BY ASTRID ZWEYNERT, Reuters Kiron University, named after the centaur Chiron, known in Greek mythology for nurturing others in times of need, was founded last year by a group of students in Berlin. "A lack of resources, legal documents and language skills all combine to make it very hard for refugees to get back into education," said Kiron co-founder Odai Al Hashmi, a Syrian who fled to Germany via Turkey in 2013. To join Kiron University, applicants have to present only a document confirming their refugee status or a certificate stating that they have started applying for it. Kiron has designed a three-year program and partnered with top universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Yale in the United States, which already offer accredited online degree courses. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/01/us-germany-refugees-university-idUSKCN0RV4E320151001 Share on Facebook

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has offered free online courses for the last four years with one major downside: They didn’t count toward a degree. That’s about to change. In a pilot project announced Wednesday, students will be able to take a semester of free online courses in one of MIT’s graduate programs and then, if they pay a "modest fee" of about $1,500 and pass an exam, they will earn a MicroMaster’s credential, the school said. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/1st-time-mits-free-online-classes-carry-credit-34313786 Share on Facebook

By Sarina Rhinehart, Ames Tribune With the first of four sessions of Iowa State University’s first massive open online course (MOOC), which covered the Iowa Caucuses, having just wrapped up, political science professor Steffen Schmidt said the session was "very satisfying," having had more than 1,300 enrolled in the first session, and at this time, more than 2,000 enrolled through the four different sessions of the course. "It was great; it was fun," Schmidt said. "There were a good mix of people from different kinds of backgrounds." This free courses offered to anyone in the world with Internet access, is the first MOOC course offered by ISU, and focused on the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses, including lectures, interviews, readings, quizzes and discussion forums. http://amestrib.com/news/isu-online-course-iowa-caucuses-draws-international-attention Share on Facebook

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive MIT is piloting a MicroMaster’s credential, awarded to students who complete the first half of the supply chain management master’s program online in MOOC format. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that students who complete the first semester of courses online and pass a "comprehensive proctored examination" will get preference in the admissions process for the final portion of the master’s degree on campus. After spending just one semester on campus, students who do the first half of the coursework online can walk away with an MIT master’s degree. http://www.educationdive.com/news/mit-micromasters-unbundles-supply-chain-degree-with-moocs/406985/ Share on Facebook

by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed Colleges and universities have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on technology they believe will improve student outcomes and simplify administrative tasks. Educational technology companies continue to demolish investment records on a quarterly basis. With all this money raised and spent under the guise of improving postsecondary education, the 2015 Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology suggests that many instructors believe the gains in student learning justify the costs — even if the results are perhaps less significant than desired. Inside Higher Ed partnered with Gallup to ask faculty members and academic technology administrators to share their thoughts on this and other ed-tech issues in the news. A copy of the survey results, based on responses from 2,175 faculty members and 105 administrators, can be downloaded from Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/partial-credit-2015-survey-faculty-attitudes-technology Share on Facebook

By Meg Lloyd, Campus Technology In an effort to modernize the way more than 130,000 constituents across its eight campuses locate and get access to services, Indiana University developed and deployed One.IU, an alternative to the traditional campus portal that leverages search and mobile technology to help guide users to the information and resources they need.  IU provides students, faculty, and staff one easy place to access campus services from any computer or mobile device, in an online marketplace format. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/10/08/changing-the-way-users-discover-and-access-campus-services.aspx Share on Facebook

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology A new facility at Virginia Tech uses large-scale visuals and sound to immerse users in vast amounts of data. Imagine walking through a black room four stories high, 50 feet wide and 40 feet deep, populated with speakers. As you move through the space wearing a head-mounted display (no mouse, keyboard or joystick needed), you’re immersed in vast amounts of data — both visually and aurally — collected from an actual storm that took place a little more than two years ago. As the recorded data shows the formation of some kind of supercell, your ears detect something distinct from every other sound that permeates the space — akin to hearing your name being spoken across the room during a lively cocktail party. You turn and move toward the sound to explore it further. Before your eyes a gigantic tornado forms. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/10/07/virtual-reality-space-lets-students-experience-big-data.aspx Share on Facebook

by WTXL FAMU’S Developmental Research School in Tallahassee will be part of a new research project, designed to pioneer online learning and technologies. The project aims to bring these methods to historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). The school says by utilizing these blended learning strategies, they can better prepare students for college and help them graduate on time. http://www.wtxl.com/news/new-project-at-famudrs-hopes-to-pioneer-online-learning/article_92b59ef8-6ddf-11e5-8928-9747522e3ffa.html Share on Facebook

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive For-profit Apollo Education Group has been in a steep decline for five years as the University of Phoenix loses enrollment and shrinks in response, but CEO Greg Cappelli believes the future is bright. In a sprawling piece for the Arizona Republic, Ronald J. Hansen writes that net revenues have fallen 47% since its peak in 2010, the stock price is down 82% in the same time period, and student enrollment is expected to be down 70%, comparing next year to 2010. The company is still profitable, however, and Cappelli has reminded investors the profit margins were favorable in 2002 before the University of Phoenix entered its heydey. http://www.educationdive.com/news/u-of-phoenix-hopes-enrollment-losses-stabilize-at-2002-levels/406817/ Share on Facebook

By Nick Anderson, Washington Post Four years after the debut of free online courses from elite universities, the statistics on this unprecedented digital outreach to the world are staggering. Coursera, a leading platform for these courses, reports 15 million people globally have registered on the education Web site that distributes free interactive content from 120 institutions. They are not all just browsers and dabblers. The company counts 2.5 million "course completers." For comparison, the federal government reports about 17.5 million undergraduates enrolled in all U.S. colleges. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/10/08/global-online-college-courses-a-career-booster/ Share on Facebook