We asked the Technical College System of Georgia's accessibility champions how they help instructors create a more inclusive learning experience for all students.
Here, we ask Anant Agarwal for his perspectives on the impacts of generative AI in higher education environments and what edX is doing to help lead the way in the productive use of innovative new tools based on the technology.
At some point in our academic careers, most of us have found ourselves stuck in the back of an overcrowded lecture hall. Too far from the presenter to see or hear much of anything, it wasn't long before we lost interest, started on other work, or took a nap. Anyone sitting in those first few rows may have been enlightened and inspired, but for the rest of us, the class was less than productive. Higher education has set out to change that.
Higher education IT association Educause has released a new resource to help educators and IT leaders navigate changing learning modalities and better serve student needs. Part of the association's Showcase Series, "Online, In-Person, or Hybrid? Yes" pulls together reports, lessons learned, and other materials that align with the corresponding Top 10 IT Issue for 2023.
Open source learning management system provider Open LMS has announced a partnership with Ease Learning to incorporate the latter's Skillways skills assessment tools into the Open LMS platform. The integration will provide instructors with access to performance metrics such as heatmaps of cohort progress and individual learners' levels of skill mastery.
Duke University is investing in Instructure's learning ecosystem, including Canvas LMS, Impact, Canvas Studio, and Canvas Credentials, to support learning experiences not just for current students and faculty, but also lifelong learners.
Learning technology company D2L recently announced a redesign of its Brightspace Community, a repository of resources, networking, and collaboration tools for Brightspace clients, partners, users, and developers.
Screen-sharing technology provider Airtame has released a new feature, Share to Call, on its hybrid conferencing platform to make screen sharing easy, the company said in a release. With Share to Call, anyone can instantly share their screen in a Zoom or Microsoft Teams call from their personal device without having to go through a lengthy process.
Based on a survey of college students over the last three semesters, students understand that remotely attending a lecture via remote synchronous technology is less effective for them than attending in person, but they highly value the flexibility of this option of attending when they need it.
In the increasing climate of AI-generated content, educators are expressing growing concerns about plagiarized work from students and how to recognize it. Open LMS, a provider of Moodle-based open source learning management system platforms, has teamed up with AI detection company Copyleaks to help tackle this problem.
Amid a growing demand for ultra-wide conferencing projection and new virtual presentation apps with multiple live views, LG Business Solutions USA has introduced a new 4K UHD laser projector with 21:9 aspect ratio support offering “maximum visibility,” according to a news release.
Open source learning management system Moodle has formed a partnership with AI content and plagiarism detector Copyleaks. With thousands of education institutions using Moodle's LMS, custom development, and learning design services, and the explosive use of AI-generated content, Moodle said in a release that feedback from its clients cemented its move to incorporate an AI detection tool.
Arizona's Mesa Community College is renovating its classroom audio systems with a variety of solutions from conferencing, collaboration, and streaming technology provider ClearOne. The goal: to "enhance the flexibility and quality of remote learning experiences" for the institution's 20,000 students, according to a news announcement.
At its 11th annual conference in 2023, educational company Coursera announced it is adding ChatGPT-powered interactive ed tech tools to its learning platform, including a generative AI coach for students and an AI course-building tool for teachers.
Class Technologies has announced plans for a beta release of A.I. Teaching Assistant, a ChatGPT-powered tool designed to improve learner engagement and outcomes in live online courses.
A French generative AI ed tech startup called Nolej (pronounced “knowledge”) has made publicly available its new OpenAI-based instructional content generator for educators, called Nolej AI, ahead of its official introduction at BETT in London planned for Thursday, March 30, and its scheduled commercial debut at the ASU+GSV Summit on April 19, the company's chairman told Campus Technology.
Through a new partnership with online learning platform edX, Pepperdine University plans to launch its first MicroMasters master's degree program, available later this year. The new program will offer a flexible pathway to completing a master's degree through career-relevant, skill-based introductory courses.
These best practices from the Learning Design and Technology program at the University of San Diego will help practitioners create the best possible learning experience for students and develop a rewarding career in instructional design.
Global learning technology company D2L, maker of the Brightspace LMS, has updated and added new features to its product suite. The updates include tools to promote creativity, improve the user experience, and strengthen the learning ecosystem, the company said.
Through its partnership with edX, an online degree and digital course content company, the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) will launch a fully online Master of Science degree in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI).
AVer USA, a provider of video collaboration and education technology solutions, has introduced a new all-in-one camera with AI audio built for education, called the A30, combining a document camera, web camera, microphone, and speaker.
Springboard, an online learning platform that emphasizes mentor-student relationships, today unveiled a new partnership with Gonzaga University to deliver two online “bootcamps” to learners aiming for careers in cybersecurity and software engineering.
How will technologies and practices like artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, digital transformation, and change management impact colleges and universities this year? Here's what the experts told us.
Students who want to enroll in digital courses are finding that not enough information is provided ahead of time in order for them to be successful, a 2022 WCET (WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies) partnership survey found.
CT asks D2L President Stephen Laster to comment on critical issues for education, on the technologies and practices that can help make a difference, and on the projects he's found most rewarding and productive.
The University of California, Davis, which offers massive open online courses on several other online learning platforms, has now also partnered with edX to launch a suite of free MOOCs, along with a professional certificate program in search engine optimization.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the American Council on Education (ACE) have transitioned the Virtual Exchange/Collaborative Online International Learning (VE/COIL) Transformation Lab from ACE to AAC&U.
Instructure has acquired LearnPlatform, an ed tech company that provides real-time, evidence-based data on the effectiveness of digital ed programs chosen by universities and K–12 schools.
Interactive display maker Promethean has acquired the digital whiteboard platform Explain Everything, which allows users to create lessons, activities, and interactive presentations on any mobile device.
Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies has partnered with Coursera to offer a new pathway to degree completion for adult learners.
Texas Tech University is launching a one-year pilot program to help students in the state complete their diplomas or earn a GED. The program is in partnership with TTU K–12, a fully online school district operated by Texas Tech, and is being made possible by a $1.8 million grant from the United States Department of Education and the Texas Workforce Commission.
Learning technology company D2L has launched its Brightspace Creator+ package, allowing anyone to create digital courses without having to learn coding.
Online learning company 2U has moved its boot camp offerings to the edX brand with the introduction of edX Boot Camps, intensive technology training programs designed to meet the upskilling and reskilling needs of working adults.
Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management has partnered with ed tech company Instructure to provide its Canvas learning platform to the Francis and Dionne Najafi 100 Million Global Learners Initiative through 2030.
Google announced it is partnering with Columbia University, the University of Michigan, Arizona State University, and the University of Illinois' Gies College of Business to offer new industry specializations in growing fields to complement its Google Career Certificates.
As a predominately online institution geared toward serving adult students, University of Massachusetts Global is rethinking traditional models of education to embrace the flexibility and career relevance that working learners need. We spoke with Dr. David Andrews, chancellor of UMass Global, about developing a new credentialing ecosystem, listening to student and industry needs, and the data infrastructure that can really support student success.
A new report from Educause offers a concrete plan of action to move colleges and universities toward the future of hybrid learning.
According to a recent Educause survey, the number of students expressing preferences for courses that are mostly or completely online has increased 220% since the onset of the pandemic, from 9% in 2020 (before March 11) to 29% in 2022.
The United Negro College Fund and Deloitte Digital have embarked on an ambitious effort to reimagine online education for historically Black colleges and universities. Here's how they're leveraging technology to put community at the center of the online HBCU experience.
Howard University and the nonprofit National Education Equity Lab have announced they are expanding a program that allows high school students in historically underserved communities to take college Algebra in their high school classrooms and earn college credit at no cost.
According to a global survey from Coursera, employers and students alike see value in microcredentials that document job-relevant skills and experience.
Virtual and hybrid learning company ClassIn is entering the United States education market this fall, hoping to attract educators’ attention with its integrated content management and learning management systems. The platform is used by more than 60,000 K–12 and higher education institutions in 160 countries.
Students using the Moodle open source learning management platform can now listen to learning content in more than 50 languages, thanks to a new integration with digital voice and text-to-speech tool ReadSpeaker.
As flexible work policies become the norm, institutions must rethink their approach to employee engagement and workforce culture. Here's how Southern New Hampshire University is building a remote-first workplace centered on the employee experience.
Brigham Young University's BYU-Pathway Worldwide online education program has partnered with Anthology to roll out two of the company's six cloud-based ed tech platforms, creating a central hub for administrators, staff, mentors, and its 60,000 learners worldwide.
After a 10-month evaluation of LMS platforms that gathered extensive input from students, faculty and staff, Northern Arizona University is moving to Instructure's Canvas learning management system.
In a recent survey, nearly all higher education chief online officers expected online learning of some kind to be a part of the typical student experience within the next three years. While survey respondents did not necessarily agree on how much online would become the norm, it's clear that hybrid models are favored to dominate instruction by 2025.
CT asks D2L CEO John Baker how today's LMS is getting smarter, and about the opportunities AI, machine learning, predictive analytics, and related technologies are presenting in the LMS marketplace.
2U, parent company of online learning platform edX, has revamped its partnership model, moving from a one-size-fits-all offering to a variety of revenue-sharing options that enable universities to select stackable bundles of technology and services to meet their needs.
San Joaquin Valley College, a private for-profit institution focused on career training, has created a new resource for online students that gamifies co-curricular learning outcomes to help boost student success.
EdX has launched two Spark Augmented Reality courses from Meta, developed as part of the online learning platform's partnership with Meta Immersive Learning. The goal: to "build a learning ecosystem for the metaverse and give professionals broader access to the tools and education needed to build a career in augmented reality."
The University of Central Missouri is updating its classrooms with new AV technologies that use artificial intelligence and augmented reality to capture more engaging, flexible presentations and better serve the needs of hybrid learning.
What would a learning management system centered on culture and community look like? The United Negro College Fund hopes to answer that question with HBCUv, a new learning platform that aims to reshape the future of online education for historically Black colleges and universities. We spoke with Ed Smith-Lewis, VP of strategic partnerships and institutional programs at UNCF, and Nathan Young, head of strategy for Ethos at Deloitte Digital, about bringing the HBCU experience to an online environment, the defining characteristics of HBCUv and the equity-centered design process behind their work.
Flexibility remains a key priority for students pursuing higher education, according to a new "College 2030" report from Barnes & Noble College Insights, the research arm of Barnes & Noble Education.
Turnitin has launched a new mobile app for its Gradescope assignment and grading platform that enables students to submit their assignments through any connected smartphone, the company announced this week, following a limited-access pilot in April.
As classrooms evolve to accommodate the flexibility and innovation of new learning models, it's important to provide ample training and resources for all constituents. Here are three key areas to consider.
Southern New Hampshire University is well known for innovation in online learning, but prior to the pandemic, the institution had less than 100 employees working remotely, and had only just begun building out its remote work policies. In March 2020, the abrupt shift to fully remote work required a new approach to employee engagement. We spoke with Jennifer LaFountain, director of employee experience at SNHU, about how the institution is developing a culture that allows employees to feel connected no matter where they are located.
Display manufacturer Optoma has introduced a cloud-based version of its Optoma Management Suite that is powered by Microsoft Azure and offers streamlined, real-time monitoring, diagnosing and controlling of connected audiovisual displays via a single platform.
Class Technologies, maker of the learning platform that adds teaching and learning tools to Zoom, has announced a partnership with Open LMS, commercial provider of the open source Moodle learning management system.
Google has introduced a slate of new apps for Chromebooks — including a new free Screencast app and a free Figma design app — as well as new functions in Google Classroom and Google Meet, and the company announced integrations with popular ed tech apps that will launch later this year.
HIgher education technology company Jenzabar has introduced Campus Marketplace, a new platform that allows institutions to unbundle their courses from degree programs and make them available to both enrolled and unenrolled students through a branded online storefront.
Blending the best of face-to-face instruction with the flexibility of online learning can enhance the higher ed experience for all types of learners, lower the cost of a degree and better prepare students for the workforce.
Synchronous online learning platform Class Technologies recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire Anthology's Blackboard Collaborate virtual classroom tool.
Northampton Community College recently won an Instructional Technology Council award recognizing its Smart Apartment Learning Lab: a combination escape room and technology sandbox in which students can learn about the tech we take for granted in our everyday lives. We spoke with Beth Ritter-Guth, associate dean of online learning and educational technology at the college, to find out how the Learning Lab is engaging students, building digital literacy and providing valuable training in the job skills of the future.
A growing number of community college students want online courses going forward, according to a new report from Bay View Analytics.
An accounting professor shares how best practices from online pedagogy have helped her create a blended learning environment that supports student success.
Pima Community College in Arizona is stretching the capabilities of its D2L Brightspace learning platform, turning the technology into a conference management solution for its annual PimaOnline Educators' Conference.
Is the education technology in your online course equitable and inclusive of all learners? Here are key equity questions to ask when considering the pedagogical experience of an e-learning tool.
Online learning platform Coursera has introduced Career Academy, an offering that allows institutions to bundle self-paced online courses and career resources to help students gain in-demand skills for the workforce.
Following through on a pledge made at the close of its acquisition by 2U, edX is awarding $1 million in grants to 10 institutions to develop free online courses in "Essential Human Skills for the Virtual Age."
The State University of New York is partnering with D2L to make the company's Brightspace learning management system available to its full network of campuses.
The University of Michigan has partnered with Coursera to launch 10 new courses that will use extended reality to provide immersive experiences in critical job skills.
Pearson has announced the acquisition of language-learning platform Mondly, providing a path for Pearson to add self-study to its line of instructional and assessment solutions, according to a news release.
One of the takeaways from this year’s Educause Horizon Report is that there’s likely no such thing as a return to normal: Many of the changes that higher education has undergone over the past couple of years are here to stay. To delve into the details of what’s on the horizon for higher ed in 2022, we spoke with Kathe Pelletier, director of Educause’s Teaching and Learning Program and co-author of the report.
In this free, one-day event, education and IT leaders will offer ideas and best practices based on expertise and research in the field, to help inform your digital transformation strategy.
This fall, students at 10 colleges and universities across the United States will be able to take courses on a "metaversity" campus, an exact virtual replica of their institution's physical campus.
Instructure has announced the acquisition of Concentric Sky, maker of the Badgr digital credentialing platform.
Zoom has introduced several new features for education users of its Chat and Meetings functions, fulfilling the most popular requests from teachers and administrators on its platform, the company announced today.
Vermont's Champlain College is expanding the use of InSpace, a video collaboration tool, in its online learning division.
Cypher Learning, maker of learning platforms for K-20 institutions, corporate training and online education entrepreneurs, has introduced new AI-infused features for improving skill development.
Two professors of history at the University of Arizona have created a learning experience based on "Age of Empires IV," a real-time strategy video game about medieval warfare and civilization-building.
These days, we hear a lot about the "new normal" in higher education. Remote and hybrid learning is here to stay, offering students more flexibility in their learning journeys. But what if the new normal is not enough? We spoke to Mark Milliron, senior vice president of Western Governors University and executive dean of the Teachers College, and Kim Round, academic programs director and associate dean of the Teachers College, about their vision for reimagining education and why learning experience design is essential to student success.
While many colleges and universities turned to digital course materials to serve the needs of remote learners during the pandemic, faculty usage of e-textbooks and other digital content has decreased now that classes have resumed in-person instruction, according to the latest "Faculty Watch" survey from the National Association of College Stores.
The City University of New York is launching CUNY Online, a new online education initiative tasked with producing high-quality online courses and programs and building online degree capacity across the institution.
CT talks with Ellen Wagner to learn about approaches to defining, measuring, and mitigating learning loss.
Online learning platform Coursera and the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream (MCAAD), a think tank focused on advancing economic and social mobility for all, have partnered to launch The American Dream Academy, a new program that will provide free job skills training to up to 200,000 underserved learners in the United States.
Digital transformation is not just about implementing new technologies — it's also about people and the ability to embrace change. In fact, you might say that's the hardest part: Culture is often cited as one of the biggest barriers to digital transformation in higher ed. In February, our Campus Technology Leadership Summit tackled that very topic with a panel discussion on building innovation into the culture of a university. Here's that conversation.
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has announced plans to build a new online learning platform for historically Black colleges and universities, dubbed HBCUv.
Education technology company D2L has introduced a number of tools and enhancements for its Brightspace learning management system designed to boost collaboration and learning.
Dixie State University in Utah has partnered with technology workforce development company Pluralsight to help boost students’ technology-based skills.
Analytics software provider SAS has launched a new program offering analytics skills training for higher education students.
Virtual teaching and learning company Engageli has launched version 2.0 of its platform, introducing a browser-based interface for instructors (in addition to the existing native application for Windows and macOS) as well as a spate of new features for learning.
Education technology company D2L has announced an integration with Class Technologies, maker of online learning software built on the Zoom platform.
At Ohio State University, students developed a list of 10 ways that instructors can use the learning management system more effectively — common-sense guidelines that aim to make courses more consistent, predictable, easier to navigate and generally more student-friendly.
Cybersecurity training and certification provider SANS Institute has launched the SANS + HBCU Cyber Academy, a cybersecurity scholarship and education opportunity for students and alumni of historically Black colleges and universities across the country.
Canada's National Research and Education Network, an ultra-high-speed network connecting researchers and educators across the country's 13 provinces and territories, has selected videoconferencing solution BlueJeans by Verizon to support hybrid learning.
In a recent survey, a whopping 97% of education professionals agreed that video is essential to students' academic experience.
College instructors have changed their attitudes toward academic integrity in online courses, according to a new report from Wiley.
California's San Diego State University has launched the SDSU Cyber Tech Academy, a suite of online cybersecurity certificates designed for security professionals and those seeking to move into cybersecurity careers.
A new report from Every Learner Everywhere, produced in collaboration with Tyton Partners and the Association for Public and Land-grant Universities, offers strategies for investing in digital learning infrastructure while bridging equity gaps to better serve under-represented students.
The pandemic has been a testament to the progress that has been made in the use of technology to support online learning, but it has also revealed how poorly traditional course design translates to a digital experience. And that’s an opportunity for institutions to become more sophisticated in leveraging digital learning environments to go beyond what’s possible in a brick-and-mortar classroom. That’s according to Luyen Chou, chief learning officer at 2U. Here, we talk about transforming online pedagogy, the potential of emerging technologies, the beauty of simple data, essential human skills and more.
Texthelp, a provider of literacy and accessibility technology, has introduced a new web app called OrbitNote that adds accessibility features to PDFs, including the ability to type, highlight and leave voice memos on documents, the company said in a news announcement.
In this free, one-day event, education and IT leaders will offer practical insights and advice to help your institution navigate the many facets of digital transformation.
It's no surprise that enrollment has been a pain point for colleges and universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a recent D2L survey of 171 higher education leaders across North America, 30% of respondents confirmed that enrollment was an area where they've seen the greatest drop-off for students over the past two years.
A new survey from Cengage Group examined why workers quit, what opportunities they are exploring next and what they are doing to achieve those goals.
James Madison University has embedded a digital commons in its website, to better support students in continuing education programs. The institution has adopted software from InScribe, which sets up Q&A communities in online destinations where people already congregate, such as the learning management system.
Colorado State University System's online learning campus, CSU Global, has introduced a structure to woo hesitant returning students who don't want the hassle of designated term or semester start dates or having to submit transcripts before they're accepted.
When asked about their preferences for a post-pandemic academic experience, most community college students in a recent survey said they want to take some courses in a fully online format, and many desired a combination of in-person and online instruction.
A new book shares new students' reflections on college during COVID.
IT leaders, faculty and a student offer a variety of perspectives on the future for their campuses in the new year.
With the Omicron variant spreading rapidly across the United States, colleges and universities face a familiar dilemma: Will COVID force a pivot to online when classes begin in the new year? A new project kicked off by futurist Bryan Alexander aims to crowdsource the answer to that question in a shared Google spreadsheet.
Anthology, a provider of higher education software to support the entire learner lifecycle, recently announced that Greenville Technical College has selected Anthology as the backbone of a campuswide systems overhaul and will implement the company's full suite of tools to better support student journeys and overall institutional effectiveness, according to a news release.
Audio conferencing company Nureva has launched a new classroom solution that integrates audio, video, device management and services.
The Online Learning Consortium has announced a multi-year partnership with Instructure to collaborate on research projects and work together through Instructure's Canvas learning management system to enrich teacher training resources and expand access to equitable digital learning.
Seventy-three percent of STEM faculty in a recent survey had to shift from face-to-face to remote learning in fall 2020, experiencing a multitude of barriers to teaching STEM courses online. Yet most survey respondents remain optimistic about the future of STEM postsecondary education, according to a new report from the Online Learning Consortium and Bay View Analytics.
Class, software that adds teaching and learning tools to the Zoom meeting platform, has introduced a number of new and updated features designed to improve the virtual and hybrid user experience.
The merger of 2U and edX announced in June is now complete. Combined, the companies now serve more than 230 partners and offer 3,500-plus online learning opportunities to more than 40 million learners, spanning free courses, executive education, boot camps, and undergraduate and graduate degree programs, according to a news announcement.
The University of Illinois Gies College of Business is partnering with Google to bundle certificate programs in job-ready skills and create microcredential pathways for adult learners.
The right combination of technology and training will ensure your learning spaces can adapt to ever-changing modes of instruction. Here are key considerations for future-proofing classrooms, supporting faculty and surviving the next pandemic.
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas has introduced a number of hyflex classrooms, capable of accommodating students attending in person and online.
Georgia State University recently launched a Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence Systems graduate certificate program.
The maker of learning management system Canvas, Instructure, has entered into a deal to acquire Kimono, which produces software for cloud-based data integration and interoperability.
Verizon Business has announced a number of new features for its BlueJeans Meetings product, designed to support hybrid and remote learning.
As the format of your meetings evolves, make sure you have engagement and flexibility, advises Joseph Allen, University of Utah professor and co-author of the books Suddenly Virtual and Suddenly Hybrid.
In order to provide a more streamlined experience across their platforms, Ellucian and D2L have announced an expanded partnership focused on ease of integration.
Zoom has introduced several new features specifically useful to educators.
Digital Promise has launched SEERNet, a five-year program that's intended to inspire research on digital learning at scale in both higher education and K-12.
Ed tech company Cengage has launched a new product that integrates digital course materials into an institution's learning management system.
The merger of Anthology and Blackboard announced last month is now complete, answering a few questions about how the combined companies will move forward.
The pandemic accelerated digital transformation and the adoption of new learning models at many colleges and universities — but higher ed culture has some catching up to do. While institutions traditionally measure change in decades, we're now in a time when flexibility, innovation and risk-taking are key to student access and opportunity as well as institutional survival. We spoke with Dr. Mark Lombardi, president of Maryville University, about why the business model of higher ed is broken, the importance of lifelong learning and technology's role in moving universities toward a better future.
Keysight Technologies has introduced PathWave Lab Operation for Remote Learning, a remote access solution designed for online learning that enables the remote setup of instrument labs.
During Instructure's latest user conference, the company introduced new functionality in Canvas, its learning management platform, and reminded the Canvas community that the year has brought many updates to its other products as well.
A new survey from Wiley Education Services has found that online learning "gained traction" in the pandemic.
In this one-day event, education and IT leaders will share how they are planning for the unexpected, identifying efficiencies and utilizing technology to help their institutions excel in these challenging times.
Over a third of Americans changed their plans for education as a result of the pandemic, with Black and Latinx students more likely to do so than White students, according to newly released data from Strada and Heart+Mind Strategies.
UCLA Extension, the continuing education division of the University of California, Los Angeles, is introducing 11 fully online certificate programs that immerse students in the same resources and collaboration opportunities as the school's in-person classes.
Online program management company Academic Partnerships has acquired Coursetune, a maker of curriculum mapping software that provides visualization tools for curriculum and course design.
Anthology and Blackboard have announced a merger, pairing the former's enterprise software for enrollment management, student engagement, alumni fundraising and institutional effectiveness with the latter's learning management software, communication tools and student success solutions.
With fully online or hybrid course formats still very much in play at colleges and universities around the world, accessibility issues remain a key challenge, according to a recent study.
Over the past few years, online learning in higher education has gone through a period of disruptive change. Not only did the pandemic trigger a massive shift from in-person classes to online, but it also brought new models of hybrid learning to the forefront. And micro-credentials, programs certifying specific competencies that can stand alone or be applied toward a larger degree, have gained momentum as learners have needed to reskill and compete in an evolving workforce. To explore these trends and more, we spoke with Dr. Betty Vandenbosch, chief content officer at Coursera, about the state of online education, the future of the traditional four-year degree, and what universities should be doing to keep up with alternative credential pathways.
In a fall 2020 survey of institutions piloting adaptive courseware in gateway courses, 96 percent of faculty agreed that the technology helped them improve student learning, and allowed them to better monitor student progress and hold individual students accountable for engaging in class.
Online education company Noodle has introduced a new platform to help universities engage their students in lifelong learning programs.
InSpace, a new virtual education platform that allows students and instructors to interact online much like they would in physical spaces, has announced integration with Instructure's Canvas learning management system.
Now, while we are not yet free from the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions and technology market leaders are looking at the next big questions: What's in the future? Which of the changes we make during the pandemic should move with us into the future?
The Alabama Community College System (ACCS) has signed a three-year deal with Instructure extending its use of the Canvas learning management system for 12 of its colleges.
A team from Indiana University set out to expand the scope of pedagogical research by creating ManyClasses, a model for studying how students learn not just in a single classroom, but in a variety of different classes across multiple universities. We speak with researchers Emily Fyfe and Ben Motz about how ManyClasses works, the challenges of using a learning management system to conduct research, what they learned from the first ManyClasses experiment, and more.
In this one-day event, education and IT leaders will share their insights and best practices for making meaningful use of data now and building a data strategy for the future.
While hybrid learning environments show great potential in higher education, there are still pedagogical and technical challenges to overcome. Here are key guidelines for moving forward, based on research in the field.
Blackboard recently announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services to integrate the company's Amazon Chime SDK service into Blackboard Collaborate.
Idaho's public colleges and universities can now share their online course offerings through the state's Online Idaho initiative, an effort to expand access to higher education via a statewide digital campus.
The Online Learning Consortium is calling for applications to participate in a new cohort that will work collaboratively to identify challenges and opportunities in online and blended learning.
Online education company 2U has announced it will acquire edX, the online learning platform founded by Harvard and MIT, for $800 million.
When a recent survey asked higher education leaders if the pivot to remote learning during the pandemic changed their institution's priorities, the majority of respondents (53 percent) said yes.
Class, an application built on Zoom that adds teaching and learning tools to the popular meeting platform, is now widely available across Windows, Mac, Chromebook, iPad and Android tablet devices.
