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

BY City News Ontario post-secondary students can now access thousands of university and college courses over the Internet. A new web portal was created by the province and released on Thursday to give students more flexibility in completing their courses. Ontario is investing $72 million over five years to eCampus Ontario, and 45 publicly-assisted colleges and universities in Ontario are offering courses through the portal. "Students should be excited about eCampus online portal, which gives them the flexibility to access high quality online courses whenever and whenever works best for them," said Reza Moridi, minister of Training for Colleges and Universities. Moridi said the web portal allows institutions to share best practices and online resources. There are 13,000 online courses including 277 new and redesigned courses with transferable credits between participating institutions. http://www.citynews.ca/2015/10/08/ontario-universities-colleges-team-up-to-offer-13000-courses-online/ Share on Facebook

by Tomorrow’s Professor Teaching and Learning, Stanford In the synchronous online class, small-group chat rooms can be one of the most integral and engaging portions of an online course, and they will make your whole-class chats that much more engaging. Small-group chat rooms provide excellent avenues for students to bond with one another as this venue offers a multitude of opportunities to discuss course material in more depth. https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1436 In the synchronous online class, small-group chat rooms can be one of the most integral and engaging portions of an online course, and they will make your whole-class chats that much more engaging. Small-group chat rooms provide excellent avenues for students to bond with one another as this venue offers a multitude of opportunities to discuss course material in more depth. <a href="https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1436 Share on Facebook

by Anne Niccoli, EDUCAUSE Review What effect do digital devices have on our digital brains? To uncover the influence on learning of using digital tablets for reading, the Coast Guard Leadership Development Center conducted an experiment to ascertain differences in recall and comprehension between tablet and paper readers. As of 2014, 63 percent of colleges reported using e-textbooks, while 27 percent planned to in the near future.1 But what drives these digital book policies and practices in higher education — technology or research? http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/9/paper-or-tablet-reading-recall-and-comprehension Share on Facebook

by Edutopia Check out Edutopia’s collection of articles, videos, and resources on using video games, simulations, and gaming concepts in the classroom. Just updated! http://www.edutopia.org/game-based-learning-resources Share on Facebook

by Amy Ahearn, EdSurge Trying to retrofit MOOCs designed for individual learning to facilitate collaboration is tougher than it might seem. As any good teacher will tell you, activities for groups have to be designed differently than assignments for individuals. If you try to give a group of fourth graders a single worksheet to complete, not much meaningful learning will occur. We think the same principle applies to online course design. Here are seven tips we’d give to instructional designers looking to build community around online courses: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-10-11-seven-tips-for-creating-community-in-online-courses Share on Facebook

by Ruth Campbell, Odessa American Four years ago, Odessa College’s biology department was the fourth largest at the school. It is now the largest, thanks to the demand for health care workers in the area. During the past five years, the biology department has grown by 42 percent and online biology courses by 190 percent, biology professor Chet Cooper said. The subject’s popularity also could be due to the enthusiasm of the department’s professors who go in and out of each other’s offices and will even let other professors observe them in class and give them a chance to teach for a few minutes in each other’s classes, Cooper said. http://www.oaoa.com/news/education/odessa_college/article_dfb33d68-6f70-11e5-9bea-9f4bade12696.html Share on Facebook

by mUmbrella NewsmartThe Wall Street Journal has launched a subscription-based online tutorial service to help people speak better business English. The service, called Newsmart, takes articles and videos from the Journal, and users must complete comprehension, grammar and vocabulary exercises about these stories. The service is gamified, with a leadership board function encouraging competition between users. The service costs $7.50 a month for a subscription online or as an app for Android or iOS phones. Newsmart is available to individuals or companies, which can sign up for Newsmart Pro, an advanced version with data analytics that monitor performance against international English certifications such as TOEIC and TOEFL. http://www.mumbrella.asia/2015/10/wall-street-journal-enters-e-learning-space-with-business-english-tutorials-for-subscribers/ Share on Facebook

by Larry Press, a New Domain An intriguing survey just out from the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute shows that an overwhelming number of high school students now are taking online classes on their own initiative. The numbers present three striking things. First, it’s clear students aren’t waiting for school prompts to pursue online classes. They’re doing it all by themselves in high numbers. Second, the students that attend historically black colleges take more online courses than other schools. Third, there’s a clear trend that online classes are increasing in popularity. Whether on their own accord or at a school’s requirement, online classes are being utilized by a large percentage of incoming freshman. http://anewdomain.net/2015/09/23/larry-press-online-classes-rise/ Share on Facebook

by Melinda Rogers, University of Utah Gerawork Teferra fled to Kakuma, Kenya, from his native Ethiopia with nothing but desperation. He joined thousands of refugees from neighboring African nations, most who had traveled hundreds of miles to reach the safety of a refugee camp far from violence, religious persecution and starvation in the places they’d once called home. He took an opportunity to become a secondary teacher and also enrolled in a new online program, developed by the University of Utah College of Social Work, designed to train individuals living and working in refugee camps to provide care and services to other camp residents. Teferra is among the first group of students who graduated on Oct. 12 from the new Case Management Certificate program, where he’s learned skills to better serve refugee populations. http://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/refugee-camp-grads/ Share on Facebook

