By Joshua Kim. I’ve never really gotten my head around virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for higher ed.
With Amazon’s announcement that they will now be offering the ability to rent a virtualized desktop, accessible on any screen (from laptop to tablet), perhaps it is time to give this tech trend some more thought.
With WorkSpaces, Amazon will rent you a Windows 7 environment that runs on Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. Read more...
The Crazy Twitter Valuation
By Joshua Kim. As of this writing Twitter has a market capitalization of $24.46 billion dollars.
To put Twitter into some context, look at Hershey. (Founded in 1894, and on my mind during this Halloween season).
Hershey is valued at $21.66 billion. Last year Hershey took in $6.94 billion, and recognized $2.86 billion in profits. Read more...
When Not Saying 'No' Is Negligence
By Barbara Fister. Though in some realms of popular culture, librarians are depicted as scary gatekeepers who are all about rules and punishments, in reality we are so addicted to serving our communities that we find it difficult to ever say “no” out loud. We say it a lot, but very quietly or through the magic of entropy. Oh well, guess we won’t be buying very many books this year. We’ll cancel that oddball journal by a small society because only a few people need it. We won’t get that thing that isn’t part of a big subscription package, and when someone asks why, we’ll say the budget made us do it. But that’s not true. Read more...
Rethinking Sustainability
By Matt Reed. When I talk about grants with people who work at universities, it quickly becomes clear that what they mean, and what I mean, are entirely different.
In my world, grants are given to institutions to achieve certain goals, usually involving getting more students through to graduation. Although the funding sources and particular targets vary, most of them share a few features. Read more...
Ask the Administrator: How to Explain a Termination
By Matt Reed. A new correspondent writes
I am back on the job market after getting three years as a full-time English Instructor. At my most recent school, I was on the tenure-track, probationary status. I was informed at the end of my second year that my contract would not be renewed and when I inquired into the reason, I was just informed that I was not a good fit. Read more...
Briefly Noted
Obama Nominates Advocacy Group Official to Federal Higher Ed Post
President Obama on Thursday nominated Ericka M. Miller, vice president for operations and strategic leadership at the Education Trust, to be assistant secretary for postsecondary education. If Miller is confirmed by the Senate, she would largely complete the team of political leaders who will guide the Education Department's higher ed agenda in the president's second term. Read more...
EdX Spawns Arabic Language Platform
The massive open online course provider edX announced a new open-source platform on Friday: Edraak, an online education platform for Arabic-speaking students. The Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development, which promotes efforts to strengthen education in Jordan, will use Open edX, the MOOC provider's open-source platform, to feature select courses translated into Arabic. As the platform grows, faculty members in Arabic-speaking countries will contribute their own courses. The creation of Edraak follows expansion initiatives in France and China. Read more...
Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard
Harvard University recently announced an 11.3 percent return on its endowment, which was valued at $32.7 billion on June 30. That's the largest endowment in higher education. The university also recently announced a $6.5 billion fund-raising campaign -- the largest ever in higher education. But an interview released by the university Friday with its chief financial officer, Dan Shore, he focused on financial pressures on the university. He said that the university has a $34 million deficit. And while that's small in the context of the university's $4.2 billion budget, he said that "the path toward our ability to thrive in the future requires that we not wait until the deficit gets even bigger before we start to act, because then it will require us to be in a much more reactive position." He also noted uncertainty about federal support, on which Harvard relies for research. Read more...
Senators Introduce Bill to Fund Open Education Resources
A new bill introduced in the U.S. Senate seeks to tackle the rising cost of textbooks by giving states an incentive to experiment with open educational resources. The Affordable College Textbook Act, introduced by U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Al Franken, Democrats of Illinois and Minnesota, respectively, would create a grant program that would fund the creation of new textbooks -- as long as they are made available for free online. Read more...