By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology The National Science Foundation (NSF) is making sure that big data gets attention in every pocket of the country. This week the NSF unveiled the establishment of four regional hubs for data science innovation, each led by a team of university experts and extending out to almost 300 other organizations, including non-profits, cities and businesses. Each big data or BD hub will specialize in particular areas of study and will provide guidance for building out "spokes" to undertake specific projects. The "big data brain trust" assembled within each hub is expected to develop and support regional partnerships and activities to address regional challenges. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/11/05/nsf-funds-big-data-brain-trust.aspx Share on Facebook

By Laura Devaney, eCampusNews Students’ desire for instant feedback, such as the kind they receive through social media, could be a significant asset when it comes to studying with the help of learning analytics technology, new research suggests. Eighty-seven percent of surveyed college students said having access to learning analytics on their academic performance can have positively impact their learning experience, according to "The Impact of Technology on College Student Study Habits," the third report in an annual series conducted by McGraw-Hill Education and fielded by Hanover Research. http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/students-learning-analytics-547/ Share on Facebook

by Molly Hensley-Clancy, BuzzFeed With online for-profit schools leading a boom in black college enrollment, historically black colleges are learning, cautiously, from the model. Now, amidst a push by one of the largest benefactors of historically black colleges, the country’s HBCUs are beginning to figure out how they fit into an online space once dominated by for-profit colleges. They are struggling, too, with the question of what an online education at a black college looks like. "Generally speaking, HBCUs, especially public HBCUs, are behind the curve on this one," said Johnny Taylor, the president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports most of the country’s public HBCUs. Taylor believes that building online programs is a matter of dire urgency, and even survival, for historically black schools. They need online programs to compete with majority-white institutions for the older, nontraditional students that tend to be attracted to online programs. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/black-colleges-are-going-online Share on Facebook

by Richard N. Van Eck, EDUCAUSE Review What will DGBL look like in another ten years? Who knows? Maybe the digital game natives won’t have arrived after all. Or perhaps they will be very different from what we are expecting—just as today’s digital natives are not what we expected in 2006. Or maybe DGBL will help usher in a new era of effective (though not entirely game-based) teaching. What we do know today is that we have the evidence and the design tools to demonstrate that digital games are powerful learning tools. Whether we choose to take advantage of the opportunity before us is a completely different question. http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/10/digital-game-based-learning-still-restless-after-all-these-years Share on Facebook

by Elke M. Leeds and Jim Cope, OJDLA KSU redefined the MOOC value proposition through collaboration of university leadership and faculty. The new proposition shifts measures of success beyond just course completion to include measures that benefit students, faculty, and the institution. Students benefitted through access to open educational resources, the acquisition of professional learning units at no cost, and the potential of college credit at a greatly reduced cost. Academic units benefited through a mechanism to attract students and future revenue while the university benefited through digital impressions, branding, institutionally leveraged scalable learning environments, streamlined credit evaluation processes and expanded digital education. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall183/leeds_cope183.html Share on Facebook

by Veronica Outlaw and Margaret Rice, OJDLA The rise of online and hybrid courses at the higher education level increases the need for distance learning infrastructures to nourish online faculty preparedness and student online learning success. One part of the distance learning infrastructure is incorporating the use of educated and trained instructional designers to assist faculty in developing robust and quality online courses. Developing online courses with an instructional designer is a very laborious process, but the results can outweigh the struggles that faculty encounter when doing it on their own. The authors explain what is involved in an established six-step course development model for developing, reviewing, and delivering a quality online course. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall183/outlaw_rice183.html Share on Facebook

by Debra Hughes, eMPR In a little less than 4 years after massive online course company Coursera’s existence, what began in a Stanford University classroom of 400 students has become a global classroom of 100,000, with 16 billion total course enrollments. "We envision a world where anyone, anywhere can transform their life by accessing the world’s best learning experience," said Daphne Koller, PhD, said, in delivering the 2015 ACR/AHRP Annual Meeting Opening Lecture. "The impact in the real world can be quite significant and inspiring." The implications for education—more specifically, the process of learning—are enormous. This is relevant when one considers that 91% of millennials change jobs in less than 3 years, and new jobs often require new skills. Consider, too, that 65% of tomorrow’s job don’t exist, Dr. Koller said, and that "58% of employers worldwide believe that new college grads are inadequately prepared for work." http://www.empr.com/acrarhp-annual-meeting-2015/coursera-transforming-lives-worldwide-through-education/article/452552/ Share on Facebook

by Maha Bali, Chronicle of Higher Ed When we use technology extensively in our teaching (or work in general, really), how do we handle unexpected changes to that technology? Such changes could be a website going down, a tool changes or disappears, or even worse! Here are some thoughts and workarounds. http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/when-the-technology-changes-on-you/61291 Share on Facebook

by Jeff Campbell, University Business Going digital doesn’t have to mean creating an impersonal academic experience. Far from it. The challenge in creating a virtual classroom setting is how to do so while making it as focused on the student’s experience. This is important for advanced degrees that cater to individuals who are active in their careers. These students desire to learn as much from their peers as they do their professors. I believe there’s no better platform to engage a global student body so long as the environment is set up correctly. Following are three ways to accomplish this. http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/three-ways-make-virtual-classroom-personal Share on Facebook

