Edito
L’Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (UNS) possède de nombreux atouts qui lui confèrent une position de choix au sein des grandes universités nationales et internationales. Télécharger le Guide de l'alternance.
Classée deuxième plus grande université pluridisciplinaire de France, elle travaille chaque jour, en synergie avec le monde de l'entreprise et de la recherche, à développer un éventail de formations exceptionnellement large. Ces formations se veulent tou-jours plus proches des besoins des entreprises et sont en perpétuelle mutation pour suivre l'évolution des métiers.
En prise directe avec son territoire, forcément à la rencontre des besoins exprimés par les entreprises, bénéfiques à plusieurs titres aux étudiants, les formations par alternance et leur développement sont une ambition majeure de l’Université Nice Sophia Antipolis.
Le présent guide de l’alternance, destiné aux professionnels du recrute-ment, donne un recensement exhaustif des possibilités offertes par l’Université Nice Sophia Antipolis.
Il témoigne de la richesse de cette offre qui fait de l’Université Nice So-phia Antipolis, avec plus de 700 alternants par an, le leader de la forma-tion par alternance pour l’enseignement supérieur sur son territoire.
Frédérique VIDAL, Présidente de l'Université, Nice Sophia Antipolis
Asure Formation - Une structure de l’Université au service de l’alternance
Avec l’alternance, nous sommes au coeur de ce que doit être idéa-lement une formation: le lieu où se rencontrent, se croisent et s’interpénètrent les savoirs théoriques et leurs applications con-crètes de terrain.
Ce type de formation a mis du temps pour s’imposer à l’Université mais aujourd’hui, grâce à ses spécificités, l’alternance apparaît comme une voie d’excellence pour l’accès au diplôme : les taux de réussite y sont parmi les meilleurs de l’Université, le pourcentage de décrocheurs y est quasiment inexistant et les taux d’insertion excellents.
Ces spécificités méritent d’être soulignées : l’organisation de la formation selon le rythme de l’alternance permet le va-et-vient entre théorie et pratique, la présence de tuteurs ou de « maîtres d’apprentissage » garantissant la cohérence de la formation. Les textes qui régissent les deux modes d’accès à l’alternance, l’apprentissage et le contrat de professionnalisation donnent d’ailleurs un statut particulier aux « apprenants » qui, bien qu’en formation, sont des « apprentis » pour les uns ou des « salariés » pour les autres; ce qui leur donne tous les droits et devoirs des salariés.
C’est de fait le service en charge de la Formation Continue, ASURE Formation (Accueil et Service de l’Université pour les Relations avec les Entreprises), qui assure l’inscription et le suivi des « salariés » en contrat de professionnalisation, tandis que les « apprentis » sont gérés par le CFA Epure Méditerranée (www.cfa-epure.com) dont le directeur d’ASURE fait partie du Conseil de Perfectionnement et représente le Président de l’Université au Conseil d’Administration.
Pour tout complément d’information, le service peut être contacté par mail: asure-formation@unice.fr, il est consultable sur le site: http://www.unice.fr/asure/.
Eliane Kotler, Professeur des Universités, Directrice d’ASURE-Formation, Pôle Universitaire Saint Jean d’Angély, 24, avenue des Diables Bleus, 06357 Nice cedex 04, 04 92 00 13 44. Télécharger le Guide de l'alternance.
Ce guide est à l’initiative de Jean-Christophe BOISSE. Directeur de publication: Jean-Christophe BOISSE. Rédacteur en chef: Jean-Baptiste NICOLAS. Maquette: Thierry GIBERT. Réalisation : Karima KAIDI, Thierry GIBERT, Laurent GIROUX. Télécharger le Guide de l'alternance. Télécharger le Guide des stages.

Evaluation du pilotage de la formation professionnelle par les conseils régionaux
Auteur(s): KRYNEN Bernard, LEOST Hervé, MOUSSEAU Monique, SOUBRIE David, Inspection générale des affaires sociales.
Editeur: Inspection générale des affaires sociales. Plus d’information sur le site de l’émetteur. Date de remise: Septembre 2012. Réf: 124000496, 97 pages. Télécharger.
