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By David Youngberg. When I decided to become a professor, I was comforted by its employment projections. Professors hired to teach the baby boomers are retiring: It'll be a seller's market. Now I'm told Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOC's, threaten that rosy future. One person can teach the whole world with a cheap Webcam and an Internet connection. Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford University research professor and co-founder of the MOOC provider Udacity, told Wired that in 50 years there will be only 10 institutions in the whole world that deliver higher education.
I was scared. So in early 2012 I joined 90,000 other students who enrolled in one or both of Udacity's first two courses. I selected CS101: Building a Search Engine. What with video lectures, online discussion boards, and learning from the field's top minds, it was easy to believe that online education was the beginning of the end for the ivory tower. But I came to realize that MOOC's have five fundamental problems.
1. It's too easy to cheat. While Udacity encouraged students to help one another on the discussion boards, we weren't allowed to post answers. The honor code worked, but only because we couldn't get college credit. The incentive to cheat was very weak.
Make the class count for credit, or serve as the first step to a good job, and phantom forums and answer keys will follow. Despite our best efforts, the proliferation of cheating is higher education's dirty little secret. Take away the classroom and you've made a bad situation much worse.
2. Star students can't shine. It became immediately clear to me that even if I excelled at this course, no one would know who I was. Networking, either with my fellow students or with the professors, was virtually impossible.
In traditional academe, I know my best students well enough to write recommendations describing their personalities and accomplishments in detail. Online anonymity results in references that mean virtually nothing. The best Udacity can offer is to pass on résumés of top students to interested employers. If just 1 percent of students in Udacity's two courses were exceptional, that's 900 recommendations to write. And none of them would be worth reading.
Related Content: Don't Confuse Technology with Teaching.
3. Employers avoid weird people. Firms hire workers to help execute their plans. They are generally not after radical thinkers who want to turn a company upside down with bizarre ideas. Those who have a problem with authority are to be avoided. To show they are good team players, interviewees are polite, agreeable, and wear the usual suit and tie. Getting an unconventional degree suggests you're probably one of the usurpers who are more trouble than they are worth. MOOC's are the nose rings of higher education.
4. Computers can't grade everything. MOOC's are feasible because a program grades all assignments. This works fine for answers that easily translate to machine language, but a machine can't grade an essay or a presentation. Papers are out of the question. But good communication is a valuable skill and one that's difficult to master. Fortunately there is a glut of Ph.D.'s in the liberal arts who can pick up the teaching in this area.
5. Money can substitute for ability. Higher education leads to a better salary because a college degree is a signal. Yes, you gain practical skills in college, but a degree is largely about showing potential employers that you're smart and hard working. Grades function the same way. Get an A in philosophy and people will find you impressive even if what you learned isn't practical. But the signal only works if most people didn't get an A. Signaling is relative.
If college is cheap, students have a strong incentive to spend those savings on anything that can give them an edge over their fellow students. Students will hire tutors to help them on homework, and they will buy dishwashers to free up their day. To prevent too many people from acing the class, the class will have to get harder. The arms race will intensify—each student spending to get an edge over the other—until online education is no cheaper than traditional education.
It's happened before. A college education used to be a rare thing. It was so rare that having one guaranteed you a job. But as incomes rose, more and more people started going to college. A bachelor's degree isn't exceptional anymore; it's expected.
If only one or two of these issues existed, the days of higher education as we know it would be numbered. Udacity is already looking at test centers to combat cheating, in the event that its courses are ever offered for credit. Students could get recommendations from organizations outside of an online university. MOOC graduates might become common enough to overcome their seditious signal. It's theoretically possible to build a robot to grade papers. An arms race between students isn't inevitable if building practical skills is emphasized more than getting good grades. But together these complications prevent online education from inevitably usurping us. A professor is simply more economical.
All this assumes that the classroom won't stay conventional. There's a lot to learn from online education, and if the academy doesn't adapt, this new medium will flourish despite its challenges. Professors must harness the advantages MOOC's use so well: online resources, regular practice questions, and a forum for students (perhaps from multiple institutions to capture some of those economies of scale). And we'll have to cut costs in uncomfortable places (no sabbaticals, less tenure, smaller salaries).
If we don't learn from the MOOC's, we will disappear. But we have a better chance to adapt than the Sebastian Thruns of the world would have us believe.
David Youngberg is an assistant professor of economics at Bethany College.