In 2015, California State University launched Graduation Initiative 2025, an ambitious plan to increase graduation rates and eliminate equity gaps in degree completion across the system’s 23 campuses. Then halfway through that work, COVID hit — and all those student supports and services had to shift online. We find out how CSU kept students on track despite the challenges of the pandemic, the technologies and infrastructure that were needed to support students remotely, and what will remain in place going forward.
Online student support became a key issue for higher education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their top priority: providing academic support services such as tutoring or academic advising, according to the 2021 Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) report.
The prevalence of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic is helping to drive staggering growth in the worldwide e-learning market.
The League for Innovation in the Community College is working to expand online learning at community colleges with a new course sharing network that will allow colleges to offer more high-quality, credit-bearing online courses to their students.
A recent survey from Top Hat asked college students about their online learning experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and their expectations for instruction in the Fall 2021 academic term.
Blackboard has partnered with Concentric Sky, maker of the Badgr digital credentialing platform, to integrate micro-credential and stackable learning pathway tools into the Blackboard Learn learning management system.
Every Learner Everywhere recently released an in-depth guide to blended learning, designed to help faculty, instructional designers, technological support staff and other stakeholders in their strategic planning for blended learning courses and programs.
UpGrad, which produces online workforce courses created by university faculty, has purchased Impartus Innovations, a company that specializes in video training technology, in a £14.5 million deal.
For many years, the Horizon Report has been tracking trends, technologies and key practices in teaching and learning. In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Kathe Pelletier, director of EDUCAUSE’s Teaching and Learning Program and co-author of the report, about key technology trends, their impact on IT departments, new education models and more.
Every Learner Everywhere, a network of organizations focused on education technologies, teaching practices and support services for blended and online learning environments, is offering a free virtual workshop on the topic of equity in digital learning.
ProctorU, the academic division of Meazure Learning, has announced it is discontinuing services that rely solely on artificial intelligence for exam proctoring. Instead, it will use human proctors for every test session.
In a recent Cengage survey, nearly three-quarters of students — 73 percent — said they would prefer to take some of their courses fully online post-pandemic. However, only half of faculty (53 percent) felt the same about teaching online.
The United States Department of Agriculture is awarding grants ranging from $50,000 to $1 million to institutions supporting distance learning and telemedicine in rural communities. The deadline for this competitive grant program is June 4.
Claremont Graduate University maintains a high-contact experience for students, based on exceptional access to faculty — even during pandemic times, when many academic and administrative functions must be suddenly transformed to remote processes.
Cybersecurity company StrikeForce Technologies is making its SafeVchat secure videoconferencing platform available for free to both K-12 and higher education institutions that are holding virtual or live-streamed graduation ceremonies this spring.
To accommodate the hybrid model of remote and in-person teaching and learning, William & Mary's Raymond A. Mason School of Business has rolled out virtual classroom technology in three learning spaces on campus.
There's no doubt that the pandemic caused incredible upheaval in higher education — but the positive impacts of that disruption are significant. Here's how the shift to online learning will benefit both faculty and students moving forward.
Nine colleges across the United States are piloting a technology-focused career training initiative that aims to prepare 500,000 learners for jobs of the future by 2030.
The landscape of higher education has been transformed by COVID-19, and that impact is a major factor in the 2021 Educause Horizon Report. Here are three key technology trends to watch as the lasting effects of the pandemic play out.
When you picture a university innovation center, what comes to mind is usually a lot of hands-on collaboration and networking. But what happens when that heavily in-person experience is forced to go virtual? For this episode of the podcast, we talk with Matt Segneri, executive director of the Harvard Innovation Labs, to find out about the past year’s challenges and successes converting in-person student activities into virtual experiences that still capture that entrepreneurial vibe.
Open source learning management system provider Moodle is acquiring three United States-based partner companies and combining them to form Moodle US, a new services company for Moodle customers in North America.
Virtual lab company Labster has expanded its portfolio of learning resources with a variety of new offerings designed to complement its core science simulations.
A new study out of MIT's Sloan School of Management explores the use of ideas and tools from the gaming community to improve online teaching and student learning outcomes.
Bentley University's CIS Sandbox is building on 10 years as a technology learning space.
Every college and university must redouble its focus on IT security in these unprecedented times. In this one-day event, education and IT leaders will share their insights, best practices and predictions for security and privacy in the post-pandemic era.
Almost three in five students (59 percent) in a recent Wiley survey complained that they are doing more assignments online than they ever did in their in-person classes, and nearly as many (55 percent) protested that much of it felt like "busy work."
To help job seekers gain the skills they need for employment in today's economy, Microsoft and LinkedIn are extending their global skills initiative through the end of 2021, providing free LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft Learn courses as well as low-cost certifications that align to in-demand jobs.
Coursera is testing a new program that lets learners develop short courses for delivery on the MOOC platform. The pilot program is currently taking contact information from people interested in creating "community guided projects."
Many students have struggled with reliable internet access during the pandemic, according to a new report from Educause.
There's a lot that faculty have done right teaching with technology during the COVID-19 pandemic — but there have also been times when technology use has been subpar.
Online learning platform Udacity has launched a School of Cybersecurity, a set of nanodegree programs aimed at training the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
Audiovisual technology manufacturer Aver Information USA has launched a new camera for education that uses AI to “seamlessly track” instructors as they move around the classroom.
In a recent survey, the majority of faculty (71 percent) reported that their teaching in Fall 2020 was "very different" or included a "number of changes" compared to pre-pandemic times. And almost half (47 percent) felt those changes would remain in place post-pandemic.
Communications students studying online at Connecticut's Sacred Heart University will be doing at least some of their learning via virtual reality.
Two-thirds of people in education expect to see a continuation of remote work post-pandemic. Sixty-five percent of respondents in education agreed that due to the success of remote collaboration, facilitated by videoconferencing, their organizations are considering a flexible remote working model, according to a survey from Zoom.
Learners who complete a MicroMasters program on edX can now apply up to nine credits toward a Master of Science in Professional Studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
EDUCAUSE recently released its first Information Security Edition of the Horizon Report, profiling important trends, technologies and practices shaping the future of IT security and privacy in higher education. For this episode of the podcast, we talk with Brian Kelly, director of the cybersecurity program at EDUCAUSE, to discuss the new report, the technological trends on the horizon in IT security, how the pandemic is impacting privacy concerns, and more.
Atlanta's Morehouse College is launching an immersive virtual reality experience for students in two of its courses: Biology 105 and History 112.
The future of higher education means breaking down classroom walls, embracing digital tools and engaging students with creativity and innovation.
A new active learning classroom at University of Louisiana Monroe's College of Pharmacy is designed for one-on-one interaction in class as well as participation from remote students.
Financial pressures, political unrest, health concerns — here's how the pandemic and concurrent equity challenges have impacted both institutions and their students.
How can we move the remote learning experience farther away from a training model and closer to a collaborative learning model in which students participate together in the co-creation or discovery of knowledge? We asked Gardner Campbell for some perspectives from his research and from his own classroom.
Owl Labs has introduced a new suite of features for its Meeting Owl solution, designed to bring more immersive remote and hybrid capabilities to the flagship 360-degree camera, mic and speaker hardware product.
Open LMS has announced plans to release all of its Moodle modules and enhancements by the end of the year, as well as dedicate more resources toward developing features and code for the open source learning management system.
In a recent survey from Barnes & Noble Education, the vast majority of college students (94 percent) said they think schools should charge less for online courses. In contrast, less than half of administrators and faculty (43 percent and 41 percent, respectively) believe the same.
One unintended impact of the pandemic in higher education is the strain that remote work and learning has put on IT security. In this episode of the podcast, we talk with Stephen Heath, chief information security officer for Intrinium, an IT and security consulting and managed services company, to learn more about the security challenges institutions are facing — as well as evolving threats like ransomware.
When it comes to interactivity among classmates, nothing beats texting. Nearly a third of students (31 percent) in a recent survey chose that over any other interaction option in online learning, including interactive whiteboards (mentioned by 29 percent), breakout rooms (18 percent), live surveys and polls (14 percent) or gamification such as badges and contests (7 percent). That's according to a survey from customer experience company Sykes.
Instructure is selling the corporate side of its learning management system business for $50 million. The buyer will be Learning Technologies Group plc, a UK company with multiple businesses that produce services and technologies for digital learning and talent management.
What would students give up if they could head back to college in person? Seven in 10 would relinquish their AirPods for a month if it meant a month back on campus, according to a poll undertaken by Grand Canyon University.
Google announced a pallet full of changes to its education offerings, including a renaming of its education bundle of productivity applications and a limit to free storage for schools and colleges.
Instructure recently announced that it is making Immersive Reader from Microsoft freely available in its Canvas learning management system.
Southern New Hampshire University recently launched two credential programs with online learning platform edX.
As students adjust to the realities of college life during a pandemic, the majority (71 percent) are having trouble staying focused on their coursework, according to a fall 2020 survey.
To help academic administrators improve entry-level courses for digital learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, Every Learner Everywhere and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities have created a free guide focused on best practices for equity and student success.
The longer the pandemic lasts, the more students question the value of a college education. A December survey by New America and Third Way found that nearly three in five college students (57 percent) agreed with the sentiment that higher education was no longer "worth the cost," a bump up from 49 percent in a previous survey in August.
Every Learner Everywhere has assembled a network of equity and digital learning experts to provide free professional coaching for higher education faculty, course coordinators, instructional designers and academic leaders across the United States.
The hybrid approach being taken by most colleges and universities to get through the pandemic could turn out to have the positive effect of making those schools more student-centered, not just in education but across the board. That's the takeaway in a new report by Deloitte.
In a recent survey focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students in introductory-level courses this past fall, faculty reported increases in DFWI rates (the number of students who receive a D or F grade, withdraw or fail to complete a course) — particularly at two-year institutions or those serving Pell-eligible students.
The COVID-19 pandemic will have a lasting impact on higher education. Here's how to weather the emerging "new normal" for the next semester and beyond.
How will higher education evolve as we head into — hopefully — post-pandemic times? Is it even possible to make predictions with circumstances still in flux? In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, we talk with Richard Garrett, chief research officer at higher education research firm Eduventures, about his predictions for 2021, the impact of the pandemic on online learning and ed tech, and the opportunities he sees for higher ed in the coming year.
Rhode Island's Brown University has announced its plan to hold commencement in person for graduates while members and guests will attend virtually.
Unity College in Maine, which frames itself as "America's Environmental College," has opened up debate about whether small institutions really need to have flagship campuses to survive.
Higher education's response to the pandemic has required agility, flexibility and perhaps most important, innovation. Join us Feb. 24 for this free one-day event, in which education and IT leaders will share how they are managing the challenges of remote work and learning, adapting to change and solving problems with outside-the-box ideas and practices.
The public mission of four-year colleges and universities needs to adapt to encompass adult learners, according to a new report. That's the population that may be most affected by the changes in education introduced during the pandemic — more so even than K-12 and college students, the report suggested.
San Diego State University is outfitting nearly 200 classrooms across its main and Imperial Valley campuses with Sony's MAS-A100 beamforming ceiling microphone, to support the hybrid classroom model.
A new initiative at California State University, Bakersfield offers prospective students dedicated enrollment coaches to help navigate the institution's online programs.
American College of Education, an online institution specializing in education, leadership, business, healthcare and nursing programs, has partnered with Study.com to offer adult learners affordable pathways to a college degree.
In higher education, we pay attention to who students are — to how they show up on our campuses and how they engage the university. But often that doesn't happen enough in online learning environments.
Math software company Maplesoft has launched a new online learning environment for high school and college-level mathematics instruction.
A new program out of Olivet Nazarene University's School of Graduate and Continuing Studies is using an online, asynchronous flipped model to provide adult students a pathway to earn a bachelor's degree.
The University of Arizona College of Engineering has signed a renewal agreement with online program management provider All Campus, extending the partnership that has been in place since 2015 to support the institution's engineering master's degree programs.
If you’re looking for software and services to augment online and blended instruction this year, start here.
According to a new report by Class Central, a company that tracks massive open online courses, of all learners who have registered for MOOCs throughout their history, a third did so last year.
When Boston University launched its hybrid learning initiative this fall, it also created a Classroom Moderator program: an army of student workers deployed in the classroom to help ensure that hybrid learning could run smoothly. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Ernie Perez, director of educational technology for BU Digital Learning and Innovation, and Jill Beckman, executive director of Client Services, talk about how they rolled out the classroom moderator service and made it a success.
The shift to online learning in response to COVID-19 has revealed pedagogical benefits that will carry on into the future.
The reopening of campuses post-pandemic won't necessarily spell the end to online learning, according to a recent survey from Top Hat.
A look back at the most-read stories of the year in higher education IT.
Georgia Career Institute, a vocational school with three campuses, has adopted 16 Google Jamboard interactive displays from BenQ to add interaction, engagement and better student comprehension to its remote instruction.
The pandemic has put higher ed institutions at an increased risk of liability and lawsuits. Here's how to navigate the legal considerations of reopening.
Learning Technologies Group, the parent company of Open LMS (formerly Moodlerooms), has acquired eThink Education. With the acquisition, eThink will be integrated into Open LMS.
Online program manager 2U has issued its first transparency report, which shares details of its agreements with 70 universities, all public or private nonprofit institutions that are supported to some extent by state and federal funding.
Purdue University Global, the institution's public online campus, is signing student transfer agreements with community colleges in states other than its own. In the last month, the Indiana-based university announced articulation agreements with Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona and Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland.
Pennsylvania's Manor College is rolling out the Echo360 video platform to support the student learning experience both in the classroom and online.
Overall learning management system downloads were 250 percent higher in August than February, according to a report from consultancy Sykes.
A company with a focus on "working learners" has launched a new marketplace for community colleges to sell their courses online. Unmudl from SocialTech.ai features courses from seven community colleges.
For colleges and universities that have pivoted to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the evolution is not over. In order to better meet student needs both today and in the future, here are three key considerations.
The University of Wyoming has signed an online program management agreement with Wiley Education Services, to help faculty shift courses to online formats in time for the spring 2021 semester.
Education technology company Campuswire has introduced a platform that allows professors from around the world to deliver their live online classes to anybody on the internet.
Panopto and Webex users will now be able to transfer their video recordings to their media library. Panopto produces video management applications; Webex is a videoconferencing program.
Last fall, Oregon State University launched an Ecampus online program for its introductory physics courses, with an emphasis on collaborative, hands-on work. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Senior Physics Instructor KC Walsh and Associate Department Head David Craig talk about how they’ve used technology, open educational resources, take-home lab kits and more to engage students from a distance.
Even though first-year college students are more likely than students in later years to say they intended to return to school in the spring (73 percent versus 68 percent), they're less confident they'll see the value of the investment in higher education (45 percent compared to 51 percent), according to a recent survey done by education technology company Top Hat.
Unizin's 14 member institutions can now tap into Blackboard's Ally accessibility solution. The higher education consortium recently announced a partnership with Blackboard to help "create a more inclusive and data-informed learning environment" for its members, according to a news announcement.
Getting students actively engaged in their remote learning has a difference on the outcomes during a pandemic, according to a report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Two schools in Ohio have teamed up to help union members obtain bachelor’s degrees. In a new program called "CSU Career Plus+," Central State University is working with Eastern Gateway Community College to help graduates of the two-year college who are also members of the AFL-CIO finish their four-year degrees in online classes.
California State University has signed a site license with Labster, giving each of its 23 campuses the option of using the company's 159 virtual laboratory simulations.
Learning quiz program company Kahoot! has announced an integration with Zoom, allowing users to access, host and play Kahoot games directly in Zoom meetings.
As the pandemic continues, what's happening to all the data being collected by the various programs being used by colleges and universities to deliver remote learning? That's a question explored in a new report published by think tank New America.
Champlain College is piloting a new virtual education platform that allows students and instructors to interact online much like they would in physical spaces. Conceived by Narine Hall, a data science and machine learning professor at the college, and recently formed as a private company, InSpace is "designed to mirror the fluid, personal and interactive nature of a real classroom," according to a news announcement.
Pennsylvania's Duquesne University has installed audio conferencing systems in more than 40 classrooms to support its shift to the hybrid learning model, in which some students attend class on-campus while others participate remotely.
Since students have returned to school and remote learning this fall, there has been a dramatic increase in internet searches related to academic fraud — that’s according to data from Cisco Talos. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Jaeson Schultz, technical leader at Cisco Talos, about his research into academic fraud and the potentially hazardous websites and applications that go along with it.
Indiana's University of Evansville is developing its online education and learning efforts thanks to a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment. The university will use the funds to "implement major initiatives that will enhance the campus as well as the online learning environment," according to a news announcement.
Higher ed's response to the novel coronavirus has exposed issues of pedagogy, equity and more — but also offers opportunities to reshape the future.
On the horizon for 2021, 10G offers the promise of delivering 10 times the current most prevalent maximum speeds offered to consumers.
This week, during Instructure's virtual customer conference, CanvasCon Online, the learning management system company announced the Canvas Certified Educator program.
Coursera has announced that it is continuing its offer of free courses for students and whole campuses, along with some enhanced functionality.
Even with the recent emphasis on remote instruction, now is the perfect time to consider strategies for physical classroom spaces.
When asked about the most pressing issue on their campuses, college and university presidents in a recent ACE survey deemed the mental health of students their top concern.
In a recent survey, three-quarters of U.S.-based students, faculty and administrators reported that COVID-19 has negatively affected student engagement. Nearly as many (73 percent) said the pandemic has damaged their work and career readiness. And seven in 10 (70 percent) said they believed that more students are falling behind in their studies as a result of COVID-19.
A recent report from Every Learner Everywhere and Tyton Partners recommended five key actions institutions can take to ensure they are delivering high-quality digital learning experiences for all students.
Faculty feel ready to teach online this fall, either partially or fully. In a recent survey produced by Bay View Analytics in partnership with four online learning organizations and underwritten by Cengage, 49 percent "strongly" agreed that they're prepared, while 35 percent said they "somewhat" agreed.
As colleges and universities navigate the ever-shifting challenges of higher education's "new normal," they are also looking ahead: How can the lessons learned from the pandemic redefine teaching and learning moving forward? On Oct 20, the Campus Technology Distance Learning Summit will convene education and IT leaders to share their ideas, experiences and outlook for the future.
China’s Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University was one of the first to shift to remote learning when the COVID-19 pandemic hit earlier this year. Now, it’s stepping things up for the fall by outfitting classrooms for the HyFlex model. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Roland Sherwood, manager of the university’s educational technologies team, to find out more.
A startup founded by ed tech veterans has announced a program intended to make Zoom more effective in replicating the classroom experience for instructors and students. Class for Zoom is currently seeking people to beta test the software.
While 40 percent of IT higher education IT leaders and instructional technologists said in June 2020 that their college or university was planning for "mostly in-person" classes for the fall, that share plummeted to less than 5 percent by August, according to a recent study by Educause.
The University of Kentucky has expanded the use of technology in classrooms to accommodate whatever format is appropriate for the course content and faculty and student preference. As the home page for the institution stated, "Work Anywhere. Learn Anywhere. Teach Anywhere."
New York's Colgate University has sought outside help to improve the quality of its hybrid learning experience. The university, which has reopened to students on campus, is also continuing its remote learning programs. Now, some faculty will have access to 2UOS Essential from 2U, a set of services for course production and development, technology and support.
The University of Massachusetts has launched the Inter-campus Course Exchange, an initiative to make courses from all UMass campuses available to students at any institution in the system.
To offer more than pre-recorded lab demonstrations or virtual laboratories to remote students, two chemistry instructors at Missouri S&T have refined their approach, which uses real-time live-streamed demonstrations of experiments.
Now that students are returning to campus at Missouri S&T, with a mix of online and in-person classes, an instructor in electrical engineering is perfecting his approach to lab activities.
Social networking giant Facebook is partnering with Coursera to launch a new Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate, designed to prepare learners of any background for jobs in the social media marketing field in just 20 weeks.
Nathan Mentzer, an associate professor in Purdue University's Polytechnic Institute and College of Education, got an early start with the HyFlex model just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to impact higher ed institutions across the country: He started blending both face-to-face and online instruction in his classrooms weeks before Purdue officially shifted to remote learning last spring.
Southern California's Pepperdine University has upgraded 166 classrooms on campus with hybrid learning technology for the Fall 2020 semester. While fall instruction will remain fully online, the institution wanted to ensure its learning spaces could accommodate any combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning, according to a news announcement.
According to a recent study out of Rutgers University-New Brunswick, students need a sense of community and connection in order to thrive in remote learning experiences.
Kyle Bowen tells CT how Arizona State University is continuing to offer students the experiences they expect from an ASU education during the current phase of remote learning and how, at the same time, the institution can leverage its work into plans for the future.
Emerson College has launched an online Data Analytics Boot Camp geared toward adult learners and working professionals.
The University of Louisiana System's Compete Louisiana college completion initiative is collaborating with StraighterLine to create a new re-entry academy designed to help adults who have stopped out of university return to earn their degree.
The University of Michigan's College of Engineering has dedicated $500,000 to help create high-quality learning experiences for students in hybrid and remote courses — particularly when it comes to hands-on projects.
Microsoft is expanding the features of the Education Insights app in its Teams collaboration platform.
The University of Cambridge is partnering with edX to launch a new MicroMasters program in Writing for Performance and Entertainment Industries — the university's first offering on the online learning platform.
Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science is working with 2U to launch the Columbia Artificial Intelligence Program, an online executive education offering aimed at advancing the next generation of technology leaders.
According to a new survey from Visual Objects, 51 percent of high school and college students do not have consistent access to high-speed internet and WiFi.
Emory University, in partnership with Fullstack Academy, is launching online coding and cybersecurity training programs to help develop tech talent in the Atlanta area.
In a recent survey, just over half of faculty in higher education expressed doubt about the new academic year: Fifty-one percent said they were "uncertain" about the fall term. Yet 55 percent have said they're moderately or very satisfied with the plans their schools have publicly stated for the fall, and six in 10 said they'd rate the level of clarity their schools have provided regarding how students will be taught as either "excellent" or "good."
The fall semester is beginning, and we are finally starting to see reopening plans play out at colleges and universities across the country. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly explores the pandemic decision-making process with Dr. Eric Monday, executive vice president for finance and administration at the University of Kentucky, and also the chair of UK’s Pandemic Response Team. He talks about how the team is structured, what types of data they monitor, what kinds of challenges they have been working through, and how they are approaching contingency planning.
Ryerson University is working with an augmented reality company to develop a series of labs for science courses. The project is based on InfernoAR from NexTech AR Solutions.
The University System of Maryland has partnered with Labster to provide its virtual laboratory simulations across all USM institutions.
Arcadia University is partnering with ed tech company 2U to launch an online Semester of Code program that will provide credit-bearing, market-relevant coding experiences for undergraduate students across the United States.
Healthcare has become a big topic of interest to college students. In a study by Quizlet, analysts found that while participation in healthcare (as measured by activity in the company's study tools) initially dropped to 86 percent of usual levels of interest as school closures took place, it rose to 113 percent as remote learning got underway.
Babson College, like so many schools, is priming for the start of fall classes, which begin in just a few days. Here's how the Boston-based institution has positioned itself to succeed.
In a recent survey of learners of all ages around the globe, 79 percent of respondents agreed that colleges and universities will fundamentally change because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stony Brook University in New York has introduced a virtual version of its "involvement fair," intended to help students on and off campus partake in club activities and meet other students, even if they can't do it in person.
A survey of college students found that most were comfortable heading back to campus. The survey was done by OneClass, a company that sells study guides posted by students and faculty.
A survey by online education solution provider 2U has found that nearly three-quarters of prospective students said the COVID-19 pandemic has made them more likely to consider online programs.
This fall, students at any of the seven participating Big Ten Academic Alliance universities will have access to free online courses at other Big Ten schools.
AVer has introduced a new distance learning camera that uses artificial intelligence to automatically detect and follow an instructor's movement in the classroom, with no need for a camera operator.
One outcome for the shift to online classes, according to the college and university instructors now teaching them, is that students will be more likely to cheat. In a recent survey, 93 percent of educators said they expected online learning to be more conducive to academic dishonesty.
In this bonus episode of the podcast, Dr. Elliot Stern, president of Saddleback College in Southern California, talks candidly about how his institution is making strategic decisions for the fall and what kinds of policies and infrastructure they are putting in place to move forward. The conversation comes from Campus Technology's recent Distance Learning Summit – a virtual event focused on the most critical considerations for managing higher ed's "new normal" during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The University of Southern California is investing close to $2 million in a project to deploy an AV network to cover 248 classroom spaces for hybrid learning.
Active learning courseware platform Top Hat has introduced Slate, an integrated communication tool that enables course announcements, real-time discussions, project collaborations, peer connections, community building and more, all in one centralized hub.
The University of St. Augustine faces a problem unique to programs delivering healthcare training — how to help students prepare for clinical careers.
Zoom Video Communications has announced a new device specifically designed for home videoconferencing. But at least one analyst suspects the price may keep buyers at by. In mid-July Zoom announced it would be taking pre-orders for Zoom for Home, a dedicated appliance for allowing employees to meet and collaborate online. Currently, the device is available for pre-order.
Learning platform edX recently convened the first (virtual) meeting of its MicroBachelors Program Skills Advisory Council, a group launched in early 2020 that brings together foundations, corporations and academic institutions to "solve shared challenges around reskilling and upskilling in order to address the demands of the future workplace." Discussions in the meeting centered on two key areas: credentials and content.
Just a few weeks after announcing a phased reopening plan for the fall semester that would have included both in-person and online instruction, Spelman College has made the decision to switch to an entirely online model.
As more and more colleges and universities have shut down their campuses to curb the spread of COVID-19, education technology companies have stepped forward to help move student learning to the virtual realm.
When the University of Arizona's fall semester begins on Aug. 24, instruction will be a mix of in-person and remote learning — with more than half of all classes including an in-person component.
Julie Johnston, director of learning spaces for Indiana University, has been working hard to make classrooms safe for students and faculty this fall. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, she talks with Executive Editor Rhea Kelly about how the new reality of COVID-19 is impacting IU’s campuses, the challenges of preparing classrooms for the fall, and technology’s role in ensuring a successful teaching and learning experience.
Education technology company Cengage is running free math readiness boot camps for students, to help them prepare for college.
A single-question survey of more than 17,000 incoming college students across the United States and Canada has found that students believe online courses don't have the same value as the in-person experience.
Google has unveiled some of its plans for updates to Meet, the web conferencing tool that's part of the company's G Suite for Education. The basic thrust is to give instructors more control over their real-time sessions and help them make the classes more engaging.
A survey among college-bound students in California has found that four in five have had to change their college plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indiana University has released preliminary findings from a survey of undergraduates and instructors across its all of its campuses, examining their experiences of the transition to remote instruction this past spring.
San José State University is partnering with Fullstack Academy to create two new Tech Bootcamp programs focused on coding and cyber security.
Vanderbilt University has announced a new Instructional Design Support Center focused on improving online teaching and course quality.