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology Through a new app called MyPath, students at Brandman University can earn a bachelor’s degree at their own pace without purchasing a single textbook. The private, nonprofit institution within the Chapman University System primarily serves working adults at 25 campuses throughout California and Washington, as well as online. Brandman partnered with Flat World Knowledge to create MyPath, which incorporates adaptive learning, game-based learning, data analytics and social learning in a competency-based education model. Course content is available any time, anywhere using an iPad or laptop computer; all materials are embedded into the MyPath platform, with no textbooks required. Students work at their own pace, applying previous learning and work experience toward earning their degree. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/10/05/brandman-u-launches-new-online-learning-platform-with-no-textbooks-required.aspx Share on Facebook

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive Clint Schmidt, COO of Bloc, questions partnerships between coding bootcamps and accredited institutions as a "dangerous backdoor to access federal student loans." In an article for LinkedIn, Bloc argues that funding opportunity would give bootcamps a chance to go after easy money, focusing less on student outcomes, like some for-profit colleges have been accused of doing. He suggests one accountability measure — asking a board of experienced developers to review portfolios of bootcamp graduates and ensure they actually got the job-ready skills they meant to pay for. http://www.educationdive.com/news/bootcamp-coo-questions-why-peer-programs-are-chasing-accreditation/407233/ Share on Facebook

by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed As massive open online course providers specialize in disciplines and delivery modes, universities are looking for new opportunities to experiment. The trend appears to be benefiting edX. Many colleges have "double-dipped" by joining both Coursera and edX, two major MOOC providers, since MOOCs went mainstream in 2012. For example, the California Institute of Technology, Rice University and the University of Toronto all partnered with Coursera in July 2012 and then joined edX in 2013. Similarly, Peking University in Beijing first partnered with edX in May 2013, then with Coursera three months later. But among colleges and universities in the U.S., movement from one MOOC platform to the next is a one-way street. According to an Inside Higher Ed analysis, at least 10 of the institutions that first partnered with Coursera have since joined edX. Not a single edX institution has gone the other way. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/13/colleges-explain-why-they-double-dipped-moocs Share on Facebook

by Jeff Swiatek, Indianapolis Star Eli Lilly University? That’s pushing it. But the drug maker’s inner academic side might be coming out. Eli Lilly and Co. said Tuesday it has developed a college-level course that will be offered at participating colleges. The online course, not surprisingly, deals with drug discovery and development. Lilly said it developed the graduate-level course with experts at 10 academic institutions. Lilly footed the bill, which it didn’t disclose, and the academic experts donated their time, said Lilly spokesman Mark Taylor. Lilly will unveil the e-learning course, called "Making Medicines: The Process of Drug Development," at an American Osteopathic Association conference in Florida this weekend and launch the course in 2016. It will be offered as an elective at participating colleges. http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2015/10/13/eli-lilly-starts-online-course-drug-development/73879342/ Share on Facebook

Elizabeth Mulherrin, Evolllution Institutions can improve their engagement with adult students by focusing on collecting and analyzing data analytics, which in turn can have a significant impact on student outcomes and success. The first installment of this series, Personalization at Scale: Two Institutional Journeys, described the similarities and differences between two adult-serving online institutions, and the organizational capacity for leveraging data and technology to support learners. UMUC and Capella are continuously exploring how data analytics can identify and support learners’ needs, especially in the first term, to set them up for success. Both UMUC and Capella use internally developed and third-party tools as part of this process, and both also leverage the learning management systems (LMS) that their institutions use to deliver orientation and similar courses. By using the same LMS that is used for academic courses, learners have the opportunity to become familiar with the technology that they will use throughout their degree program. http://evolllution.com/technology/metrics/personalization-at-scale-using-metrics-to-improve-the-student-experience/ Share on Facebook

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive University of Toledo professors Claire Stuve and Kevin Gibbs are highlighting the importance of a synchronous component to online courses, of monitoring student interaction, and of collecting data for constant improvement when aiming for student success online. In a piece for eCampus News, the duo write that synchronous element gives students a chance to interact with their peers and instructors, virtually, in real time, meeting the needs of traditional and nontraditional students with recorded interactions to be reviewed later. Tracking how students engage with course materials, how long they watch videos, and whether they review gives instructors data for early warnings and helps crystallize the power of technology in student outcomes. http://www.educationdive.com/news/u-of-toledo-instructors-identify-keys-to-online-learning-success/407486/ Share on Facebook

By PAUL SULLIVAN, NY Times Gqyatri Ganesh, director of development at the Christian Hospital, a rural hospital in Mungeli, India, says she hopes to get better at tapping into the international network of donors that could help sustain the hospital. Paolo Pagaduan, a project manager with the World Wildlife Fund in the Philippines, says he is trying to learn a new role at the organization. Both have signed up for courses at the new nonprofit group Philanthropy University, started by Amr Al-Dabbagh, a Saudi businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Dabbagh donated several million dollars to see if a learning initiative could improve the lives of 100 million people by 2020. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/your-money/online-university-helps-philanthropic-groups-and-their-leaders.html?_r=0 Share on Facebook