research. That’s why I changed the dimension of the Action Lab to make it useful and implementable.”
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/07/19/finding-the-roi-of-online-programs.aspx
Share on Facebookby Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
Digital credentials provider Credly has become the first platform to receive official certification from the IMS Global Learning Consortium for compliance with the Open Badges Standard. Originally developed by the Mozilla Foundation, the Open Badges specification is designed to “ensure a plug-and-play ecosystem for digital credentials earned across different environments,” according to a press release. Management of the standard was taken over by IMS Global this past January. The current version of the standard, Open Badges Standard 1.1, focuses on interoperability and portability. In the works now is version 2.0, which will incorporate “new endorsement functionality, enhanced data support for evidence and greater access to digital badges across multiple languages, locations, platforms and industries.”
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/07/14/credly-receives-open-badges-certification.aspx
Share on Facebookby Rebecca Sentance, Click Z
Ann Rockley, CEO of The Rockley Group and founder of the Intelligent Content conference, defines intelligent content as content that is “structurally rich and semantically aware, and is therefore automatically discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable and adaptable.” Intelligent content is part practice, and part mindset. The practice of creating intelligent content involves taking the content out of the context of its presentation layer (such as a website) and breaking it down into fragments. These fragments (which are also sometimes referred to as atoms, chunks or modules) are then structured with semantic metadata, to enable easy assembly, formatting and delivery.
Share on FacebookBy Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
The number of colleges and universities eligible to award federal financial aid dropped by 5.6 percent in 2016-17. The vast majority of disappearing institutions were for-profit colleges, but more than 30 private nonprofits were among them. New federal data suggest the increasing financial pressures may be starting to take a toll on institutions. An annual report from the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics shows that the number of colleges and universities eligible to award federal financial aid to their students fell by 5.6 percent from 2015-16 to 2016-17. That’s the fourth straight decline since a peak of 7,416 institutions in 2012-13. It is also by far the largest (the others were 0.3, 1.2 and 2.0 percent, in order).
Share on Facebookby Business Insider, Futurism
Because while Apple and Google may dominate the smartphone market today, technologies like augmented reality present whole-new platforms where there’s no clear winner. So Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook, having missed out on owning a mobile platform, are doing their damndest to hasten the end of the smartphone — and the end of Apple and Google’s duopoly, while they’re at it.
Share on FacebookBy David Raths, Campus Technology
Martin Dougiamas, the founder and CEO of the open source learning platform Moodle, does not mince words about the conflict he sees between open and proprietary developments in educational technology and in society at large. “There is a bit of a war going on around the planet right now,” Dougiamas said in his opening comments to a recent Future Trends Forum video chat hosted by futurist Bryan Alexander. “We find ourselves at the vanguard of people who believe in openness, who believe in social good and social justice. On the other side of the fence, as you have in your country right now, there is a corporate takeover of the government. There is an increasing effect of very large, wealthy organizations focused on profits and increasing the inequality gap and focused on commercializing public services.” Speaking from his home in Perth, Australia, Dougiamas said he has started to refocus Moodle’s activities to do a more effective job of spreading openness — particularly in education.
Share on Facebookby Arun Rajamani, Economic Times CIO
Learning has becoming operationally mission critical for individuals and companies. Learning is driving talent transformation, business agility and ROI for the business. Chief Learning Officers are finding seats in executive decision making more than before and are collaborating actively with the C-suite to find ways to effectively operationalize business strategies. For individual, skill development will be a key career catalyst helping them find jobs in the new tech-led services market. Indian enterprises will shift more of their learning investments to online platforms. With digital-led services being the next growth lever for the Indian IT industry, online platforms will be used to re-skill employee base on digital technologies via talent transformation initiatives. Individuals who are already used to consuming content in a multi-channel environment (desktop, laptop, tv, mobile) will welcome digital-enabled learning platforms
Share on FacebookBy MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News
Recent data shows just how much college students, and their experiences, have changed in just a few short years. Gen Z, the digital generation, non-traditional students, and potentially many more descriptions have been used to label the current postsecondary body of students, but what may not be so evident is exactly how much their preferences, lifestyles and experiences have radically changed from even a decade ago. And it’s these large changes that are critical for colleges and universities not just to take notice of now, but also to anticipate what students and their needs may look like in 2027.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/campus-administration/college-students-different/
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