Google has announced three new certificate programs on Coursera: Data Analytics, Project Management, and User Experience Design.
Microsoft intends to provide free online job training through its company, LinkedIn, to 25 million people by the end of this year. The goal: to help those who have been hit by unemployment, furloughs and reduced paychecks to acquire new digital skills as part of accelerating the economic recovery.
Packback, an online platform that uses artificial intelligence to facilitate class discussions, has introduced an Instant Feedback feature that provides students with a real-time assessment of their contributions and allows them to revise and improve their work before final submission.
A new program at Rice University gives students outside the institution a chance to take select online courses for credit.
The University of Oklahoma has pulled together its online graduate degree programs under one central umbrella: OU Online.
Spelman College in Georgia has announced a phased reopening plan that includes both in-person and online instruction, in a "low-density hybrid" model.
Pre-pandemic, a slim majority of students considered affordability the most compelling driver for choosing their online school.
The University of West Georgia has announced plans for a "full return" to campus on Aug. 12, for in-person instruction. The school has also developed contingency plans, one for fully online classes and one that shifts from on-site to online at some point during the fall term.
According to a recent survey by education technology company Cengage, nearly nine in 10 colleges and universities (86 percent) haven't yet announced plans for the fall semester.
Arizona State University is hosting a free two-day online conference to help all higher education faculty prepare remote courses for the fall.
In this first episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, "A Futurist's View of the Fall Semester," Executive Editor Rhea Kelly speaks with futurist Bryan Alexander about higher education's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how the fall semester might play out as colleges and universities reopen.
Instructors teaching remotely or in HyFlex learning environments can now access Zoom videoconferencing directly from HoverCam's Flex 11 document camera software.
Colorado State University's online campus, CSU Global, has joined the Higher Education Course Recovery Consortium, a network of institutions that are sharing high-quality online courses to help connect students with the courses they need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vermont's Champlain College has introduced a Virtual Gap Program that allows high school graduates to spend a semester focused on intellectual, personal and professional growth before beginning their higher education experience.
Refer your college students to these services to help them keep up with school work.
Now that the initial fires of COVID-19 response have been put out, institutions are faced with a lot of unknowns for the fall semester. Campus Technology is convening campus leaders and ed tech experts to share their ideas and best practices in a second virtual event July 16.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the massive rush to move courses online this spring, it’s that a sudden change to fully online, even in the year 2020, isn’t easy. Here, Jared Stein proposes an important takeaway from the pandemic: Blended learning environments can help us prepare for the future.
New Jersey Institute of Technology started the process of planning its return to campus with a strength — the concept of converged learning — and began building from there.
Online learning provider Coursera has opened up its certificate programs to current undergraduate, graduate or recently graduated college and university students.
In a statement today from President Michael McRobbie, Indiana University announced its plans for resuming fall instruction.
Arizona's Prescott College will reopen on-campus classes this fall with a new risk-management strategy: using a flexible block-class schedule to minimize contacts among faculty, staff and students.
Education technology company Kahoot has added integration with Microsoft Teams, allowing users to play Kahoot games while collaborating remotely via Teams’ web conferencing and chat tools.
In a special arrangement with Bloomberg Philanthropies, a new course by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Health is training people to do COVID-19 contact tracing.
A "playbook" from a team of higher education organizations provides advice and tips for faculty on how to design their courses for online delivery, enhance their online instruction and pursue continuous improvement.
Rice University transitioned its annual Center for Transforming Data to Knowledge (the D2K Lab) showcase to a virtual showcase.
The Online Learning Consortium has received a grant to work with minority-serving institutions as they shift to online instruction. The $50,000 award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation will fund delivery of affordable, short-term workshops to reach instructors in institutions that need professional development resources most.
To cover all bases, Simmons University, a private women-focused institution in Boston, has announced its intention to develop an online undergraduate experience in time for the start of school in fall 2020. The new program, being built with the help of 2U, will give students the option of enrolling in hundreds of Simmons courses redesigned this summer for online delivery.
A survey undertaken by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association and online learning producer MindEdge found that two-thirds of respondents in colleges and universities have seen growing interest in alternative credentials among students in recent years, and nearly half would call it "significant growth" in interest.
Google has just made premium functionality in its online video meeting software freely available to anybody with a Google e-mail account.
From determining a remote learning strategy to planning for the new normal and enabling standards-based practices, these five phases describe the progress institutions are making toward excellence in teaching and learning online.
This fall, California State University will be keeping most of its institutions' courses online, in response to the ongoing health and safety concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The University of Arizona plans to resume in-person classes this fall, after the state began statewide antibody testing with help of the university.
A new set of guidelines from the American College Health Association has provided a run-down of key considerations for safely reopening institutions of higher education as the COVID-19 pandemic slows.
The University of Arizona has expedited plans to launch a global campus, involving other institutions of higher education on five continents, to reach international students whose plans have been disrupted by COVID-19-induced campus closures, international travel restrictions or visa moratoriums.
A new report has identified five areas where colleges and universities will have to develop strength in order to woo future generations of international students: social engineering, sustainability, mindfulness, savvy use of technology and the ability to deliver a "transnational" education.
MOOCs — massive open online courses — have become a major part of the online learning conversation with the advent of school closures due to coronavirus. Class Central, a site that tracks and catalogs the online learning platform segment, reported a "surge" of attention on MOOCs beginning on March 15, a date when "social distancing" became part of the common language.
Thunderbird School of Global Management, a school within Arizona State University, is planning for a robot-filled graduation. The institution will be using telepresence robots equipped with a tablet computer to provide video and audio of the graduating seniors.
Three universities have gone public with their use of remote laboratory equipment from National Instruments (NI) to give students hands-on practice with live data and instrumentation, even as they made the switch from in-person to remote classes.
Video lectures may have worked as a stop-gap measure in the emergency move to online learning, but they just don't cut it for the long term. Here are nine ways to bring distance education courses to the next level.
Nearly half of faculty in a recent survey said they lowered their expectations about the amount of work they could expect from their students after the switch to online learning in response to school closures caused by COVID-19.
In an April survey done by education technology vendor Top Hat, a quarter of college students said they're undecided about whether or not to continue their education in the fall.
This community college was one of the first to announce its plans for the fall semester. And no matter what students might prefer, they won't be returning to standard classroom settings anytime soon.
Berkeley College resumed its spring semester this week with online courses. To make sure students had access to computing devices, the private for-profit school, with locations in New York and New Jersey, handed out free laptops to all new incoming students.
Higher education's current move to online learning may be leaving a sour taste in the mouths of students and faculty across the country, but there is a silver lining.
An education study site ran an informal poll with students about whether they'd return to school in the fall if it were only delivered remotely; a third said they'd withdraw.
Ed tech company ProctorU has created a "student bill of rights" that outlines seven areas of expectations students should be able to count on from their academic institutions.
Piazza, the company that produces a social learning application for colleges and universities, has added new functionality to its software. Piazza "Live Q&A" offers a dedicated place within courses where students can ask questions and upvote questions in real time as instructors are running their classes.
California State University, Fullerton has had to mop up the confusion generated when local news stations reported that the campus would be delivering its courses virtually on the first day of classes in fall. According to a statement issued by Provost Pamella Oliver a day later, the reporting was wrong.
When Arizona State University shifted the whole student body to online learning during its COVID-19 campus closure, it had an advantage: Lessons learned by EdPlus and ASU Online. In this interview, EdPlus CEO Phil Regier shares the pain and the promise of digital education at distance.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all higher education institutions (90 percent) in a recent survey used some form of emergency distance education to complete the Spring 2020 term. And 56 percent of faculty who moved courses online were using teaching methods they had never used before.
With campus closures leading education institutions everywhere to scramble to move instruction to an online format, Campus Technology is convening ed tech experts and practitioners to share their ideas and best practices in a virtual event on May 5.
Data analytics company HelioCampus has released the LMS Explorer Kit, a free tool that allows institutions to extract and organize data from their learning management system to better inform resource planning and decision-making.
An education technology company has enhanced a program for experiential learning and assessment that can be used with K-12 and career and technology students.
The University of Michigan is adding new online programs for the fall, including a new master's degree in public health.
At last count, 4,235 higher education institutions across the United States have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic — affecting an estimated 25,798,790 students, according to a visualization from Entangled Solutions.
Amazon Web Services Education has introduced a set of free resources intended to help teachers and faculty in K-20 with their transitions to remote teaching and learning.
With nearly all campuses transitioning to online learning during the COVID-19 outbreak, California's community colleges will let students continue their science lab-based education by giving them access to virtual laboratories.
Coursera has introduced a new tool that helps universities identify courses on the company's online learning platform that most closely match their on-campus offerings.
These practices will help engage students and improve outcomes throughout the online learning process.
Colleges and universities have been impelled, in recent weeks, to conduct nearly all academic and business processes online for our health and safety amid the hazards of COVID-19. Out of this, a persistent question has emerged: Are we really able to carry on the best values of higher education through our online presence? Gardner Campbell considers the question.
To take advantage of the momentum created by a quick switch from face-to-face courses to online version, one Texas university is ramping up plans for a major online summer session too. Rice University, which switched to distance learning in March in response to coronavirus, has decided to offer all of its summer courses online.
A new analysis by App Annie has found that mobile education applications have experienced a 90 percent increase in weekly downloads usage worldwide between the last three months of 2019 and the first three months of 2020.
A Nordic company has introduced a virtual reality collaboration platform. Glue Collaboration's software by the same name facilitates virtual environments where remote participants can come together to learn, share, plan and create as if they were in the same physical space.
Some students are hitting Minecraft during their "self-quarantines" to recreate their campuses. And at least one group is planning a national graduation ceremony to take place in their virtual world.
Colleges and universities everywhere are rushing to move courses online and keep teaching and learning going during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's how to cope with what may feel like an impossible task.
While university instructors around the world scramble to implement delivery of their courses online — a medium with which they may have only limited experience — they can learn from the field notes of their counterparts at the largest international joint-venture university in China.
Enrollment for online education rose in 2019 at universities and colleges, but not as quickly as it had been doing in previous years, according to a new survey from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research.
This year's report on The Changing Landscape of Online Education comes as nearly every college and university in the land is taking its courses online in response to COVID-19. In an 11th-hour addition to the report, CHLOE researchers suggested that the immediate goal for any institution right now should be to have faculty communicate with students on completing the tasks and assignments they need to satisfy course requirements.
The rushed transition to online instruction during the coronavirus pandemic can be wrought with anxiety, technical issues, concern for students and more. What's the best way to stay positive and support faculty?
With the coronavirus pandemic closing college and university campuses everywhere, faculty are tasked with a quick move to online instruction. Here, education experts offer advice on how to make the transition.
As coronavirus changes life as we knew it, these education experts offer advice on how to make the transition to online instruction.
Foundry College, a two-year-old institution that provides "face-to-face" classes online, has spun off its active learning platform as a stand-alone service.
A tuition-free university, the University of the People, said it would make its online courses available to American universities, enabling their students to take courses for credit.
2U just launched "No Back Row PRO," a free set of services to help faculty who are part of its university partners ramp up their online delivery of courses.
The University of California, Irvine School of Education has created a new research center that will aim to provide "evidence-based resources, materials and guidelines for teachers and students to improve academic achievement and equity in online learning."
As more and more colleges and universities are shutting down their campuses over the next several weeks in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, education technology companies have stepped forward to help move student learning to the virtual realm.
Learning management system company Blackboard has enabled a self-service portal where colleges and schools can immediately subscribe to its digital collaboration platform, Blackboard Collaborate.
Quality Matters, a nonprofit focused on standards for online learning, has created a set of checklists for rapidly moving classes online in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kahoot! has begun offering free access to the "premium" version of its game-based learning software. This move comes in response to the number of schools and colleges that are shifting to online education to minimize face-to-face contact during the coronavirus pandemic.
The country's largest community college system, Los Angeles Community College District, announced this week that it is moving as many courses as possible to online formats across its nine colleges, at least until April 13.
With universities all over the world looking to quickly move face-to-face classes online, massive open online course companies Coursera and edX have stepped in to offer access to their vast portfolios of course content.
In the face of coronavirus, institutions large and small, public and private, two-year and four-year are canceling classes for the foreseeable future to reduce the likelihood of face-to-face interactions as much as possible.
Blackboard has announced it will sell its Open LMS business to workplace digital learning and talent management company Learning Technologies Group.
The Flipped Learning Global Initiative has launched a free online course to help instructors and institutions that need to make a quick move to remote learning.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued interim guidance for higher education administrators on how to respond to coronavirus.
To help institutions prepare for emergency situations such as a coronavirus outbreak, the Online Learning Consortium has put together a list of tools and advice for handling a quick shift to online courses.
While the physical campus at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University has been closed due to coronavirus (now referred to as COVID-19 by health experts), faculty have quickly adopted an online teaching platform to reach their students through remote instruction.
As universities in China move courses online to serve students remotely in the face of COVID-19 lockdowns, instructors are rushing to modify their pedagogy and incorporate digital teaching tools. To help ease that transition, we've gathered our top stories on online teaching and instructional design, chock full of tips and best practices from the trenches.
Graduates at Purdue University Global recently had the option to participate in their commencement ceremonies virtually, thanks to a pilot program using virtual reality to provide an immersive remote experience of the event.
When New York University closed its NYU Shanghai campus in response to the COVID-19 epidemic in China, little did it realize how much students would appreciate the efforts the university went through to keep their learning on track. The spring 2020 semester kicked off with school officials determined to use digital tools to deliver learning online as an alternative.
A new study from the Online Learning Consortium and Every Learner Everywhere outlines seven primary trends in digital learning innovation as well as four secondary trends worth watching.
Want to improve your course videos? A video producer at Miami University shares her expert advice.
Instructure's CEO will be stepping down in a couple of weeks after the latest purchase agreement with Thoma Bravo is complete.
In a revised agreement announced today, venture capital company Thoma Bravo has increased its offer to acquire Instructure, from the prior $47.60 per share to a “best and final offer” of $49 per share in cash.
Instructure's pending acquisition by venture capital company Thoma Bravo appears to have bitten the dust.
An intensely researched study published on Class Central has dissected the economics of boot camps and found them to be poor venture capital investments — and possibly poor investments for their students too.
Boot camps generated nearly half a billion dollars in 2019 and graduated almost 34,000 students, yet the year-over-year growth rate slowed, according to a report from Career Karma.
A virtual version of the escape room concept is engaging students at Northampton Community College. Here's how the setup works.
A company that has made a name for itself in lecture capture and web streaming has acquired another company that provides similar services.
A new online science education platform offers free access to personalized learning content, virtual lab experiences and networking with the global scientific community.
The University of North Texas is giving non-traditional students a pathway to complete a bachelor's degree online. The Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences program will launch on Coursera beginning in fall 2020.
More than half of faculty prefer using a blended environment with their students, which includes both blended and in-person elements, but nearly three-quarters would choose a completely or mostly face-to-face approach for most elements involving interaction with students, according to a survey from the Educause Center for Analysis and Research.
A two-year campaign is being undertaken by the Flipped Learning Global Initiative and Teachers Pay Teachers to develop high-quality flipped learning resources for the classroom.
Google has introduced a new Google IT Automation with Python Professional Certificate, a program designed to provide job-ready skills in Python, Git and IT automation in under six months.
Online exam security and identity management company ProctorU is merging with Yardstick Assessment Strategies, a provider of psychometrics and computer-based exam administration for professional testing organizations.
EdX has introduced a new MicroBachelors program designed to offer working learners job-ready skills in a credit-backed, stackable credential that can be applied toward a full bachelor's degree.
According to a team of researchers from Canadian University Dubai, Lancaster University and the University of Adelaide, a review of literature found that massive open online courses can provide flexible learning, address rapidly changing skills needs and deliver credentials.
The flipped learning model doesn't necessarily work in the long term, according to an experiment at West Point.
The company that staked its claim in the LMS market by taking its learning management system open source in 2011 has agreed in principle to be acquired by a venture capital firm. Instructure recently announced the transaction. Thoma Bravo has offered stockholders $47.60 per share in cash, valuing the company at about $1.79 billion.
Recent research uncovered just a handful of distinct elements that set great online teaching apart from the merely good. The findings came out of interviews with eight faculty members who have won awards for their online teaching from three professional associations: the Online Learning Consortium, the Association for Educational Communications & Technology and the United States Distance Learning Association.
A statewide study of 30 SUNY community colleges found that, overall, students who successfully completed online courses nearly doubled their chances of earning a degree or transferring to a four-year college.
China's government has gotten into the MOOC game, setting annual targets for how many high-quality massive open online courses should be produced each year.
To prepare students for the job market of the future, online institutions must equip them with interpersonal skills such as leadership, communication and management. Here are four strategies for prioritizing the human connection.
The latest word on the use of "pre-class activities" — flipped learning — is that it improves student engagement in the class itself as well as students' assessment scores. A recent study by a team of researchers from Macmillan Learning and the University of Connecticut examined the use of flipped learning through Achieve, a new Macmillan digital learning tool, and found a "significant effect" with its use.
A recent report from child care and education benefits company Bright Horizons found that four out of five working learners do some of their learning online, and more than half are enrolled in courses that are entirely online.
Pearson has announced the acquisition of Lumerit Education, an ed tech company that uses data analytics to match learners to academic programs and helps them earn the right credits for their desired degree path.
If schools were wondering whether student success tools are worth the investment, a survey among students by Educause has put the question to rest. Students rated degree audit tools that show the degree requirements completed as the most useful (ranked by 80 percent of respondents as "very" or "extremely" useful).
Kapi'olani Community College instituted comprehensive training to help faculty design, develop and assess online courses — including supportive incentives to make sure instructors can successfully complete the program.
A new software coding program at Bellevue College aims to build students' tech skills for technology jobs in the software development field. The institution's Continuing Education division partnered with coding education company Coding Dojo to create the new line of accelerated education courses, beginning with a 12-week program in Python development.
Temple University's College of Public Health is a diverse school experiencing significant growth online. Here's how the institution is supporting the development and maintenance of high-quality online faculty.
Coursera is expanding its portfolio as an online learning platform to work with colleges and universities on campus. Coursera for Campus provides universities with content that they can integrate into their curricula as credit eligible courses and supplemental learning.
According to a recently published research project, large classes — those with 40 or more students — are best for "foundational and factual knowledge acquisition," and smaller enrollments — 15 or fewer students — are better for courses intended "to develop higher order thinking, mastery of complex knowledge and student skill development."
California is taking on the skills gap directly by opening a community college dedicated to addressing the needs of working adults and hiring managers. Calbright College, which opened for course registration today, will use a combination of online classes, mobile apps and in-person apprenticeships to give its adult students the specific skills they need to get higher paying jobs.
Purdue University recently announced a major learning management system change: By the start of the fall 2020 semester, the entire university system will move from Blackboard Learn to D2L Brightspace.
For students to succeed in online learning, faculty must be encouraged to go back to class themselves.
Instructional design firm iDesign has unveiled a new competency-based education program for learner experience professionals.
A do-it-yourself mindset is changing the face of education worldwide, according to new survey results from Pearson and Harris Insights & Analytics. Learners are "patching together" their education from a "menu of options," including self-teaching, short courses and bootcamps, and they believe that self-service instruction will become even more prevalent for lifelong learning.
A damning report from the Century Foundation calls into question the continuing use of for-profit companies to deliver online courses in public institutions, referring to the companies as "wolves in sheep's clothing."
Even as the Century Foundation was doing its best to damn the practices of online program managers that work with colleges and universities to deliver online courses and programs, OPM pioneer 2U sought proactively to counter the report's punch by calling for greater visibility in online program management with a new "Framework for Transparency."
Students in the Los Angeles Community College District now have access to online tutoring to augment on-campus tutoring services.
Chegg is growing its learning platform with the acquisition of Thinkful, an online learning company specializing in bootcamp-style tech training.
Coursera has introduced Coursera Labs, a new offering that allows learners to work hands-on with almost any third-party software application, without any environment setup or software downloads.
Arizona State University is finding out what refugee farmers in Uganda and online course creators have to teach each other about making do with very little.
Masterclass co-founder Aaron Rasmussen is turning his attention to making introductory college courses more affordable for students. His new venture, dubbed Outlier.org, is launching online courses for Calculus I and Introduction to Psychology this fall.
Capella University has issued a report of findings based on five years of learning outcomes from its competency-based education or "direct assessment" program. According to the fully online institution, CBE students have a higher two-year persistence rate than peers following traditional programs; they're getting through their courses of study at a faster pace; and they pay less in tuition and also borrow less.
A new partnership between Southern New Hampshire University and Salesforce will give students the opportunity to earn college credits for completing Salesforce training badges.
The top five free online courses of all time follow no pattern whatsoever. One covers programming, two are about natural sciences and two others examine brain topics from very different perspectives, and they come from universities all over the world. But all five have one thing in common: They've been judged as the best-ranked by the people who have taken the classes and voted on them through Class Central.
Making videoconferencing available to students who can't attend class in person can improve attendance and student satisfaction, according to a two-year project that took place at Indiana University.
Recently, GitHub announced integrations between GitHub Classroom and popular learning management systems Google Classroom, Instructure Canvas, D2L Brightspace and Moodle, enabling the automatic syncing of students from the LMS platform to GitHub Classroom.
This year coding bootcamps are expected to graduate more than 23,000 developers, an overall growth rate of 705 percent since 2013, according to a recent report by Course Report, and an increase of 49 percent over 2018.
This week, Google introduced Assignments, a revamp of its Course Kit toolkit (in beta last year), designed to streamline the process of collecting and grading student work.
A new report has provided SWOT analyses of seven regions around the world related to digital and distance education. The bottom line: While online learning is on the rise everywhere, programs and courses show great unevenness because of a lack of standards.
The U.S. Department of Education is allowing California's new process for students receiving federal aid despite a change in ED regulations that would have impacted 80,000 online students.
2U is partnering with the London School of Economics and Political Science to offer the company's first online undergraduate degree program.
Boston University's Questrom School of Business has partnered with edX to create a fully online Master of Business Administration with a total tuition cost of $24,000.
The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign has launched a new set of courses through Coursera that will help prepare non-technical people to tackle technical master's degrees.
Education technology company Sonic Foundry recently announced integration between its video platform and learning management system Blackboard Learn Ultra.
Recent reporting by Class Central shed light on a new initiative in Europe among MOOC providers and the universities they work with to launch a program for creating portable credentials for learners. The European MOOC Consortium announced its Common Microcredential Framework in April.
Remote proctoring company Proctorio has added two plagiarism detection tools to its Learning Integrity Platform.
Blackboard has introduced the Blackboard Reporting Stack Developer Tier, the first release on the Blackboard Data platform, which gives colleges and universities direct access to data sets to analyze their learning ecosystem and support institutional goals.
Blackboard's Ally accessibility solution is now available for D2L's Brightspace learning management system.
Moving a course from brick-and-mortar to online requires rethinking how you deliver content, replicate in-class interactions and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Canvas and Proctorio are partnering to launch new solutions to help students and teachers identify plagiarism.
California's community college system has issued 70 grants totaling $27.5 million to help its colleges develop and strengthen career education programs that can be taken online.
South Carolina's Claflin University is working with ed tech startup Upswing to offer a variety of support resources for its online students.
A new collaboration between edX, Arizona State University and MIT has resulted in an online master's degree program in Supply Chain Management that stacks credits from both universities.
In an effort to expand access to online learning, the University of North Texas is partnering with Coursera to offer non-credit courses in the massive open online format.
Online institution Capella University is opening its first brick-and-mortar Campus Center.
Amazon Web Services is releasing three new badges focused on robotics, augmented reality and machine learning.
A new survey from learning platform edX has identified two major skill areas where respondents reported feeling a lack of proficiency in their jobs: data sciences, and business and soft skills.
The University of San Diego Division of Professional and Continuing Education is working with online coding school Thinkful to provide job training for high-demand tech careers in the greater San Diego area.
In spite of the notion that students could conceivably take online courses from an institution anywhere in the world, two-thirds stick close to home — choosing a college or university within 50 miles of where they live, according to an annual survey of online students done by Wiley company Learning House.
For the last five years, Gallup has surveyed a national sampling of 75,000 college graduates to understand their post-college "well-being and workplace engagement." Recently, the survey company did the same specifically for graduates of Western Governors University.
Does online learning spend more on technology and less on people? That's the latest question posed by Eduventures Chief Research Officer Richard Garrett, in an essay published on the Encoura website.
Today, Western Governors University is launching a new competency-based series of courses through an independent entity. According to the institution, the courses to be offered through WGU Academy, as it's called, are intended for students who need a little extra help before they're ready for college.
A new report from Strada Education Network offers key takeaways from last fall's Online Student Success Symposium, a two-day workshop focused on challenges, innovative practices and future opportunities in online learning.
Purdue University is expanding into the corporate learning realm with two new deals with Fortune 500 corporations Cisco Systems and Eli Lilly and Co. The institution worked with each company to create custom courses for their employees, with a focus on providing high-quality content in a flexible online format.
Colorado State University's College of Business has set up a pilot for what it calls a first for a business school: a blended classroom that connects on-campus and remote students in real time. The approach uses technology from mashme.io for live connectivity and collaboration.
A Wisconsin university has signed on with an online bootcamp to provide crash courses in in-demand tech skills to address the state's job training needs. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Continuing Education is working with coding school Thinkful on the initiative.
The Christensen Institute has weighed in on the potential for coding and computer science bootcamps to disrupt traditional higher education. In a new report, "Betting on Bootcamps," the organization, which focuses on "disruptive innovation," has offered five scenarios for the future of these short-term, workforce-aligned training programs that emphasize professional success.
Arizona State University is joining forces with The Rise Fund to launch InStride, a new partnership program with employers to provide opportunities for employees to obtain a university education.
Udacity is launching a new Nanodegree program on the foundations of C++, the programming language used to code self-driving cars, robotics and other complex autonomous and artificial intelligence software systems.
Computer-based testing center company Pearson VUE will be embedding new identity verification into its remote testing service.
Arizona State University intends to co-launch a for-profit company to expand the number of partnerships with corporations for its education programs.
In a typical online course, students are more likely to interact with course materials — 52 percent of the time — than they are with faculty, other students or staff, according to a recent survey from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research.
Where faculty are compelled to work with instructional designers on development of their online courses, students have better outcomes, according to a recent survey from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research
Students who takes classes fully online perform about the same as their face-to-face counterparts, according to 54 percent of the people in charge of those online programs. Another 11 percent of "chief online officers" said the online students did better; and 35 percent said they did worse. Those results came from a recent survey done by Quality Matters and Eduventures Research.
Fully online courses are more likely to drive enrollment growth, according to a recent survey of institutions from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research.
Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, has been tracking the machinations of the MOOC business since before it was a business. Here, he provides perspective on the revenue side of open and online courses.
