By Steven G. Kellman. From a prison cell in Nigeria in 1995, the novelist and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa wrote to PEN USA: "I’ve often envied those writers in the Western world who can peacefully practice their craft and earn a living thereby." Shortly after sending off his letter, Saro-Wiwa was hanged by the military régime of General Sani Abacha. For many writers throughout the world, marshaling words on a page still imperils their lives. The Freedom to Write Committee of PEN International monitors more than 500 cases of persecuted writers each year. They include: Nobel Peace Prize-winner Liu Xiaobo, who is serving 11 years in a Chinese prison; Nguyen Xuan Nghia, a Vietnamese poet, novelist, and essayist who is serving six years for dissident writing; and Mohammed al-Ajami, who is serving 15 years in Qatar for composing two poems critical of the emir. It is not so for American authors, though a peculiar paradox is at play. Philip Roth, returning from a trip to Communist-controlled Prague, expressed it in his observation: "There, nothing goes and everything matters; here everything goes and nothing matters." Suppression is the compliment a dictatorship pays to the moral authority of its authors. More...

By Jonah Newman and Soo Oh. Before Harvard and MIT released data last month on their first 16 edX MOOCs, we already knew a few things: Millions of people register for massive open online courses, though far fewer receive certificates of completion. Most MOOC participants already have a college degree, even those outside the United States. But there was a lot we didn’t know, especially about who took different types of MOOCs and how much of the course content they viewed. This information may be valuable to those looking to design and lead successful MOOCs. Here’s what we’ve learned from this first data release covering more than half a million students. More...

By Alejandro Crawford. In his inaugural address last September, Dartmouth College President Philip J. Hanlon emphasized that “we must fully harness the power of experiential learning – learning by doing.” Such learning, which challenges students to test their ideas in practice and refine them in light of experience, is a major emphasis at leading institutions of higher education today. As rates of economic disruption have accelerated, the ability to derive solutions for which there is no existing formula has become a survival skill for many careers. In the face of this, top global programs have intensified their emphasis on experiential education as a bet on future rankings and leadership. More...

By Ian Barker. Cloud usage is changing more and more areas of our lives. You might expect the education sector to be at the forefront of this and a new infographic released by digital marketing specialists Pulp-PR shows how it's being affected. More...