By Carl Straumsheim. A decade is an eternity in the ed-tech world. A draft of a report on academic freedom and electronic communications, updated for the first time since 2004, shows the American Association of University Professors is moving to extend its protection of faculty rights to keep up with advances in technology. The report, currently in draft form, contains thoughts on topics ranging from social media to cloud computing and cybersecurity, recommending a strong model of shared governance to ensure that faculty members are informed about and involved in solving technology issues. Read more...
08 décembre 2013
Whole New World
Confirming the MOOC Myth
By Carl Straumsheim. The story so far: Massive open online courses have yet to live up to their potential. But unlocking that potential could already be a pilot at a community college, state university or private institution. More than 200 scholars from institutions all over the world have gathered here at a conference hosted by the University of Texas at Arlington to hear preliminary results from the MOOC Research Initiative, a grant program founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and administered by Athabasca University in Canada. Grantees, who received between $10,000 and $25,000 to examine how MOOCs can be used to change higher education, will compile their findings in a forthcoming edition of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Read more...
Noam Chomsky: Modern universities designed to ‘deprive you of your freedom’
By Scott Kaufman. The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) released an interview with Noam Chomsky recently in which the noted linguist discussed, among other things, how high student tuition indoctrinates students into corporate culture.
“There’s no economic basis for high tuitions,” Chomsky said. “One of the very negative aspects of this sharp tuition rise is that it entraps students. It deprives them of their freedom.”
Chomsky explained that “if you’re going to come out of college with $50,000 of debt, you’re stuck. You couldn’t do the things you wanted to do, like maybe you wanted to become a public interest lawyer, helping poor people. You can’t do it — you have to go to a corporate law firm, pay off your debt. Then you get trapped in that.” More...
Students want equal education for all
By Xu Lin. China's higher education is getting more accessible for the disabled, but students say more facilities for the mobility challenged are needed. Zhang Haoyu, 25, a postgraduate student from a university in North China, suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic and inherited disorder characterized by fragile bones. He underwent five surgeries when he was a middle school student, and now he can walk with crunches, and often uses a mobility scooter. More...
Foreign-student programs lose humanitarian roots
By Douglas Todd. Profit motive: Experts call for educational reform and a rethinking of the drive to attract more foreign students that is motivated by money not altruism. It’s time for promoters of international student programs to stop acting as if they are “white knights.”
That’s the view of Hanneke Teekens, one of many scholars studying the so-called “internationalization of higher education” who are growing worried about the ethical pitfalls that have opened up with the meteoric rise in the number of foreign students in the Western world. Read more...
Signs of revolt mount as French universities reject secular charter
By Ingrid Peritz. Quebec’s largest university is panning the province’s secular charter as a useless measure, adding to signs of a growing revolt against the Parti Québécois’s controversial bill.
The French-language University of Montreal is challenging the very basis of the government’s argument for its legislation. When the minister responsible for the charter, Bernard Drainville, introduced it in September, he said it was meant to address a “crisis” over religious accommodations that had festered for years and created tensions in Quebec. More...
Top university reveals admissions graft: official report
By Angela Meng. A degree from a top university is a passport to success in the mainland so it is no surprise corruption has been uncovered in the admissions department. Officials are being paid up to 1 million yuan for admissions to a top university in Beijing, the offical Xinhua new agency reported on Monday. The report came in the wake of a corruption case last week involving Beijing-based Renmin University. Cai Rongsheng, a senior Renmin University admissions official was detained in Shenzhen while trying to flee the country. Hu Juan, an executive dean at the school has been sacked and was also under investigation. More...
Accounting for global university alliances
By Andrew Gunn. Global collaboration through networks, alliances and consortia is a growing feature of the higher education landscape. Some of these alliances are bilateral arrangements such as the Warwick-Monash partnership. This alliance, for example, was designed to establish both as ‘globally networked universities’. More...MOOCs as neocolonialism – Who controls knowledge?
By Philip G Altbach. Massive open online courses – MOOCs – are the latest effort to harness information technology for higher education. The concept takes advantage of the significant advancements in technology that permit much more interactive pedagogy as well as more sophisticated delivery of content. More...Gaokao reform and international higher education
By Shuangmiao Han. China’s obsession with English is quite a unique phenomenon. According to the Ministry of Education, the total number of students studying overseas in 2012 was about four million. China is not only the country with the largest numbers of students studying abroad, but one of the few non-English-speaking countries that make English a compulsory subject throughout secondary school and a requisite for higher education. More...
