By . It’s tough to be in government these days: prolonged slow growth means it’s difficult to keep increasing spending at a rate at which citizens have become accustomed. Instead, with rising costs and little appetite to raise taxes or fees, governing often seems to be one long exercise in nickel-and-diming. Higher education – in most of Canada at least – has felt some of this, but in truth has been insulated more than most other parts of the public service. More...
19 février 2017
Manitoba’s Golden Opportunity
Loving It
By . Back in the summer you may have heard a bit of a brouhaha about a deal signed between Colleges Ontario and McDonald’s, allowing McDonald’s management trainees to receive advanced standing in business programs at Ontario colleges. More...
Hiring Decisions
By . One of the more thoughtful replies I received to my piece on CAUT’s politicization of university accounting pointed out that one of the reasons people didn’t trust university accounting was because they made seemingly incomprehensible decisions with respect to hiring. How was it, my reader asked, that there was plenty of money to hire sessionals but never money to hire full-time, permanent faculty? Isn’t that money fungible? Why spend on one and not the other. More...
Truth and Reconciliation
By . Last week, the University of Toronto’s Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee released its final report, which sets out the institution’s response to the TRC’s Calls to Action. This seems like a good time to update my previous coverage on this. More...
Understanding Learning Science and Its Value to Educators
By Michael Feldstein. In a world where we are constantly barraged with product claims about “learning science,” most educators have very little sense of what that really means and how it is relevant to what they do. More...
Scaling Educational Access
By Michael Feldstein. There’s an interesting piece in EdSurge about the potential access to education challenge that CUNY will face if Governor Cuomo makes good on his proposal to make college tuition free. More...
Vert Capital and Scriba Corp: Institutions losing course data in company’s death throes
By Phil Hill. After last year’s disastrous outage at UC Davis due to Scriba Corp’s change of data center for the Sakai LMS (branded as SmartSite at UC Davis), it turns out that there is more damage to be done as the company slowly disappears. More...
Ellucian Stops Support for Brainstorm, its CBE platform
By Phil Hill. In a surprise move, Ellucian has decided to end support for Brainstorm, the competency-based education (CBE) platform it acquired from Helix Education two years ago. All Brainstorm customers are being notified of the end-of-life and aggressive measures are being used to help these customers quickly migrate to alternative platforms. More...
Improved NAU Student Success in Subsequent Courses After Math Emporium
By Phil Hill. Last week I published three e-Literate TV episodes on Northern Arizona University and their suite of initiatives aimed at helping first-year (and often first-generation) students. More...
New national adult learner coalition created to advance student success
Four major associations recently joined together as a cohesive voice to advocate for adult students and the institutions that serve them. With support from Lumina Foundation, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), President’s Forum, and University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) are pleased to announce the National Adult Learner Coalition. More...