Présentation
Inscrite au programme d'activité de l'IGAS, ce rapport porte principalement: sur le pilotage de la formation professionnelle (initiale et continue) dans les régions et sur le rôle du Conseil régional dans ce pilotage, en partenariat avec les services de l'Etat, Pôle emploi et les partenaires sociaux; sur la politique de formation professionnelle continue des Conseils régionaux en direction des demandeurs d'emploi et des salariés: montants financiers mobilisés, types de programme, modalités d'achats, suivi et évaluation, conséquences sur l'offre de formation... Télécharger.

Lundi 10 septembre, Geneviève Fioraso, ministre de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche accompagnait le Premier Ministre, Jean-Marc Ayrault, avec plusieurs membres du gouvernement à Aix-en-Provence, pour l'inauguration du site mémorial du Camp des Milles.
Le Camp des Milles est le seul grand camp français d'internement et de déportation encore intact et accessible au public. Il est l’un des très rares en Europe. De 1939 à 1942, il a connu un tragique engrenage de persécutions et plus de 10 000 personnes de 38 nationalités différentes y ont été internées ou déportées avant même l’occupation allemande de la zone dite "libre".
Cette inauguration était l’occasion de rappeler ce que fut l’histoire tragique de ce camp, d’honorer la mémoire des internés, des déportés, des "Justes" qui leur ont porté secours. Réunis autour du Premier Ministre, les membres du gouvernement ont également tenu à transmettre aux jeunes générations un message de confiance dans l’avenir. C’est l’objet même de ce Mémorial : combattre l’oubli, éduquer et éveiller les consciences, lutter contre toutes les formes de xénophobie, de racisme et d’antisémitisme , rendre à jamais impossible le retour de la barbarie.
La ministre de l'enseignement supérieur et de la recherche a particulièrement apprécié la qualité du travail de recherche effectué par Alain Chouraqui, Président de la Fondation Camp des Milles Mémoire et Education, directeur de recherches au C.N.R.S.. En tant que sociologue, en s’appuyant sur une équipe pluridisciplinaire, il a effectué tout un travail de définition des séquences psycho-sociales et socio-économiques qui peuvent amener une société au génocide. C’est le volet réflexif de ce site qui comporte aussi un volet historique et mémoriel. Ce travail très original est le fruit de 10 ans de recherches et sa précision ainsi que ses qualités pédagogiques sont vraiment remarquables. C'est aussi un bel exemple d'une recherche tournée vers la société et plus particulièrement les jeunes des écoles, collèges et lycées pour éveiller leur vigilance et faire en sorte qu'ils ne se laissent pas entraîner dans des dérives sectaires et totalitaires.

By Stephen H Foerster. In a recent University World News commentary titled, “Yes, MOOC is the global higher education game changer”, Professor Simon Marginson from the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne argues that MOOCs will spell the death of higher education as we know it. That may be an exciting thing to say – but there are some fundamental barriers involved that will be pretty challenging to overcome.
As someone who has worked in online education for a long time, I can assure any and all that not every student prefers to learn online, even if from a course that carries the imprimatur of a well-regarded university. There's nothing wrong with online learning. Indeed, research has shown pretty conclusively that there's no significant difference in learning outcomes between learning on campus and learning online.
But just because two things are adequate substitutes for each other doesn't mean that all people will prefer the two equally. Especially when students have been raised to see higher education as a classroom-based activity with a tweed-clad professor at a lectern, they're likely to retain that as a preference even in the wake of a mountain of evidence that it is not strictly necessary.
Wide acceptance of online learning
The good news is that unreasonable objections to online learning have largely become muted in the wake of repeated studies showing that distance learning is no less effective than classroom-based instruction. But while prejudice against distance learning has lost the day, this does not mean that there aren't many students whose needs are better accommodated by a course that takes place on campus.
For example, many institutions focus on asynchronous learning when it comes to their distance learning offerings. That means that courses are designed for convenience so that students can participate whenever it's convenient for them rather than at a set time.