How long is a credit hour? That's the question at the heart of a discussion going on in a committee of distance learning influencers who are part of a negotiated rulemaking process that has met for the last three months to set out a proposal for federal regulation on accreditation for the U.S. Department of Education.
Purdue University will be working with Chegg, a company that produces online homework help among other lines of business, to amplify its Online Writing Lab services.
Could online learning help institutions provide a lower-cost education to more students? That's a question that Richard Garrett, Eduventures chief research officer, examined recently in a brief on the Encoura website. What's needed, Garrett concluded, is a "creative [blend] of in-person and online learning" within institutions to "produce the best mix of cost reduction and high quality."
A "data point" study by the National Center for Education Statistics reported that about a third of high school students in the 2009 to 2013 cohort took dual enrollment classes, mostly at their own schools.
A survey of chief academic officers at public colleges and universities found that while most online courses are taught by full-time faculty, their preparation for and oversight in doing so is highly inconsistent. The survey was undertaken by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities working in tandem with Learning House, a Wiley division that provides online program management services.
Blackboard has announced the execution of a definitive agreement to sell its Transact business unit to private equity firm Reverence Capital Partners.
Digital academic program management provider 2U is collaborating with LinkedIn and the We Company to give students and faculty in its partner institutions access to new resources.
University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan recently announced plans for the five-campus university to launch an online college intended for adult learners.
The University System of Maryland is experimenting with the use of massive open online courses to accelerate the path to an advanced degree — and the work has shed light on surprising new benefits of the MOOC format.
In a recent survey, community college students cited online learning as one of their top five challenges to success. Conducted by researchers from North Carolina State University, the Revealing Institutional Strengths and Challenges Survey polled 50,097 students at 10 community colleges across the United States on the challenges they face in five areas: academic support services; campus environment; finances and financial aid; succeeding in their courses; and work and personal issues.
Instructure, maker of the Canvas learning management system, announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire e-portfolio and student success company Portfolium.
Nonprofit Hypothesis is offering an app that allows for “open annotation” of web content. The organization is especially interested in wooing educational users (both K-12 and higher ed) to serve as test pilots.
Florida International University is testing out the use of a virtual learning assistant pegged as "artificial intelligence tutoring" in an online program. The university has begun a pilot with Cognii, an education technology company that uses natural language processing to interact with the student as he or she learns a particular topic, gets assessed on comprehension and receives coaching to master the concepts.
A publishing company that creates digital learning experiences has introduced a new course to help students navigate through difficult obstacles on their path to graduation. Perceivant launched reMIND, which is designed to improve the success of first-generation, low-income college students but is applicable to all undergraduates.
A look back at the topics that resonated most over the last year
From artificial intelligence to STEM education, these technologies and topics are worth paying attention to this year.
Ever-increasing numbers of universities and colleges are teaming up with boot camps to deliver tech training. Does your campus need one too?
A Washington, D.C. blizzard was bad enough to knock a day and a half off of the first three-day effort to dig into work on proposed regulations for federal student aid programs. The regulations, authorized under title IV of the Higher Education Act, are being undertaken by a "negotiated rulemaking" committee that brings together various stakeholders to hammer out language that the U.S. Department of Education is expected to use for two regulatory areas: accreditation and innovation.
Coursera has partnered with 15 universities to develop a portfolio of health-related online courses to help address the global shortage of skilled workers in the healthcare industry.
In our latest Teaching with Technology Survey, the vast majority of faculty members said they teach in either a fully online or blended format.
EdX has gone public with its latest monetization plans. In an effort to develop a "sustainable long-term business model," the MOOC provider has made changes to both its free and paid options for courses.
Coursera today launched a three-course specialization that lays the groundwork for certification in SAS analytics skills. The SAS Programming Specialization "takes learners from the basics through what they need to become SAS certified," according to a news announcement.
Gen Zers aren't shy about saying money motivates them to learn. According to a survey conducted online for LinkedIn in October among 3,072 adults working full time, the top two reasons these individuals consider learning important is to improve at their jobs and to make more money.
The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and College Consortium recently hammered out an online course-sharing initiative. The program is intended to help the private schools increase course access to students, with all kinds of benefits.
The share of college students taking online courses has grown, up by about 6 percent, even as the overall number of people enrolled in higher education institutions dropped by about half a percent. According to preliminary numbers issued by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, of the 20.1 million students enrolled in fall 2017, 6.7 million were taking at least one distance education class, representing 33 percent of the total — a boost from 31 percent in the previous year.
The University of Oxford's Saïd Business School is using cutting-edge videoconferencing technology to connect students and academic scholars in a truly global classroom.
Microsoft has introduced a new series of open access courses on cybersecurity that can be taken for free or, for more formal recognition, as a certificate program for a fee. The Microsoft Professional Program Cybersecurity track includes 12 courses — 10 of which must be completed successfully to earn the certificate. The program is hosted on edX and includes labs, community interaction and quizzes. Content is delivered online through videos.
Facebook is launching Learn with Facebook, a career development site offering training, tools and resources aimed at helping people access new job opportunities.
Education technology company Blackboard has introduced enhancements to the Ultra Experience version of Blackboard Learn, its learning management system, including integration with Ally, an accessibility checklist tool.
Southern New Hampshire University, which in a few short years has transformed itself into an online learning powerhouse, is merging with LRNG, a nonprofit organization focused on workforce and education needs of urban communities.
Online program manager 2U has signed a 15-year contract extension with one institutional client and announced a new suite of online "short courses" with two others.
South Carolina has introduced free coding education for all of its residents through an agreement between the state's Department of Commerce Office of Innovation and Build Carolina, a nonprofit that generates internships, apprenticeships and other education endeavors in innovative fields.
The University of North Dakota has teamed up with for-profit training company Woz U to provide short-term technology education programs. The institution is including the courses provided by Steve Wozniak's education company as part of its "personal & professional development" catalog.
A research project at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is exploring the use of flipped teaching in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses.
The University of Colorado Boulder has formally introduced a "remote presence" technology to enable students who can't be physically present in a course to attend remotely. Kubi is a robotic neck that holds a tablet and is controllable by the remote user to allow him or her to look around the room through a Zoom videoconference meeting.
Over the past five years, the higher ed LMS market for institution-wide adoptions in the United States and Canada has become increasingly dominated by "the Big Four": Instructure Canvas, Blackboard Learn, D2L Brightspace and Moodle, according to a 2018 analysis from e-Literate's Phil Hill.
The Khan Academy has launched a new series of videos focused on civics for students in K-12 and higher education — and anybody else interested in learning how government works in the United States.
YouTube, a Google company, has announced plans to invest $20 million in YouTube Learning, an initiative hinted at during the summer. The goal: "to support education-focused creators and expert organizations that create and curate high-quality learning content on the video site."
Drexel University created an open source website to showcase leading technologies, practices and research in virtual education.
Even as online enrollments continued growing (3 percent last year) while overall higher education enrollments fell, a new survey among deans and directors has uncovered a "mismatch" between the online programs they help deliver and student preferences. These kinds of disconnects, according to a report on the findings, result in "mass-market opportunities that are being lost" by the institutions. The project was undertaken by the Association for Continuing Higher Education and Learning House.
A new initiative at Trinity College is tasked with preparing students for the digital workplace of the future. The college has partnered with Infosys, a provider of consulting, technology and next-generation services, to establish the Trinity-Infosys Applied Learning Initiative.
Learners who complete a M.I.T.x. MicroMasters credential in Data, Economics, and Development Policy or Supply Chain Management can now apply their work toward a Master of Liberal Arts degree at Harvard Extension School.
Online learning destination EdX today announced nine new master's degree programs, which offer a top-ranked, high-quality alternative to an on-campus degree at a fraction of the cost, according to the company. Three of the programs, in fact, are from top-10-ranked institutions and priced at under $10,000.
A new two-year online college opening in January 2019 promises to instill the "future-proofed" skills students will need for management jobs that are ubiquitous and growing. Intended for working adults in the United States, Foundry College will be granting free tuition for the entire two years for its first cohort.
Some of the University of Michigan's most innovative strategies for online learning are based on values held throughout its 200-plus year history. Here, U-M's associate vice provost for academic innovation explains why Michigan Online — a relatively recent initiative — brings communities of motivated learners together, both to learn together and to apply their knowledge to solving significant problems.
Houston Community College launched a new online college, HCC Online, with 31 fully online programs, including 15 associate degree-level and 16 certificate offerings in both academic and workforce areas.
For Puerto Rico's Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, the process of restoring campus systems after Hurricane Maria led to new opportunities for active learning and community engagement.
A new self-evaluation tool from the Online Learning Consortium measures the services and supports in place for online students.
In an effort to increase degree attainment for non-traditional students, Ohio's Central State University is rolling out Oracle's Student Management product for student recruiting, engagement and support.
Blackboard is rebranding its open source learning management system. The LMS formerly known as Moodlerooms will now be called Blackboard Open LMS. The company said it's also "accelerating investment and development of the product."
The University of Pennsylvania will become the first Ivy League college to offer an online bachelor's degree program in the fall of 2019.
This coming January, the University of Oregon is launching its first coding bootcamp: a 24-week, part-time web development program geared toward adult learners and working professionals.
Washington State University has made a deal with Examity to use its online proctoring platform exclusively for up to 18,000 exams per year. And that number is expected to grow by 20 percent over the next seven years, according to a news announcement.
When you can bring huge numbers of students together with lots of well-branded universities and global enterprises seeking a highly skilled workforce, could those linkages be strong enough to forge a new future for massive open online courses?
The latest version of ProctorU's Live+ online proctoring solution is using artificial intelligence to add a "second set of eyes" to live human proctoring.
In a recent survey from Champlain College Online, 41 percent of respondents said they would consider returning to college for a cybersecurity degree or certificate in order to prepare for a cybersecurity job. And 72 percent would be willing to do the same if their current employer would pay for their training.
Columbus State Community College created a multimedia e-book for English composition students that reduces textbook costs and reimagines the ways learners engage with course material.
When Arizona State University Online students hit the biology lab, they head to their locker, don a lab coat and gloves and start following through on the exercises they've been assigned, perhaps taking blood samples from basketball players to measure their blood glucose levels, using confocal microscopy to help a farmer save his crop from a mysterious plant disease or sequencing DNA. Except these students haven't left their own study spaces. They're tackling these activities through virtual reality, which means they can take as long as they want, repeat the activity multiple times and get feedback from the software when they get something right or wrong.
Education technology company ProctorU announced that it has integrated automated online proctoring into Pearson's MyLab product set.
A study undertaken jointly by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and education technology companies Blackboard and VitalSource found that early activity with digital tools is a "strong predictor" of passing a class — even more so than the grade point average a student enters the class with.
IBM is introducing two new Professional Certificate programs on the edX platform, focused on emerging tech in artificial intelligence: deep learning and chatbots.
In time for back-to-school season, Google has polished its education offerings. Changes include updates to Classroom, Google Docs, its virtual reality offerings and teacher training.
GitHub has released four new courses on its Learning Lab, an online learning hub intended for people "of all skill levels."
The Certified Lesson Planning Specialist is a set of online courses designed for educators who want to see what flipped classes look like and hear from peers about the reasons for their instructional choices.
In the wake of news of its split from Moodle, Blackboard has reaffirmed its commitment to its Moodle-based Software-as-a-Service product and the open source community.
Open source software company Moodle today announced it is ending its partnership with Blackboard.
The University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science is launching its first fully online master's degree. Delivered on Coursera, the online Master of Computer and Information Technology costs a total of $26,300, about a third of the cost of its on-campus equivalent.
Loyola Marymount University is rolling out the Echo360 cloud-based video platform in more than 100 classrooms. Key factors behind the implementation include the need to provide students with consistent, on-demand access to their courses on any device, as well as ease-of-use for faculty, according to a news announcement.
The University of Phoenix has signed a four-year deal to scale up its use of Blackboard Learn with the Ultra experience across the institution. The implementation is expected to be complete in the first half of 2019.
The Online Learning Consortium has introduced a series of original reports to keep people in education up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of digital learning. The first report covers accessibility and addresses both K-12 and higher education. The series is being produced by O.L.C.'s Research Center for Digital Learning & Leadership.
Google is seeking beta testers for Course Kit, a free toolkit that uses Google Docs and Google Drive to create and collect assignments, give feedback to students and share course materials within the learning management system already being used.
At the BbWorld conference taking place this week in Orlando, Blackboard introduced a new version of CourseSites, a free platform for individual instructors to deliver e-learning.
Coursera is now allowing for A/B testing on its MOOC platform. This lets instructors and researchers test a single variable to see how it affects some aspect of the course, such as participation. As a Coursera blog article explained, the testing is done by "randomizing enrollees into different versions of the same course" and then seeing what impact the change-up makes on the "learning outputs."
What do students want in the learning activities for their online STEM courses? They'd prefer more real-life problems to solve and instructional resources such as simulations, case studies, videos and demonstrations, according to a research project from the Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida
As colleges and universities seek innovations that will allow them to address their current crop of challenges — a growing number of non-traditional students, a bigger emphasis on workforce preparation, the use of data and new technologies to improve learning — accreditors can help or hinder those efforts. A new report from the Christensen Institute has suggested that until accreditation bodies do a better job across the board of helping their institutions by supporting innovation, they're just getting in the way and allowing unaccredited schools to hold the competitive advantage.
Five organizations with expertise in online education have collaborated on a new resource for students looking for online programs. Together, Berkeley College, the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements, the Online Learning Consortium, Quality Matters and the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies formulated a list of questions students should ask themselves in order to find an online program that best fits their needs.
Starting this fall, Google's IT Support Professional Certificate will be available through more than 25 community colleges in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Texas, California and New York. The company's charitable arm, Google.org, is funding workforce development nonprofit J.F.F. to help community colleges integrate the certificate into their IT education programs.
In spite of the fact that nine in 10 people believe online and distance learning programs will grow in popularity over time, seven in 10 don't think that students can a get a "true college experience" from an online-only program. That drops to five in 10 for those students who have attended a blended learning course. Those results surfaced in "Online Education Trendspots," a survey intended to understand experiences and perceptions of online or distance education programs.
Class Central recently made a list of all the courses it could locate that are part of for-credit programs and are still free to access. There are 370 of them, according to the company, which operates an online MOOC search engine and curates a MOOC catalog. The search found offerings from 49 different universities, with subjects "spanning technology, business, the arts and engineering."
In a survey of 1,500 "past, present and prospective fully online students," most are taking advantage of — or want — the option to use smartphones or tablets for their class work. Among current and past students, 67 percent completed at least some of their online coursework on a mobile device. The research was conducted by Learning House and Aslanian Market Research.
In a survey of 1,500 online students, most considered the value of their degree equal to or greater than the cost they paid to take it. Among those who have attended face-to-face and online courses, the majority said that online learning is as good as or better than attending courses on campus. The survey was conducted by Learning House and Aslanian Market Research.
MOOC provider edX will be moving away from its current model of offering almost everything free. The nonprofit announced last month that the decision was intended to help it and its partners "achieve sustainability." The first charge to be introduced is a "modest" support fee, according to a blog post on the change.
Google and Udacity have teamed up to offer 12 free career courses for recent graduates, mid-career professionals and those re-entering the workforce. The duo tested out the concept in March, when Udacity launched a "Networking for Career Success" course for 60,000 "Grow with Google" learners in Europe and the United States.
An online educator offers a way to get your e-mails noticed — and get a few laughs.
A new report has recommended continuation of a pilot to allow high school students to use Pell grants to cover the costs of college courses. The Alliance for Excellent Education is pushing Congress to consider the test involving early college high schools and dual-enrollment programs because it believes the move could boost college enrollment and completion.
The California State University and California Community Colleges systems have teamed up to launch a new online course finder that will provide students enrolled at either set of institutions access to more than 10,000 online, transferable classes. "Finish Faster," as it's called, is part of the Online Education Initiative, a collaborative effort among several community colleges in the state to push students to finish their educational goals faster.
The University of Michigan's Office of Academic Innovation has launched a new portal, Michigan Online, to bring all of the university's digital learning opportunities together in one place. The new site serves as gateway to more than 120 programs, including massive open online courses, certificates, teach-outs, specializations, Xseries courses, micromasters and more.
Western Governors University made the offer for people who want to earn their bachelor's or master's degree in education and aren't already enrolled there.
A new nonprofit has formed to focus on "identifying and supporting global standards for flipped learning and related active learning instruction." Known as the Academy of Active Learning Arts and Sciences, the organization was created out of the Flipped Learning Global Initiative's Global Standards Project, an effort to establish an international framework for flipped learning.
New tools are helping colleges and universities tackle the accessibility of instructor-created content, student coursework, note-taking and more.
Research suggests that blended learning is more effective than both face-to-face and online education, according to a new e-book released by the Online Learning Consortium and academic publisher Routledge.
D2L has updated its learning management system. The "Emerald Release" of Brightspace offers new analytics features, improvements to the user experience and functions to expedite use of the LMS by educators.
Less than a year after Rice University in Houston announced plans to introduce a new online master of business administration with program management company 2U, the institution said it would work with the company to deliver master's-level "online short courses" in business and management as well. The first short course to be offered by Rice and 2U will be project management, expected to launch this fall.
All college students in one Canadian province will receive access to Lynda.com courses. The Ontario government has signed an agreement with LinkedIn, a Microsoft company that owns Lynda.com, to provide skills training through LinkedIn Learning that will help post-secondary students "prepare for the jobs of the future."
Blackboard today introduced Blackboard Ally for Web, a solution for assessing and improving the accessibility of institutions' websites. The tool expands on Blackboard's Ally product (launched last year), which focuses on the accessibility of course materials in learning management systems.
Cornell University's Department of Sociology is offering five large introductory courses that have been reimagined as part of the College of Arts and Science's Active Learning Initiative. The initiative is remaking discussion sections and lectures, in part by better relating them to one another. Other changes include clicker polls, short data analysis assignments and "think-pair-share" activities.
Gale has updated its resources to be compliant with Learning Tools Interoperability 1.0 standards and Deep Linking from the IMS Global Learning Consortium. The move enables single sign-on and allows instructors to embed content from their library's Gale collections to into any learning management system that supports the standards, including Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, Schoology and more.
The Statistics and Data Science Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is launching a new online micromasters in statistics and data science. Currently under development by M.I.T. faculty, the program will be available through edX in the fall and will feature a curriculum covering foundational knowledge of data science's methods and tools, in-depth coverage of probability and statistics and opportunities to experiment with data analysis techniques and machine learning algorithms.
A study at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that in a health science course following the flipped classroom model, there was no statistically significant differences in test scores or students' assessments of their course, compared to a traditional lecture course.
Crypto currency is funding development of ODEM, an "on-demand" education marketplace with aspirations of replacing or supplementing a college education. ODEM, which deals in digital tokens on several crypto-currency trading platforms, recently announced completion of its "crowdsale," selling more than 100 million ODEM tokens, equivalent to about $9.6 million at the current trading rate. The company said the proceeds will be used to fund on-going development of a blockchain-based service that brings students, instructors and other professionals together online to buy and sell education.
Many postsecondary professional schools are recognizing that they must develop innovative programs to address the changing environment that surrounds them as well as the new requirements their graduates currently face. Here, CT talks with Dean and Professor of Information Thomas A. Finholt at the University of Michigan School of Information to find out what changes UMSI is anticipating.
Universities that contract with an online program management company tend to outperform those that go it on their own, according to research by Eduventures. On average, schools working with O.P.M. providers have seen a five-year online enrollment increase significantly above that of peers.
Online courses are associated with higher retention and graduation rates, increased access and cost savings of as much as 50 percent, according to a new study from Arizona State University.
NYC Data Science Academy, a provider of bootcamp-style data science and data engineering training in New York City, has launched a remote option for students who are not able to attend in-person classes. The Remote Intensive Bootcamp offers live-streamed lectures plus access to prerecorded modules and more than 1,000 practice questions. Students attend full-time, five days a week; the first cohort began this week and runs through June 29.
D2L's Brightspace learning platform now features a variety of ways to organize and manage faculty and staff professional development. Bringing these capabilities into Brightspace eliminates the need to maintain a separate learning management system for faculty development, according to the company. "Instructors and staff can use the same learning system to develop their professional skills that their learners are using — which saves organizations money, resources, budget and time,” explained John Baker, president and C.E.O. of D2L, in a statement.
EdX has its "MicroMasters" program. Now Coursera has introduced the "MasterTrack." The massive open online course provider recently announced that it will pilot three MasterTrack certificate programs in coming months: one at the University of Michigan and two others at the University of Illinois. The news came during Coursera's partners conference, hosted at Arizona State University. The idea: to parcel up degrees in small, more digestible chunks for prospective students.
MOOC provider turned for-profit educational provider Udacity has launched a new "School of Artificial Intelligence," which features four "nanodegrees" covering AI and machine learning. Each program has tuition and a set period in which to participate and complete the lessons. The courses consist of video lectures, personalized project reviews and a dedicated mentor. Those who successfully finish the program receive certification.
In an effort to provide a more inclusive learning environment for students, the Utah Education Network has partnered with Blackboard to roll out the company's Ally product at nine universities across the state. Ally integrates with an institution's learning management system and automatically checks course materials for common accessibility issues.
The majority of online education leaders agree that most relied-upon metrics currently in use by online programs are student retention and graduation rates and student course/program evaluations, according to a recent survey from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research. While those two indicators topped the list by far, other quality measures, such as faculty training, summative student assessment, program reputation and external rankings, were less commonly cited by the survey respondents.
When instructional designers are involved in online course design, student-to-student interaction goes up, according to a new survey of online education leaders from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research. The survey compared reported student interaction levels at institutions where instructional design support is required for online course development vs. those where such support is absent or optional. Perhaps not surprisingly, respondents perceived interactivity to be significantly higher for the former.
Asynchronous discussions and group projects are the most important techniques currently used for online learning, according to a new survey of online education leaders from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research. When asked which online learning methods were most important at their institutions, respondents pointed to those two activities first, followed by problem-based learning, quizzes and research projects.
When asked what tools and technologies they would most like to adopt for their online programs, online education leaders cited adaptive learning and learning analytics as their most wanted tech, according to the latest Changing Landscape of Online Education report, a joint initiative of nonprofit Quality Matters and Eduventures Research.
Infusing online courses with a little fun can make a big difference in engaging and motivating students.
Following a semester-long pilot of Blackboard's Ally solution for accessible course content, the University of California, Berkeley is expanding its use of the technology across campus. The rollout will begin this fall, and by the end of next year, the system will provide accessible course materials to more than 40,000 undergraduate and graduate students, according to a news release.
When MOOCs generated a huge demand for video production at Princeton University, the institution responded with organizational change, an AV upgrade and a new commitment to sharing campus resources.
Oral Roberts University built a Global Learning Center that combines anytime, anywhere access to information, course materials and streaming media with a deep dive into augmented and virtual reality.
MIT's Connected Learning Initiative has won the King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The project uses pedagogical design and technology to improve the academic prospects of students underserved students in India.
Online learning company 2U is extending its partnership with WeWork by offering $390,000 in additional scholarships and apprenticeships for WeWork students. Twenty students in WeWork's Access Labs Initiative will be able reduce their tuition payment by half with 2U's new "No Back Row" Future Devs Scholarship. And 10 graduates of the program will receive paid internships at 2U.
The University Professional and Continuing Education Association has launched a program to recognize excellence in online higher education: the Hallmarks of Excellence in Online Leadership Review. The program evaluates online education programs based on seven key elements, such as internal advocacy, entrepreneurial initiative and faculty support, and then issues Credly digital badges to qualifying colleges and universities.
A wiki developed by Contact Nord, a nonprofit funded by the government of Ontario, describes the "breakthrough innovations" being tested at open universities around the world. TeachOnline.ca profiles the work of 66 open universities dedicated to increasing access to courses for those who want higher education, no matter what their backgrounds.
Rice University and 10 other institutions in Europe, Asia and Australia have agreed to be part of a three-year "Credits for MOOCs" program that allows students from the participating schools to enroll in specific free online courses from the other member schools and receive transfer credits for passing them. When it's fully up and running, the pilot effort will feature from three to 10 credit-bearing online classes from each institution for the "virtual exchange." The program, which is in its second semester for the 2017-2018 academic year, currently features 18 courses.
Online education platform vendor Coursera has announced six new online degrees with major universities, more than doubling the number of degrees offered on its platform. The new degree programs, all expected to launch later this year or in 2019, will bring the number of programs offered on the platform to 10.
Video doesn't need to be a passive medium. Here's how to keep students watching and make them feel like they have a stake in their own learning outcomes.
The disregard for net neutrality voted into reality by current White House appointees may inspire commercial internet service providers to charge colleges and universities more to deliver their bandwidth-hungry videos, simulations and interactive programs to students. That would add additional pressure to fiscal management of online programs, according to a new report by U.S. higher education consultancy Hanover Research. Other challenges outlined in the report include shrinking enrollment; skepticism on the value of higher ed; and unsustainable tuition strategies.
A proposed budget by California's governor would allocate $10 million to set up a new online "intersegmental" higher education initiative. The project would fund competitive grants for intersegmental teams of faculty to create new and redesign existing STEM courses — both online and hybrid — in a program titled the "California Education Learning Lab." While the Legislative Analyst's Office found Governor Brown's goal of improving student outcomes "laudable," this approach isn't the answer, the office wrote in an analysis of the proposal. First, the analysis noted, the proposal doesn't address "the root causes of STEM disparities among student groups"; and second, it overlaps with other online initiatives already underway.
The Online Learning Consortium is launching a new program that provides hands-on research and networking opportunities for current and recently graduated doctoral students in the field of digital learning. Participants in the O.L.C. Emerging Scholars program can contribute to projects in the O.L.C. Research Center, collaborate with researchers at institutions and organizations around the world, and network with peers and mentors.
According to Class Central's annual review of MOOC stats and trends, massive open online courses are evolving from a technology expected to disrupt higher education to one that generates revenue with tiered services targeted to lifelong learners. MOOC platform Coursera, for example, saw a 70 percent increase in paying customers in 2017.
A new survey from Champlain College Online reported that while most adults see the value in higher education to prepare them for career advancement, concerns about college affordability are the major barriers they face in returning to school. Three-quarters of respondents said they didn't want to be "burdened with student debt." Seven in 10 said they couldn't afford college. A solid third said they couldn't afford to return to school because they were supporting their children's education.
MIT considers its ongoing experiment in "MicroMasters" to be a success. The first cohort of students is expected to graduate this June, earning a full master's degree in supply chain management at a much-reduced cost compared to tackling the program fully on campus. Announced in 2015, the program combines months of online work with a shorter period of on-campus courses. A group of 40 students from around the world have now begun their first residential semester in Cambridge at MIT's campus.
The Flipped Learning Global Initiative has introduced a new effort to establish international standards for flipped training. The standards are meant to ensure that educators are trained using the most current global research and best practices in flipped learning, according to a news announcement.