By Anayat Durrani, US News These courses combine online and on-ground learning, even as online degree programs are rare in the Arab region.  Online courses can give students the flexibility to learn on their own schedules. The use of blended learning is becoming more common at Arab region universities, and can prove an added benefit to traditional learning for Arab international students studying in the region. Somali national Zakaria Mohamed Hagi Hassan is currently taking a mix of in-class and online learning for his course on advanced crop physiology in the College of Food and Agricultural Sciences at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. "Online classes play an important role in a student’s full understanding of the course, and sometimes it’s a supplement for what you have learned in the class," says Hassan, who is pursuing a Master of Science in crop science. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-arab-region-universities/articles/2015/11/10/more-arab-region-universities-offer-blended-learning Share on Facebook

By Ian Quillen, US News Traditional-age college students in online programs can benefit from campus access and success courses. Because online higher education has generally been aimed at older students, so has most advice for online students. But with an increasing number of 18- to 24-year-olds turning online for at least some of their undergraduate study, perhaps it’s time to update that advice. Here are five suggestions for traditional college-age students considering a new-age virtual approach to a degree. http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2015/11/09/5-ways-younger-students-can-be-successful-in-online-programs Share on Facebook

By Toni Fuhrman, Campus Technology Two visionary IT experts discuss the biggest trends in mobile for the coming year, from 3D touch and virtual reality to wearables and the Internet of Things. For years, mobile technologies have had an enormous influence on higher education, changing the way students communicate, access information and learn. And there’s no sign of mobile losing steam anytime soon. According to the 2015 NMC Horizon Report, which forecasted the most important ed tech developments in higher education, mobile-related trends will rule for at least the next five years: In the short term, with a time-to-adoption horizon of one year of less, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon will proliferate; in the mid-term (two to three years) wearable technologies will see significant growth; and in the long-term (four to five years), the Internet of Things (IoT) will have wide-reaching impact. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/11/10/top-mobile-trends-to-watch-in-2016.aspx Share on Facebook

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed This week the edX community is being graciously hosted by Georgetown University to discuss our initiatives in open online learning. EdX is, at its heart, a non-profit consortium of educational providers. This is not what I think folks normally think of when they think of edX. Say "edX" and most people will talk about MOOCs and the technological platform, (in the case of edX an open source platform), that enables teaching and learning at scale. The evolution of open online education, and the technologies and methodologies that we use to teach open online courses at scale, are certainly part of the edX and MOOC story. I’d argue, however, that the true innovations of MOOCs are not those found inside the open online courses. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/better-residential-learning-true-innovation-moocs Share on Facebook

by Marco della Cava, USA TODAY Udacity has 11,000 students. It has some 1,000 graduates bearing its so-called "nanodegrees" who paid $200 a month per course. Most courses require a minimum of 10 hours of work a week, and last between three to six months. Makhijani says the company is profitable with its existing model, even when taking into account the fact that it refunds 50% of tuition to anyone successfully passing a course. "We found we could offer that enticement financially, and we wanted to do because the work isn’t easy," he says, adding that some 90% of Udacity students have full-time jobs. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/11/11/online-pioneer-udacity-lands-105-million-round-and-1-billion-valuation/75544526/ Share on Facebook

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News New report studies close to a thousand different institutions to provide a detailed snapshot of 2015’s dynamic college and university social media use. If you want to know how other colleges and universities are using social media today, know this: they’re using it like any other media-savvy millennial. From a spike in "giving days" and crowdfunding campaigns to a heavy focus on multimedia, higher education has become a social media heavy-hitter. But measuring success is another issue. The findings are part of a yearly report (currently in its sixth year) conducted by CASE, Huron Education, and mStoner, Inc.—written by Jennifer Mack, senior researcher at Huron Education and Michael Stoner, co-founder and president of mStoner—on higher education’s refinement, prioritization and expansion of their social media habits. http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/trends-social-media-620/ Share on Facebook

by Leena Rao, Fortune Online education startup Udacity has raised a huge new round of funding that, according to a source close to the company, values the business at around $1 billion.With nanodegrees that come with feedback and mentoring, the completion rate is 90%, Thrun has said. Under the latest strategy, Thrun said that Udacity’s revenue is growing nearly 30% month over month and is profitable. He declined to disclose any more detailed financial information but one source pegged the company’s revenue annual revenue run rate at around $24 million. http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/udacity-funding/ Share on Facebook

