By Jeffrey R. Young. Since long before anyone uttered the word “MOOC,” virtual universities in many countries have been using technology to teach thousands of students at a time. Even so, leaders of those online institutions, who gathered here this week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said they were watching massive open online courses closely. Read more...By Sara Grossman. New digital eyewear from Google, which features a built-in Webcam and the ability to display e-mail messages and other information, has sparked a mix of curiosity and skepticism in the popular press, but several professors are rushing to try it out in their teaching and research—and early reviews are mixed. Read more...By Karen Head. After months of preparation, we finally started our MOOC, “First-Year Composition 2.0,” at Georgia Tech. We are now through the first few weeks of the eight-week course, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Veteran MOOC instructors warned me that the early weeks would be bumpy. The actual experience has often left me panicked—and worried that the course would not be successful. This is not like a traditional course, in which you have a day or two to deal with issues that come up in class. MOOC students expect immediate responses, and that means nearly 24/7 monitoring of the course. Read more...
By . The University of Notre Dame has long been known for its enthusiastic sports fans. Now, the South Bend Tribune reports, all of those rabid supporters will be able to show their commitment in a new way—with perfume and cologne. But don’t worry: They won’t get the chance to smell like Manti Te’o on game day. Read more...
By Eric Hoover.The evolution of enrollment management has long entwined with the story of changing demographics. Here at the Harvard Summer Institute on College Admissions on Tuesday, William R. Fitzsimmons described how many of today’s recruitment strategies grew from dire predictions back in the late 1970s, when colleges were bracing for a sharp decline in the number of high-school graduates. Read more...
By Goldie Blumenstyk.Many academics say they have a hard time conducting unfettered research on students at for-profit colleges. And just about everyone says that all students, but particularly those who are first-generation college students from from lower-income families, need better counseling about the loans they are assuming to go to college. Read more...
By Robert E. Martin. Economists mislead families by framing college attendance as an issue of capital investment rather than one of affordability. Telling parents and students that they should choose the college with the highest net present value, or predicted return on their tuition investment, encourages them to choose the most expensive college they can. Since colleges work to convince the public that quality and cost are directly correlated, the investment framework is a good complement to marketing strategies. In fact, no objective data support the hypothesis that higher cost means higher quality in education. The data are lacking because colleges and universities provide few objective measures of quality, even though the market has called for that evidence for decades. Read more...
By Erin E. Templeton. Regular readers of the Chronicle are surely familiar with the ongoing discussion about the merits of graduate education both generally and in the humanities more specifically. Whatever your position on the “Go!/Don’t Go!” debate (note: two different links), one thing is clear: more information about where Ph.D.s end up would be very helpful both to potential candidates, employers, and the professoriate more generally. In his most recent column, William Pannapacker threw down the gauntlet, so to speak. Read more...
By Allan Metcalf.
Mehrwertsteuer rauf für eine bessere Hochschulfinanzierung! Das fordert der Präsident des Stifterverbandes für Deutsche Wissenschaft - auch wenn dafür das Grundgesetz geändert werden müsste. Für eine bessere Ausstattung der Universitäten schlägt Andreas Barner, der neue Präsident des Stifterverbandes für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, eine Erhöhung der Mehrwertsteuer um einen Prozentpunkt vor. Dies sagte der 60-Jährige dem manager magazin in einem Interview. Barner, der den Pharmakonzern Boehringer Ingelheim leitet, hält eine bessere Finanzierung der deutschen Hochschulen für "eine nationale Aufgabe"./https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
