Online Learning Update

Charlie Meyer, eCampus News

While most industries are becoming increasingly digitized, higher education remains noticeably resistant to digital transformation. Although higher education offers some options for virtual learning, the majority of programs still rely on in-person education.That is, until the pandemic created upheaval and transformed the entire experience. In a matter of days, higher education institutions had to adapt to online learning for students, virtual appointments for student services, and remote working for staff. Better investments are needed for all aspects of the online education experience, from classrooms and curriculum to student support. Hybrid learning environments are also pivotal for the future of higher education and its digital transformation.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/06/10/two-key-digital-transformation-trends-in-higher-ed/

Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

EDUCAUSE recently released its first Information Security Edition of the Horizon Report, profiling important trends, technologies and practices shaping the future of IT security and privacy in higher education. Of course, cybersecurity has been a key concern in higher ed IT for years, topping the EDUCAUSE top 10 IT issues list numerous times. But the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the risks in many ways. As EDUCAUSE President John O’Brien wrote in his introduction to the Horizon Report, “With the dramatic shift to remote work and remote learning in 2020, threats are at an all-time high.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2021/03/23/podcast-new-horizon-report-forecasts-security-and-privacy-trends-in-higher-ed.aspx

Chris Burt, University Business
Over the past year, prospective students seeking online education turned primarily to college websites and reviews from fellow students to find suitable programs. The Trends in Online Student Demographics Report, done of 1,300 of those students and 366 administrators, highlighted the effects of changing course delivery, the impacts of COVID-19, enrollment and campus trends, and concerns among learners. One big shift from 2019-20 to 2020-21 in the online experience was to more live instruction for those operating virtually. Nearly 90% of those polled (BestColleges.com did not include pandemic-driven remote learners in the study) said they had some sort of synchronous instruction, up 31% from 2019-20.

https://universitybusiness.com/online-learning-key-trends-shape-student-experience/

Richard Doughty, The Guardian

For Prof John Domingue, director of the Open University’s pioneering research and development lab, the Knowledge Media Institute (KMI), the “online genie” is out of the bottle and won’t go back in. So what can universities undertake to make online learning more than just a heavy focus on streaming and recording technology? Domingue points to artificial intelligence (AI) and the concept of an online library for educators based on a Google search engine dedicated to education, and a Netflix-style recommendation tool that tracks down content to suit a lecturer’s own field, based on previous searches.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/feb/16/the-future-of-online-learning-the-long-term-trends-accelerated-by-covid-19

Adam Stone, EdTech

“With the pandemic, technology came in through the front door. We all recognized that technology was critically important to keeping teaching, learning, research and administration going,” says Susan Grajek, vice president for partnerships, communities and research at EDUCAUSE. “That has brought technology up into leadership-level conversations.” So, where are those conversations heading? To better prepare for the post-pandemic future of higher education, here are eight trends that leaders and IT teams are watching this year.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2021/02/8-higher-education-it-trends-watch-2021

Education Dive

The last few years have been tumultuous for many U.S. colleges. Pressure to lower tuition, stagnating state funding and a shrinking pool of high school graduates has strained many institutions’ bottom lines and questioned their long-term viability. Those pressures have caused some to close. For many still in operation, the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact is adding a host of uncertainties to already tight operations. We’ve been tracking consolidation across higher education since the fall of 2018, looking back as far as 2016.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/how-many-colleges-and-universities-have-closed-since-2016/539379/

Jordan Friedman, Josh Moody, US News

In a world shaped by the coronavirus pandemic, online education shined bright in 2020. As campuses closed, colleges shifted their courses to remote delivery and finished out the semester online. Shifting programs online allows colleges to cast a broader net and not rely on local or regional students to boost their headcount, says Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois–Springfield. Phil Regier, university dean for educational initiatives and CEO of EdPlus at Arizona State University, adds: “Students should expect to see more STEM offerings in physical sciences and data science, focus areas in social justice, and study areas that focus on the ethics and rules surrounding media and data consumption.”

