Formation Continue du Supérieur

By David Holmes. Like many newfangled fields in startup world, massively open online colleges or MOOCs (catch our explainer here) are treated with a mix of starry-eyed hope and sobering skepticism. On one hand, MOOCs put powerful educational resources into the hands of anyone with an Internet connection. And with college costs on the rise and the value of a Bachelor’s Degree shrinking, there has to be a cheaper, better alternative, and why not MOOCs?
But MOOCs are plagued by their own set of problems. The completion rate is abysmally low at less than 10 percent. Meanwhile, the Chronicle of Higher Education estimates that the graduation rate of accredited universities and colleges is a little under half. And while the value of a Bachelor’s Degree has fallen, four-year college graduates are at a far greater advantage than people who stopped at high school, and most MOOCs do not offer credit toward a degree. As for the ones that do offer credit, San Jose University attempted the for-credit MOOC model through a partnership with Udacity, but suspended the program after only six months. Why? Over half the students failed the final exams.
And yet MOOCs have raised millions upon millions of dollars from VCs and universities like Harvard and MIT. So there must be gold in them thar hills, right?
Not exactly. Dave Cormier, the man who coined the term “MOOC,” told the Wall Street Journal, ““Nobody has any idea how [monetization] is going to work.” Even the eternally optimistic CEO of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun, admits the industry is in “a state of experimentation” when it comes to business models. More...

By Matt Zalaznick. U.S. universities took eight of the top 10 places in a ranking of 500 world universities by a China-based research center. Harvard, Stanford, University of California at Berkeley and MIT took the top four spots, followed by Cambridge in England, on the annual Academic Ranking of World Universities by The Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. More...

By Sherrie Negrea. Michigan State University’s first massive open online course—Metropolitan Agriculture Value Creation—attracted 400 people from around the globe interested in learning about new ways to produce food in urban areas. Launched in March 2012, the course was built on a WordPress website and students communicated with one another via Facebook and Twitter. Although the MOOC successfully expanded the university’s network of students and scholars concerned with urban agriculture, it also raised some thorny and unanticipated questions: If MSU students took the course, should they get the same credits as the 50,000 other students on the East Lansing campus? And, should MSU students get credit for earning certificates or badges in MOOCs offered by other institutions? More...

By Carol Patton. Effective succession plans require more than just leadership development programs. How can higher ed officials make that happen? Consider the following ideas from Chris Cullen, managing director of the higher education practice at Infinia Group, a brand strategy and design agency in Washington, DC. Develop a system that monitors employee innovation. “There is a myth that pleasing your immediate supervisor is the pathway to replacing him or her,” says Cullen. “The reality is that innovation and demonstrated creativity is the pathway to advancement.” Build processes that require rising stars to demonstrate their independence and accountability. More...

By Richard Ekman. Our fascination with numbers stems from our faith that numbers are more precise than words. But journalists and public officials too often use numbers that are so simplified as to be misleading. The quick numbers on low salaries and high unemployment rates for liberal arts graduates, for example, suggest the opposite picture from what the details reveal. That is, new liberal arts graduates may earn less at first than classmates who majored in professional fields, but over time this gap closes. These glib statistics reveal more informative patterns just below the surface. Meanwhile, other simple numbers fester to create myths of their own. More...

By Tim Goral. Saying “We've got a crisis in terms of college affordability,” President Obama outlined a three part proposal to reign in the cost of higher education before a capacity crowd at the University at Buffalo Thursday. The appearance was the first of the president’s two-day bus tour through New York and Pennsylvania designed to call attention to high education costs.
“We can’t go about business as usual,” Obama said. "Our economy can't afford the trillion dollars in outstanding student loan debt.”
The centerpiece of the proposal rests on tying financial aid to college performance, based on a new college rating system, before the 2015 school year. Higher-rated schools would qualify for larger federal grants, making them more affordable. More...

By Lauren Williams. While location is key when it comes to campus dining, students also appreciate delicious, unique food options. Here are some schools that have added meal options that have become a hit with students:
School: Purchase College (N.Y.)
Eatery: Terra Ve Café
Why its food makes the meal: It’s a restaurant-style experience that serves a diverse amount of vegan and vegetarian options, including sushi, hot and cold sandwiches, grilled entrées, pizza, and dessert. Purchase College surveyed its students before adding this option to better fit its student demographic. It’s also the first completely vegan/vegetarian restaurant on a college campus in the U.S. More...

By Karine Joly. In higher education, we love, hate, and thrive on college rankings. The annual U.S. News and World Report top colleges list—as well as rankings by other news organizations—is anticipated with excitement and trepidation. When it comes to the numbers game of college admissions, it’s important to secure a spot near the top of these lists. Improving your institution’s rank means an automatic increase in general visibility. It also often results in a better chance to convert more college-bound high school students into serious prospects and highly motivated applicants. More...

By Carolyn Fox. The City of Boston has teamed with edX to create BostonX. It will offer free online college courses throughout the city. And it will make MOOCs (massive open online courses) available at community colleges and libraries throughout the city.
BostonX is still in its infancy but the city hopes to make MOOCs more available and accessible to residents and visitors. Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino envisions neighborhoods as "mini campuses" around the city. He believes that this will only increase the city's impact and standing on the nation and world as at the forefront of education. More...

By Bennett Hall. A wave of new construction is changing the face of Oregon State University
Half a block from the student union in the heart of the Oregon State University campus, the new home of the College of Business is steadily taking shape.
With a massive red crane looming over the construction site, contractors have been working for weeks on the four-story, 100,000-square-foot Austin Hall. By the fall of 2014, what’s now a hulking concrete-and-steel skeleton will be a sleek, modern educational facility, with 10 classrooms, a 250-seat auditorium, dozens of offices and a cafe. It’s a major upgrade for the college, which long ago outgrew its home base in aging, 52,000-square-foot Bexell Hall and currently teaches classes in a hodgepodge of locations scattered across the campus. More...