France and its overseas possessions are divided into 35 educational districts, or Académies, each of which is responsible for all levels of education.
Country Overview
France remains a leader in world affairs even though it lost its status as a dominant state after World War II. While it has retained a number of territories, its colonial past is evident chiefly on its streets, in the form of ethnic diversity. France, which has long pushed for economic integration in Europe, now proposes to strengthen the military capabilities of the European Union. The government is also in the midst of reducing its influence over the domestic economy through privatization. The French cultural legacy is apparent throughout the world, from writers, thinkers, and painters to cuisine. France is the most visited country in the world.
Climate
Three types of climate may be found within France: oceanic, continental, and Mediterranean. The oceanic climate, prevailing in the western parts of the country, is one of small temperature range, ample rainfall, cool summers, and cool but seldom very cold winters. The continental (transition) type of climate, found over much of eastern and central France, adjoining its long common boundary with west-central Europe, is characterized by warmer summers and colder winters than areas farther west; rainfall is ample, and winters tend to be snowy, especially in the higher areas. The Mediterranean climate, widespread throughout the south of France (except in the mountainous southwest), is one of cool winters, hot summers, and limited rainfall. The mean temperature is about 11°  C  (53°  F  ) at Paris and 15°  C  (59°  F  ) at Nice. In central and southern France, annual rainfall is light to moderate, ranging from about 68 cm (27 in) at Paris to 100 cm (39 in) at Bordeaux. Rainfall is heavy in Brittany, the northern coastal areas, and the mountainous areas, where it reaches more than 112 cm (44 in).
Annual rainfall
Monthly average rainfall: Jan 54 mm (2 inches); April 38 mm (1.4 inches); July 55 mm (2 inches); October 49 mm (1.9 inches).
GDP
$2,133,000,000,000 (2008 est.)
Population
64,057,792
Overview of Higher Education
France and its overseas possessions are divided into 35 educational districts, or Académies, each of which is responsible for all levels of education. Spread throughout the districts are 91 universities, a classification that includes institutes of technology. Since 2002 the government has gradually put into effect the terms of the Bologna Process, even as universities have become more autonomous. The standard undergraduate degree is the three-year Licence (equivalent to a bachelor’s degree). Students may pursue a master’s degree on either a research track or a professional track. Both require two years of study. A research master’s is required for doctoral studies, which typically last three more years.
In 2007 some 265,000 students were pursuing higher education in France and its possessions. (Sources: BBC, The Europa World of Learning)
Number of Colleges, Universities, Technical Institutes
Number of Colleges, Universities, and Technical Institutes (total): 603
Number of Higher Education Students
Number of students enrolled: 1,979,445.
Number of international students enrolled: 246,369.

Par Isabelle Ficek. Trois universités françaises demeurent dans le Top 100 du classement de Shanghai 2012. Léger recul, 20 établissements contre 21 l'an dernier sont classés parmi les 500 premiers mondiaux. Le palmarès chinois reste largement dominé par les établissements anglo-saxons.
Très attendu, très décrié mais aussi très redouté. Comme chaque 15 août (à minuit heure de Shanghai), l'édition 2012 du classement de Shanghai des universités mondiales vient d'être dévoilé par la Shanghai Jiao Tong University, conceptrice de ce désormais célèbre palmarès. Comme de coutume, les universités américaines dominent le haut du classement, raflant 17 des vingt premières places et 53 du Top 100. Un score identique à l'édition précédente. De même, l'ordre du haut du panier reste inchangé par rapport à l'an dernier avec la suprématie confirmée de l'université américaine de Harvard au 1er rang, suivie de celle de Stanford qui conserve la deuxième place ravie l'an dernier à Berkeley. Cette dernière demeure pour sa part au quatrième rang, derrière le Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Le Royaume-Uni tire aussi son épingle du jeu, qui garde la deuxième place de ce classement avec 9 établissements (contre 10 l'an dernier) dans le Top 100, et deux dans le Top 10 avec Cambridge (5ème) et Oxford (10ème). L'Australie, qui comme Israël a réalisé une percée dans le Top 100, y occupe désormais la troisième place avec 5 établissements. Quatre pays sont ensuite ex-aequo avec quatre établissements classés dans le Top 100: l'Allemagne, le Japon, le Canada et la Suisse. L'Allemagne, qui comptait 6 universités dans le Top 100 l'an dernier voit cette année trois d'entre elles passer dans le Top 200 (de la 101ème à la 200ème place, avec les universités de Bonn, Francfort et Goettingen). En revanche, l'université de Fribourg se hisse dans le Top 100 et l'Allemagne décroche la quatrième place du Top 500 de ce classement, juste derrière le Royaume-Uni, avec 37 établissements classés (quand les Etats-Unis en ont 150). Changement notable, la Chine, si elle ne voit aucune de ses universités entrer dans le Top 100, ravit néanmoins au Royaume-Uni la deuxième place mondiale du classement avec 42 universités dans les 500 premières.
Voir Le classement des universités mondiales de la Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

