By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The wonderful Terry Anderson of Athabasca University in Canada has gathered international partners for the first international 3 minute online thesis contest. And I am quite excited to be one of the PhD student teams (the team of the Open University of the UK).
All contestants and their thesis topics are listed here, so feel free to have a look. For those interested, the contest can be followed by the public and you can even vote for the people's choice of best speaker. More...
Great book for #academic vocabulary learning the jargon #phd
By Inge Ignatia de Waard. My PhD journey is well on its way and nearing the end of year one (started in February 2013). One of my reoccurring challenges is using distinct academic vocabulary that gives stamina and rigor to my reports and papers. In all honesty as a Dutch speaking person I learned English by looking at Children BBC, documentaries and ... American action movies. Not surprisingly my PhD notes sometimes reflect these linguistic prior experiences. I write phrases like "I reshuffled my data until it triggered my curiosity and opened my eyes with a blast! In order to get the right answers, more action is necessary.", where my supervisors relentlessly tell me I could (read should) be using more scientifically accepted jargon. So giving it try here and transforming the above sentence into: "While closely examining the data, new evidence emerged. However, additional research is necessary in order to examine these findings before a conclusion can be reached." ... well not sure if this is getting at the ultimate academic phrasing, but it simply sounds more like what one would expect in an academic paper (or so I am told, it would be nice to write a paper using action hero lingo though). More...
Twice as many institutions as previously reported have no online courses
By Phil Hill. Recently I pointed out that the widely-quoted Babson survey on online learning estimates 7.1 million US higher ed students taking at least one online course while the new IPEDS data indicates the number as 5.5 million. After looking deeper at the data, it appears that the difference in institutions (whether or not an institution offers any online courses) is even greater than the difference in students. This institutional profile is important, as the Babson report (p. 13) noted that institutions offering no online courses had very different answers than others, a theme that ran through much of the report. More...
New IPEDS Data: A graphical view of online ed by state and by sector
By Phil Hill. Reader Mike Himmelstein has rightly pointed out that our analysis of the new IPEDS data would benefit from using visualization tools instead of just tables. This comment led me to a multi-day investigation of which data visualization tool would best integrate into a WordPress blog while maintaining interactive data exploration. I tried MicroStrategy (great tool but cannot share without login), IBM Many Eyes (good public tool but limited in formatting), and several variations of Google Charts (not as rich in features as MicroStrategy, but close, and supports public sharing). In the end I’ve ended up using the Visualizer plugin to display Google Charts. All data below is for degree-granting institutions. More...
Gen Ed and Competency-Based Education
By Michael Feldstein. Inside Higher Ed has a write-up today on an effort by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) to develop a competency-based framework for general education called General Education Maps and Markers (GEMs), funded by a multi-million-dollar Gates Foundation grant. I am honored to report that I have been invited to participate on one of the GEMs committees. More...
Penn State MOOC strives for sustainability
By Katie Jacobs. Latest MOOC, led by Richard Alley, will focus on the science of alternative energy sources. Whether people admit it or not, the way the world uses energy is unsustainable: Energy demand keeps going up as fossil fuel reserves go down, and science is racing to find an answer. Penn State’s latest MOOC — Energy, the Environment and Our Future — is exploring some of the proposed solutions by delving into the science behind energy alternatives such as solar and wind power. Instructing the course, which began Jan. 6 and will run through March 3, is Richard Alley, a Penn State researcher and professor well known for his research on ice cores and what they can tell us about how climate has changed in the past. The MOOC will expand on material covered in a PBS series Alley hosted in 2011 called "Earth: The Operators’ Manual." Seth Blumsack, an associate professor of energy policy at Penn State, will also be contributing to instructing the course. More...
Is it Possible to Go from MOOC to Community? Some Guidelines in the Making
By Cathy Davidson. At 10 am EST on Monday January 27, some 14,000 participants will become part of our "meta MOOC" on "The History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education." One of their first participatory assignments will be to edit the DRAFT document below. The students in ISIS 640 started with the peer-generated document designed for classroom engagement in a peer-to-peer physical setting that is in Twenty-First-Century Literacies and, collectively, using a Google Doc, edited it to this stage for a massive virtual community. More...
Baden-Württemberg will Promotionsrecht für FHs öffnen
Das Promotionsrecht ist ein Vorrecht der Universitäten - noch. Denn ein Bundesland nach dem anderen will auch Fachhochschulen das Doktormachen erlauben. Baden-Württemberg hat dazu jetzt eine "Experimentierklausel" angekündigt. Doch es gibt Widerstand.
Erst preschte Schleswig-Holstein mit einem Vorschlag zum Promotionsrecht vor, jetzt folgen Baden-Württemberg und Hessen. Im nördlichsten Bundesland hatte die für Wissenschaft zuständige Ministerin Waltraud Wende (parteilos) erst vor wenigen Wochen angekündigt, dass künftig auch Fachhochschulen den Doktortitel verleihen dürfen sollen. Bislang ist das ein Privileg der Universitäten, eines, das sie energisch verteidigen. Mehr...
Putzunternehmer soll unsauber gearbeitet haben
Als Fensterputzer hat er angefangen, mittlerweile lenkt er eine Firma mit 15.000 Angestellten: Putzpatriarch Karlheinz Götz wollte aber auch einen Doktortitel - und reichte eine wohl sehr magere Arbeit in Spanien ein. "Schamlos", urteilen Experten laut einem Zeitungsbericht.
Auf diese Arbeit hat die Wissenschafts-Community eher nicht gewartet - und wer sie dennoch gelesen hat, urteilt ziemlich harsch über das Werk mit dem Titel "Die Entwicklung des Schulwesens in der Oberpfalz und in der Freien Reichsstadt Regensburg bis 1810 sowie Salzburg bis 1816", erschienen im Jahr 2005, als Doktorarbeit eingereicht in Oviedo, Spanien. Mehr...
Studienabbrecher sollen Handwerker werden
Jedes Jahr brechen Tausende Deutsche ihr Studium ab - Bildungsministerin Wanka will sich jetzt um sie kümmern: In Pilotprojekten sollen die gescheiterten Akademiker Handwerksberufe lernen.
Abiturienten steuern nach der Schule oft automatisch die Hochschule an. Doch für viele stellt sich diese Entscheidung bald als falsch heraus: Fast 30 Prozent der Bachelor-Studenten beenden derzeit ihren anfangs eingeschlagenen Studienweg nicht. Um diese Abbrecher will sich Bundesbildungsministerin Johanna Wanka (CDU) jetzt verstärkt kümmern: "Wir brauchen einen engeren Kontakt zwischen Studienabbrechern sowie den Kammern und Unternehmen, damit diese schnell zueinander finden", sagte Wanka der "Welt am Sonntag". Mehr...