A deal between 2U and WeWork will give students enrolled in 2U-produced online university programs access to physical co-working space around the world and provide scholarship funding for WeWork members interested in pursuing graduate degrees in 2U schools.
One of the founders and former CEO of online proctoring company ProctorU, Don Kassner, is launching a new venture: MonitorEDU, an online proctoring service powered by technology from ProctorExam. Kassner created Proctor U in 2008 with colleague Jarrod Morgan while serving as president of Andrew Jackson University, and left the company in 2016.
Shortly, colleges and universities that use the Blackboard Learn or Moodlerooms learning management systems will also be able to offer "day-one access" to digital curriculum for their students, through an agreement between Blackboard and VitalSource. Under the terms, faculty will be able to select content from VitalSource's catalog of digital textbooks and make them available to students on the company's digital textbook platform through their LMS from the first day of class.
Wake Forest University's School of Business is expanding its Master of Science in Business Analytics program through a partnership with online higher education provider Noodle Partners. The new offering will cater to working professionals who want to hone their big data skills in an online format.
Google today took the wraps off new security features for its education productivity suite, G Suite for Education, which includes Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, Slides and a range of other tools.
Attempts by the faculty union at Eastern Michigan University to fight a recent agreement the institution made with online education services provider Academic Partnerships have failed. But an independent mediator warned campus officials that the university had better limit AP's services to the confines of its contract. Otherwise, faculty and administration could well find themselves back in arbitration.
According to the Babson Survey Research Group's latest annual report on distance education in the United States, online student enrollment has grown for the 14th year in a row. Nearly a million additional students took distance education courses in 2016 compared to 2012, and more than 30 percent of college students took at least one distance education course during the 2015-2016 academic year.
This week Google and Coursera will officially kick off the "Google IT Support Professional Certificate," a program that offers training to people who want to enter the information technology field but lack the time and resources for a formal education. A new series of massive, open, online courses available through Coursera and developed by Google experts will train beginners and prepare them for job readiness in eight to 12 months, according to the two companies.
Over the next year, the higher education segment can expect to see a major shift to blended learning; an innovative education stack from an existing institution to "rival" the bachelor's degree; and serious inroads to cross-border online learning. Those are the predictions for 2018 from Eduventures, a membership advisory service for colleges and universities.
According to a new report, the California State University system could do a better job of tracking enrollment and outcomes and helping students know what's available online.
The University of St Thomas will begin offering graduate certificates in STEM engineering education online this year.
Purdue's New U, the online institution formed from the university's acquisition of Kaplan University, is now going to be called "Purdue University Global."
Virtual reality, online learning, digital literacy and tech adoption concerns have all been among the most popular topics on our website.
A new report from the Community College Research Center has suggested that while a college degree or a certificate has an impact on earnings, the impact of stackable credentials is still iffy.
California may open an all-online community college by 2019, if a line item in the proposed budget by Governor Jerry Brown makes the final cut. California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley said the new institution would be targeted to offering short-term credential programs aimed at serving the working adults in the state who have some or no college experience and lack the time to enroll in a traditional community college. The goal: to help them earn higher wages.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will be offering a free online course on how to operate drones.
A report recently published by New America posed a set of questions related to how those policies affect the early education teachers who need to attain bachelor's degrees, especially in areas of quality and access — and whether online education could provide a leg up.
Following a nearly three-year pilot, Indiana University has chosen to adopt the proctoring platform Examity over other choices for its "flexibility, security and support."
The University of Southern California will be launching two new graduate degrees completely online.
Founded in 2014 by Colorado State University, Indiana University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Florida, Unizin is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to improving the learning experience with technology and creating a common, interoperable infrastructure for education.
Online learning platform Udemy has partnered with Unity Technologies to create a series of online courses that teach developers how to build interactive 2D and 3D games with the Unity game engine.
In an effort to increase access to its bachelor's and graduate programs and improve time to degree, the University of Nebraska is partnering with iDesign to grow its online offerings.
The program allows students to take a mix of self-paced and traditional courses, as well as self-directed interactive assessments whenever they feel prepared to do so.
Fifty-three percent of students in a recent survey said they prefer classes that use digital learning tools, according to a new report from McGraw-Hill Education.
Faculty and students vary widely in their impressions of technology's impact on campus, and their expectations are evolving rapidly, according to research presented last week at the 2017 Educause Annual Conference in Philadelphia.
North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have teamed up to launch a competency-based teacher education program they hope will help address a widening teacher shortage in the state.
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is teaming with a private partner to launch a competency-based master's of education in online teaching program.
OLC's Quality Scorecards are worksheets that gives schools criteria and benchmarking tools to assess the effectiveness of their online instructional efforts.
Echo360 today announced a new video content management system (CMS) that combines lecture capture and active learning features with video management for a variety of campus needs.
Nonprofit consortium Unizin is expanding its suite of education technologies and services through two new partnerships with edX and Cengage.
D2L today introduced the Autumn17 release of its Brightspace learning management system. The latest features focus on flexibility and streamlined workflows, according to a news announcement.
A certification provider has begun issuing credentials via the blockchain, a technology that is becoming a new standard for ensuring trust and verification of data.
These two institutions faced the same goal — convincing all their instructors to use the learning management system. Here's what's working.
Binge-watching leads to poorer sleep, less family time in front of the TV and even less enjoyment of the content. But at the same time could it also generate better learning outcomes and higher completion rates?
Students taking courses through Excelsior College's CourXam platform can now take exams from anywhere using a computer, webcam and internet connection, thanks to a partnership between the institution's Center for Educational Measurement and online proctoring company ProctorU.
This fall, Good Samaritan College of Nursing and Health Sciences, a private, nonprofit higher education institution in Cincinnati, is rolling out a new learning management system from D2L.
MIT Professional Learning is launching a new program designed to offer organizations courses for their employees that feature project-based challenges designed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty.
Lessons will train participants in smart transportation, including the software skills needed for building autonomous flight systems.
The University of Oklahoma and several other institutions recently held what they believe to be the first multi-state, multi-campus virtual reality class.
Barely a week after Apple unveiled its new augmented reality development framework, dubbed ARKit, for-profit online educational services provider Udacity has announced a new program for developers who want to learn how to use the framework to build AR apps for iPhone and iPad.
A new bootcamp is coming to America, this one by way of France. OpenClassrooms is an online program that offers certification tracks in development, product management and, soon, design.
The Online Learning Consortium is launching a new research center focused on digital teaching and learning.
A new online program from SAS provides training in big data management, advanced analytics, machine learning, data visualization, text analytics and communication skills.
Ohio University students and alumni will now have access to intensive online and on-site training in coding and other tech skills, thanks to a partnership with technology talent development company Revature.
Loma Linda University has tapped a private partner to help design an online bachelor of science nursing program that reduces tuition costs for students by nearly 50 percent.
Most faculty in our second annual Teaching with Technology Survey said they employ a mix of online and face-to-face instruction, and many are using the flipped model in their courses.
Video has become as ubiquitous in higher education classrooms as big screens in the fitness center and Hulu in residential halls, according to the latest results of Kaltura's "The State of Video in Education" report.
A recent survey of thought leaders in the nursing field revealed that nursing education programs are accelerating adoption of virtual simulation and other cutting-edge technologies.
A lack of widely available broadband is correlated to a smaller percentage of residents with college degrees or certificates. That's the suggestion of a presentation made recently in Florida to the Higher Education Coordinating Council.
A new online program from Rochester Institute of Technology launching on edX will help learners hone their "soft skills" — the interpersonal, communication and social intelligence skills that help build relationships, improve productivity and foster collaboration in the workplace.
Online proctoring and identity management company ProctorU today launched ProctorU Auto, an automated online proctoring solution that uses artificial intelligence to flag suspicious test-taking behavior in real time.
Ohio's Eastern Gateway Community College is turning to Barnes & Noble Education for an array of digital content and other services, including bookstore operations, learning management system, predictive analytics and digital courseware.
The Modern States Education Alliance, a group of public colleges and universities, has posted a set of on-demand college classes that wannabe-students can take for no cost, including digital textbooks used in the courses.
Kent State University is teaming up with Proctorio to protect the academic integrity of online exams in its undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs.
Purdue and Infosys will work together to develop course materials in digital agriculture, cybersecurity, biopharma analytics, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and data analytics.
The Georgia Institute of Technology is opening the "Robotarium" this month to allow users from around the world to test out their code on a rotating pair of robot swarms.
Tulane University has tapped a private partner in an effort to expand and improve its online offerings.
Carnegie Mellon University has deployed an array of videoconferencing technologies in an effort to enhance the education experience for remote students and faculty.
These accelerated computer science education programs have grown 10-fold in five years and continue to attract more aspiring developers, according to a new study.
Ed tech companies Instructure, iDesign and Credly have partnered on Course Market, an online marketplace that works with higher education institutions to deliver workforce-relevant credentials and certificates to working learners.
The institution, one of the nation's Historically Black Colleges and Universities, also launched a new online degree certificate for artists who want to teach.
Sinclair Community College's competency-based education program for online students forces candidates to write a "vision" statement, has disabled discussion forums in its courses and boots out students who don't make the 80 percent cut score. And its CBE students are credentialing at three times the rate of students in ordinary online programs.
The private Catholic university in Ohio saw 39 percent growth in its master's nursing program between 2011 and 2016 and a 62 percent growth in its RN-BSN programs over the same period.
COpilot now offers video-powered PD through Edthena. Educators can use the platform to upload videos of their classroom instruction and then share those videos with coaches who can give timestamped comments categorized as questions, suggestions, strengths and notes.
A shift to the cloud is causing market change for learning management systems, according to a new report from education technology research firm e-Literate.
There is no single best way to handle proctoring for digital courses, as this community college system pilot discovered.
Four higher ed IT leaders weigh in on the current state of education technology and what's ahead.
Students love to hear good news about how well they're doing in their courses or how their performance — good or bad — compares to other students in the class, according to a research project undertaken by Blackboard's analytics and research team.
Blackboard today unveiled Blackboard Instructor, a mobile app designed to help faculty manage their courses, engage students and complete course-related activities inside and outside the classroom.
This fall, courses delivered on the Open edX platform will be able to incorporate live, recorded or fully automated proctoring from online proctoring and identify verification company Examity.
D2L is rolling out a number of enhancements to its Brightspace learning management system with a new Summer17 release.
It's time to get serious about growing online education programs if your institution wants them to be sustainable. This Arizona State University research project is examining the costs and benefits of scaling digital learning in order to share replicable return-on-investment mechanics and tools for any school willing to take on the challenge.
Online students at Oregon State University will soon be able to perform lab experiments virtually, thanks to a new project with adaptive learning and instructional design company Smart Sparrow.
The University of Nebraska system has expanded its membership in the Unizin Consortium, with the University of Nebraska at Kearney, University of Nebraska at Omaha and University of Nebraska Medical Center joining Unizin founding member University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the nonprofit consortium.
Seeing a conflict between open and proprietary developments in educational technology and in society at large, Moodle founder Martin Dougiamas has started to refocus the open source learning platform's activities to do a more effective job of spreading openness.
With more than 1.3 million positions in computer and mathematical occupations expected to be open by 2022, the Kentucky Department of Education, Amazon Web Services, Project Lead the Way and others are taking action to build a pipeline of talent for a cloud-enabled future workforce.
The University of Arizona developed a toolkit to help new instructional designers and online instructors get up to speed in creating courses for students that might never show their faces on campus.
A professional development program operating in rural Maine was recently awarded a $1.85 million grant from the National Science Foundation to turn its hybrid video coaching program into an entirely online format. The Afterschool Coaching for Rural Educators in STEM teaches educators as well as librarians how to bring out-of-school STEM learning opportunities into their communities.
Giving students "voice, choice and connectivity" will help them gain a sense of belonging in a group even when they're states and countries apart.
Follett, a provider of education technology, services and content, this week is rolling out a new tool, Collections by Destiny, which will allow librarians, teachers and curriculum staff to share free or purchased resources across a district, schools or between users.
Younger students are more interested in alternatives to traditional degree offerings, such as microcredentials, certificates and other short-term opportunities, according to a new report from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) and Blackboard.
More than two-thirds of college and university deans in a recent survey believe that in 10 years, the United States higher education system will be much different than it is today. But many are also worried about their own institution's to respond to change.
Online students crave interaction with classmates and instructors, according to a new report from Learning House and Aslanian Market Research.
A "gameful" instructional tool created at the University of Michigan is now available for purchase by K–12 schools and universities across the country.
Student engagement and safety platform ClearScholar Friday launched a new feature set for institutions that leverages student data to deliver targeted content to individual students. ClearScholar Align, as the solution is called, works by combining data from disparate college systems to build individual student “personas" that enable administrators to broadly and narrowly deliver content to students.
Instructure today revealed a new partnership with Cerego, bringing the latter’s advanced personalized learning platform to the Canvas learning management system.
Facebook last week at its F8 developer conference unveiled a program that aims to connect developers around the world and foster collaboration in computer science.
The online learning company is letting users preview its upcoming virtual reality content developer nanodegree program — available for free use June 8 through June 11.
Online proctoring and identity verification company Examity today launched examiDATA, a data platform designed to "aggregate and analyze information on test performance and academic integrity."
A one-year college alternative promises to prepare students for the workplace, with no tuition due until they land a paying job.
Unizin's consortium of universities will gain access to customized versions of LoudSight, a predictive analytics solution from Barnes & Noble Education LoudCloud that focuses on helping identify at-risk students.
Steve Hargadon wants a revolution in education. He is the founder and director of the Learning Revolution Project, a social networking website for educators, as well as a vehicle for online and in-person educational conferences. During the ISTE conference in San Antonio, TX, Hargadon will present at three sessions.
To expand its mission of delivering education worldwide, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched a research, policy, pedagogy and practice lab that intends to uncover new ways of delivering education to learners in developing countries. The new "J-WEL" lab will emphasize reaching underserved populations such as women and girls, and displaced persons.
Experts in higher education, technology, government and research expect the future of workplace training to include new kinds of educational offerings that can train large numbers of workers in the skills they'll need. That overall conclusion came out of a query on the topic posed by the Pew Research Center and Elon University, generating some 1,400 responses.
Schoology added Microsoft Office 365 integration, allowing individuals to use Microsoft Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc. without leaving the learning management system.
Amid news that coding bootcamp graduates are finding work, Udacity has tweaked the formula for its popular introductory course in programming by adding three new projects.
While a recent research project examined enrollment patterns for online courses, a new survey is looking at broader questions related to online programs, this one based on responses from "chief online officers." Produced by Quality Matters and Eduventures, the "Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE)" offers a "baseline" examination of program development, quality measures and other structural issues.
Blackboard is rolling out an accessibility tool that it plans to make available for all major learning management systems.
Education technology company Blackboard today launched its first-ever hackathon event called “Hackboard,” open now through mid-June.
Instructure has partnered with startup Kimono to integrate the latter’s interoperability platform into Canvas’ student information system (SIS), allowing for bidirectional SIS integration.
Java, JavaScript/MEAN stack and Python are in high demand across the United States, according to new research from Coding Dojo.
Blackboard today rolled out a variety of updates to Blackboard Learn, the company's flagship learning management system.
Harvard University is issuing certificates for anybody who passes one or more of the same online courses that are also taken by incoming students prior to starting their Harvard Medical School curriculum and used by the institution's faculty to "flip" their classrooms.
Y Combinator's 10-week MOOC called Startup School is a resource for anyone considering starting their own company. In its fifth week, the course already has more than 80,000 video views.
In its most recent production release notes, Instructure's learning management system Canvas updated its student information system integration, dashboard, people and other features.
More than 6 million students took at least one online course in 2015, representing more than a quarter (29.7 percent) of all higher education enrollments that year, according to a new report from Digital Learning Compass.
The deal accelerates two of 2U’s strategic growth initiatives: expanding internationally and offering non-degree alternatives.
Purdue University's next grand experiment is an effort to extend its reach among non-traditional students, jumpstart its online profile and transform its role in higher education.
Working together, Nathan Grundahl, Anne Larson and Michael Mades of Sun Prairie Area School District in Wisconsin developed a six-step process that the district used to map out its successful LMS implementation. Here’s how they did it.
The Center for Educational Measurement at Excelsior College and Cengage have come up with a new way for adult learners to earn college credit.
New edX programs, created in collaboration with industry professionals and universities, are designed to build or advance critical skills for in-demand careers like software development and data science.
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is launching a new online course to help higher education leaders redesign student advising on their campuses.
Maplesoft today released Möbius, a hands-on learning tool focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
Schoology is rolling out enhanced question types to its learning management system, in an effort to give educators more flexibility to assess and impact individual student progress.
Coursera is making a big push to have people pay $49 to attend the program to earn a certificate; however, learners can gain access to all course materials for free by choosing to "audit" the course.
Whether online instruction is lecture-based, totally flipped or something in between, providing high-quality instructional feedback can be a challenge. Here are the goals and considerations behind doing feedback right.
From web 2.0 to the flipped classroom, here's how education technology trends have evolved over the years.
Adobe has released the latest versions of its e-learning authoring tool, Adobe Captivate, and its learning management system (LMS), Adobe Captivate Prime. The two are designed to be used in conjunction as end-to-end solutions, or as standalone offerings, and are aimed toward specialists in learning and development, training and corporate HR departments.
Author, speaker and qualified educator Sarah Cordiner explains how to get started as a freelance educator and reach a global student base online.
Indiana University is out with a numbers update for its eText initiative that delivers digital course materials to students: eText has grown 56 percent over the previous academic year and saved students $3.5 million to date.
D2L's Brightspace LMS now has direct integration with McGraw-Hill's homework management and e-learning tool, Connect.
Flipped and active learning truly are a better way for students to learn, but they also may be a fast track to instructor burnout.
The two institutions have teamed up with online learning company Coursera to launch online master’s degree programs in accounting and entrepreneurship.
University of Maryland University College students and graduates can sharpen their coding skills at no cost thanks to a new partnership with technology talent development company Revature.
Thanks to a two-year, $300,000 grant from The Kresge Foundation, Excelsior College is expanding the reach of its Online Writing Lab, a publicly available interactive website designed to help students improve their writing skills.
A new "teach-out" series from the University of Michigan focuses on creating discourse in today's shifting political climate.
Thirty-five organizations, from ACT to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, have banded together to promote the idea of bringing college into high school.
Online proctoring company Examity is introducing a mobile authentication product that will allow test-takers to use their smartphones for identity verification.
Intellify Learning and The Learning House are collaborating to expand data analytics for online learning programs.
Schoology, a learning management system for K–12, higher education institutions and companies, is holding its fourth annual user conference to equip users with the skills and support needed to accelerate their school or institutional goals.
JoomlaLMS has released an update to its learning management system. JoomlaLMS 2.1.0 is compatible with PHP7, is twice as fast as its previous version and features improved performance and reporting.
Starting this week the original course that thrust MIT into the annals of MOOC history will exist no longer — although an updated version will continue being available.
D2L is rolling out a number of enhancements to its flagship learning management system.
A new report explores how colleges and universities define alternative credentials and work with their incoming students to issue credit for their prior learning.
The new "Momentum" offerings allow students to master competencies and move through course materials at their own pace without being held back by limitations on how much they can accomplish in a term.
Two institutions share their experiences rolling out online tutoring services, from garnering faculty and student buy-in to analyzing usage data and measuring outcomes.
A new collaboration between Unizin and Instructure will extend the quantity and quality of data in the Canvas learning management system.
Consulting and research firm Adventures released its 2017 Higher Education Technology Landscape Report, which provides ongoing analysis of the technology market to support higher education decision-makers tasked with choosing products from hundreds of vendors.
The Flipped Learning Global Initiative, an international coalition of educators, researchers, technologists, professional development providers and education leaders, has declared a new era in flipped learning, designated "Flipped Learning 3.0."
Massive open online course (MOOC) provider edX is introducing 16 new MicroMasters programs this spring that span business analytics, digital product management, cybersecurity and data science fields.
As online learning continues to evolve, technologies like gamification and simulation are poised to advance student engagement and success.
eXplorance, a company that assists organizations in developing a culture of improvement, has formed an alliance partnership with Canvas from Instructure to integrate two learning experience management (LEM) solutions into the latter’s LMS.
CT talks with Penn State University Director of Education Technology Kyle Bowen about the directions immersive media has been taking in higher education and the practices that are making 3D, VR, AR, and 360 video technologies accessible for faculty and students.
A recent study found that students who comment more on massive open online courses (MOOCs) are more likely to complete the course than those who do not comment.
The University of Central Florida and Educause have re-launched a no-cost massive open online course (MOOC) that offers facilitated assistance to faculty members and instructional designers who want to develop blended courses.
Citing insufficient market demand for full competency-based education solutions, Ellucian has decided to stop supporting the Brainstorm CBE platform.
2U said the one-year awards, totaling almost $200,000, are meant to support the work of full-time faculty members and other academic leaders at the firm's partner universities.
The online classes will be taught by the faculty from the university's school of engineering, which also offers a face-to-face version at the campus in Erie and is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.
FutureLearn, the largest MOOC provider in Europe, today announced its first United States university partners.
New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering has launched a new online program that gives students lacking a background in CS the opportunity to switch fields and pursue a master’s in computer science.
Here's how to put your massive open online course experience to best advantage when documenting your skills.
A parallel learning object distribution system can give programs at small regional institutions a competitive edge — and offer students anywhere, any time access to the course materials they need to succeed.
The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, Online Learning Consortium, Presidents' Forum and University Professional and Continuing Education Association have joined forces to create the National Adult Learner Coalition, an organization devoted to advancing the adult learner agenda and expanding post-secondary education and credentialing opportunities.
TakeLessons, an online marketplace for finding and vetting instructors, earlier this week introduced an affordable way for learners of all ages to receive live instruction from real teachers over the internet.
Dashboards that report on course progress are more motivating for underperforming students than for those who are doing well, according to a new study from the University of Michigan and Blackboard.
Harvard University has begun experimenting with the use of adaptive functionality in one of its massive open online courses.
Pepperdine University is expanding its online education efforts with two new degree programs, to be launched this fall through a partnership with 2U.
McGraw-Hill Education today introduced Connect2, a new course design, management and delivery platform for higher education.
What does the next-gen learning management system look like? Educause's Malcolm Brown envisions component-based architecture connected through open standards.
The bilingual French-English institution serving more than 42,000 students in Canada has selected a new learning management system in an effort to drive a positive, relevant and impactful learning environment for faculty and students.
Digication CEO Jeffrey Yan reflects on how his own experiences both as a student and teacher in higher education have influenced the design of his company's ePortfolio product.
A multi-year initiative at the University of Alaska System to streamline individual campus degree offerings to cut expenses shows signs of heading off the rails.
Coursera has analyzed data from 5 million students in the United States who have enrolled in the company’s massive open online courses (MOOCs), uncovering that computer science and business are the most popular topics overall in the majority of states and more MOOC learning trends,
Five higher ed leaders analyze the hottest trends in education technology this year.
Students using Instructure's Canvas learning management system will now be able to connect their learning with career opportunities via the Portfolium e-portfolio platform.
Two of the brains behind the institutions' edX programs have released results of a joint research project that mined the data generated through four years of MOOC activity.
In an effort to expand the scope of its online graduate programs and offer "transformative educational opportunities for working adults and non-traditional students," George Mason University has signed a 10-year agreement with knowledge and learning services provider John Wiley and Sons.
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi is working with ed2go to fulfill a Joining Forces commitment. Joining Forces is a White House initiative launched five years ago, calling on Americans to rally around service members and their families in the areas of wellness, education and employment.
At the College of Business at the University of Illinois, video operations don't come in one size. Here's how the institution is handling studio setup for MOOCs, online courses, guest speakers and more.
U.S. News & World Report yesterday released its annual list of top online programs for bachelor’s and graduate degrees in business, engineering, nursing, education and criminal justice.
Students can now earn digital badges when they complete modules in Canvas, thanks to a new partnership between Credly and the learning management system from Instructure.
The Flipped Learning Global Initiative today announced a new program geared toward helping educators, administrators and IT staff with the technology selection process for flipping the classroom.
MIT has introduced a new blended "micromasters" program that can help people earn their master's degree in data, economics and development policy.
Rather than rely on a single LMS to manage all aspects of teaching and learning on its 17 campuses, the University of North Carolina system created an app store that gives faculty a chance to experiment with cutting-edge tech.
The United States Department of Education has released its final rules to improve oversight and clarify the state authorization requirements for institutions to participate in federal student aid disbursement programs — which will impact more than 5.5 million students.
The University of California, Irvine Division of Continuing Education is launching its first Coding Boot Camp, designed for working professionals and students.
A New York-based data science bootcamp has launched an online education program for long-distance learners.
Entangled Solutions is forming a Quality Assurance Task Force to drive accountability and transparency for emerging models of education.
California’s City College of San Francisco has been unable to prove to the state that instructors taught approximately 16,000 students in nearly 600 online courses from 2011 to 2014. No fraud is suspected, but the college will repay the state $39 million over the next 10 years.
Small liberal arts colleges looking to innovate with technology in education are finding strength in numbers.
A new study from Civitas Learning, based on aggregated data collected using 4 million student records from 68 institutions, has identified attendance, LMS grades, course material engagement and discussion board engagement as the four most predictive types of LMS activities.
Australia's Deakin University is gearing up to offer six full postgraduate degrees through FutureLearn, a massive open online course platform launched in 2012 by The Open University.
MIT's Solve initiative, a community focused on creative problem-solving, is tackling major global issues with three new challenges. This year's Solve challenges seek innovative, affordable, far-reaching and implementable solutions to address refugee education, carbon contributions and chronic diseases.
The e-learning market is predicted to experience significant global growth over the next five years, largely driven by advances in technology, evolving business needs and a number of emerging learning and development trends, according to Docebo’s newly released research report, “E-Learning Market Trends and Forecast 2017-2021.”
Quality instructional videos require a balance of content, design, teaching style and more. Here are six factors to consider.
Rochester Institute of Technology has launched a series of graduate-level courses in cybersecurity with edX, an online learning platform founded in 2012 by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Columbia College Chicago has revamped its network to support e-learning at the liberal arts institution.
The Online Learning Consortium (OLC) is working with instructional design experts from the State University of New York to help people in higher education hone their skills in instructional design for online courses.
Educators around the world have a new resource for connecting, problem-solving, innovating and sharing best practices in flipped learning. Launched today, the International Flipped Learning Innovation Center is an online platform designed to support collaboration and innovation among flipped learning practitioners worldwide.
Credo today announced that it is contributing reporting, learning outcomes tracking and analytics features to Open edX, the open source learning management system originally developed for edX's online courses and MOOCs.
The online education platform has introduced a $1 million scholarship program for nonprofits that work to increase opportunities for individuals who are underrepresented in the tech industry.
