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The online education market showed "no discernible growth" between the fall of 2012 and 2013, according to a preliminary analysis of the federal government's data on students enrolled in distance education courses. The analysis, conducted by higher education consultant Phil Hill, shows that the number of students enrolled in fully online programs grew from 2.63 million to 2.65 million, a margin small enough to be considered statistical noise as many institutions changed how they reported enrollment data during that period. Read more...

Dalhousie University revealed Monday that it had suspended from clinical activities 13 male dentistry students involved in a Facebook group that joked about chloroforming female students to have sex with them, among other comments, The Globe and Mail reported. The students' behavior first drew attention last month, but at the time the Canadian university's president said the students would not be suspended but would be required to attend face-to-face mediation with the women they were accused of harassing. Read more...

The University System of Georgia will attempt another merger, this time between Georgia State University and a community college, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, citing unnamed sources close to the matter. Read more...

President Obama will be in Tennessee Friday and is expected to make a proposal involving access to college, The Tennessean reported. Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Biden and a community college professor, is also expected, suggesting a possible focus on community college. Tennessee recently started a program -- proposed by its Republican governor, Bill Haslam -- to make two years of community college free to high school graduates. Read more...

Stockholm University is the latest university to announce that it will close its Confucius Institute, one of hundreds of Chinese government-funded centers for Chinese language and cultural education that have been established at universities around the globe. The University of Chicago and Pennsylvania State University have also recently closed their Confucius Institutes amid growing concerns about whether universities that host them are granting undue influence to the Chinese government in matters of curriculum and staffing. Read more...

As China builds up its research infrastructure, one question asked in that country and elsewhere has been whether it can fight research misconduct that many report to be widespread. The National Natural Science Foundation of China reported last week that it is seeing fewer cases of research misconduct than in previous years, Nature reported. The agency received 206 misconduct allegations in 2014, including 66 cases flagged by plagiarism-detection software. Investigations confirmed 33 cases of misconduct, including falsification, fabrication and plagiarism, purchasing grant proposals and use of false personal information. Previous recent years have seen an average of 49 confirmed cases a year. Read more...

By Elizabeth H. Simmons. In a previous column, I described spending a year learning about academic leadership as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow.  One of the best parts of the experience was talking extensively and honestly with new and experienced administrators from a wide variety of backgrounds, disciplines and institutions. Read more...

By Christopher Garland. I’ll start this with a caveat. It’s a year since I was on the academic job market looking for a position in rhetoric and composition/professional writing, so this advice has not been marinating for a long time, the result of years of being on search committees, attending Modern Language Association conferences, or going to interviews in one capacity or another. Read more...

By Karla P. Zepeda. What is graduate school anyway? Is it an extension of the ideal carefree years of undergrad? Is it a safe haven from choosing an occupation and entering the job market? Is it a space to learn for learning’s sake? Given the state of higher education today, students cannot afford to attend grad school to figure things out or just for the love of learning (Ironically, I did it for just that reason), and hope for fate to favor them. Read more...

By Randy Best. For MOOCs to be important long term, they must be more than a curiosity.  A 2014 study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education found that only 4 percent of those who had registered for a MOOC actually completed it. The curious are obviously much less likely to see a course through to completion than are serious students seeking a credential to help them advance in their lives. Read more...