By David Nagel. Campaign for the Future of Higher Education claims online education "is a billion-dollar business motivated more by profits than quality education for students."
Are online education providers serving the masses or just amassing wealth for themselves? That's the question the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education wants answered. The group today challenged the leaders of edX, Udacity and Coursera to a public debate "about the claims and promises being made by the online education industry about the quality of its higher education programs." More...

By Amir Rahbaran. This is a shortened and modified post for HASTAC from my personal blog how I came up with the idea of Crowducate. My first post here on HASTAC, explained the concept of Crowducate – interactive crowdsourced courses / learning paths. In short: At Crowducate people can create courses, which are divided into sections and, on the next level, divided into “bite-sized” lectures (note: I think the “unit” might be more appropriate). You consume the courses by reading/watching the material and afterwards you could check your understanding via some quizzes. The key features are that learners can send concrete “change requests” for the lectures and quizzes and furthermore COPY the course to their own profile in order to develop it into a different course (e.g. change the language or just take some of the sections/lectures as basis for a new course). The key features, namely change request and copy course, are inspired by open source software and GitHub (called pull requests and forks). More...

By  Aria F. Chernik. Hospitality in the classroom and digital pedagogical practices encourage participatory pedagogy and collective action. This model of learning and teaching emphasizes the shared responsibility between all members to contribute to and actively further the intellectual exchange and critical inquiry of the course; indeed, this model of learning can frame how we understand subjectivity itself. Google docs, for example, can be thought of as merely a technological innovation that enables collaborative notetaking. But the programming structure of Google docs closely resembles Clay Shirky’s articulation in Here Comes Everybody of how collective action invokes subjectivity by tying one person’s identity to the identity of the group and making a decision of a group binding on all individual members (51). A collaboratively constructed Google document creates a site of authoring — and self-authoring — that materially represents the multiplicity of subjectivity. Unlike “group work” (where students simply divide the workload of a project into discrete, individual tasks), the collaborative production of participatory pedagogy derives from a shared responsibility, vision, decision-making, and creation that cannot be divided. Read more...

By Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris - Hybrid Pedagogy. “Digital pedagogy is becoming, for me, coterminous with critical pedagogy, given the degree to which the digital can function both as a tool for and an obstacle to liberation.” ~ Jesse Stommel, “Decoding Digital Pedagogy, pt. 2: (Un)Mapping the Terrain”
Hybrid Pedagogy is not ideologically neutral. The threads of our discussions and the underlying philosophy of the journal are grounded in critical pedagogy — an approach to teaching and learning predicated on fostering agency and empowering learners (implicitly and explicitly critiquing oppressive power structures). As a digital journal, our work is further nuanced by a consideration of technologies and cultures — how the digital changes the way we work, think, and create, and how we as humans can use tools (like chalkboards and computers) to form critically engaged communities. Read more...

By Rolin Moe. The purpose of education is in large part linked to its standing as a social science. Philosophers dating back to Socrates have linked education to a purpose beyond the individual, one where accrual of facts and training in skills is not the outcome or objective for the individual nor society; rather, a deeper relationship with thought and reason is necessary for the development of each person and in turn their community. This is at the heart of much great philosophy:  luminaries such as Locke, Milton, Rousseau, Hume and others saw education as a continuation of society through means greater than memory recall and skilled competencies. The education discipline is built upon this theory and is at the heart of its mission: through pedagogy and methodology education can foster the growth of our culture through each person. Read more...

L’évaluation du deuxième plan national santé-environnement (PNSE 2) par l’IGAENR a porté sur le degré de réalisation des actions du plan, sa gouvernance et son organisation notamment au regard des autres politiques publiques, sa déclinaison au niveau territorial, les moyens financiers et humains qui lui sont consacrés avec un volet "recherche" traité spécifiquement.

En savoir + > Contribution à l'évaluation du 2ème Plan national santé environnement 2009-2013

L'IGB publie son rapport annuel pour 2013. Concernant les établissements d'enseignement supérieur, les inspections réalisées en 2013 confirment la manière dont les bibliothèques universitaires s’inscrivent dans les grandes évolutions connues au plan national. Des points d'attention ont néanmoins été relevés : l’intégration de toute la documentation dans les SCD est insuffisamment formalisée et les sites physiques restent encore trop dispersés.

En savoir + > Rapport annuel de l'Inspection générale des bibliothèques 2013

L’INSEE publie ses statistiques concernant les 5,5 millions de salariés travaillent en France dans la fonction publique. L’Institut montre qu’en un an, les effectifs globaux ont progressé de 0,3 %. Cette hausse concerne la fonction publique territoriale (+ 1,6 %) et le versant hospitalier (+ 0,7 %) alors que les effectifs baissent dans la fonction publique de l’État (- 1,0 %).

En savoir + > L’emploi dans la fonction publique en 2012

Le 15 mai dernier, le Sénat a adopté la proposition de loi tendant au développement, à l'encadrement des stages et à l'amélioration du statut des stagiaires. Les débats au Sénat ont permis d'améliorer le texte initial, en particulier en prévoyant d'augmenter le montant de la gratification mensuelle minimale prévue pour les stages de 436,05 à 523,26 euros.
Une note d’information publiée fin avril par le MENESR indique que, pour l’année 2011-2012, sur 990 000 étudiants inscrits en formation initiale en licence, master, formations d’ingénieurs et instituts universitaires de technologie dans les universités françaises, 32 % ont suivi un stage. Le document indique que seulement la moitié des stages sont gratifiés. Parmi eux, un étudiant sur cinq reçoit une gratification se situant au-dessus de 600 euros mensuels.
En savoir + > Note d’information 14.02