The University of South Florida has teamed with a private partner to offer students free access to an online coding program and the opportunity to attend an immersive coding bootcamp.
Western Governors University Washington is partnering with Capital Region Educational Service District 113 in an effort to improve access to continuing education to the district's employees.
The generic e-learning course market is projected to grow by 8 percent per year over the next four years, driven primarily by growth in general purpose learning applications, cost-effectiveness of generic e-learning courses and increased adoption of mobile learning.
Students at Rasmussen College have a new, more flexible way to earn a business degree. The private, regionally accredited institution has launched Flex Choice Competency-Based Education, a program model that allows students to choose between traditional and self-paced competency-based education (CBE) courses.
Walden University has launched a new online bachelor of science degree program for students interested in becoming elementary school teachers.
The University of Memphis is teaming with a private partner to explore how students can best thrive in a blended learning environment with access to both teachers and automated instruction.
The University of California, Berkeley's School of Information has tapped a private partner to help launch a new online program, Master of Information and Cybersecurity.
Online education programs and courses are on the rise at private colleges and universities compared to three years ago, according to a new report from the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and Learning House.
The World Affairs Council-Washington, D.C. has honored Blackboard with a Global Education Award, recognizing the ed tech company’s commitment to education worldwide.
Babson College has teamed with edX to launch a new series of six online courses, Business Principles and Entrepreneurial Thought.
Indiana Wesleyan University has tapped a private partner to provide online courses in an effort to ease degree attainment for students.
A recent study by Blackboard examined how learning management system (LMS) use in courses influences student activity in the LMS as a kind of proxy for overall course design.
A "boutique" search company has developed a free online resource that lets users search for university and college videos that have been posted to YouTube and then clip and share segments of those videos with students and colleagues.
In our 2016 Teaching with Technology survey, faculty members offered their predictions on what the future holds for technology in teaching — including what hardware and systems will bite the dust over the next 10 years.
From affordable textbooks to the flipped classroom, here's what was trending on our website last month.
Denison University in Granville, OH is replacing its learning management system with a social learning platform.
The Digital Education Platform integrates with Cisco’s WebEx and Spark services into existing LMSs, allowing universities to create and manage online courses and cloud-based collaboration spaces more easily.
Texas A&M University system has signed with a third party to provide online proctoring services for the 143,000 students taking exams at its 11 campuses and associated online courses.
D2L has unveiled the Autumn16 release of its Brightspace learning management system, which includes new tools for personalized learning and assessment of soft skills.
The Board of Governors’ Innovation and Online Committee has set a goal to increase student enrollment in online classes over the next ten years, while making distance education programs more affordable for learners.
D2L is partnering with Amazon Web Services in an effort to better serve customers and to accelerate expansion and innovation.
Blackboard today announced the acquisition of Fronteer, a UK-based educational products and services company whose flagship Ally software helps institutions and instructors make course content more accessible.
The California State University System has adopted a new video platform to support online teaching and learning throughout the state.
Is the distinction between online learning and campus-based instruction disappearing? Asking faculty to move their courses online may be deceptively simple. That's why co-authors Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad have refined a list of 14 best practices based on core learning principles to help faculty succeed in creating effective online courses.
Internet2, an advanced technology community of research and educational organizations, has expanded its partnership with D2L to offer a customized version of D2L's Brightspace learning management system to more than 300 Internet2 member institutions as part of Internet2's NET+ portfolio.
The University of Wisconsin's first cohort of students to complete a significant number of their undergraduate courses primarily through the flipped classroom model is preparing to graduate in the spring.
The mobile app that allows access to the open source learning platform has launched a new version, 3.1.3, that makes it easier to use in areas with little or no web access.
The Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University held its first ever remote piano master class on October 10.
Motivis Learning, a New Hampshire-based ed tech company, is launching a new learning relationship management (LRM) system, which is a next generation, cloud-based software platform for educational institutions.
The University of Central Florida's Universal Design Online Content Inspection Tool evaluates online course content for accessibility issues, allowing instructors to find and address potential problems.
Less than a month after the Flipped Learning Global Initiative announced a new certification track, the organization has its first group of 16 credential holders.
The University of Dayton's School of Business Administration will launch a new online master of business administration program beginning in October of next year.
For several years, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has used Splunk Enterprise to monitor the efficiency of its IT infrastructure and to help identify potential issues. Now, the institution is tapping into the analytics platform for academic research, mining data from the learning management system to better understand how students learn.
California Community Colleges will soon allow students to cross-register for online courses through a course exchange system.
Spurred by the success of an earlier anatomy class offered as a massive open online course, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is expanding its course offerings through its own institutional website and enhancing the course content with the help of a textbook publisher and 3D simulation company.
Our first-ever Teaching with Technology survey gauged educators' use of the flipped classroom model, blended/online teaching environments and more.
Davidson College has tapped a private partner to help launch a tuition-free online coding program for students and graduates.
A professor at Texas A&M University is developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology for creating adaptive online courses.
Google has changed the name of its popular service Google Apps for Education to G Suite for Education. With this change comes several new features that have been added to some of the apps included in G Suite. These features use “machine intelligence” to facilitate and add more functionalities to Google Apps.
MoodleCloud, a hosted service for the open source Moodle LMS, is giving schools the ability to purchase more user licenses of BigBlueButton as an add-on to the service.
From outsourcing to learning spaces, here's what was trending on our website last month.
Carlow University in Pittsburgh is replacing its legacy learning management system with one new to the higher ed market.
Motivis Learning is launching the second iteration of Unity, its learning relationship management system designed strictly for competency-based education, Unity 2.0.
Instructure has updated its Canvas learning management system to include an annotation feature in the mobile app.
A new organization dedicated to improving the practices of the flipped classroom has introduced a certification program intended to give teachers and administrators a foundational understanding.
If the outcome from online courses is uneven, it's little wonder. Most instructors aren't exactly up to speed on what to expect, according to a new report from the Online Learning Consortium
An experiment by MIT to test out a credential program delivered as a MOOC has blossomed into 19 different "micro-masters" offered by nearly as many members of the edX consortium.
The Credential Transparency Initiative today debuted its Credential Registry, a tool for documenting and comparing certifications, degrees, certificates, licenses, badges and other micro-credentials. The project includes the formation a new nonprofit organization, Credential Engine, tasked with taking the effort mainstream.
Eddie Maloney, executive director of Georgetown's Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, makes the case for a new academic discipline built around the study of educational technology, learning analytics and instructional design.
Four years after the launch of edX, the data generated by massive open online courses still mystifies many institutions. Could inter-university collaboration unlock the secrets to better course delivery?
Quality Matters, a nonprofit organization providing quality standards, professional development, course/program review and more, has added a new Teaching Online Certificate to its lineup of certifications for quality assurance in online learning.
A Pennsylvania State University research project is exploring the possibility of using 3D printing and interactive technology to teach middle school students about the human brain.
A University of California Irvine research project may be the first of its kind to attempt to measure the impact and feasibility of the use of robots to bring homebound students into the classroom when they can't be there physically.
Laws in more than 20 states restrict or prohibit local governments from building their own broadband networks, according to a report released today by the Education Commission of the States.
The biggest predictor of student achievement (based on their use of a learning management system) isn't the amount of time they spend working with course content; nor is it how long they spend taking assessments or participating in discussion forums.
The worldwide self-paced e-learning market is declining at a precipitous rate, according to a recent report released by Ambient Insight Research, a Washington-based market research firm.
Chalkup has been redesigned with a simplified interface and enhancements for students and faculty. Chalkup provides chat, messaging, discussion boards and other social tools as an alternative to more structured learning management and collaboration systems.
A company that helps colleges and universities build and refine online courses has introduced a higher ed redesign service that includes a "continuous improvement" dashboard. iDesign has tested its new offering with Schreiner University, a private liberal arts school in Kerrville, TX.
From virtual classrooms to Pokémon Go, here's what was trending on our website last month.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus is extending its online and hybrid education offerings with the addition of new degree programs and certificates targeted at people who need to complete their degrees.
This state university turned to software it already uses — its learning management system — to transform new-student orientation.
Seeking to bring the qualities of well-designed games to pedagogical assessment, the University of Michigan created a learning management system that uses gaming elements such as competition, badges and unlocks to provide students with a personalized pathway through their courses.
Just eight months ago, Hobsons announced its acquisition of the PAR (Predictive Analytics Reporting) Framework. Here, CT talks with Ellen Wagner, Chief Research Officer for the PAR Framework and VP for Research at Hobsons to get a brief update on the current work of PAR.
Alderson Broaddus University has teamed with a private partner to provide online courses in an attempt to help students complete their degree at a lower cost.
Just in time to honor the 400th anniversary of the death of the Bard, a new hybrid certificate at the University of Colorado Boulder tackles the topic of William Shakespeare in an immersive experience.
The University of Wisconsin-Extension has selected new members to join its industry expert advisory boards for its online bachelor's and master's degrees.
Primavera Online High School has won retroactive approval from the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), allowing student athletes who have taken Primavera courses to begin establishing eligibility to play college sports.
London School of Economics and Political Science embarked on a crowdsourced, gamified approach to education and citizenship, harnessing the massive open online space to engage a community of learners in writing a model UK constitution.
A new integration between the Edvance360 learning management system and Panopto video platform will allow instructors to capture lectures with Panopto, import the recordings to Edvance360, and embed the content into their courses.
Beginning on August 29, MIT will be kicking off its latest round of "Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness." This time, however, some participants will have the chance to submit a paper and have it reviewed by the instructors — a first for MITx, the institution's edX portal.
The University of Nevada, Reno is expanding an existing partnership with a private party to launch an online master of public health degree in spring of 2017.
Worldwide revenues for the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) markets are expected to grow from $5.2 billion in 2016 to more than $162 billion in 2020, according to research done by the International Data Corporation (IDC). The $156.8 billion increase represents a compound annual growth rate of 181.3 percent over the 2015-20 forecast period.
Does a study of the scene of Ricky Bobby flailing around in his BVDs trying to put out a non-existent fire in Talladega Nights have a place in higher education? That particular movie could surface alongside other Will Ferrell classics — as well as movies featuring Charlie Chaplin, Lucille Ball and others — in a massive open online course examining the history of slapstick comedy in film over the past century.
California Community Colleges will now have access to a new tool for offering online diagnostic assessments.
The new "Virtually Inspired" website will bring together the latest deployments of cutting-edge online learning technologies.
Virtual labs have done a decent job of introducing students to scientific work and allowing them to simulate experiments in the absence of a physical lab. However, a faculty member at Stony Brook University said she believes virtual labs could do more, and she intends to apply gamification to find out whether its use could expand how science is practiced online.
Harvard and UC Berkeley share two different approaches to helping online business school students feel like they're attending class in person.
At the Campus Technology conference in Boston, Stephen Downes explained the difference between innovation and transformation.
An online learning platform used in 50 colleges and universities has introduced a new feature that lets those institutions "friend" companies that are potential landing pads for their graduates.
A new brief from a public policy think tank suggests getting rid of the link between federal student aid and college accreditation and even allowing the market to choose which schools are worthy of staying open.
Bellevue College has tapped a private partner to help provide continuing education in programming and related technologies.
Technology has the potential to solve the affordability and access problem in higher education, according to the author of Revolution in Higher Education.
Worldwide tablet shipments, including detachables and slates, reached 38.7 million in the second quarter of 2016, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. That’s 12.3 percent less when compared to Q2 2015, as vendors begin to refocus their product lines and consumers hold off on purchases.
From online learning to facial recognition, here's what was trending on our website last month.
The learning management system market is expected to grow from $5.22 billion in 2016 to $15.72 billion by 2021, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets, an India-based market research firm. That increase represents a compound annual growth rate of 24.7 percent.
Two universities share how the Quality Matters rubric informs their online course design and improves the learning experience for students.
The Education Department’s latest proposal sets forth several federal requirements for colleges and universities that offer distance education programs.
Blackboard has partnered with Examity in an effort to improve the efficiency, security and convenience of online assessments.
A new integration will simplify the interoperability of various functions between Microsoft Office 365 and Canvas from Instructure.
Instructure and Intellify have partnered in an effort to provide more data-driven insights into student learning and achievement.
New research into the demographics of online college students found 50 percent of them would probably not choose to attend classes on a physical campus.
The companies have partnered to integrate an analytics tool within Instructure’s LMS to help support student outcomes and retention.
Stanford University's Graduate School of Education has launched a new online course, Effective Conversation in the Classroom, designed to help educators learn to create rich and meaningful conversations in their classrooms.
D2L has updated its learning management system, Brightspace, with integrated virtual classroom capabilities.
The Schoology learning management system has been updated to integrate the Unplag plagiarism detection tool.
Unizin's co-founder describes the consortium's focus on content, learner interaction platforms and analytics, and what it hopes to achieve this year.
A United States Department of Agriculture grant program will fund 45 projects intended to connect rural communities in 32 states with educational experts via videoconferencing.
Instructure and McGraw-Hill have partnered to integrate the McGraw-Hill Connect learning platform with the Canvas learning management system.
Central Penn College has teamed with a private partner to offer online courses in an effort to improve access to and affordability of degree completion.
Online students at the Oregon Institute of Technology can now earn digital badges to identify their skill sets and demonstrate their competencies to current or future employers.
Regis College has gone public with the addition of online programs to its healthcare-focused academics.
The university is working with Keypath Education to launch and scale online programs in business, computer science and healthcare.
Blackboard, which produces Blackboard Learn 9.1, has gone into "general availability" with the new "Ultra Experience." It has also announced considerable enhancements to 9.1, provided in what it is now calling the "Original Experience."
WebAssign has launched PlaceU, a new tool designed to help institutions place students based on their own online assessments or those of other universities, such as Purdue or Texas A&M.
Blackboard introduces Moodlerooms 3.0, with enhancements designed to improve teaching and learning experiences for teachers, students and administrators.
Two new graduate-level STEM classes will use a mixed modality teaching model that combines onsite and online instruction.
Echo360 and Instructure are teaming up to provide faculty and advisers with real-time analytics that link student engagement to academic performance.
From gamification to makerspaces, here's what was trending on our website last month.
A research project at Pennsylvania State University looked at how to improve the completion rate for people who undertake massive open online courses — a rate that currently stands at a dismal 10 percent.
Shindig today announced its integration with Canvas by Instructure, bringing the former's video chat platform to the learning management system.
Excelsior College has teamed with a private partner to create a low-cost alternative pathway to college credit.
Union College has teamed with a private partner in an effort to make affordable online courses more easily available to students.
Unplag has updated its cloud-based plagiarism detector with a new user interface and the ability for instructors using Canvas to leave comments on student assignments.
The planned acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft could either sound the death knell for colleges and universities put out of business by the coming "competency marketplace," or it could help schools raise their retention and graduation rates, thereby ensuring their long-term success.
Instructors at USC's Keck School now have a new resource for flipping the classroom.
In a world where we can place people in empty seats in cars and empty beds in houses, why not place people in empty chairs in college classrooms?
Cornell University and the University of Queensland have partnered to offer, via edX, a new massive open online course about sharks.
WebSeries, the new subscription portal on eCornell, hosts one-hour online events for working professionals and lifelong learners.
A new guide from OnlineSchoolsCenter ranks the top 10 disability-friendly schools and offers guidance to students with disabilities.
This fall, Philadelphia's Peirce College will launch its first competency-based degree program: a bachelor's degree in information technology with a concentration in networking, administration and information security.
Courseware developer Junction Education has partnered with course material fulfillment firm MBS Direct to bring its OER-based courses and authoring platform to a wider range of campuses.
North Carolina State University has developed a gamification tool that allows students to follow their own paths through coursework.
Open source learning platform Moodle today released version 3.1, which introduces new features for competency-based education.
Students in an online data science program offered by the University of Wisconsin may soon get an opportunity to use virtual reality headsets to interact with mountains of data.
Strayer University has recently gone public with a partnership designed to help identify factors that contribute to success for student in online courses.
Blockchain technology could offer a more learner-centered alternative to traditional credentialing.
Online coding school Treehouse is introducing a new degree program designed to prepare students for entry-level developer jobs.
A partnership between Fishtree and Blackboard is bringing the former's personalized learning technology to the Blackboard Learn LMS.
Companies like AT&T and Google are expanding their partnerships with online education providers, creating new educational pathways to real jobs.
Excelsior College and the United States Office of Personnel Management have partnered in an effort designed to make higher education more accessible and affordable to more than 1 million federal employees and their spouses or domestic partners.
Up-front cost savings and operational efficiencies are two of the main reasons some education consortia adopt a common learning management system. Over time colleges have also seen pedagogical benefits to using a common LMS, according to a new report from the California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative and Mindwires.
The University of Southern Indiana has launched an accelerated online master of business administration degree in an effort to make an MBA degree more accessible to residents of Indiana and neighboring areas.
The first students to complete a doctorate degree online have graduated from Pennsylvania State University.
Kettering University is launching three new fully online graduate certificate programs.
Northwestern University in Illinois has launched a new Digital Learning website to showcase the innovative online and blended learning practices of campus faculty and provide information for those who want to implement digital learning.
The University of Michigan will launch three new online certificate programs that will be available on the edX MOOC platform.
From free digital textbooks to student piracy, here's what was trending on our website last month.
A small, private, non-profit college in Los Angeles has just added seven new all-online programs to its roster of studies, including bachelor and associate degrees and a certificate in entrepreneurship.
To improve the student experience in online courses, we need to focus on community-building, sharing and peer support.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have published a study that suggests students may be more likely to stick with massive open online courses if they use Facebook.
Online education pioneer Southern New Hampshire U is launching an innovation lab to look for the ideas that will catapult the institution into the future.
Pearson has partnered with General Assembly to offer online, skills-focused courses in the areas of digital marketing, web development, user experience design and data analytics.
Ten online courses from digital publisher Shmoop have recently earned a-g approval from the University of California, bringing the total number of a-g courses offered by the company to 20.
The business school at Southeastern Oklahoma State University is adding five new focus areas to its online MBA program for a total of 11 areas of specialization.
Syracuse University's College of Law has teamed with a private partner to develop a hybrid juris doctor degree program.
Colleges and universities looking to grow their online programs can now tap into a new offering from Keypath Education.
Brandman University is expanding its MyPath competency-based education program with a new Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (B.S.IT).
Wheaton College in Illinois has implemented a new learning management system with the goal of improving the teaching and learning experience for faculty and students.
Arizona State University's online Global Freshman Academy is rolling out adaptive software to help tens of thousands of students work through its College Algebra & Problem Solving course. The GFA program, delivered via massive open online course provider edX, will be the first to utilize McGraw-Hill Education's ALEKS adaptive learning product in a MOOC format.
The University of Nevada, Reno's School of Social Work is teaming with a private partner to expand access to its online Master of Social Work program, which is launching foundational and concentration tracks in the fall.
Just days after announcing it was working with the University of North Carolina to deliver four new certificate programs in its business school, 2U has also gone public with news that it is extending its contract with the University of Southern California (USC) school of education for an additional 12 years and teaming up with Syracuse University to help launch a new online master of public administration.
The University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School is expanding its graduate certificate program with the launch of four new online certificates, including one in data analytics and decision-making.
Stanford University has enhanced its online certificate program in advanced computer security, adding a new course in network security and updating its course in emerging threats and defenses.
A new study by researchers at the University of Washington has found that the use of massive open online courses is much different in emerging countries than in the United States and, in some ways, more in line with what MOOC's original proponents had in mind.
The University of New South Wales Australia is launching an engineering MOOC that will use adaptive learning technology to personalize course materials for students and boost completion rates for those new to the field.
The University of California has granted a-g approval for an additional 30 online and blended learning courses offered by Edmentum.
The use of "cheat sheets" is the most common way students try to cheat on their online tests, according to online proctor Examity. The second most common tactic is to use Google Search and Translate, followed by copying test questions for distribution, hiding flashcards underneath the keyboard and hanging answers on walls.
The use of the "flipped" model of instruction for English-as-a-second-language (ESL) college students can improve their autonomous learning skills, according to the results of a small research project that took place in Tomsk, Russia.
From digital textbooks to napping pods, here's what was trending on our Web site last month.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is offering an online Master of Computer Science in Data Science degree through the Coursera massive open online course platform.
California's Central Region Agriculture Education Career Pathway Consortium has received $15 million in grant funds from the California Career Pathways Trust to expand and improve career and technical education programs in 36 high schools and three community colleges in the region.
eThink Education, a provider of technology management services for the open source Moodle learning management system, has integrated its eThink Moodle product with the EDC Technology's CampusAnyware student information system.
ReadSpeaker has partnered with Blackboard to make its text-to-speech technology more available to students around the world.
Two universities, California State University, Fullerton and Lehigh University, have earned certification from a nonprofit organization for their emphasis on the use of technology in learning in their teacher preparation programs.
Quality Matters (QM) today announced that Ball State University is the first higher education institution in the country to earn the standards organization's Learner Support Program Certification for an online program.
Forget about hunting down just the right educational game for your students. Let them use the games they already love — Minecraft, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty — and then untangle how those can be fit into the learning goals you have for them. Figuring out how to do that as a teacher is the focus of a new course at Penn State.
Bethel University in McKenzie, TN has added new online course options to help students in the College of Professional Studies complete their degree programs.
The University of Massachusetts' online consortium, UMassOnline, has launched its first non-credit badge program.
Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN is hosting a workshop on distance learning for rarely taught languages.
Canvas and Moodle are currently two of the most popular learning management systems, and both offer the ability to make adjustments to quiz functions within the course without compromising the overall structure of the course. In this article, we will examine how to do so and offer some tips on situations where they are relevant.
Colorado State University-Global Campus has introduced a new online certificate of completion and degree specialization program in computer programming.
The University of Southern California has announced a build-out of its law degree offerings with a new online degree.
California's North Coast Region School Districts are adopting digital courses focused on agricultural science at 16 area high schools and two community colleges in an effort to help students explore career interests and aspirations.
Australia's University of Adelaide is redesigning its teaching and learning model, using technology from Echo360 to promote active learning in the classroom.
Among other initiatives, Penn State English faculty can use iPads available in the Digital English Studio in their classrooms.
Cornell University has created Cornell Online, a new Web portal that brings together the university's various online course offerings.
The University of Michigan, a founding partner of MOOC company Coursera, has followed through on a fall 2015 commitment to deliver massive open, online courses on edX as well.
Providing more support for instructors may improve the student experience in massive open online courses, according to a study conducted by researchers from Penn State and the University of Central Florida.
Academic Partnerships is now accepting applications for its semiannual Faculty Research Grant program.
Researchers can now access de-identified learning data from more than 230 massive open online courses (MOOCs) hosted on Instructure's Canvas Network.
Instructional design support firm iDesignEDU will partner with Instructure to help colleges and universities build and develop online courses.
From MOOCs to digital textbooks, here's what was trending on our Web site last month.
Franklin University has teamed up with a private partner in an effort to make it easier for students to transfer credits and complete their degrees.
Digital curriculum provider Cengage Learning has struck an agreement with another education technology company to use the latter's coding labs inside a series of new programming courses.
California's Sierra College is partnering with community makerspace Hacker Lab to offer an immersive bootcamp for entrepreneurs.
Using technology developed by Acrobatiq, a Chicago university has created a blended learning alternative intended to help first-time, first-generation college students complete their degrees.
D2L kicked off a major new release of Brightspace, the company's learning management system.
Shmoop, a provider of test prep and online courses, has launched two new computer science courses with more on the way.
UC Irvine Extension will offer a certificate with the completion of an online program to help teach English to non-English speakers.
Higher education recognizes a range of high-impact experiences proven to enhance student learning, but as Virginia Commonwealth University's Vice Provost for Learning Innovation Gardner Campbell points out, the curriculum has been sorely missing from that list. CT asked Campbell why, and how digital technologies might help as higher education sharpens its focus on curriculum and student learning.
A new grant initiative aims to document the impact of interactive video chat on student engagement in online education.
Refugees will have access to college courses — and college credit — as part of a new agreement between edX and Kiron, a crowd-funded university in Germany formed for the express purpose of helping refugees earn their degrees.
Responding to the growing demand for data skills in the workforce, the Center for Innovation at Rutgers University is rolling out a new online certificate program focused on data analytics and big data.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is expanding its offerings of massive open online courses.
Higher ed innovation guru Richard DeMillo talks about how and where to look for the massive transformation of education taking place right before our eyes.
Fox Valley Technical College, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139, the McFarland School District and K12 have partnered to launch Destinations Career Academy of Wisconsin, an online high school focused on career and technical education, the state's first such school.
ePortfolio technology has evolved over time — or maybe it's more accurate to say that the understanding of eportfolio and its application, or eportfolio practice, is still evolving. How will eportfolio define its place in education?
The new four-course program is intended to keep professionals up to date on what is required to design and develop products in a rapidly changing environment.
Experts identify the most substantial tech-related obstacles to education, ranging from the solvable to the downright wickedly difficult.
Two small Illinois school districts have joined a distance education consortium for dual credit college-level courses, bringing the total number of member districts to four, and a fifth district may soon join them.
Pearson has selected the recipients of its annual Online Learning Excellence Awards at its 16th annual Cite Online Learning Conference.
A major statewide community college system has added a new option for proctoring of online tests.
These free courses will help update your skills with blended, OER, Universal Design and more.
A New York school has struck a deal with a company that specializes in online program development to build out its online graduate programs.
Even as online course registrations continue to rise, fewer academic leaders consider online learning critical to their "long-term" strategies or rate the learning outcomes in online education as equal or superior to face-to-face instruction, according to a new report from the Babson Survey Research Group.
Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun touted the company's new program announced in January called Nanodegree Plus, which guarantees that students enrolled in four of Udacity's online programs — Senior Web Developer, Android Developer, iOS Developer and Machine Learning — will find employment in the United States within six months of graduation or receive a full tuition refund.
You may never have heard of them, and they're based in little-known Google Map locations like McAllen, TX; Pahrump and Winnemucca, NV; and Albany, GA. But these three institutions have taken the top spots as the most affordable online colleges and degrees in the country.
A degree program at Georgetown University has evolved from being completely online to bringing together students virtually and in-person.
A new Engineering@Syracuse program at Syracuse University's College of Engineering and Computer Science will offer three online degrees — Master of Science in Computer Engineering, Master of Science in Computer Science, and Master of Science in Cybersecurity — through the 2U platform.
An assistant professor of engineering design and industrial engineering at Pennsylvania State University will use grant money to research the use of virtual reality in creating an immersive and interactive learning experience for engineering students in online courses.
StraighterLine has released two new online courses for higher ed, IT Fundamentals and Survey of World History.
The School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University has tapped a private partner in an effort to strengthen its online graduate degree programs.