https://news.yahoo.com/discover-14-current-online-learning-130000087.html

Hallie Busta, Higher Ed Dive

We’re all hoping some degree of pre-pandemic life will return in 2021. But for higher education, many of the trends that dominated storylines in 2020 will continue into this year.   Enrollment changes, a return to campus, the future of admissions testing and more stories we’ll be following this year.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/5-higher-education-trends-to-watch-in-2021/592691/

Hallie Busta, Higher Ed Dive

We’re all hoping some degree of pre-pandemic life will return in 2021. But for higher education, many of the trends that dominated storylines in 2020 will continue into this year. We’ve rounded up a few below and will be following them throughout the year. Colleges collectively enrolled about 560,000 fewer undergraduates this fall, a 3.6% decrease from a year ago. The losses were much steeper at community colleges and among first-time students. While the pandemic hasn’t been found to have had a negative effect on overall high school graduation rates, low-income schools and those with high shares of Black and Hispanic students sent far fewer graduates to college this fall. The number of international students at U.S. colleges also tanked.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/5-higher-education-trends-to-watch-in-2021/592691/

Education Dive
Updated Sept. 11, 2020  The last few years have been tumultuous for many U.S. colleges. Pressure to lower tuition, stagnating state funding and a shrinking pool of high school graduates has strained many institutions’ bottom lines and questioned their long-term viability. Those pressures have caused some to close. For many still in operation, the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact is adding a host of uncertainties to already tight operations. In doing that, we also revised our list to omit certain consolidation activity among public institutions in which their footprints remained largely the same. Prior to this update, we removed for-profit colleges from our list; this was due to their differences in scale from private nonprofit and public institutions as well as the sometimes fragmented nature of their closings.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-many-colleges-and-universities-have-closed-since-2016/539379/

John O’Brien, EDUCAUSE

Amid the unsettling uncertainties, two important trends that started well before fall have accelerated and intensified in the shadow of the pandemic. We should work to ensure these trends continue long after the current crisis has calmed. Amid the unsettling uncertainties, two important trends that started well before fall have accelerated and intensified in the shadow of the pandemic. We should work to ensure these trends continue long after the current crisis has calmed. Digital transformation and wellness are two important trends that have accelerated and intensified in the pandemic milestone of 2020.

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/8/making-bets-for-fall-two-important-trends

Jeannette Sanchez, International Labour Organization

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an abrupt transition to distance education, training and e-learning. The crisis has resulted in massive shifts to online platforms and tools for the continued delivery of learning and skills development, which have shown both promising trends and troubling signs. Among those signs, the evidence that, while much is being made of digital learning making access more equitable, access to online platforms doesn’t always result in equal quality learning. Women, for example, are being disproportionately cut off from distance learning due to lack of childcare or home help during the pandemic.

https://iloblog.org/2020/05/12/the-shift-to-online-learning-and-skills-training-shows-promising-trends-and-troubling-signs/

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News
Students should pay attention to emerging and prominent tech trends if they’re looking for strong future career prospects. As technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence evolve, students can look to tech trends–some emerging, some well-established–to explore paths of study leading to high-paying STEM careers. A new report from GlobalData, a data and analytics company, details how virtual reality companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence and cloud technologies to develop stronger ecosystems. These developments have implications for higher education, from students up to campus leadership.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/02/13/leading-tech-trends-have-big-implications-for-grads/

By Hallie Busta, Education Dive
The election could be a key deadline for complex nonprofit conversions and change of control applications, and colleges are “at the wire,” one analyst said. The potential for the November elections to shift the balance of power in the legislative and executive branches makes this year important for operators of for-profit colleges. Already, 2020 has seen the continuation of the sector’s years-long shift into new business models, at least partly in response to stricter oversight from the Obama administration. One way is by selling their colleges or spinning them off as nonprofit entities and then moving on to function as an ed tech services provider — in some cases for their former institutions.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/3-trends-impacting-major-for-profit-college-operators-in-2020/571517/

