Online Learning Update

Konstantinos Komaitis and Justin Sherman – Brookings

During her speech before the World Economic Forum’s virtual meeting in Davos in January, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited the United States to join Europe in writing a new set of rules for the internet: “Together, we could create a digital economy rulebook that is valid worldwide. It goes from data protection and privacy to the security of critical infrastructure. A body of rules based on our values: human rights and pluralism, inclusion, and protection of privacy.” This invitation to collaboration comes at a time of remarkable diversity in how states are approaching internet governance. Beijing is advancing new internet standards to replace the global, open, interoperable ones.

https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/us-and-eu-tech-strategy-arent-as-aligned-as-you-think/

Natalie Schwartz, HigherEd Dive

A withering state audit published Tuesday recommended Calbright College close if the tuition-free online school can’t improve a slew of problems by the end of next year. The auditor found that Calbright, which offers nondegree programs, has inadequate support services, lacks a process for helping students land “well-paying” jobs and has made little progress setting up the fledgling college. Support from California’s governor narrowly saved Calbright from the chopping block last year, but some influential lawmakers and faculty groups have opposed the college from its inception.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/auditor-recommends-closing-calbright-if-it-doesnt-meet-new-benchmarks/600083/

Jaclyn Greenberg, Wired

Do you want happier, productive, more engaged, and more fulfilled employees and coworkers? Well, you should campaign to let them work remotely. For many people, working a 9 to 5 job in an office works best for them. And those options should remain available to those who prefer the routine. But for me, a quieter work environment, better control over my calendar, no commute, and easy access to care for my children’s needs would have given me a greater chance at managing my obligations at home while still advancing my career. After a year where many of us worked from home to find that productivity has improved, businesses should continue to offer remote work arrangements to best support their employees.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-case-for-letting-people-work-from-home-forever/

Christian Schneider, EDUCAUSE Review

The shift to online education during the pandemic has demonstrated that if we question some of our assumptions, we can create new rituals and approaches that will continue to evolve and persist long beyond the pandemic. In some important ways, online interactions can be better than in-person ones. We can overcome categorization and biases of appearance and concentrate on the humanity in one another. We can enhance the intensity of human interaction, diversity, and quality of collaboration and quality of work.

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/4/reimagining-online-culture-project-based-learning-inclusion-and-reach-in-online-education

Elliot Howells, EDUCAUSE Review

More data is generated now than at any other point in history. According to one estimate, in 2020 every person in the world created 1.7MB of data every second.Footnote1 In addition, in early 2019 an astounding 90 percent of the world’s data had been created in just the previous two years.Footnote2 With all of this data available today, higher education institutions are facing an inflection point. A 2018 study noted that only 31 percent of institutions systematically collect, integrate, and use data from their student information systems.Footnote4 This can be for various reasons, such as siloed data systems, data that is too difficult for stakeholders to access, or a lack of a data-driven culture across the institution. Yet no matter the challenge, higher education institutions have an opportunity to start looking to other industries to learn how to better support and serve their student population through the intelligent use of data.

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/4/using-data-to-better-support-students

Chris Burt, University Business

Along with nonprofit SRI Education, ATD has chosen eight colleges that will serve as participants in another research endeavor that will try to improve the OER experience. The organizations say they “will be looking for evidence of innovative teaching practices, such as open pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching practices.” ATD and SRI will be focused on outcomes from the spring and summer 2021 semesters and expect to release those results in the early part of 2022. Those data and recommendations will serve as a foundation for a “set of tools and resources to help faculty effectively integrate new teaching practices with their openly licensed materials.” The eight colleges taking part include four that were in the previous study.

https://universitybusiness.com/new-study-at-8-colleges-will-look-at-boosting-oer-use/

Adam McCann, WalletHub

Post-college debts represent one of the biggest financial burdens to Americans. In fact, student loans make up the second highest form of household debt after mortgages, totaling a record $1.7 trillion. But how burdensome are the individual loans? The average student-loan balance in 2020 was nearly $39,000. High balances combined with a payoff timeline that lasts into middle age force many graduates to significantly delay or forego other financial goals such as saving for retirement or buying a home. Paying back student loans has also become even more difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic, though the government has allowed temporary forbearance on federal student loans.