The trade-off for that convenience is live interaction, the sort that's part and parcel of a course in a classroom. It's possible to duplicate live sessions online, and more and more institutions are moving in that direction, but at present those students who are inclined towards real-time interaction with their faculty members and peers are likely still to have reason to prefer the classroom. Moreover, it's not only the ‘online’ aspect of MOOCs that can be offputting – the ‘massive’ one can be as well. In a course with tens of thousands of students, it's hardly realistic to expect personal attention from the rock star professor whose name is on the marquee.
That's not to say the sort of peer-to-peer learning that MOOCs by necessity employ is pedagogically unsound; far from it. But it's not a mode of learning that's universally appealing, and a prestigious university name can only go so far to paper over the objections from a student who would like the option of directly communicating with his or her instructor.
The academic credit barrier
Another fundamental barrier is that MOOCs from prestigious universities do not lead to academic credit, and this is an important drawback to them that their cheerleaders need to consider a little more closely. Moreover, if I may be allowed a prediction, they never will lead to credit, especially from top universities. As much as educators may not wish to admit it, from an economic perspective education is not actually a university's true product: a prestigious credential is.
When employers start accepting MOOC certificates of completion as the equivalent to a university degree, then one will be able to consider them a substitute. Until then, however, one simply cannot. It's true that there's a movement toward educational badges (see below), but it's in its infancy, and if they do take off in the marketplace for labour, it won't be tomorrow.
As evidence, for several decades now in the computing world there has been a system of what those in the education world are calling 'educational badges'. There is a large ecology of certifications that technology workers can earn that demonstrate their proficiency with various information technologies. Many of these certification programmes are administered from companies like Microsoft or Cisco, and are specific to the products of those companies. Other programmes are from ‘vendor neutral’ non-profit organisations like CompTIA and concern themselves with a broader category of technologies.
Those who are watching MOOCs closely may be interested in the relationship that has developed between the world of ICT certifications and that of higher education. In the 1990s there was something of a competitive aspect between them, where technology workers might consider an advanced level Microsoft certification just as useful to them in the labour market as a degree in information systems. Before long, however, the higher education system prevailed, not because workers or employers lost interest in certifications, but because higher education adapted to allow for ways to include them in its own system.
Higher education adapts
The adaptation was that it became possible to earn advanced standing at certain universities for those who held certain certifications. In some cases, universities would recognise these certifications as the equivalent to transfer credit, accepting them as though the transferring student had simply taken academic coursework elsewhere.
In other cases, and this is the example more likely to apply to MOOCs, those certifications fit into those universities' established systems of prior learning assessment, wherein students who learn university-level material outside of the institution can put together a portfolio of evidence that, if approved, leads to advanced standing. It is this process, prior learning assessment, that would seem to be the best way for successful MOOC-takers to move forward if they wish for broad recognition of their learning, and the best way for universities to fit MOOCs into their established system of credit.
I hope I don't sound dismissive of MOOCs, as that's not my intention. MOOCs are a wonderful new tool in the toolbox of adult education. I'm pleased that universities are offering them. In fact I'm doing one myself later this year. But as exciting as they are, they cannot be all things to all people, and local universities are in no danger whatsoever of being supplanted by them, at least not any time soon.
It would be a shame if this false expectation overshadowed the real opportunities that MOOCs can and do provide, and caused unwarranted disappointment when the initial enthusiasm for MOOCs dies away and it becomes clear that they are not an educational panacea.
* Stephen H Foerster is a writer, technologist and educator based in the US and the Commonwealth of Dominica.

As millions of students have flocked to free ‘massive open online courses’ or MOOCs in recent months, higher education experts have focused on two big questions: whether universities will begin to offer credit for such courses, and what might be done to prevent cheating. On Thursday, the first glimmers of answers began to emerge, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.
Colorado State University’s Global Campus said it would give three transfer credits to students who complete “Introduction to Computer Science: Building a search engine”, a free course offered by Udacity, and take a proctored test. While the Global Campus is apparently the first American institution to offer credit for a Udacity MOOC, several European universities have already done so.