Blackboard excels in "playing well" with the enterprise resource planning and student information systems in a school but its ability to "scale seamlessly" is middling. D2L's Brightspace "integrates with (nearly) everything," but the product roadmap is little influenced by its customers' requests. The Canvas platform from Instructure "meets or exceeds" the core requirements from the "vast majority" of colleges and universities, but its training and support relies heavily on its own community of customers.
Those are just a few of the findings from the 2016 report on learning management systems, published this week by education advisory firm Eduventures for its clients.
As more classes go online, schools need a workable approach for giving students access to high-demand software. Virtual desktops provide the answer.
A company that synchronizes video and audio course presentations has committed to a deeper partnership with Instructure, which produces the Canvas learning management system.
Ballhaus likes what he sees at the company he now leads, especially the breadth of its offerings and its capabilities.
Saint Leo University uses a game-based storyline to invigorate professional learning.
Utica College in New York has built a "super" smart classroom at its Clark City Center location to support its blended Master's of Business Administration program.
The world's largest vendor of learning management systems has expanded its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.
The George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, is holding its ninth annual Reading Discovery Program this week.
Neyda M. Abreu, an associate professor of earth sciences at Penn State DuBois, is incorporating imaging technology and electron microscopy into her hybrid course, giving students an opportunity to interact virtually with geologic specimens and formations.
The University of Central Florida and Educause will partner in the fourth version of a massive open online course on blended learning.
The annual tech-fest known as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is taking place Jan. 6- 9 in Las Vegas, and companies new and old have already unveiled their latest bells and whistles. Here are 10 newly introduced products with the most potential for education.
Next week a new massive open online course will begin for K-12 science teachers who want to learn how to help their students read and understand scientific texts.
The competency-based education marketplace eschews the bundled approach of traditional degrees, instead promising to produce workers adept in just the right skills employers want. Education expert Ryan Craig believes that unbundling could destroy all but a handful of colleges and universities.
Public Agenda's survey of competency-based education programs found gaps exist at most institutions between their goals and the achievement of those goals.
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is partnering with edX to offer special scholarship consideration to qualified students in grade 7 who complete a course through the massive open online course provider.
The number of public-private partnerships between institutions of higher education and service providers that manage online degree programs and pathways for international students will increase by double digits in 2016, according to new predictions from advisory firm Eduventures. Likewise, the company is forecasting that online proctoring will go mainstream in the new year. And as many as one in 10 colleges will be acquiring a new constituent relationship management (CRM) system over the next 12 months.
A long-term study by faculty within five Canadian and American institutions has found that physics students have more confidence in their ability to understand course content when reflective study is combined with collaborative activities in a flipped classroom form.
We review the top stories on our Web site in the last year.
Penn State World Campus is partnering with the National Football League Players Association to offer union members the opportunity to finish their degrees online.
A Web-based learning management system introduced earlier this year that allows instructors to deliver quizzes, courses and training online has been updated.
LMS maker Instructure and registration software maker GoSignMeUp will integrate systems to give one-stop service for professional development.
The online graduate education program will include video observation of classroom instruction by NYU faculty at a distance.
Penn State researchers are investigating ways to enhance teaching and learning through online innovation, thanks to funding from the institution's Research Initiation Grant Program.
Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio has added a number of online general education courses intended to make it easier for non-traditional students to complete their degrees.
Charter Oak State College, an online public institution in Connecticut, will award credit for completion of select massive open online courses offered through the edX platform.
Stanford University is moving to an online LMS as its campus-wide learning management system following a pilot launched last year.
Pearson has selected 20 finalists for its 2016 Online Learning Excellence Awards.
Sharp Electronics' imaging and information division has partnered with Blackboard, providing a paper-to-digital workflow for the Blackboard Learn learning management system.
Blackboard has partnered with VoiceThread in an effort to improve discussions between instructors and students with the use of video, voice and text comments.
Technology upgrades will allow students at George Washington University’s satellite campus in Hampton Roads, VA, to participate in classes held at the school’s main Foggy Bottom campus.
Lambda Solutions, a provider of open source talent and learning management systems, today made its Lambda Analytika data reporting and analytics solution available for the Moodle LMS.
Faculty leadership may not be as strongly felt in competency-based education (CBE) programs as it ought to be. Only 15 percent of CBE faculty and staff members are tenured or on the tenure track and only about one in five (19 percent) participate in shared governance activities.
Higher ed IT leaders share 8 ways to make the best use of the data coming out of the campus learning management system.
Zoom Breakout Rooms will allow instructors in video classes as large as 200 students to break into as many as 50 smaller groups.
Blackboard today announced the acquisition of Blue Canary, a higher education predictive analytics company focused on retention.
Colorado State University-Global Campus will launch new online teacher licensure programs in science and math this spring.
Our institutional missions can be extended into the future and supported by the same vision and community values that originated them. But technology change, often spurred on by external markets, may come in waves of extreme and dramatic change.
The American Council on Education has selected several non-accredited education providers to offer courses for its Alternative Credit Project, an initiative designed to help nontraditional students earn college degrees.
Academic Partnerships has selected 16 faculty members from five universities as the recipients of its latest round of Academic Research Grants.
For-profit online education provider Udacity and Google today unveiled a new micro-credential program, the Senior Web Developer Nanodegree.
Through a partnership with open courseware provider Lumen Learning, Northern Virginia Community College's Extended Learning Institute is publishing 24 online college courses designed with 100 percent open educational resources.
Moodle today launched version 3.0 of its open source learning platform, which introduces enhancements to the quiz, forum and assignment modules as well as functionality improvements for user, instructor and administration control.
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.
Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service is launching an online Executive Master of Public Service and Administration.
In an effort to provide more flexible degree options for adult learners, Western Kentucky University is launching AMS On Demand, a competency-based bachelor of science degree program in advanced manufacturing.
Minnesota's Saint Mary's University is launching an accelerated online MBA program in an expansion of its fully online offerings.
Over the past few years, faculty at Florida International University's College of Business have created more than 2,500 videos, amounting to 5,000-plus hours of content, using lecture capture technology from Sonic Foundry.
Utica College has tapped a private partner in an effort to expand access for students as they complete prerequisite courses.
Unizin, a consortium of 11 public universities developing a shared set of services that further teaching and learning in the digital ecosystem, is partnering with IMS Global Learning Consortium in an effort to drive the adoption of the Caliper Analytics standard.
Fullbridge, a company that provides online training programs, will offer a series of online career development courses on the edX platform.
D2L has unveiled the Autumn15 release of its Brightspace learning management system, which includes a variety of new analytics features and reports.
The plan was first begun a year ago when the board created a task force to examine how the state could better meet workforce needs through online education and increase effectiveness while reducing costs.
Blackboard Learn is getting a cluster of new features and assuring its customers that the flagship software still matters even as the company pursues development of its next-generation software.
The University of Florida is rolling out technology from Sonic Foundry to record, store and manage distance learning courses, collaborative meetings and special events that occur via videoconference.
A five-year experiment among students taking an upper-level undergraduate science course found that the flipped and active model improved student outcomes, particularly among females and students with lower grade point averages.
Mississippi Virtual Community College has gone public with its use of an automated proctoring system.
Most people pursue advanced degrees primarily for the higher earnings they expect as a result, according to new research from LinkedIn.
Judith Boettcher gives CT a heads-up about the upcoming revision of The Online Teaching Survival Guide.
High school students in rural Oklahoma schools can now earn college credits prior to graduation without commuting long distances or being limited to online-only courses.
LoudCloud Systems and Greenwood Hall are teaming up to launch an integrated offering for colleges and universities offering competency-based education programs.
The Online Learning Consortium is launching two new awards programs with the help of a $2.5-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Two long-time Internet2 institutional members will be taking advantage of a NET+ cloud offering introduced last year by Blackboard.
A new Competency-Based Education (CBE) solution from D2L combines the company's Brightspace Learning Environment, strategic consulting, domain expertise and a CBE community.
The Online Learning Consortium's work to spread adoption of next-generation digital courseware solutions in higher education just got a $2.5 million boost from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
There's the master's degree. And then there's the "micro-master's." That's what MIT is calling its new "modular credential," which will have no admissions requirements.
The University of Michigan is expanding its MOOC presence. The institution, which was a founding partner in Coursera, will now be offering its massive, open, online courses on edX too, the first to begin in April 2016.
Academic Partnerships, a company that helps colleges and universities convert courses to digital formats, is teaming up with AspirEDU in an effort to improve student retention.
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 University of Utah is partnering with online training provider Career Step to launch new programs that will prepare students for careers in healthcare, technology and administration.
The University of the Incarnate Word has signed on as one of the first beta partners for Ellucian's new Brainstorm competency-based education product.
For the first time, the university will offer students the opportunity to earn a master’s degree in justice, policy and leadership online.
More than seven in 10 learners report career benefits and more than six in 10 report educational benefits from completing massive open online courses (MOOCs). Participants from developing countries and particularly those with lower socioeconomic status and less education appear to be more likely to report benefits from pursuing MOOCs. Those results and others come out of the first major research survey done among Coursera learners and reported in the Harvard Business Review.
Ed tech company Versal has added mobile functionality to its online course authoring tool, allowing users of Android and iOS devices to access courses and via a new mobile player.
Cengage Learning has bought out ed tech company Learning Objects, which provides a learning platform and instructional design services for colleges and education.
Colorado State University is adding awards of completion to its academic programs to keep people motivated as they work towards undergraduate and master's degrees.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching will use the cloud-based platform to allow more teachers to customize content and to distribute it to more students.
Nearpod, a company that provides tools to sync learning resources and content across devices, has integrated its technology with Google Classroom.
MOOCs that rely primarily on people watching lectures may be missing an opportunity to help their students learn even more by adding interactive activities. Recent research into massive open online courses suggests that students do six times better in the course by "extra doing."
NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering created an online pre-registration tutorial that uses gamification to motivate students to participate, keep them engaged and help them understand course requirements and curricula.
University of California, Irvine Extension has launched five new online specializations in partnership with the open online education platform, Coursera.
Students who receive the HBX Certificate of Readiness will earn eight undergraduate credits from the Harvard Extension School.
The company's free LMS now allows instructors to push Web sites to a room full of students, and the productivity suite has new templates, tools and capabilities.
Edmentum has expanded its elective and career course offerings by extending its partnership with eDynamic Learning.
The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School is offering a set of courses through Coursera focused on using big data to make real business decisions.
The School of Engineering at the University of Kansas has introduced several new active learning classrooms this fall, the largest of which can accommodate up to 160 students.
A doctoral program at Michigan State University has begun experimenting with the use of robots to pull on-campus and off-campus students closer together in class.
A new partnership between the Community College of Beaver County (CCBC) and the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School (PA Cyber) allows high school students to experience college-level courses and earn college credits.
McGill University is partnering with edX to launch what they institutions are calling a "GROOC," or a massive open online course (MOOC) for groups.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard University have uncovered a new cheating scheme specific to MOOCs.
Instructors can now use Classroom to initiate question-driven discussions and to reuse assignments, announcements or questions from previous classes.
Harvard Business School's HBX digital learning initiative today launched a virtual classroom designed to reproduce the intimacy and synchronous interaction of the case method in a digital environment.
Adobe has entered the learning management system market with the introduction of Adobe Captivate Prime. The company has also released an updated version of Captivate, its e-learning authoring tool.
Capella University has introduced a new master of science degree focused on data analytics, developed with curriculum input from analytics software company SAS Institute.
The Stanford Center for Professional Development has launched a new online course dealing with genomics and genetics.
A Stanford University cryptography expert will be kicking off a new online graduate certificate program by examining the future of bitcoin and cyber security during a free webinar open to the public.
An Australian university with an international online student body expects to begin accepting digital badging in 2016 that could reduce the amount of time required for people to obtain their master's degrees in IT.
Manhattan College has unveiled a new online master's degree focused on organizational leadership.
This fall, students at Arizona State University's Global Freshman Academy will experience a personalized learning environment designed to boost engagement and knowledge retention.
Arkansas State University has launched four new bachelor's degree programs that are entirely online.
The unit of New York University will begin its first-ever online degree programs in late 2016 and early 2017.
Pennsylvania State University is launching a new online graduate certificate program designed to help HR professionals understand the laws, policies and best practices related to companies with international employees.
New "micro" online certification programs are changing the educational pathways to success in certain industries.
Few institutions of higher education perform academic advising online or have specially trained or equipped counselors ready to help distance learning students with their advising needs. Those are some of the findings in an extensive report from Primary Research Group, which recently published the "Survey of Best Practices in Academic Advising."
FutureLearn has attracted five new institutions to join its MOOC platform with massive, open, online courses.
Two new master's degree programs at Hofstra University Law School are intended to meet the need for more information about health law and policy.
Southern New Hampshire University President Paul LeBlanc said he sees technology as central to the next evolutionary step in higher education, and he challenged colleges and universities to embrace and expand efforts around distance learning.
Pennsylvania State University has adapted its master's in electrical engineering program to offer an online version through Penn State World Campus.
A California university is experimenting with student engagement in a science class using a special writing surface, a studio audience and a streaming media site. Now, the institution is considering adding a second set-up just like it and others in the California State University system may follow.
Linfield College Online and Continuing Education in Oregon has introduced two new online certificate programs: Wine Marketing and Wine Management.
Instructure Canvas has a new lecture capture and video solution in its Open LTI App Collection.
Hughes Network Systems, a provider of broadband satellite solutions and services, has launched a new suite of products for educational institutions, including high-speed satellite Internet access, digital signage, distance learning and managed wireless networking.
A new Web-based learning management system allows for teaching and interactive presentations to be delivered online with an emphasis on assessment.
Blackboard's cloud-based learning management system, Blackboard Learn, has been certified as compliant with IMS Caliper standards.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide will be delivering a massive open online course on aircraft accident investigation at the end of the summer. Students will have the chance to try out their data collection skills in a virtual crash laboratory hosted by the Daytona Beach, FL-based institution.
The university system in Wisconsin is officially taking applications for its new online master's degree program in data science.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has implemented a lecture capture system in every classroom, so students can access recordings of lectures on demand.
A faculty development team at Pennsylvania State University has introduced a short training course specifically to help instructors learn how to support military students in their online courses.
The University of Delaware is teaming with a private partner to expand its online graduate programs.
The University of San Diego built a Web-based collaboration tool that connects classroom concepts with real-world locations and discoveries.
New features include an API; a button that allows teacher to share links, videos and images; and mobile notifications in the iOS and Android apps.
Moodle today announced MoodleCloud, a service that allows anyone to deploy the Moodle learning environment for free — with no installation or hosting charges.
A new survey of students enrolled in massive open online courses (MOOCs) suggests that the courses are supplementing traditional higher education forms and "democratizing learning."
Blackboard has acquired X-Ray Analytics, a predictive analytics tool for education, and plans to integrate it with its Moodlerooms and Moodle Enterprise learning management systems, among other products.
Oral Roberts University is exploring the potential of real-time, streaming, mobile telepresence tech.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a model that aims to predict when students will drop out of a MOOC.
Prospective students at Columbia College Chicago can now view live-streamed, interactive virtual tours in HD.
The new features, designed to facilitate communication between teachers and students, are all available now.
Pennsylvania State University's Center for Online Innovation in Learning will fund seven new projects designed to enhance teaching and learning through online innovation.
The University of California, Irvine Extension is launching a pair of online courses designed to help teachers develop their skills in cognitive and student-centered learning.
The MOOC provider founded by Harvard and MIT, EdX, announced that its open source platform, Open edX, is now available through Amazon Web Services Marketplace.
Purdue University found a way to create a flexible and inviting learning space for on-campus learners while also delivering high-quality audio and video recording for distance students.
The Pittsburgh-based university will look for "that sweet spot" between all-in-person and all-online instruction.
The Brightspace Pulse app can deliver course information to students in real time, freeing teachers from the responsibility of "reminding" instead of teaching.
Instructure, the company behind the Canvas learning management system, has released Canvas Data, a hosted data service for K-12 and higher education that enables them to analyze online teaching and learning activity.
Online courses should state the course objectives clearly and provide easy-to-use technology to maximize the chances of student success, according to a recent survey conducted by Eduventures.
Faculty and staff in the California Community Colleges will soon have access to online training on digital skills and tech tools.
Penn State has launched an online master's in education program aimed at working teachers.
Released today, the newest version of D2L's Brightspace Insights analytics suite captures streamed student data from across a broad array of sources.
The United States Army wants to transform the teaching capabilities of faculty who instruct noncommissioned officers at its U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy. So it's sending 20 sergeants major back to school in an online program to obtain master's degrees in education from Penn State.
Teaching platform provider Echo360 is adding more functions to offer students and teachers via Instructure's Canvas learning management system.
Open to learners anywhere in the world, Kadenze was created in partnership with creative arts departments at Princeton, Stanford, California Institute of the Arts, UCLA, Otis College of Art and Design, California College of the Arts, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Goldsmiths University of London, Cornish College of the Arts and more.
EdX has partnered with the National Summer Learning Association to launch a collection of free courses designed to help combat summer slide.
CorpU, a social learning platform, and Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit that focuses on addressing workforce demands, have assembled the College Employer Collaborative (CEC), a group of community colleges and employers that will work with CorpU to develop college curricula and credentials intended to meet the needs of high-growth industries.
Engineering students at Penn State have developed an immersive virtual reality system with the potential to provide distance education students with an immersive, tactile classroom experience.
Hosted by the Flipped Learning Network, the conference will take place online and in person at Michigan State University, and will includes sessions for those who are new to flipped learning, as well as those who are more experienced, doing research on the practice and seeking tools and skills.
AspirEDU and Instructure have partnered to integrate the former's student retention analytics tools with the latter's Canvas learning management system for joint customers.
The Linux Foundation and edX are partnering to offer an online course designed to help people become Linux systems administrators.
Disruption is easy to define but hard to recognize — which is why it's important to experiment and find ways to break free of traditional approaches to teaching and learning.
A university in the California State University system recently wrapped up a competition to encourage students to adopt the institution's e-portfolio platform.
Miami University in Oxford, OH has streamlined its student assessment process by integrating its assessment platform with its learning management system
The Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota will be hosting a Moodle conference sponsored by the main organization behind the Moodle project.
LoudCloud Systems has updated its competency-based education platform, Fastrak, with an improved user experience, simplified course authoring and "paths" for students and teachers, among other enhancements.
Massachusetts' Mount Holyoke College is introducing online and face-to-face educator programs intended to train teachers how to be more effective in their own schools.
Communication and collaboration tool provider Jive Software has partnered with iTalent, a provider of IT consulting services, in an effort to make online learning more consistent with traditional classrooms for teachers and students.
Researchers from University of Michigan, Stanford and University of California, Davis have received a $1.6 million grant to conduct a three-year study of virtual schooling.
West Georgia Technical College has selected a private partner to provide online career training for student in its Community Education department.
Ruth Rumack's Learning Space has launched Essay Coach, an online resource designed to help students in middle school through college use critical thinking to write better essays.
According to a recent survey, executives of online and professional higher education programs want to change the way they evaluate the career success of their graduates.
EdX has tapped a private partner to provide remote proctoring services for its Global Freshman Academy.
MOOC provider edX is working with a division of wireless technology company Qualcomm to sort out the educator's "mobile first" strategy.
In a session at the Citrix Synergy conference in Orlando, FL, IT leaders from the universities of Central Florida, South Florida and Florida shared their experiences rolling out and maintaining virtual application management technology.
First zombies, now vampires: After creating a popular MOOC in 2013 on the science, math and health concepts behind the TV series "The Walking Dead," the University of California, Irvine has partnered with Instructure and cable channel FX to launch "Fight or Die: The Science Behind FX's 'The Strain,'" a massive open online course inspired by themes from the TV vampire drama.
If your school has been producing course videos the same way for years, it may be time to update your technique to make sure students are still watching. Purdue shares lessons learned from an unconventional approach.
Moodle has announced version 2.9 of the open source learning platform, featuring a navigation and user interface redesign focused on ease of use for students, educators and administrators.
Stanford University is testing out the use of small group video discussions to see what impact it has on learning outcomes for people in massive open, online courses. So far it looks like scores on exams and assignments go up for participants.
Google has released an update to its Google Classroom software, bringing several new features to the mobile app.
From screencasting to interactive presentations, here are some resources to get a flipped class off the ground.
Michael Lafreniere, associate professor of environmental engineering technology and mathematics at Ohio University-Chillicothe has been using an online instructional system in his developmental math classes, and he has made those classes more efficient and effective through online assessment, responsive teaching and collaborative learning.
The delivery of education in the vocational areas and continuing ed will predominately be done through online technologies, predicted the president of Stanford University.
Instructors at Drexel University, Ryerson University, Mohawk College and the Berklee College of Music have been selected as Pearson's 2015 online learning excellence awards recipients.
College-bound high schoolers are showing more interest in the blended model of instruction and less interest in going for the all face-to-face approach. That finding surfaces in the latest edition of Eduventures' annual "College-Bound Market Update Report."
The University of Wisconsin will launch an online master's degree in data science. Classes for the 12-course, 36-credit program will begin in September, pending approval from the Higher Learning Commission.
Flipping the classroom isn't easy, but many instructors have found it to be well worth the effort. Here's some advice for making flipped learning work.
Ed tech company D2L today announced an upgrade to its Brightspace learning platform, featuring a new faculty user interface and Brightspace LeaP adaptive learning technology.
Students at Amherst College can now go online to learn the fundamentals of business, through an arrangement with Harvard Business School's HBX online education initiative.
Universities are increasingly turning to outside companies to help them launch new online degree programs. In fact, higher ed research and advisory firm Eduventures has identified at least 26 companies — known as "online program management (OPM) providers" — currently operating in this space. The data comes out of a series of reports Eduventures recently published for its member institutions.
Arizona State University and edX have launched the Global Freshman Academy, a new program that allows students to complete their first year of college online for credit.
Higher education institutions have a new tool to verify online student identities in a variety of settings, from attendance tracking and online testing to managing financial aid disbursements.
A recently presented study from the University of California Davis questions the effectiveness of allowing first-time students in community colleges to take online classes.
A project going on at Stanford University offers the promise of allowing online students and others with an interest to perform live biology experiments over the Internet.
Can an institution's new online offerings match the quality it has established over the years in its onsite programs? At CMU's Tepper School of Business, the Online Hybrid MBA is designed to be equivalent to its on-campus MBA programs.
The California Community College Online Education Initiative (OEI), the state-sponsored project that aims to dramatically increase the number of students who earn associate degrees and transfer to four-year colleges, has come a long way since it was announced in the fall of 2013, according to the OEI's executive director, Patricia James.
There are ways to allow your institution to experiment with online courses, even if they're not intended to be "massive." An online program manager shares advice.
2U wants to nail the coffin shut on certain beliefs that persist in the realm of online degrees in its latest impact report.
Now that the University of Arizona has launched an online campus, UA Online, the institution is ready to start up its first "General Education Academy" to help students prepare for their virtual education.
In response to the growing demand for big data expertise, New York University's Polytechnic School of Engineering is launching online certificate courses in data science, power engineering, and data center and cloud technologies.
According to Perry Samson, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at University of Michigan, if your goal is to improve student outcomes, employ active learning techniques.
While most agree that the flipped classroom model benefits learning, researchers are delving into the details and exploring the many facets of a flip.
Online education is good for the planet and good for the student, according to a new study by sustainability scientists at Arizona State University and Dell.
Knowledge Delivery Systems will relaunch 60 courses for MVU’s LearnPort, intended to help Michigan K-12 educators meet their continuing education requirements.
Ellucian is adding a competency-based education learning management system to its portfolio of higher education software and services, with the acquisition of LMS technology from Helix Education.
The best flipped courses provide students with compelling, interactive learning content to hold their attention outside of class. Here are five ways to take lecture videos to the next level.
Arizona State University has partnered with Cengage Learning and Knewton to develop new active learning systems for introductory courses.
Technology is fundamentally changing the practice of teaching and learning in higher education.
Through a partnership with Pearson, the University of California at Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering is growing its online engineering degree programs, adding specializations in Bioengineering, Electrical Engineering (Power Systems), Environmental Engineering Systems (Water), Materials at the Nanoscale, and Mechanical Engineering.
If massive open online courses are goldmines of data, surely, edX must be the mother lode. MIT and Harvard University have just published a 37-page draft report that summarizes a multitude of findings from two years of hosting 68 courses on the popular MOOC platform.
Innovative faculty are running MOOCs and flipped-format on-campus courses on the same schedule and having the two groups interact online — with interesting results.
To better engage its online learners, Arizona State University is piloting game-based simulations from Toolwire in its ASU Online environmental science courses.
Sonic Foundry today introduced Mediasite Join, a cloud service for recording videoconference sessions and turning them into searchable, on-demand video content.
Linn-Benton Community College is formally launching LB iLearn, an online campus that began teaching classes in January 2014.
MIT researchers have developed a new system to help instructors review computer science homework assignments in courses with hundreds or thousands of students.
At one time higher ed wanted community-built software because of the $0 price tag; now many universities are paying somebody else to keep open source projects moving forward.
Northwestern University will launch two new massive open online courses (MOOCs), one in healthcare and one in business, this spring, as well as its first MOOC specialization.
Reinventing classes in a flipped format takes a lot of time and effort. Here's how three institutions have created a support structure for faculty making the switch.
Chalk & Wire has updated its ePortfolio Connect Server in an effort to improve integration of its assessment platform and major learning management systems.
The University of Arizona has opened registration for 21 undergraduate programs in its new online campus, UA Online.
New England College is beefing up its online degree offerings with the addition of a half-dozen new associates and bachelors degrees.
Cybrary has launched an online platform designed to help higher ed and K-12 teachers plan manage and monitor IT and cybersecurity curricula.
The push for "student success" is all around us. But what about the notion of "faculty success"? CT talked recently with Michael Cottam, who believes that supporting his institution's online faculty is the most important element of creating student success at Webster University.
It shouldn't take a lawsuit for universities to pay attention to accessibility for all students.
Recent efforts are tweaking the formula for massive open online courses and expanding their reach to new audiences.
Student success and the reinvention of academic credits top the list of business trends that are currently influencing education, according to a recent report from Gartner.
Yale University's School of Medicine is attempting to take its Physician Associate Program into the online realm with the help of a private partner
In a first for both companies, edX and Microsoft have partnered to launch IT development courses on the edX online learning platform.
McGraw-Hill Education today announced a new mobile version of its Connect learning platform, optimized for tablets.
The Rutgers Business School Executive Education program will offer an online course, dubbed a "mini-MBA," in viral video marketing.
Can shorter courses lead to better outcomes? A for-profit online university will soon find out when it adds an option for eight-week terms to its program offerings.
University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education has teamed with a private partner to launch an online course focused on strategies to differentiate instruction for English language learning students in an effort to prepare them for Common Core assessments. The course is one of four that, taken together, comprise the "Equity Educator Certificate Program."
Pennsylvania State University has expanded its online Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction to include five areas of emphasis for students to choose from.