https://wallethub.com/edu/cities-with-the-most-least-student-debt/91069

Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed

Faculty unions at Point Park University and City College of San Francisco have found different means to the same end: preserving full-time faculty jobs threatened during COVID-19. Point Park University cut 17 full-time faculty jobs earlier this year, but an independent arbitrator just said it can’t do that. City College of San Francisco’s faculty, meanwhile, has been working with its administration to find a way to avoid more than 100 faculty layoffs. For professors, neither the arbitration at Point Park nor the faculty pay cuts on the table at CCSF are ideal. But they represent two avenues for preserving jobs that are at risk, due in part to the pandemic.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/05/11/unions-point-park-and-city-college-san-francisco-fight-ways-save-faculty-jobs

Natalie Schwartz, HigherEd Dive
Engageli, a digital learning platform for higher education institutions built as an alternative to Zoom, announced Tuesday that it raked in $33 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total amount raised to $47 million. The company will use the money in part to build new features for the platform and hire more engineers. An Engageli official declined to say how many colleges currently use it. Engageli was born out of the desire to improve online instruction during the pandemic, and it launched during a record year for ed tech fundraising.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/zoom-alternative-engageli-raises-33m-to-grow-its-digital-learning-platform/599901/

Ashley A. Smith, EdSource

California’s Calbright College, the state’s online community college, stands on the edge of a precipice. As it has many times since it was established two years ago, the state’s only exclusively online college is once again fending off pressures from the Legislature to shut it down. On one side, college leaders say they plan to spend the next couple of years expanding enrollment and building new programs. On the other, some state lawmakers have made it clear that they are eager to close down the college, which they view as too expensive and inefficient.

https://edsource.org/2021/calbright-college-once-again-faces-opposition-that-seeks-to-shut-it-down/653708

Emily Bamforth, EdScoop

The solution to student engagement in online learning isn’t picking the right way to deliver courses, but allowing students the flexibility to take the course the way they want to, researchers said during an online event this week. As higher education was forced to switch to online learning last March because of the coronavirus pandemic, educators gained an opportunity to experiment with new teaching techniques and see the results in real time. One major challenge higher education faced was fostering a sense of community while students learned remotely, said participants of the Wednesday symposium, which was co-hosted by learning centers at Duke University, University of Michigan, Stanford, Penn State and Princeton.

https://edscoop.com/flexibility-universities-hybrid-learning-researchers/

Simon Fraser University

New research from Simon Fraser University suggests that students learning remotely become night owls but do not sleep more despite the time saved commuting, working or attending social events. The study, led by psychology professor Ralph Mistlberger, Andrea Smit and Myriam Juda, at SFU’s Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Lab, compared self-reported data on sleep habits from 80 students enrolled in a 2020 summer session course at SFU with data collected from 450 students enrolled in the same course during previous summer semesters. The study results were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.

https://www.newswise.com/articles/online-learning-doesn-t-improve-student-sleep-habits-research-suggests

\Emma Sabzalieva, Bosen Lily Liu and Takudzwa Mutize, University World News

The pandemic-induced costs of studying abroad are not only financial and psycho-social but technological. Globally, the digital divide has shown that where access to the internet is very high (for instance, in North America where the internet penetration rate is 90% and Europe where it is 87%), students find it easier to switch from face-to-face to virtual classes than those in regions that are much less connected (such as in Africa, where the internet penetration rate is 43%).

