Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Andy Thomason. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed Google another victory on Friday in a high-profile case about copyright infringement, declaring that its scanning of books as part of the Google Books project constitutes fair use. In its ruling, a unanimous three-judge panel of the court upheld a federal judge’s 2013 ruling against the Authors Guild, which sued the tech giant in 2005. More...

By Andy Thomason. One person was killed and three were wounded after a shooting early Friday morning at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, according to a series of updates from the university. The Associated Press reported that the police said the shooting had begun as a fight between two groups of students. More...

By Don Troop. A division of California’s Second District Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that a woman who was attacked six years ago by a classmate wielding a kitchen knife in a UCLA chemistry lab cannot hold the university responsible, the Associated Press reports. Public colleges have no obligation to protect students from crimes committed by other students, the court ruled. More...

By Andy Thomason. The number of complaints from private student-loan borrowers to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau increased by roughly 20 percent in the past year, from 5,300 last year to 6,400 in the past year, according to the annual report of the bureau’s ombudsman. More...

By Andy Thomason. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will begin allowing students to earn half of a master’s degree through online courses, then cap it off with a single semester on the campus. More...

By Andy Thomason. Organizers of the much-talked-about effort to “recast” the college-admissions process are pushing back its start date, from January to April, according to an email on Wednesday from the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success to college counselors. More...

By Chronicle Staff. Report: “Does College Teach Critical Thinking? A Meta-Analysis”
Authors: Christopher R. Huber and Nathan R. Kuncel, both of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Publication: Review of Educational Research, a journal of the American Educational Research Association
Summary: Educators, policy makers, and employers all want colleges to teach students critical-thinking skills, but are colleges succeeding in doing so? To answer that question, the study’s authors analyzed 71 research reports published over the past 48 years.
Their conclusion: Yes, despite arguments to the contrary, students’ critical-thinking skills do improve in college. More...

By Chronicle Staff. Report: “A New Measure of College Quality to Study the Effects of College Sector and Peers on Degree Attainment”
Authors: Jonathan Smith, policy research scientist at the College Board, and Kevin Stange, assistant professor of public policy at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
Organization: National Bureau of Economic Research
Summary: Recent high-school graduates who start their higher education at community colleges are far less likely to earn bachelor’s degrees within six years than are those who begin at four-year colleges, the researchers found. This paper examines why that is. More...

By Chronicle Staff. Report: “45th Annual Survey Report on State-Sponsored Student Financial Aid”
Organization: National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs
Summary: This survey of aid programs for the 2013-14 academic year found the amount states awarded to students increased by 1.6 percent, adjusted for inflation, to $11.7 billion, compared with $11.2 billion awarded the previous year. More...

By Kate Stoltzfus. The Lilly Endowment will donate $50 million to the United Negro College Fund to aid career development at historically black colleges and other colleges with high African-American enrollment, The Washington Post reports. More...