Also on Thursday, edX, the Harvard-MIT online collaboration, announced that students in its MOOCs would be able to take proctored final exams at Pearson VUE’s brick-and-mortar testing centres around the world, where their identity can be verified. “This will take online learning to the next level,” said Anant Agarwal, the president of edX.
Full report on The New York Times site

By Benoît Millot. University International Rankings, or UIRs, have become a reality. And despite their shortcomings and the rise of resistance against them, they are likely to stick around.
Critics of UIRs target methodological weaknesses such as bias in favour of research, use of composite indicators, reliability of peers’ subjective opinions and so on. But they also point out the perverse effect of UIRs on the decisions of tertiary education institutions and of national authorities in charge of tertiary education – racing to develop world-class universities at the expense of national tertiary education systems.
In reaction to these caveats, analysts have convincingly argued that instead of focusing on individual universities, it would be more useful to put the spotlight on entire tertiary education systems. Simultaneously, there should be a shift from ranking to benchmarking. This twofold shift would allow countries to assess the health of their higher education systems and to design reforms encompassing all types of tertiary education institutions rather than focusing on a few centres of excellence.
Efforts are currently under way from various quarters to develop reliable International System Benchmarking (ISB) instruments, and the first comprehensive one of its kind has recently been released.
International rankings: Key results from the main leagues
In 2010 and 2011, the figures on which this analysis is based, the two UIRs most widely referred to by the academic community, analysts and decision-makers were arguably the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), launched by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the one operated by Quacquarelli Symonds under the auspices of Times Higher Education. (The THE ranking is now operated by Thomson Reuters and QS continues to run its own ranking.)
In 2010 and 2011, the 500 top universities for each ranking are concentrated in 50 countries in the QS league and in 39 countries in the more exclusive ARWU league. All but two countries hosting the top universities in the ARWU league are also present in the QS league, which is a first (and strong) hint that the two rankings yield close results. A subset of 37 countries appear in both leagues.
In order to make comparisons between countries, we cannot be satisfied with the sheer number of top universities – this number needs to be weighted in order to control for the size of the countries. One possibility would be to use each country’s population, but this is not fully satisfactory because it ignores intergenerational differences. Instead, we use the number of people of tertiary age as a weight. The ratio of the number of 500 top universities to the tertiary-age population gives us what could be labelled the ‘density of top universities’.
Density gives an idea of the number of top universities available per one million people of tertiary age. In fact, using the ARWU data for illustration purposes, it is clear that the number of top universities and their density follow almost opposite tracks. Of the 25 countries with the highest density of top universities, 23 are to be found in both the QS and ARWU rankings – an observation that confirms the first hint mentioned above regarding the convergence of the two leagues.
Secondly, the rankings of countries by density of top universities are very closely correlated for QS and ARWU. With the exception of Ireland, which is number one in the QS league and only number 13 in the ARWU league, most countries have a similar position in the two rankings, and the values of the density ratios in the two leagues are also very close for each individual country. Hence, despite their different approaches, the two leagues yield highly comparable results.
Also, all the 37 countries but one (India) are either high-income or upper-middle income. This observation substantiates the assertion that UIRs’ methodology is putting a premium on well-resourced universities. On the other hand, even within the group of less than 40 countries that harbour the top world universities, there is a huge gap between those leading the flock and those at the lagging end: while in Finland, two world-class universities serve 100,000 tertiary age people, in India two world-class universities cater to 100 million potential clients.
Indeed, there is a strong and positive correlation between the density of top universities and gross domestic product per capita. Despite significant differences in the way they are developed, the QS and ARWU rankings do share some common points, in particular the size of the universe that they cover (focusing on the top 500 universities) and their reliance on a range of indicators encompassing several areas of academic life. This is not the case for a relative newcomer to the field, the Webometrics ranking, which considers a universe of more than 12,000 institutions worldwide, and relies on several aspects of the visibility of institutions on the internet.
Given such a disparity in the methodology, one would expect widely different results in the rankings. Surprisingly, the comparison made on the 500 top universities of the three leagues shows strikingly similar results, and the correlations between the three rankings are significant and positive. There are therefore strong indications that three of the major and most popular UIRs have converging results both in terms of the set of countries hosting ‘world-class’ universities and in terms of the rankings of countries within this set.
