Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Brilliance struck. We call it Canvas Catalog.
Matt Goodwin, Canvas by Instructure, May 31, 2014
Instructure is launching a new product called Canvas Catalog, "a white-label platform that enables any institution, government entity, university or K-12 school to create a branded index of online courses." This means, according to the blog post, "any organization using Canvas now has the ability to build a marketplace or storefront for their courses. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Beyond the stack
Mike Loukides, O'Reilly Radar, May 31, 2014
One of the interesting 'behind the scenes' things about the new MOOC platforms is the way they're built: distributed computing. Coursera, for example, relies on Amazon Web Services (AWS). EdX's default distribution also uses AWS. As tghe article states, "A new toolset has grown up to support the development of massively distributed applications. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Internet Trends 2014
Mary Meeker, Business Insider, May 31, 2014
Mary Meeker's annual state of the internet report has come out and once again it is probably the most insightful snapshot of the state of play as you're going to see. My only complaint is that at 165 slides, it's too short. The trends won't be a surprise to anyone following the internet closely, but it's good to have real data to support beliefs about the rise of mobile, the proliferation of apps, etc. More...

By Soumaila T. Diarra. A government report has revealed widespread fraud and bribery among high-level professors at universities in Mali and degrees awarded in exchange for cash.  
The general auditor’s report issued on May 14 alleges financial mismanagement involving billions in public money, including management irregularities at the University of Bamako between 2010 and 2012 that it said cost the public treasury 2.4 billion CFA ($3.66 million) of which nearly one quarter of the losses were due to fraud. More...

By Karen Howlett and Colin Freeze. Canada’s largest school board has opened a Confucius Institute, bringing to Toronto students a controversial global language and cultural outreach effort that is controlled by the Chinese government. 
The TDSB is embracing the institute just as several universities are severing their ties with it because of restrictions China has placed on academic discourse and fears of political censorship. The institutes offer language and culture programs subsidized by China’s government. The academic activities are supervised by the Beijing head of the Chinese Language Council International, a state agency commonly known as Hanban. More...

By RIA Novosti. Russia plans to produce an official international ranking of higher education institutions, including universities in the CIS, BRICS and SCO countries, by June 2015, the Russian Government said Tusday. 
“The Ministry of Education and Science of Russia together with the interested federal executive bodies and organizations ought to organize the production of the international rankings of higher education institutions, including those of the CIS, BRICS and SCO countries, providing measures to ensure international recognition of such ratings. The results should be reported to the government by May 25, 2015,” the government said on its website. More...

By Laura Macdonald. Universities have united to condemn the Government's proposal to cut the number of seats on university councils.
The changes are part of the Education Amendment Bill, introduced in February, but students say the changes could push them out of decision-making.
About 180,000 students fill the halls of New Zealand's eight universities, alongside 20,000 full-time staff. Read more...

By Patrick Blum. Facing government funding cuts and sharp spending increases, some British universities are turning to a new source of money — the bond market. 
English universities and colleges in particular are set to raise their infrastructure spending to 3.86 billion pounds, or $6.5 billion, this academic year, from £2.65 billion in 2012-13, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the public sector paymaster for the sector, said last month. They plan to invest £3.3 billion a year for the next three years to improve their facilities. More...

By Michael Hewlett. For the past 32 years, Wake Forest University and Maya Angelou have been inextricably tied together. 
Angelou, who died Wednesday morning at the age of 86, had served as Reynolds Professor of American studies at Wake Forest since 1982. 
Provost Rogan Kersh said Angelou was woven into the fabric of the university and wherever she went, Angelou carried Wake Forest with her. More...

By Paul Kniest. The changes to higher education regulation and funding announced as part of the 2014-15 federal budget represent the end of Australia’s public higher education system as we have known it since Labor Education Minister John Dawkins introduced the unified national system in 1989. Read more...