Online Learning Update

By Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed

Bills targeting for-profit institutions in California would prohibit tuition-sharing deals — a sign of growing political scrutiny of the role of online program management companies.  For example, a proposed bill would explicitly prohibit any private for-profit or nonprofit postsecondary education provider that is registered with California’s Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) from entering into tuition-sharing arrangements with OPMs or other academic service providers. State law requires that all private institutions with a physical presence in the state must apply for approval to operate with the bureau, unless they meet specific criteria for an exemption, such as accreditation from a regional accreditor, said Matt Woodcheke, a spokesman for the bureau.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/05/09/calif-lawmakers-consider-legislation-aimed-profits-and-online

Knowledge@Wharton

A lot of expectations are riding on 5G, for good reason. The technology offers “potentially gigabyte speeds over wireless, fast enough that for the first time wireless could be a competitive alternative for wired systems — like cable- and phone-based and fiber-based systems — for basic broadband access,” said Kevin Werbach, a Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics who used to work for the FCC, on the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on SiriusXM. 5G also could usher in new innovations to supercharge the “internet of things” and mobile broadband applications, among others. “It is very important for the U.S. to adopt this technology early.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-push-for-5g/

Andrew Kreighbaum, Inside Higher Ed

Career and technical education, which was once known as vocational training, has shed some of that stigma thanks in part to growth of new fields in communications, health care and engineering. CTE programs also have created clearer connections between skills training and continued postsecondary education. And supporters have pointed to both improving test scores and graduation rates among CTE students in high schools. But a report from the American Enterprise Institute released today finds that those signs of progress can mask continuing struggles of students who are enrolled in more traditional career and technical education courses. That’s because overall academic gains for CTE programs may reflect higher enrollment of more academically prepared, college-bound students rather than improving quality of courses themselves.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/01/emerging-career-education-tracks-may-mask-struggles-students-traditional-programs

KHARI JOHNSON, Venture Beat

In the months ahead, the WEF plans to ramp up initiatives to boost implementation of AI ethics. Firth-Butterfield believes tech giants and businesses should be creating advisory boards to help guide the ethical use of AI. The establishment of such boards at the likes of Microsoft, Facebook, and Google in recent years made the notion a quasi-established norm in the tech industry, but the dissolution of two AI ethics boards at Google in recent weeks has called into question the effectiveness of advisory boards when they have no teeth or power.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/29/world-economic-forums-ai-head-on-how-to-protect-human-rights-without-stifling-innovation/

Deloitte
There is good news for blockchain enthusiasts: Progress is being made in addressing these obstacles. Deloitte has identified five key vectors of progress that could drive wider adoption of blockchain. Three of these vectors—increase in transaction speeds, standards and interoperability, and ease of implementation—enhance technical feasibility. The other two—regulatory advancements and expansion of consortia—help broaden the technology’s applicability to a greater number of use cases and industries.

https://apnews.com/sponsored/?prx_t=wYAEAVYYzAniAPA

Blake Droesch, eMarketer
Fewer people in the US are accessing social networking sites via computers, with the majority of users now exclusively on mobile devices. We forecast that 51.7% of US social network users will be mobile-only in 2019. As smartphone use grows, fewer Americans are using desktops and laptops to access the internet. The number of US smartphone users will reach 232.8 million in 2019, surpassing desktop/laptop internet users (228.9 million) for the first time. And the number of those who access the internet exclusively on a mobile device will grow by 10.6%, reaching 55.1 million users.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/more-than-half-of-social-network-users-will-be-mobile-only-in-2019?ecid=NL1001

Society for Consumer Psychology, Science Today

Although brands often target a certain gender, age group or social group with advertisements, personality-matching ads could potentially allow marketers to tailor their products to a wider group of people. A consumer who might not consider shopping online at one store may discover that there are in fact items that would be appealing. “It’s essentially bringing the benefits of talking to a salesperson to the online world,” says Matz. “Online marketers typically focus on a large audience, but now we could predict someone’s psychological traits to give them an individualized experience.” [ed note: consider implications for learning/education]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190426142042.htm