by Amelia Teng, Straits Times The number of Singaporeans enrolling in Coursera courses has almost tripled in the last three years - from 52,000 in 2013 to 140,000 so far this year. They are among the 10 million people worldwide plugged into the online learning channel, which took off about three years ago. Coursera offers 1,400 courses with 134 university partners including Brown and Princeton. These mostly free courses consist of video lectures, interactive quizzes and peer-graded assignments. Coursera has also started about 80 specialisation programmes, which are a series of bundled modules. Users may pay up to US$500 (S$710) to earn certification for these programmes. http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/coursera-enrolment-in-singapore-soars Share on Facebook

by Becca Solberg, Michigan Daily Daphne Koller, president and co-founder of Coursera, gives a talk as a part of the Academic Innovation at Michigan series at the Michigan League on Thursday. Koller’s presentation, hosted by the Office of Digital Education and Innovation, discussed the impacts of Coursera, a platform for hosting the massive open online courses, or MOOCs, offered by a variety of universities. Koller, who is also a professor of computer science at Stanford University, began by describing the impacts of Coursera both on the universities that offer courses and the professors who teach them. In particular, she emphasized how online courses encourage professors to alter and improve their teaching techniques to best serve their students, who have the option of walking away from an online site at any moment compared to the more captive audience of a classroom. https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news/co-founder-coursera-speaks-league Share on Facebook

by Bradley Fuster, US News Make sure taking online courses at another institution doesn’t become an administrative mess. Start by getting permission from your academic department and checking enrollment policies. ​Students who fall behind or want to accelerate in school may opt to enroll in online classes at another institution during the academic year, or over the winter and summer breaks. As a department chair and adviser, I have unfortunately seen students become tangled in an administrative mess by doing this. Consider these following six tips before enrolling in an online class at another institution. http://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/2015/11/13/6-things-to-consider-before-taking-online-classes-at-another-institution Share on Facebook

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News "The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (2012) reported that 75.5 percent of faculty members at two- and four-year institutions were in ‘contingent positions’ off of the tenure track," write the report’s authors. "Of this large group, 70 percent were part-time or adjunct faculty members, making roughly half of all instructors in higher education in 2011 an adjunct or part-time faculty member." The authors cite research that predicts this population will only continue to grow in size and proportion. The survey similarly found that more than half of institutions reported that their adjunct population that teaches online has grown over the last year. It’s a one-size-fits all: Policies that were designed for on-campus adjuncts were frequently applied to those who are teaching online, notes the report. http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/online-adjunct-faculty-441/ Share on Facebook

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology The study involved 5,000 students using OER and more than 11,000 "control" students using standard textbooks in courses at 10 different institutions around the country enrolled in 15 different undergraduate courses. It focused on five measures of student success. In the area of course completion, the researchers found "almost no significant differences" between the two groups with a couple of exceptions. In Business 110 and Biology 111 students in the OER group showed higher rates of completion than students in the control. For example, in the business class, 21 percent of commercial textbook users withdrew; in the OER group only six percent withdrew. In the area of student achievement (passing with a C- or better grade), the outcome was mixed. In nine courses researchers saw no significant differences. In five courses, the OER users were more likely to pass the course than those in the control group. In one course, Business 110, students in the control group surpassed students using OER. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/11/10/major-study-finds-oer-students-do-just-as-well-or-better.aspx Share on Facebook

Edited by Scott Hawksworth and Sarah Bass, Best Online Universities Educational technology, and more specifically e-Learning, offers tremendous value to both students and teachers. Both are constantly evolving, and as such, challenges are inevitable. To that end, we surveyed hundreds of e-Learning experts in search of useful tips for teaching and learning online. Our search generated 101 amazing tips, which are presented below. For the first timer to the seasoned e-Learner, you’re likely to find many valuable tips to help you succeed online. http://bestonlineuniversities.com/101-elearning-tips-from-the-experts/ Share on Facebook

by Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed Have you been FaceTiming with friends and family? It’s different, right? We’ve been FaceTiming with my older daughter in South Korea (gap year), my brother (new baby), and my parents. Where we once made phone calls we now FaceTime. There is something about FaceTime that makes conversations conversational. FaceTime eliminates most of the weirdness of online video conversations. FaceTime starts with a single click. The video and audio always works. The sound is great, and matches the good video feed. How will online education change when synchronous online classes improve to the level of casual FaceTime conversations? https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/will-facetime-change-online-education Share on Facebook

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology Colleges and universities are increasingly relying on adjuncts and part-time faculty members to teach their online courses. A quarter of schools have increased the use of online adjunct instructors by five percent or more; 31 percent have increased their use by up to five percent. Yet often, these instructors don’t receive training on how to teach online; the schools lack formal policies for faculty expectations; and faculty are expected to create their own online courses with or without institutional help. Those are some of the findings in an extensive survey on the use of adjunct faculty for teaching online courses, recently reported by the Learning House, a company that runs online programs for schools, and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET), a nonprofit that helps institutions improve their e-learning programs. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/11/16/survey-not-enough-training-instructional-support-for-online-adjunct-faculty.aspx Share on Facebook