Fixing our biggest skills gap: New report calls on universities to reverse the collapse in technical education
Do demographics determine destiny? They can in learning analytics…
- identify disparity in academic achievement
- support targeted provision of inclusive and positive action for those less privileged and
- track demographic changes in student populations, aiding institutional planning. More...
D2L Fusion 2018: Product improvements and potential signs of addressing challenges
By Phil Hill and O'Neal Spicer. This year’s D2L Fusion conference in Houston carved out a space somewhere between the carnival atmosphere of InstructureCon in Keystone and the subdued feel of BbWorld in Orlando. More...
Response to MoodleNews: Some considerations for critical reading of market sizing claims
By Phil Hill. There is an interesting post at MoodleNews titled "Open Source LMS Alive And Well: Moodle Breaks World Higher Ed Records, Tops North America, Grows Everywhere" looking at some of our recent LMS market data, focusing primarily on what the data reveal about open source systems such as Moodle, Sakai, Claroline, and Chamilo. More...
Schoology, NEO, Claroline, Chamilo: The beginning of the LMS long tail
By Phil Hill. We have described how the global LMS market is converging in the sense that the Big Four - Moodle, Blackboard, Instructure, and D2L - end up being the primary competitors in more and more global regions, often with similar dynamics. We have also described Sakai and its decline in some detail. But what about the next level down? Let's consider four LMS solutions that are still quite active but with fewer institutional users than Sakai - Schoology (whom we have described before), NEO, Claroline, and Chamilo. More...
Welcome Change: OpenStax using more accurate data on student textbook expenditures
By Phil Hill. Last week OpenStax, the Rice University-based publisher of open educational resource (OER) materials, announced that according to their data more than 2.2 million students at 48% of colleges in the US and 1,150 outside the US are using OpenStax free textbooks, saving an estimated $177 million. More...
Instructure Enters those Awkward Teenage Years
By Michael Feldstein. I've written about how Instructure has, by our count, tied and (very) slightly surpassed Blackboard in US market share. Blackboard didn't love that story. You know who else didn't love it. More...
A New University, Born in the Chaos of War
Having beat formidable odds, a university that was started by the Kurdish-led local administration in the northeastern region of Syria will begin its third academic year this fall. More...
New Beginning for a Yemeni Scholar in Norway
After two years of waiting and expectation, Eqbal Dauqan, a Yemeni biochemist who has won international honors, has received a new opportunity to work and continue her research at the University of Agder in Norway. More...