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210504145617353

Natasha Singer and Aaron Krolik, NY Times

He is one of 17 medical students whom Dartmouth recently accused of cheating on remote tests while in-person exams were shut down because of the coronavirus. The allegations have prompted an on-campus protest, letters of concern to school administrators from more than two dozen faculty members and complaints of unfair treatment from the student government, turning the pastoral Ivy League campus into a national battleground over escalating school surveillance during the pandemic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/09/technology/dartmouth-geisel-medical-cheating.html

Timothy King, Solutions Review

Data science is one of the fastest-growing fields in America. Organizations are employing data scientists at a rapid rate to help them analyze increasingly large and complex data volumes. The proliferation of big data and the need to make sense of it all has created a vortex where all of these things exist together. As a result, new techniques, technologies, and theories are continually being developed to run advanced analysis, and they all require development and programming to ensure a path forward. With this in mind, we’ve compiled this list of the best data science certifications from leading online professional education platforms and notable universities.

https://solutionsreview.com/business-intelligence/the-best-data-science-certifications-online/

Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

Now, we see another major drop in births during 2020, with births down 4 percent over the year, but notably accelerating to 8 percent by December as the impact of COVID took hold earlier in the year, reducing births nine months later. In sum, competition is rapidly growing; the pool of “traditional” students is evaporating; employers are dropping degree requirements; and, with student debt now surpassing $1.7 trillion, we all know that families are looking for more cost-effective paths to the knowledge and skills they seek. “The fundamental business model for delivering education is broken,” said Rick Beyer, a senior fellow and practice area lead for mergers and affiliations at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. “The consolidation era started a few years ago. It will continue. We will see more closures.” What, then, are the bright spots for postsecondary learning?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/second-demographic-cliff-adds-urgency-change

CSW, GWIPP & Workcred (as reported in Workforce Monitor)

This 19-page report addresses “how certifications can play a pivotal role in addressing re-employment, re-deployment, and re-education challenges that workers face in the current labor market . . .” It is a clearly written, succinct overview of the world of certifications.

https://wfmonitor.com/2021/04/16/understanding-certifications/

Modern Campus

In this report, Modern Campus identifies student engagement gaps educational providers are experiencing. Modern Campus surveyed 213 continuing education (CE) managers, academic executives and administrative executives in the U.S. (85%) and Canada (15%). The report offers recommendations on how to integrate alternative programming into course offerings, as well as technological outreach solutions designed to meet the engagement needs of students.

https://wfmonitor.com/2021/04/28/the-state-of-continuing-education-2021/

Darrell Evans, InnovationAus

The results of university student experience ratings including those recently released in Australia (Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching) have shown a large drop in the learning experience students have received over the last year in many institutions. Universities and some commentators have been quick to raise the global pandemic as the major contributing factor to this significant decrease. Although this is undoubtedly the case for a number of reasons, online learning seems to be under particular fire as a result and is in danger of becoming collateral damage. So has the shift to predominantly online provision over the last year really been the cause of such student unhappiness? We believe it is not the move to online that is the issue, but rather the speed and nature of the move.

https://www.innovationaus.com/universities-and-the-challenge-of-online-learning/

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

A large-scale study conducted at the University of Georgia discovered that students who received free course materials at the beginning of a class received much higher academic results than those who did not. The study drew a comparison between the final grades of students enrolled in eight major undergraduate courses between 2010 and 2016. Each course was taught by a professor who, at a point during the six-year study period, changed from using a commercial textbook that was valued at more than $100 to a digital, free textbook, otherwise known as an open educational resource (OER). When the results (before and after) were compared, it was concluded that changing to OER increased the quantity of A and A- results by 5.5% and 7.73%, respectively.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/the-impact-of-oer-at-the-university/

Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine, Brookings

The data confirm what many suspected and what we predicted back in June 2020 and further discussed in December 2020: nearly 40,000 “missing births” in the final month and a half of 2020, which would have otherwise been conceived in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 53.9 births per 1,000 women (at an annualized rate) in the last quarter of 2020, in October, November, and December. That is substantially lower than the 57.6 annualized births per 1,000 women in the last quarter of 2019. Birth rates have fallen steadily in the U.S. since 2007. Assuming births would have fallen between 2019 quarter 4 and 2020 quarter 4 at the same rate by which they fell between 2018 quarter 4 and 2019 quarter 4 (specifically, 2.3 percent), the observed drop between the final quarters of 2019 and 2020 incorporates a 4.3 percent “excess” decline.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/05/the-coming-covid-19-baby-bust-is-here/