International system benchmarking
The purpose and focus of ISBs are quite distinct from the ones explicit in UIRs, as mentioned above. The former targets country systems and vows to assess their performance against set criteria, while the latter focuses on individual institutions. Although the need for ISB instruments was identified long ago, few practical attempts have been made to implement them. Statistical challenges account for this situation.
Following the policy brief prepared for the Lisbon Council covering 17 countries, the work undertaken by the OECD, and the World Bank’s benchmarking of universities in the Middle East and North Africa, the first genuinely comprehensive ISB – the U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems – was developed by the Melbourne Institute in 2012. U21 is based on four sets of indicators: resources, environment, connectivity and output. Five straightforward indicators, linked to the financial resources allocated to tertiary education, are used to assess the performance in the first area (resources).
The main novelty of the U21 lies in its use of indicators designed to characterise the environment, particularly the subset of indicators related to the ‘qualitative measure of the policy and regulatory environment’. These represent significant progress because they respond to the widespread view that governance issues are a main constraint to the development and improvement of tertiary education systems. Connectivity, the third area considered by U21, is measured by two highly relevant indicators: (i) the proportion of international students in tertiary education, and (ii) the proportion of articles co-authored with international collaborators. Output, the fourth area under U21, is measured by a basket of nine indicators spanning a whole range of criteria from research products to enrolment rates and graduate unemployment rates, the latter indicator being an answer to the growing concern regarding the employability of graduates produced by tertiary education systems.
Rankings are provided separately for each of the four areas mentioned above. Finally, an overall, composite indicator is constructed by combining the four sets of indicators.
Comparing UIR and ISB
Comparing the outcomes of the UIR and ISB instruments is made possible by the fact that we have translated the results of the university-based indicators of the UIRs in countrywide terms, making them analogous to the indicators of the ISB. The comparison is presented here in two steps: (i) how do the sets of countries compare – regardless of their individual rankings, and (ii) how do the rankings compare?
While the countries covered in the three versions of UIRs (QS, ARWU and Webometrics) are the results of university rankings, those considered by U21 are a deliberate choice, itself linked to a predetermined decision.
U21 selected a set of 48 countries, using data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) ranking of research output. It is therefore not a surprise to find a strong overlap between these 48 U21 countries and the 39 and 50 countries that host top universities according to ARWU and QS, respectively, or indeed to the 37 countries to be found in both UIRs.
The main differences between the group of UIR countries (and especially the more inclusive QS list) and that of the U21 are: (i) the lesser representation of developing countries in the U21 list, and (ii) the stronger presence of Eastern Europe countries in the U21 list. These differences aside, there is strong convergence between the UIRs and U21. However, the decisive test is not the aggregate number of countries represented in both lists, but the rank of the countries. There are highly significant correlations in rankings, which show that the two instruments yield similar results.
However, differences are also to be noted, especially in the dispersion of votes for the countries ranked first – while Finland is ranked in the top four in all three leagues, Ireland is ranked first by QS but lags at 13 and 16 in the ARWU and U21 lists, respectively. Even more striking, while the United States leads the pack in the U21 list, it is relegated to ranks 17 and 22 in the ARWU and QS leagues, respectively. Still, there is a lot of stability in the rankings for most other countries, and the superposition of the three lists shows remarkable homogeneity.
QS and ARWU produce very close results, which are also confirmed by the Webometrics league, despite the differences in methodology used by these three UIRs. In all three rankings, the density of top 500 universities (‘world-class’ universities) is closely related to the wealth of the countries. Comparing these results with those obtained by the U21 ranking – the first comprehensive ISB – yields strikingly similar results, even though the focus and objectives of the ISB are clearly different from those of the UIRs. It appears that hosting world-class universities is associated with the position held in system-wide rankings. Both kinds of instruments analysed in this note suggest that being in a rich country helps both to boost the supply of high quality universities and to maintain a performing system of tertiary education.