Alejandro Caballero, University World News

Higher education institutions must not let the ground shift from under them but rather move with it – and break new ground. By embracing such partnerships, universities can stay relevant to alumni while tapping into the academic resources of other well-established institutions and innovative EdTech companies. They can create regional and global networks, just like the airline industry has done.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190422111457721

Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report

As the number of undergraduates steadily declines in seeming direct proportion to rising costs, debt and the many other obstacles faced by college students, graduate enrollment is quietly on the upswing. It’s being driven by the better job prospects and higher salaries people think it will bring them — and by a conscious strategy among universities like this one to add graduate programs that produce much-needed revenue. While undergraduates get much of the attention, students who pursued graduate and professional degrees now account for 40 percent of the notorious $1.5 trillion worth of outstanding national student loan debt, the College Board reports; each owes three times more, on average, than an undergraduate, according to the Urban Institute.

https://hechingerreport.org/universities-increasingly-turn-to-graduate-programs-to-balance-their-books/

By Benjamin Cheatham, Kia Javanmardian, and Hamid Samandari, McKinsey Quarterly

With great power comes great responsibility. Organizations can mitigate the risks of applying artificial intelligence and advanced analytics by embracing three principles.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be a double-edged sword. While this can be said of most new technologies, both sides of the AI blade are far sharper, and neither is well understood.  Consider first the positive. These technologies are starting to improve our lives in myriad ways. Yet even as AI generates consumer benefits and business value, it is also giving rise to a host of unwanted, and sometimes serious, consequences.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/Confronting-the-risks-of-artificial-intelligence

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

The world is drowning in data. We are creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. That is 2.5 followed by 18 zeros!  A university executive resolution, for example, is the culmination of many discussions in meetings, countless emails and many revisions before the final decision. The eventual resolution is one data point, but it’s accompanied by so much unstructured data. Through cognitive computing’s ability to discover patterns, meaning can be derived from unstructured data. These patterns are invaluable for insights and decision-making, but they are not obvious. They can only be revealed by cognitive computing through machine learning algorithms.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/taming-big-data-in-education-with-cognitive-computing/

Jennifer Lewington, MacLeans

Web-enhanced teaching, as illustrated by the Queen’s psychology class, is growing in popularity as a tool to enrich the undergraduate learning experience and create new degree options for working professionals. But some experts say higher education institutions need to quicken the pace of digital innovation. “There is momentum, but not fast enough for the needs of either the workforce or society in general,” warns Tony Bates, a distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University and a widely recognized authority on technology-enhanced education.

https://www.macleans.ca/education/why-are-canadian-universities-so-slow-to-adopt-digital-learning/

By Mark Lieberman, Inside Higher Ed

In addition to serving students in different locations, online courses are also conducive to teachers who want to work remotely. But doing it effectively can be challenging — if it’s even allowed. Online courses are often discussed in terms of opening opportunities for students in disparate locations.  Some remote instructors said they sometimes struggled to cultivate the sort of engagement with students that can be achieved in closer proximity, whether students and instructors are in a classroom together or interacting primarily online. Some administrators, meanwhile, aren’t yet convinced that instructors can teach as effectively from afar. While teaching remotely has become more commonplace in recent years, instructors and administrators interviewed for this article said it’s still not the norm on many campuses.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/04/24/online-teachers-can-work-anywhere-its-not-always-easy

Ben Unglesbee, Education Dive

Dream Center Education Holdings was the third major for-profit college system to close since December, coming on the heels of Education Corporation of America (ECA) and Vatterott Educational Centers. Taken together, the shutdowns signal that the for-profit sector’s reputational and financial troubles aren’t over, even after a period of consolidation and relative quiet following the collapses of ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges during the Obama administration. The recent spate of abrupt closures presents an alarming trend in for-profit higher ed’s consolidation.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/sudden-death-can-the-most-damaging-kind-of-for-profit-closure-be-prevented/553299/