Bernard Marr, Forbes

Artificial intelligence will continue to fill gaps in learning and teaching and help personalize and streamline education.  Extended reality, including virtual, augmented, and mixed realities, helps create different learning opportunities that can engage students even further. Education is increasingly becoming mobile, and educational institutions are figuring out ways to enhance the student experience by implementing mobile technology solutions. Of course, this technology requires a capable network to handle the traffic demands, and 5G technology will provide powerful new mobile data capabilities. Finally, blockchain technology offers educational institutions to store and secure student records.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/01/20/the-top-5-tech-trends-that-will-disrupt-education-in-2020the-edtech-innovations-everyone-should-watch/#59aa2b0c2c5b

Business World

In the modern workplace ‘new skills’ are the most in-demand currency. With jobs becoming specialized, rapid automation, digitization and other technologies disrupting traditional roles, effective talent management and upskilling of employees are a must. In 2019, Digital Learning played a key role in businesses training their employees with all the right tools and skill-sets to thrive in their respective industries. Over the course of analysis, reports, market study and conversations with industry leaders, we at Stratbeans realized, developed and implemented e-learning solutions that had a keen focus on developing employees who were ready for the future.

http://www.businessworld.in/article/Digital-Learning-Trends-That-Have-Changed-Way-Companies-Up-Skill-Employees-In-2019/11-01-2020-181734/

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Education Dive

College consolidation, partnerships with employers and the effects of deregulation are among the topics we’ll have our eye on this year. Higher education made a striking number of headlines in 2019, in part due to the Varsity Blues scandal that exposed the seedier aspects of college admissions and attracted nationwide attention for its celebrity perpetrators. But last year brought other changes and controversies to higher ed. Conversations about how to keep struggling small colleges alive have resulted in new state accountability legislation, the first of its kind.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/7-higher-education-trends-to-watch-in-2020/569629/

Meha Agarwal, INC42

The focus today is more on immersive experience-based learning & vocational and skill-based training. Digital innovation is disrupting and redefining India’s education landscape. Interactivity has taken centre stage and data and analytics are playing a key role. “Today, stuff you needed to know at a basic level is available for free on Khan Academy or similar platforms. This “Basics for free” is forcing a higher bar for truly quality education. In future, a platform that provides content, or does a modicum of personalisation will not be enough. A deep understanding of how best to teach and innovation in the way one learns will lead to better learning outcomes of the future, as tech and connectivity are becoming cheaper,” said Manan Khurma, CEO and founder, CueMath.

https://inc42.com/features/what-will-be-the-biggest-edtech-trends-in-2020/

Dhawal Shah, EdSurge

Other than these funding rounds, MOOCs had a mostly uneventful year. EdX got a new co-CEO while Udacity got a new CEO. As in previous years, Udacity chopped and changed a lot. Another late-trend that we noticed is annual catalog subscriptions. Early this year, FutureLearn announced FutureLearn Unlimited ($249/year), and Coursera is also currently testing out Coursera Plus ($399-$499/year). For a single price, learners can now get access to the majority of the providers’ catalogs, instead of paying for courses and microcredentials individually.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-12-18-online-degrees-slowdown-a-review-of-mooc-stats-and-trends-in-2019

James McBride, THE Journal

A 50-year veteran of psychometrics — the science of measuring mental abilities and processes — offers a brief history and insights into the future of testing. Adaptive testing has been around since at least the early part of the 20th century. The goal has always been to measure something — such as IQ, academic progress or personality traits — with the same precision as more traditional assessments but with fewer questions and less time, or with greater precision. Early efforts had their drawbacks, of course, but we’ve come a long way in the intervening century or so. There is still much progress to be made, but some promising research today will likely  change the way we assess students in the coming decade and beyond.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2019/12/11/what-will-the-2020s-hold-assessment-trends-past-and-future.aspx

Facility Executive

The survey found respondents have overwhelmingly shifted their belief that online education will materially impact the nature and number of higher education institutions in the U.S. In 2012, 33% believed online education will have an impact on higher education, that figure rose to 74% this year indicating that higher education professionals underestimated the extent online learning would transform education. This has led to administrators placing a higher priority on developing the classroom of the future and ensuring facilities can endure the growth of online learning.

https://facilityexecutive.com/2019/11/what-are-current-trends-in-higher-education-facilities/