American institutions are once again dominating one of the most closely watched international university rankings, the academic ranking of the world’s top 500 universities, published on Tuesday by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in China. Harvard remains in the top spot, followed by Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley. As was the case last year, all but two of the top 10 institutions are in the United States, with the Universities of Cambridge and of Oxford occupying the fifth and 10th spots, respectively.
Israel and Australia have both increased the number of universities they have in the top 100, with three for Israel and five for Australia, the third highest after the United States and Britain. Five Chinese universities have moved into the top 500 for the first time, in a demonstration of the rapid development of university systems in emerging economies that was also reflected in a recent tabulation of the world’s best young universities.

By Tom Bartlett. A new science of religion says God has gotten a bad rap. When a moth flies at night, it uses the moon and the stars to steer a straight path. Those light sources are fixed and distant, so the rays always strike the moth's multilensed eyes at the same angle, making them reliable for nocturnal navigation. But introduce something else bright—a candle, say, or a campfire—and there will be trouble. The light radiates outward, confusing the moth and causing it to spiral ever closer to the blaze until the insect meets a fiery end.
For years Richard Dawkins has used the self-immolation of moths to explain religion. The example can be found in his 2006 best seller, The God Delusion, and it's been repeated in speeches and debates, interviews and blog posts. Moths didn't evolve to commit suicide; that's an unfortunate byproduct of other adaptations. In much the same way, the thinking goes, human beings embrace religion for unrelated cognitive reasons. We evolved to search for patterns in nature, so perhaps that's why we imagine patterns in religious texts. Instead of being guided by the light, we fly into the flames.
The implication—that religion is basically malevolent, that it "poisons everything," in the words of the late Christopher Hitchens—is a standard assertion of the New Atheists. Their argument isn't just that there probably is no God, or that intelligent design is laughable bunk, or that the Bible is far from inerrant. It's that religion is obviously bad for human beings, condemning them to ignorance, subservience, and endless conflict, and we would be better off without it.
But would we?
Before you can know for sure, you have to figure out what religion does for us in the first place. That's exactly what a loosely affiliated group of scholars in fields including biology, anthropology, and psychology are working on. They're applying evolutionary theory to the study of religion in order to discover whether or not it strengthens societies, makes them more successful, more cooperative, kinder. The scholars, many of them atheists themselves, generally look askance at the rise of New Atheism, calling its proponents ignorant, fundamentalist, and worst of all, unscientific. Dawkins and company have been no more charitable in return.
While the field is still young and fairly small—those involved haven't settled on a name yet, though "evolutionary religious studies" gets thrown around—its findings could reshape a very old debate. Maybe we should stop asking whether God exists and start asking whether it's useful to believe that he does. More...

By Karin Fischer, Washington.
The U.S. Department of Education wants to ensure that more American students have the skills to compete in a global workplace, and not just build up "deep, deep expertise" among a smaller group of graduates in foreign languages or cultures, the agency's top official for international education says.
In a recent interview with The Chronicle, Maureen McLaughlin, the department's director of international affairs, said it was trying to be more deliberate and intentional in its. More...