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women is offering graduates of 10,000 Women on Coursera the opportunity to take part in a prestigious Fellowship program to further encourage business growth. The Fellowship will take place in New York City in Fall 2019. What the chosen attendees will receive:
Tailored coaching and training: participants will receive two days of expert coaching and training in New York City
Access to experts: participants will discuss their business and their growth plans in one-on-one sessions with business leaders
Networking with peers: the intensive in-person program will allow participants to engage directly with, and learn from, other 10,000 Women alumni from across the world
Travel: Travel to/from New York City and accommodations

https://www.goldmansachs.com/citizenship/10000women/coursera/index.html

Anant Agarwal, Forbes

Modular learning will allow workers to learn new skills and knowledge in smaller chunks, without having to leave their jobs. Modular learning will allow workers to learn new skills and knowledge in smaller chunks, without having to leave their jobs. In today’s digital economy, rapid technological change is transforming the workplace, and it has become apparent that we can no longer stop our education after college if we are to stay relevant. We will need to be continually learning, refreshing and updating our skillset as we progress through our careers. This drastic change in the nature of work also means that the way in which we learn needs to similarly transform.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anantagarwal/2019/04/25/how-modular-education-is-revolutionizing-the-way-we-learn-and-work/#71a9bd103a26

Ben Unglesbee, Education Dive
In the coming years, advanced technologies like mixed reality, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and virtual assistants could play a bigger role at colleges and universities, according to a new report from Educause, a nonprofit focused on IT’s role in higher ed. The 2019 Horizon Report, based on a panel of higher ed experts, zeroes in on trends, challenges and developments in educational technology. Challenges range from the “solvable,” such as improving digital fluency and increasing demand for digital learning experiences, to the “wicked.” The latter includes rethinking teaching and advancing digital equity. The panel contemplated blockchain’s use in higher ed for the first time in the 2019 report.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-blockchain-virtual-assistants-and-ai-are-changing-higher-ed/553434/

Susan Adams, Forbes
Coursera, one of the companies featured on Forbes’ 2018 list of Next Billion-Dollar Startups, is worth well over $1 billion, says its CEO, Jeff Maggioncalda. The seven-year-old online education provider, based in Mountain View, California, announced this morning that it had raised an additional $103 million in funding. “This gives us the resources to more aggressively push on our mission of greater access to quality education and greater opportunity for people who are being left behind in this economy,” he says. Since our feature story on Coursera last October, the number of registered learners on the site has climbed from 36 million to 40 million.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2019/04/25/online-education-provider-coursera-is-now-worth-more-than-1-billion/#230557be30e1

By Larry Dignan, ZD Net

IBM said its commercial quantum computing program, called IBM Q Network, is expanding to more universities in North America, including Notre Dame, Florida State, and Virginia Tech. The company’s IBM Q Network is designed to develop curricula for students and forge research partnerships with academia. The additions of the aforementioned universities as well as Stony Brook University and the University of Tokyo will round out a list that already includes Duke, Harvard, and the University of Waterloo.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-expands-universities-in-its-quantum-computing-research-network/

By Roselyn Miller, New America

The gig economy, in the most general sense, refers to temporary, independent, or contracted positions. The scope of jobs included in that definition changes depending on how contracts legally classify workers, where workers find work, and the nature of the job itself in relationship to the hiring organization’s main purpose. The Gig Economy Data Hub documents many different sources for information and research on gig work, and each major survey defines gig work slightly differently, leading to very different results. But, gig workers do share one unifying characteristic: they represent a workplace trend that distances employers from employees, placing more responsibilities, especially for career education and training, on individuals rather than corporations.

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/train-gig-workers-start-knowing-who-they-are/

By David Raths, Campus Technology
Universities share how they are making strides with the use of adaptive courseware in the humanities. Most of the publicized examples of adaptive learning focus on its use in improving student outcomes in STEM courses, but some universities are seeing promising examples in the humanities as well. For example, the University of Mississippi Department of Writing and Rhetoric is using adaptive learning to help first-year writing students grasp rhetorical concepts.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/04/24/new-frontiers-of-adaptive-learning.aspx