Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Matt Reed. How do you know when you’re an adult?
According to Coming Up Short, by Jennifer Silva, today’s working-class twenty-somethings answer that question differently than previous generations, including my own, did.
Silva is a sociologist at Harvard, and her book is based on interviews with working-class millenials in Massachusetts and Virginia over the last few years.  Her thesis -- spoiler alert -- is that the classic working-class answer -- steady job, marriage, house, kids -- has lost its relevance, since it has become economically unfathomable. The kind of reliable, well-paying job that underlay the classic postwar American working class has mostly vanished now, replaced by short-term, insecure, poorly-paid jobs that don’t provide the material basis for a stable life. Read more...

By Matt Reed. The Modern Language Association put out a statement this week suggesting that letters of recommendation have gotten out of hand. It offered a series of suggestions for reducing the burden they place on candidates, writers, and readers.
From the perspective of a hiring manager, I’ll offer a different suggestion. Yes, letters have become burdensome on all involved. Streamlining the number involved helps, but doesn’t solve the core problem.  My suggestion is simpler still: abandon letters entirely. Go with lists of people who are willing to take a call instead. Read more...

By Dayna Catropa. Gerry McGovern cited the following example about simplifying online communications in his recent article:
“A bank we worked with found that as they simplified their website, the number of phone calls dropped but the length of time per call increased. In fact, the nature of the calls changed from simple support requests to ones about the products and services the bank offered.”
Generally speaking, higher education institutions have many policies and procedures that need to be communicated to students. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. I've been spending some time with Blackboard Mobile Learn 4.0, the latest update to its iOS and Android mobile LMS platform. (Apparently they also have Blackberry and WebOS...could this be right?)
So far I'm impressed.
Mobile Learn 4.0 seems to do a much better job than previous versions of converting the web formatting to the mobile form factor. I've been experimenting on an iPhone, and I've been pleasantly surprised how functional the app seems to be for reading blog and discussion posts, watching class videos, and launching attached PDF articles. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Should higher ed even try to keep up with Amazon?
The question is actually much broader and potentially more profound.  
Should higher ed run at consumer business speeds?  
Are we in a fundamentally different service business as the Amazon's of the world?  
Are attempts to draw lessons from an Amazon (or a Google or shoot me now a Facebook) inherently flawed, misleading, and potentially damaging?
Are the contexts, mission, and businesses just so radically different between Amazon and higher ed that any attempt to draw lessons from the former will be unproductive at best?
Amazon's new Kindle MatchBook programthrows these questions into sharp relief. What MatchBook attempts to do (once all the publishers are on board) is to allow print book owners the option of buying an inexpensive e-book version of the same title. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. 3 reasons why a Microsoft's $72 billion Nokia purchase could surprise the education world. (I am nothing if not hopeful).
Reason 1: Macromedia
Raise your hand if you remember (and loved) Macromedia. What a great company. What a terrific partner to higher education. So many of the folks that worked for Macromedia were higher ed nerds.  
Stephen Elop, the CEO of Nokia and Microsoft's Microsoft's future of mobile computing (and I bet next CEO), once ran Macromedia.  
Adobe may have swallowed Macromedia, but maybe (just maybe) the education mojo that we saw in Macromedia still runs through Elop. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. I'd like to make a modest proposal:
The goal of academic technology departments should be to downsize ourselves.
That the purpose of higher education is for learners to learn and researchers to research - and that anything that we do that is not directly contributing to those two goals we should endeavor to do no longer. Read more...

By Barbara Fister. I’ve often thought one of the intriguing differences between university presses and university libraries is that one is generally accepted as an outward-facing organization and the other inward-facing. There have been arguments that presses once did and perhaps once again should focus on publishing work of the university’s faculty, but that’s considered a bit outlandish in most academics’ minds. Likewise, the idea of libraries engaging in projects that are intended for a broader audience are often considered an expendable frill that cannot come at the expense of providing information from outside to the local community. Read more...