By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Amazing Starling Flocks Are Flying Avalanches
Brandon Keim, Wired, May 23, 2014
I'm giving a talk on MOOC research on Friday, and while I've previously documented my thoughts on research methods (or the lack of same) the question nonetheless occurred to me, "how do you research chaotic systems like MOOCs?" Analytics aren't really useful, as numbers and quantities are essentially meaningless. Then I wondered, how do scientists research murmurations? These are flocks of songbirds that act as one fluid whole, like a network. More...
24 mai 2014
Amazing Starling Flocks Are Flying Avalanches
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Launch of the Open Policy Network
Open Policy Network, May 23, 2014.
The Open Policy Network has now officially launched. Here's their version of open: "we’re announcing our first project, the Institute for Open Leadership. More...
Launch of the Open Policy Network
Open Policy Network, May 23, 2014
The Open Policy Network has now officially launched. Here's their version of open: "we’re announcing our first project, the Institute for Open Leadership
Workshop on Mass Collaboration - Day One
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Workshop on Mass Collaboration - Day One
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, May 23, 2014
These are notes I took from Day One of a workshop on mass collaboration. It has been an interesting set of talks thus far; I present tomorrow, and there are some more talks Friday. More...
Ubiquitous Learning Project Using Life - logging Technology in Japan
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ubiquitous Learning Project Using Life - logging Technology in Japan
Noriko Uosaki, Bin Hou, Mengmeng Li, Hiroaki Ogata, Kosuke Mouri, Songran Liu, Educational Technology & Society, May 23, 2014
You may not think that life-logging and online learning are linked, but if you think of online learning as a ubiquitous services that learns from your every move, you can see how tightly the two may be linked. This paper presents a system called SCROLL (System for Capturing and Reusing of Learning Log). More...
DOE Doubles Down on State Authorization: 25x increase in regulatory language
By Phil Hill. Now that the Kabuki Theatre of the Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking process has finished its penultimate act, can we all act surprised that the likely result includes the proposed State Authorization regulations growing by a factor of 25 with no comments allowed by one of the groups most affected?The gist of State Authorization is to force distance education and correspondence programs to comply not only with their home state regulations but to also comply with regulations for any state of residence for students. Read more...
Writing (In Public) Across the Curriculum
By Cathy Davidson. Whenever I talk about the kinds of changes that will make the modern university more responsivel to the age we live in now and less rooted in the standardization, regulation, enforcement, and assessment model prized by the Taylorist Industrial Age, people think I want to throw out the baby, the bathwater, and everything else. Actually, in many situations, we have lots to build on and lots that is an easy win---even before we examining that bathwater and its baby. More...
Big Data, Big Issues: Thoughts on How to Make Data Analysis More Meaningful
By Cathy Davidson. Here are my preliminary welcome remarks that set some of the big themes of our livestreamed HASTAC Workshop on May 28, "Can Analysis of Big (and Sometimes Messy) Data Facilitate Collaboration? Methods, Models, Tools, Best Practices, and Next Steps in Open, Multi-Institutional, Interdisciplinary Mentoring and Collaboration Online and Onsite."
For more information: http://www.hastac.org/events/eager-conference-may-28-2014. More...
Focusing on Customer Service: Higher Education and the “Degree Mill” Debate
By Becky Takeda-Tinker - EvoLLLution. 1. Why is the customer service mentality important for today’s higher education leaders?
We see customer service as key … for student engagement, retention and completion leading to graduation. Regarding engagement, we see today that higher education enrolment is down across the nation. We know from the Gallup poll from the summer of 2013 that 50 percent of Americans did not believe college was worth the investment [according to USAToday]. … With the slower [enrollment] growth and increased skepticism regarding the value of higher education, we really believe institutions need to do more to attract and retain students. On the flip side, we’re seeing an increase in non-degree education and, so, we also see that with increased customer service, you can meet the needs of potential customers that can provide institutions with new students they may not otherwise be able to attain. More...
Context and the Federal Ratings System
By Gloria Nemerowicz - EvoLLLution. 1. What are the most significant concerns you have about the proposed federal college ratings system?
It’s still a mystery what the instrument is actually going to look like. Most significantly, everyone is worried about the harm such metrics might have if it’s not well done, especially the chilling effect it could have both on colleges and universities and on students. For colleges and universities, if there’s a way of serving fewer low-income, first generation, communities of color and generally what are called “non-traditional students” … to chill admitting folks who have some significant needs in terms of their learning, that would be unfortunate. More...
Employer Perspectives and the Future of MOOCs
By Laura Horn - EvoLLLution. We know from recent surveys of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) users that MOOCs attract a highly educated population. Statistics from Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania, among others, reveal that at least three-quarters of students who sign up for MOOCs hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. As MOOCs evolve, however, the role they can play in preparing more marginal students for the workforce and advancing the skills of those in low-paying jobs holds great promise. Diverse populations — including students in American community colleges or the United Kingdom’s further education sector, or youth in developing countries with limited access to postsecondary education — stand to benefit from occupational training that’s free and open. More...
