Blog "Il y a une vie après le bac" d'Olivier Rollot. La rentrée s’effectue cette semaine pour la plupart des bacheliers qui entrent pour la première fois à l'université. Pendant trois jours, une université comme Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) propose ainsi à ses nouveaux étudiants de rencontrer les acteurs de leur futur cursus. Et du 10 au 12 septembre elle va encore plus loin avec sa « Welcome Week ». Trois autres jours pour découvrir les services étudiants et participer à de nombreuses animations. Des journées bien utiles aux quelque 230 000 bacheliers qui intègrent chaque année l’université. Suite...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. In the past months MOOCs have been debated on various levels. And as I am engaged in MOOC research for the last few months (following the development of FutureLearn the UK MOOC platform), I was looking for different angles that come closer to what I like to see in education: variety, creativity, recognized by many, providing credits for all who want to, catering options so different teachers can make and share the content the way they like it... and of course all delivered in a seamless learning format (will post a bit more on that subject in a couple of days). More...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Some educational activists colleagues are preparing a debate during the Alt-C conference on Technology Enhanced Learning and whether or if this can be a response to economic crisis (both in education as in globalization). While preparing Richard Hall shared a presentation that stuck with me. So happy to share his views.
For those joining Alt-C conference which is held in Nottingham, UK this year, feel free to join us on Tuesday 10 September at the TEL at 11.45 for the discussion on Technology Enhanced Learning Crisis. Panel people: Richard Hall, Debbie Holley, Sarah Stager, Karl Royle, Helen Beetham, John Traxler and myself. Will be fun and passionate debate. More...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Tomorrow a new MOOC on leadership can be followed on the Canvas.Net platform. The Leadership for Real MOOC is of interest to me as it envisioned by Bert De Coutere at the Center for Creative Leadership and we had some great meetings figuring out what could be in, where possible foci might be. The CCL has been in the top 10 of the Financial Time rankings for executive education for 12 years in a row, so they are strong in what they do. More...

By David Kent. For the past year, I have been sitting on the publications committee for a society-run journal and in the journal’s quest to improve its impact factor (IF), it became clear to me that one of the system’s dark secrets is the “window of IF eligibility.” It single-handedly disadvantages journals whose science stands the test of time and favours journals that have speedy public relations’ campaigns.
For those not aware of it, a journal’s IF is based on two numbers for year X:

1. The number of times articles published in the two years prior to year X are cited during year X
2. The number of citable articles published in the two years prior to year X

The IF is simply the first number divided by the second. More...

By Melonie Fullick. In this week’s post I’m going to stay with the subject of media and higher education, since there’s so much to work with at the moment – ‘tis the season, as they say. Since I last wrote, there’s a new, strategically-timed CIBC World Markets report that has garnered a good deal of media coverage, because it essentially claims that the value of university degrees has declined and that there are radically different “earnings premiums” on different fields of study. The humanities and social sciences of course end up lower in this hierarchy of profit than engineering, commerce, and health-related fields. There are a lot of points that have already been made in other columns and blogs, so I won’t repeat them (Léo Charbonneau has a selection linked in his own helpful post, here). Instead I’ll just take a some time to focus on one of the issues that I had with this report, or at least with the coverage of its contents. Read more...