Par Christine Vaufrey. Travaillant pour différents organismes, j’ai l’occasion de créer des parcours de formation avec des plateformes variées. De plus, je suis de près le développement de Claroline Connect et il me tarde de tester cette nouvelle mouture qui nous promet de regrouper en un seul espace le meilleur de Spiral et le meilleur de Claroline, avec une interface radicalement revue.
Il existe des quantités de plateforme d’e-learning, comme le montre le répertoire des plateformes de formation récemment mis à jour par Denys Lamontagne, directeur de Thot Cursus. Même si l’on s’en tient aux plateformes open source, le choix est encore vaste. Sans repères particuliers, il est alors tentant de se tourner vers les plateformes les plus connues, en partant du principe, pas nécessairement faux, que si tant de gens utilisent telle ou telle plateforme, c’est qu’elle doit donner satisfaction.

Les Y, ce sont aujourd'hui aussi bien des jeunes encore en formation que d’autres déjà dans la vie active et même parents, pour les plus âgés. Certains sont déjà bien installés dans la vie quand d’autres vivent dans la plus grande précarité. Beaucoup sont partis travailler à l’étranger. Une génération segmentée en fonction de classes sociales, de nationalités, de sexe ou d’âge. Tous différents ? Non, parce ce qui les rapproche, c’est une culture commune, qu’on retrouve partout dans le monde et dont le point commun essentiel est l’addiction à l’Internet. « Dans les démocraties, chaque génération est un peuple nouveau », disait Alexis de Tocqueville.
Génération why
Les Y savent aussi qu’ils vivront vieux, au-delà de 80 ans, et commencent parfois à penser à leur retraite dès le premier emploi. S’ils se marient ou vivent en couple, ils ont toujours en tête que leur engagement n’est pas forcément définitif – leurs parents leur ont souvent montré la voie. S’ils ont un emploi, ils sont conscients qu’ils peuvent le perdre à tout moment. Ils sont très conscients de la précarité de leur vie et travaillent pour essayer d’y échapper. Une précarité difficile à vivre, quand on a été désiré et choyé par sa famille. Suite de l'article...

By Rosanna Tamburri. New CCA report confirms Canada underperforms on most measures of business R&D, but it found pockets of success.
An expert panel report examining business investment in research and development acknowledged that a “disconnect” exists between Canada’s strong publicly funded research and development activities at postsecondary institutions and the country’s comparatively weak investment in industrial R&D. But it cautioned against redistributing resources from the former to the latter.
The report was prepared at the request of Industry Canada by a panel of 14 experts assembled by the Council of Canadian Academies, a non-profit group, and released Aug. 28.
The report, The State of Industrial R&D in Canada, noted that compared to other industrialized nations, Canada performs similar amounts of publicly funded research and development but significantly less business R&D. In 2010, Canada ranked seventh among OECD countries when it came to R&D spending in higher education and twice the rate of the U.S. But in terms of business R&D, it ranked 20th, with half the rate of investment as countries such as Finland and Sweden.
“It is not that Canada performs more R&D in the public sector than comparator jurisdictions but that Canada performs less R&D in the business sector,” it said. This implies that Canada needs public policies to encourage investment in business R&D but not a redistribution of resources away from publicly funded research activities. More...

The cost of higher education has surged more than 500 percent since 1985, illustrating why there have been renewed calls for change from both political parties.
The CHART OF THE DAY shows that tuition expenses have increased 538 percent in the 28-year period, compared with a 286 percent jump in medical costs and a 121 percent gain in the consumer price index. The ballooning charges have generated swelling demand for educational loans while threatening to make college unaffordable for domestic and international students. More...

By Dustin McMahon. A recent study in the Wall Street Journal revealed a high percentage of college graduates felt their college degree was unsuccessful in “training” them for their chosen career. The theme of the article was one of pessimism toward those who are in college. It seemed to be saying that degrees are becoming undesirable in the job market because of the lack of industry-specific training. 
The article’s tone did not sit well with me. I may be in the minority, but I have never entertained the idea that my college degree would be nothing more than a job-training seminar. Furthermore, those who would entertain that idea may be missing the entire purpose of a four-year university degree. More...

By Tom Katsouleas, Dean of Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. President Obama announced last week an initiative to lower the cost of college for the middle class.  He is on the right topic.  Higher education, America’s flagship of international leadership, is a proud vessel in need of attention.  I just hope he won’t replace the rudder without patching the leaks.
The cost of higher education as measured by private and public tuition has indeed risen at rates higher than inflation, roughly 4% per year for non-profit private tuition.  And Obama is rightly focused on the middle class — incomes for upper income brackets have risen faster than the rate of tuition, so that for those groups the cost of tuition as a fraction of household income has actually come down. More...

By Eric Reich. On Thursday President Obama outlined a rating system for higher education that included sharing consumer data with students and parents, encouraging colleges and universities to drive down the cost of attendance through innovation and linking future federal financial aid to an institution’s performance. The president’s proposal is a necessary step, but for true reform to be realized, many more steps are needed, including increased clarity on the ratings themselves and greater stakeholder participation. Students and parents would benefit from transparency in the cost of education, number of low-income students each institution enrolls, graduation rates and average student debt loads. More...