Part of the explanation for this finding comes from the bias common to the two instruments – that is, an overemphasis on research and on well-resourced systems. Despite this, it remains that these results reflect both the choices made by universities themselves and tertiary education decision-makers at the national level, and the fact that money can buy quality. From a methodological point of view, it can be concluded that the empirical implementation of the concepts that radically differentiate the two instruments end up – so far – with very similar outcomes.
Undoubtedly, as data availability increases, both rankings and benchmarking will improve, and their respective outcomes will become more and more complementary.
* Benoît Millot is a former lead education economist with the World Bank and is currently a consultant with the same institution. This article does not represent the views of the World Bank and is the sole responsibility of the author.

Blog Educpros de Pierre Dubois. François Garçon, Le Dernier Verrou. En finir avec le Conseil national des universités, Editions The Media Faculty. Présentation sur le site officiel de l’auteur, “universitaire à Paris-Panthéon Sorbonne, historien”. Article critique d’Isabelle Rey-Lefebvre dans le Journal Le Monde. Livre inutilement polémique dans la conjoncture présente. Les sections nationales du CNU ne doivent surtout pas disparaître, mais il faut changer le mode de scrutin.
Présentation par l’auteur. “Inconnu du grand public, au cœur de l’enseignement supérieur français se trouve le Conseil national des universités. C’est lui qui  décide quels sont les jeunes docteurs pouvant candidater à un poste de maître de conférences dans l’université française, c’est encore lui qui juge quels sont les maîtres de conférences aptes à devenir professeurs, et quels sont les enseignants-chercheurs méritant honneurs et récompenses (primes, changement de classe, congés sabbatiques, etc.) Ca n’est pas tout : en dépit du toussotement de certains, le CNU s’apprête maintenant à évaluer individuellement les enseignants-chercheurs. C’est dire les prérogatives de cette gigantesque institution de près de 1500 membres, élus sur des listes syndicales fermées pour les 2/3 d’entre eux. Osons dire que ces pairs ne sont ni les meilleurs, ni les mieux inspirés dans les disciplines qu’ils sont supposés défendre. Tout l’atteste : l’enseignement supérieur français ne cesse de perdre de son lustre. Ne cherchez pas: la faute en revient principalement au CNU. Preuves à l’appui”.
Cette présentation comporte deux erreurs factuelles importantes. Le CNU n’est jamais intervenu dans l’attribution des primes (primes d’enseignement et de recherche, primes d’excellence scientifique, primes pédagogiques et administratives). Il n’est plus en charge de l’évaluation individuelle quadriennale de tous les enseignants-chercheurs: Geneviève Fioraso a en effet entendu les protestations et a suspendu la mise en œuvre du décret d’avril 2009 qui concernait ce point.
Critique faite par Isabelle Rey-Lefebvre: “on reste sur sa faim en ce qui concerne les témoignages à l’appui de la thèse de l’auteur, car son pamphlet ne rend compte d’aucun scandale, dérapage, injustice ou passe-droit, ne livre aucune anecdote ni témoignage vérifié. Le discours, uniquement à charge, en des termes forts, parfois agressifs, nuit à l’efficacité de la démonstration”.
Le CNU, instance nationale organisé par champ disciplinaire, doit absolument continuer à décider des qualifications aux fonctions de maître de conférences et de professeur, doit conserver un quota de promotions de grade. Qualifications et promotions ne peuvent en effet être uniquement décidées au niveau local: copinages, clientélismes, népotismes existent encore trop à ce niveau.
Mais il faut changer le mode de scrutin, abolir le scrutin de liste à la proportionnelle contrôlé par les organisations syndicales et plus largement par les corporations et les lobbies. Il faut abolir la nomination d’un tiers des membres du CNU par le pouvoir en place. Je suis partisan pour ma part d’un scrutin uninominal à deux tours, i.e. de candidatures individuelles ayant au préalable fait l’objet d’un certain nombre de soutiens nominaux, répartis dans des universités de plusieurs. Les “meilleurs” de la discipline seraient-ils candidats dans ce contexte? Je crois que “oui”, mais il faut en débattre. Les enseignants-chercheurs sont des gens responsables qui acceptent de servir leur communauté universitaire.