An active learning approach produces the same student learning outcomes in both flipped and nonflipped classrooms, according to new research from Brigham Young University.
A university with 150 campuses around the world and online offerings has just opened up dual enrollment specifically for high schoolers.
Edvance360 has partnered with MegaMeeting.com to add collaborative tools to its learning management system.
Ball State University has gone public with its use of a desktop video creation and publishing tool to support the growth of distance and flipped learning.
Revolve Robotics has announced KUBI Video 2.0, the latest version of its video collaboration app for its flagship KUBI robotic telepresence platform.
Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI, has been experimenting with telepresence robots that let online students participate in face-to-face classes.
Northwestern University now offers a specialization certificate in Content Strategy for Professionals in Organizations through the Coursera platform.
When Instructure began analyzing the course designs for its higher ed customers, the LMS company discovered something about getting students to interact with the online elements of their courses.
With an average class size of 16 students and a student-to-faculty ratio of 13:1, Birmingham-Southern College offers a focused learning environment that lets each student get the most from his or her time on campus. But in line with the emerging trend of blended learning in education, we have also enhanced that environment with video conferencing — bringing a broader learning experience to our students.
Vista Higher Learning has launched Portales, an interactive online program for learning and teaching college-level Spanish.
A recent survey of students at Northern Arizona University has found that students in a new Personalized Learning program are largely happy with the new competency-based initiative.
On the same day that MIT issued an extensive strategic plan for fostering greater campus inclusiveness, the Massachusetts school has been sued for the non-inclusive nature of its massive open online courses and other publicly available online content. Along with Harvard University, MIT now faces a lawsuit from the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) as well as four deaf and hard of hearing individuals accusing the institutions of failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.
The burden is on universities to advance the culture of innovation, "to foster environments that accelerate learning and creativity" and "to create the conditions for innovation to happen," according to a new report released Wednesday by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative.
While a lot of schools are teaming up with third-party companies to launch online versions of long-standing degree programs, USC's business school is doing the work in-house. Here's how.
Students and professors at the University of San Diego have a new way to share photographs, videos, interactive conversations and comments in real time.
The D.C. university has added more than 1,000 online students to graduate programs in the last five years.
A professor with a popular Udemy-hosted MOOC is trying out his astronomy course on Coursera next, with the hope of increasing completion rates. It'll be the first massive open online course offering on that platform from the University of Arizona.
The number of higher education students taking at least one online course in 2014 is up 3.7 percent over the previous year — the slowest rate of increase in over a decade, according to a new survey from the Babson Survey Research Group.
Penn State World Campus is rolling out Tutor.com's personalized learning services for the institution's 12,000 students and faculty worldwide. Students will gain 24/7 access to more then 3,000 tutors in 40-plus subjects, from math and economics to science and nursing.
An Iowa college is replacing its legacy learning management system (LMS) in an effort to move from managing learning to improving it.
Baylor University in Waco, TX, is the sixth most influential college on Instagram, according to College Atlas, and the university attributes this success to its digital asset management (DAM) solution. The technology enables Baylor staff to post professional photos to social media outlets within seconds, so people can easily follow academic and athletic news and events.
A business school based in France but with a campus in China as well is working with IBM to create a "smart business school" environment. Emlyon, with sites in Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Shanghai, hopes to deliver personalized education to its students through the cloud.
Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications has launched a new online master's degree focused on digital trends and communications industry innovations.
Blackboard has updated Moodlerooms, its services for open source learning management system Moodle, with a new interface and improved functionality.
At a school where the average age of students is 38, delivering online education requires a unique combination of tactics.
The University of Central Florida has teamed with two partners to reboot a massive open online course for educators focused on blended learning in higher ed and K-12.
The University of Michigan has launched its first residential MOOC with more than 800 undergraduate, graduate and professional students signing up in its first week.
CT asked five IT leaders to identify the hottest trends in higher education technology today. From analytics to 3D printing, here's what should be on your radar this year.
Moodle partner Remote-Learner.net has teamed with Microsoft Open Technologies to integrate Office 365 with Moodle.
American University's Kogod School of Business will launch its first online MBA programs this fall.
WizIQ is offering what it says is the first-ever live mobile learning platform that will allow teachers and students to interact in real time via their smartphones.
Walden University is launching a new initiative designed to allow students to earn degrees online at their own pace.
Cybrary.IT offers 20-plus certification courses in systems administration, network administration and cybersecurity, with more on the way.
A for-profit online university has completed a migration to a new learning system started earlier this year.
Determining the best online degree program to attend depends on what degree the student is going after, if the latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report are any indication.
The University of California's Rossier School of Education is launching an online Doctorate of Education in Organizational Change and Leadership this week.
Versal has added a Chrome app and learning tools interoperability to its course creation tool, also called Versal.
Coursera's massive open online courses will now reach millions more learners in China, thanks to a new partnership with the country's Hujiang online education platform.
Stanford writing instructors have partnered with undergraduates to create a non-credit course open to the public via Stanford Online.
Brandman University has teamed with a private partner to provide digital badges for students in its online competency-based degree programs.
Online learning will grow this year, but only modestly; more colleges and universities will test out competency-based assessment; and education technology will continue expanding as an industry, driven by investment capital. Those are three of the predictions for the coming year from higher education research and advisory firm Eduventures.
Nearly 3,000 students at the Ithaca, NY, university participated in a new way of taking physics and biology courses this past semester.
New Hampshire has become the 18th state to sign on for a program intended to make it easier for students to take online courses from schools in other states.
Northcentral University, a fully online graduate school, has adopted a new business simulation tool for the capstone courses of all its MBA programs and specializations.
Wisconsin's Nicolet College has adopted telepresence at three of its campuses in an effort to better support distance learning students.
The University of Texas at El Paso is launching UTEP Connect, an online education initiative designed to provide access to education for approximately 5,000 underserved students.
D2L has updated its Brightspace learning management platform with improved support for end users and game-based learning.
Cornell University is rolling out Blackboard's Internet2 NET+ learning, analytics and content offering, a suite of tools the institution helped create as a member of the Internet2 community.
WebAssign has partnered with Instructure and Desire2Learn in an effort to make it easier for students to access WebAssign course content through the companies' respective learning management systems, Canvas and Brightspace.
Western Governors University has launched a new online master's degree program for students who want to become English teachers in middle schools or high schools.
Berkeley has teamed with a private partner to launch two new MOOCs focused on big data analysis using Apache Spark, an open-source big data processing engine.
Digital technology is fundamentally changing the nature of higher education — and its strategic leadership.
A recent study suggested that taking online classes especially benefits students' "self-regulatory behaviors," which are important for success in higher education. Time management and the coordination of "distributed" or study groups surfaced as being particularly important.
The University of Texas at Austin has launched its first course app in an attempt to meet the needs of students, who prefer to access digital content via apps instead of Web sites.
MOOC nonprofit edX has signed on for ConnectED, the White House's program to connect "99 percent" of America's students to broadband and high-speed wireless in schools and libraries and improve the skills of teachers through the use of technology.
A partnership with The Sourcing Institute will give employment recruiters tips on how to use social media to find quality employees.
Creating videos to supplement the grading process can personalize the instructor-student relationship, clarify expectations and help keep learners on track.
Youngstown State University will deploy a new learning environment along with an auto-rostering tool built specifically for its needs.
The University of Oklahoma's Janux learning platform makes the university's online courses available to students all over the world for free.
A professor at MIT has used the videos for the massive open online course version of his Visualizing Japan course to flip the classroom-based version of the same course.
Oregon State University is collaborating with a private partenr on a graduate-level course designed to help the students teach their own online laboratory science classes.
San Diego State University has reduced its transcript evaluation process from eight weeks to two days, even during peak periods, by implementing a new scanning process that automatically reads and records transcript data faster and more accurately than before.
In a Q&A with CT, Virginia Commonwealth University's Associate Director for Online Learning Innovation Tom Woodward examines the "blend of strategies, technologies, and networked communities that make the process and products of education more transparent, understandable, and available to all the people involved."
Pearson has updated its Smarthinking on-demand tutoring service in an effort to improve online learning outcomes for individuals and institutions.
Columbia University has asked faculty members for proposals to incorporate hybrid learning into their classrooms.
Plans are moving ahead for Ontario Online to become available to almost all of the province's college students in fall 2015.
Stanford University, which has long been in the business of training industry leaders, is offering a new online model for its executive learning programs.
As massive open online courses move toward version 2.0, libraries are in a unique position to guide and support the future of blended learning.
The Online Learning Consortium will host a series of Google Hangouts next week, November 10-14, in honor of National Distance Learning Week.
Oregon State University has launched a new online certificate program designed to help higher education professionals improve their teaching abilities.
Blackboard has partnered with Chegg to integrate the latter's self-directed learning services with its teaching and learning environment.
To keep pace with projected job growth in fields related to big data analysis and management, the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing is introducing a new master's degree program in data science.
Remote-Learner, a Moodle partner that provides Moodle services and support, has released a fully supported, Microsoft Azure-certified Moodle service through the Azure Marketplace.
As colleges and universities accumulate more and more information from campus systems, researchers are looking for ways to turn big data into learning insights.
The State University of New York has expanded its enhanced online degree program, Open SUNY+, adding 56 degree and certificate programs from 17 campuses across the state.
Bradley University has teamed with a private partner to launch five new online graduate degree programs in an effort to meet growing student demand.
A class of 11 graduate students, most of whom attend online, at the University of West Florida have spent the fall mining databases to create a quality of life index for all 3,108 counties in the contiguous United States.
The new WizIQ LMS enables teachers to create assignments and tests, track course activities and, in the case of for-profit instruction, publish courses on a WizIQ network.
Columbia University is experimenting with the flipped classroom model in large lecture courses.
Northern Arizona University has added bachelor of science options to its online, competency-based personalized learning degree offerings.
The Stanford Center for Professional Development will now offer its program on design thinking and team-building via a series of interactive online videos.
Watson University will use Lynn University's iPad-based Dialogues of Learning curriculum for its new degree program in social entrepreneurship.
Simpson College has partnered with a provider of online professional development for educators to offer 17 continuing education courses for preK-12 teachers across Iowa.
The University of California, Irvine Extension has launched 12 new career readiness courses to be offered as four Coursera Specializations.
Course development at the country's fastest growing nonprofit online educator is a major endeavor. Here's how SNHU manages the process.
The University of San Diego has implemented a cloud solution to migrate data to the United Kingdom, so it can provide students in its international studies abroad program in Madrid, Spain with reliable access to core academic and administrative information systems.
The newest release of Starfish’s student retention software, its fifth version, features a streamlined interface as well as new ways for acting on data, online help for students, and options for making it easier to communicate with groups of students.
Terry Austin, an instructor of anatomy and physiology at Temple College in Texas, has boosted student retention rates in his classes -- and he attributes part of that success to the real-time feedback system he's using in his flipped classroom.
Even though support for the Angel learning management system will not officially end this month, plenty of institutions are apparently seeing the writing on the wall and jumping ship anyway. According to data compiled by Edutechnica.com, Angel has lost 39 institutional customers in the United States. During that same period Blackboard also lost 31 Blackboard Learn LMS customers. The only clear winner during the year has been Instructure, which gained 66 new institutional users, nearly making up the loss for the other two learning management systems (LMS).
Stanford Graduate School of Business is implementing the LMS Canvas for its management education programs, including its MBA.
Document imaging technology provider Ricoh will work with Blackboard to integrate its tools with the ed tech company's teaching and learning environments.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County has joined up with Blackboard’s Internet2 related offering, Net+, although the school has had a partnership with Blackboard for years.
The University of Southern California is teaming up with a publishing company to launch its next online master's degree program.
Blended learning and adaptive software are helping the state of Tennessee make sure its high school graduates are prepared for college-level mathematics.
Education technology company Blackboard has launched a cloud version of its learning management system promised during BbWorld this past summer.
Instructure and Sonic Foundry have strengthened an existing partnership by further integrating the latter's Mediasite video creation and management tool with Instructure's Canvas learning management system.
Portland Community College has teamed with a private partner to launch a massive open online course for educators that will address Web accessibility concerns associated with online learning.
Instructure has launched a limited pilot of Canvas Commons, a new learning object repository that integrates with the Canvas learning management system.
Massive open online courses can be as effective to help students learn as face-to-face classes — and the learning outcomes will be equivalent whether or not they're academically prepared for the class or whether they perform well or poorly on a pretest.
The Online Learning Consortium, formerly the Sloan Consortium, has introduced a new version of its Quality Scorecard for Online Programs that examines nine broad areas, including institutional, faculty, student and technology support, teaching and learning, course development and structure, social and student engagement and evaluation and assessment.
We may think of analytics as a maturing area in higher education, but there's still plenty of room for innovation. The real challenge now is to move analytics to action, says Russ Little, PAR's new Chief Innovation Officer.
Adapt Courseware, provider of educational multimedia, video and assessment resources, has expanded its content repository in an effort to help faculty create a more engaging learning environment.
Syracuse University is working with a higher education service provider to update its existing online master's in accounting program.
The Center for Excellence in Distance Learning at Wiley College, leader of the alliance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, has selected a learning management system for its online courses.
Exams for two kinds of Microsoft certification can now be taken online from remote locations.
A University of California review board has said 95 online or blended courses provided by Fuel Education satisfy requirements necessary for entry to the university system.
Community colleges in Washington State are lowering the time to and cost of a degree with a new online program that combines a competency-based model with open educational resources.
MIT's Division of Student Life is planning to develop an online experiential learning curriculum to teach skills such as project management, team dynamics, civic engagement, diversity, collaboration and leadership.
After famously releasing its source code under a broad open source license, MIT and Harvard’s edX MOOC platform is backtracking a bit--reclassifying part of its code to an open but less restrictive license.
Educators in institutions that work with Academic Partnerships programs have about two weeks to apply for grants related to online learning research. The company expects to issue about $50,000 in grants up to $3,000 for individual proposals and up to $5,000 for collaborative research.
The association committed to excellence in online learning will present awards at its international conference in Orlando.
The University System of Georgia is embarking on a mission to "Invent the Beyond," and it is opening up the process to others in higher education in a MOOC-like collaboration starting this week.
The University of California Office of the President has granted A-G approval for 34 Edgenuity online courses.
Technology issues that challenge large corporations will be the focus of a new online graduate-level course offered by NYU's engineering school.
The "Global Master's in Development Practice" is hosting a two-term online course on "Climate Change Science and Negotiations," starting in October 2014. That class will be part of the core requirements for the master's program and, simultaneously, offered as a massive open online course.
The University of Michigan has added an Office of Digital Education and Innovation in an effort to help faculty use technology and digital programs more creatively.
A start-up company with an online application designed to allow people to create and publish interactive courses recently held a "Code for Education" night in its home town of San Francisco.
People seeking a better understanding of enterprise computing strategies have the chance to attend a free, self-guided, self-paced open online course hosted by Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.
The odds are good that you accomplished something over the course of your life for which you were extremely proud, but the significance of that accomplishment was lost in the explanation to others. After telling them of your grand accomplishment, their retort was along the lines of: "Well, what do you want? A medal?"
Campus Technology 2014 brought together technology thought leaders for a dialogue on data, change, MOOCs, innovation and more.
MeetingOne has introduced a new version of a product that will let instructors and teaching assistants integrate meetings into existing Blackboard Learn courses.
Take a smartphone, add $10 worth of plywood and Plexiglas, a bit of hardware, laser pointer lenses and LED click lights from a keychain flashlight and you have a DIY microscope worthy of use in college classes. At least, that's the idea of an instructor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology who is adding the do-it-yourself technology in her biology lab courses.
The Mississippi Community College Board has adopted a tool from an education analytics company in an effort to reduce dropouts among students in online courses.
Inspire more student engagement in a flipped class with these two pedagogy-driven methods.
Google's free learning management system, Google Classroom, is now in full release and is being made available today to all Apps for Education customers.
Improvements to the Helix LMS are intended to allow instructors to spend more time interacting with students and less time on "back-end" technology.
One-third of all educational time is spent online by Canadian post-secondary students, according to a new report from Intel Canada.
What's the best way to keep students on track in an online course?
The first semester of a completely online bachelor's degree program in music will kick off in September, when Berklee College of Music expands Berklee Online. The new program will offer two degrees, one in the music business and the other in music production.
The Massachusetts Instute of Technology, a school renowned for its intrepid experimental nature — MIT Media Lab, D-Lab, MITx and OpenCourseware, to name a few experiments — wants to accelerate education innovation and "reimagine" its own future.
Online instructional tool provider WebAssign has launched Course Packs, assignments designed for specific textbooks.
Seven new higher ed leaders have joined the ranks of the Fellows of the Online Learning Consortium (formerly the Sloan Consortium).
To help meet a growing demand, Dallas’ Southern Methodist University will launch a new Master of Science degree in data science in 2015, with courses drawn across its schools of humanities and sciences, engineering, and the arts.
Anant Agarwal, CEO of the nonprofit MOOC platform provider edX, had some harsh words for traditional education, saying it's "pathetic" that classrooms today still look like the did decades ago. And, undaunted by MOOC critics, Agarwal highlighted the potential he sees for MOOCs in a keynote address at the Campus Technology conference yesterday.
A new online leadership certificate program at University of California Irvine's Extension will use direct assessment rather than classroom hours to measure student success.
These 10 strategies can help keep learners on track to successfully finish your online course.
Ferrum College has adopted D2L's integrated learning platform, Brightspace, to replace its legacy learning management system.
California Southern University, a private institution that offers online degree programs, will be accepting transfer credits from a private company that provides online classes.
Telefonica and Banco Santander have partnered on the worldwide launch of what is being billed as the world's first Spanish-language massive open online course platform, MiriadaX.
New York’s Binghamton University is working with an online education site to make its more than 200 online certificate courses available to students and state residents.
Northwestern University's Family Institute in Illinois is taking its counseling master's program completely online.
The University of Oklahoma's One University Digital Initiative is a technology strategy for a broad, sweeping campaign to ensure the university will take its place in the digital realm.
The formerly named Sloan Consortium (rebranded earlier this month) has named Kathleen Ives CEO and executive director, following an interim stint in those roles. OLC is a non-profit organization focused on helping colleges and universities "launch and sustain high-quality online learning initiatives."
According to a report from TechNavio, MOOCs ongoing expansion is owing in part to the rising costs of higher education and universities' turning to MOOCs for their big data tools.
Trident University International has just released a news- and events-focused mobile app for students, created by its in-house IT department.
While college presidents are skeptical about massive open online courses (MOOCs), they see plenty of potential "positive impact" with hybrid courses that blend face-to-face and online learning as well as adaptive learning that uses technology to modify lessons based on the progress shown by students.
During its annual conference, BbWorld 2014, taking place this week in Las Vegas, Blackboard has made several announcements regarding new forms of packaging and delivery for its multiple products.
EdX has partnered with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Labor to create an open-platform massive open online course portal powered by edX's open-source platform, with the goal of expanding educational opportunities for people in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Arab world.
Desire2Learn has partnered with ShareStream to integrate the company's asynchronous video tools into its learning platform.
Desire2Learn is using the stage of its annual user conference, Fusion 2014, to shorten its moniker and announce a new branding for its set of education applications.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is returning to Coursera for seconds next year when it undertakes delivery of six new massive open online courses on the MOOC platform during 2015-2016.
With its Virtual Assessment Center, Kennesaw State University put the technology and processes in place to give MOOC students a clear pathway to credit and potential entry into degree programs.
Marist College's The FOLD is a student-designed and delivered learning initiative combining a Web site, MOOC and open online community.
To better reflect its mission of advancing the quality of online learning worldwide, the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) has changed its name to the Online Learning Consortium (OLC).
McNeese State University, part of the University of Louisiana System, has added a new online degree pathway intended to make education more affordable and accessible to adult learners.
LoudCloud has updated its learning management system, to version 4.0, which includes new collaboration, analytics, and adaptive learning features.
Indiana University has implemented a software-based video conferencing solution to enable interactions between teachers and students in virtual classrooms using existing IT infrastructure.
Instructure has updated its Canvas learning management system in an effort to add "digital efficiency" and real-time analytics to in-person teaching.
Online instruction needs to become as nuanced as the institutions and high schools delivering it if it is to grow as a force in education, according to a new survey by the Boston Consulting Group.
Oregon State University will offer its first massive open online course this fall in partnership with Stanford University and the Oregon Department of Education.
Two universities will either adopt or stick with Blackboard following multi-year evaluations of their learning management system platforms.
Harrison College has teamed up with a private partner to make its KnowU learning environment available to other career schools and higher education institutions.
Four major universities have banded together to create an infrastructure for digital learning. The work of the Unizin consortium, as it's called, will be managed under the auspices of Internet2 and will have three goals to start.
Videoconferencing technology is allowing three institutions to pool instructional resources and make specialized courses available to more students
From an instructor's perspective, there is a great deal of thought that goes into the creation of a new course in Moodle — everything from the template and color scheme to the best way to relay contact information. One of the most important considerations, however, might also be one of the most overlooked: How do you greet the students?
Students expect universities to be more accessible, flexible and focused on jobs, according to a new survey commissioned by Laureate International Universities and compiled by Zogby Analytics.
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) will now train educators in designing and teaching courses for the Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN).
A little more than 12 percent of all post-secondary students are enrolled exclusively in online courses or online degree programs. According to the latest figures released by the National Center for Education Statistics, another 13 percent are taking at least some courses online.
Turkcell Academy, a free digital learning platform in Turkey launched last January by Turkish telecommunications and technology company Turkcell, has partnered with Coursera to expand its mobile education offerings.
Blackboard Learn has added professional profiles for students in an effort to help connect them with job and internship opportunities.
A new report from Stanford University examining the use of online technologies and methods for delivering education says that 1.9 million people around the world have registered for one or more of the public courses taught by the California university's faculty.
JoomlaLMS has released an update to its learning management system. JoomlaLMS 1.3.2 is now compatible with Joomla CMS 3.2 and includes a number of functional improvements.
Instructure has launched a new service for schools, colleges and universities that lets them host their own branded distance courses and course catalogs online — Canvas Catalog.
Big data has arrived in higher education, but it certainly is not leveraged to the extent that it could be or may soon be. What should we expect in the future?
Syracuse University will be revamping how it delivers its online MBA program.
Desire2Learn will integrate Atomic Learning's technology training resources into its learning management system.
The experiment called Semester Online will shortly close operations. Naysayers and competitors may claim that the closure dents 2U's reputation. The company sees the outcome differently.
As the company behind the University of Phoenix and numerous other educational holdings around the globe, Apollo Education Group knows something about scale. CT asked CIO Mike Sajor about the institution's new learning platform, how it supports hundreds of thousands of students, and the choice to host it in a private cloud.
The Florida Virtual Campus has launched the Distance Learning Course and Degree Program Catalog in an effort to improve student access and success.
Carvechi Technology has released a cloud-based collaboration platform, Collaboratory, featuring content sharing, digital whiteboards and voice over Internet protocol.
A new adaptive learning engine -- dubbed "MOOCulus" -- developed at Ohio State University is giving students in a calculus MOOC coursework tuned to their individual skill levels
Instructor Sicco Rood explains how to duplicate an existing course in Instructure Canvas or copy an existing course into a blank, empty course shell.
Are online education providers serving the masses or just amassing wealth for themselves? That's the question the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education wants answered. The group today challenged the leaders of edX, Udacity and Coursera to a public debate "about the claims and promises being made by the online education industry about the quality of its higher education programs."
On the heels of the release of Moodle 2.7, new versions of older Moodle branches have received maintenance updates to address bugs and security vulnerabilities.
Moodle 2.7 has been released. The upgrade to the popular free and open source learning management system includes new themes with improved responsive design, a new accessibility-focused text editor and more.
The University of Southern California's education school has developed a set of online and blended training courses to help teachers develop their skills in working with diverse learners.
eScience Labs has introduced the second edition of its introductory biology lab kit, an online platform featuring 28 labs designed for non-majors in first and second semester online or hybrid courses.
In our previous tutorial, we looked at using Moodle in concert with SCORM to record whether or not a student watched a video assignment. As an addendum, we'll use SCORM to help us record a quiz score related to that video in Moodle's gradebook.
Google is now taking applications for a limited preview of a new app called Google Classroom — a tool that brings learning management functionality to the Google Apps for Education suite.
A faculty member at the University of Illinois has found the use of a technology that immerses her physical presence into her course presentations so effective, it has become "essential" to how she teaches now.
Two education companies — Blackboard and Discovery Education — are working to integrate their technology and content offerings for both higher ed and K-12.
Aspen University has announced plans to replace its current LMS by the end of this year, motivated in part by the need for greater analytics tools and student engagement tracking.
Saint Joseph's College in Maine is looking to track learning outcomes and increase retention and student engagement with Desire2Learn's learning platform.
Moodle is a powerful LMS, there can be no doubt. Regardless of all it can do, however, there are times when you want a student to do something completely different and yet continue to use Moodle as your interface. When those situations arise, you can turn to the features of the SCORM package to make this possible.
MOOC provider edX has selected the VitalSource Bookshelf e-textbook platform from Vital Source Technologies to distribute publisher content for its massive open online learning courses.
Nottingham Trent University has recently gone public with its attempts to improve its online assessment process with a private partner.
The University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education is launching its first online doctorate degree.
LMS provider Instructure has launched EduAppCenter.com, an open resource Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) catalog that lets users incorporate more than 130 education apps into their own LMS or education environment.
The University of Utah's Division of Continuing Education is turning to online training and e-learning company StormWind to provide courses specifically for Cisco, Microsoft and CompTIA training.
Virtual school provider K12 Inc. this month received notice that the NCAA will no longer accept coursework from 24 of its schools for initial eligibility review for prospective student athletes. The NCAA stipulates the coursework does not fulfill its course requirements for nontraditional high schools.
The course, Programming for Everybody, taught by Charles Severance (on the Coursera platform and at Dr. Chuck Online), introduces participants to Python programming and provides them with the tools to turn around and teach those concepts themselves — or simply to continue their own training in programming.
The University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, is leading a consortium with the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, McMaster University and Mohawk College in a research effort to link pedagogy with learning outcomes.
edX has teamed up with CourseTalk to provide a platform for course reviews that includes star ratings and in-depth comments.
This coming fall, Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC will be rolling out a unique curricular initiative throughout its English Department that administers digital badges to students who demonstrate mastery in the critical skills outlined in first-year writing courses.
California's Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising is enlisting open source services company Unicon to support its Sakai learning management system.
As institutions put more stock in learning analytics, campus technology leaders explore how a culture of openness could make the difference between success or failure for the rising technology.
Not even a month after Wichita State University said it was teaming up with Blackboard to create a new approach for delivering student services, the University of Arkansas announced that it would be working with the education technology company to analyze the marketability of its online degree programs.
Lambton College is developing a pilot program to test out gaming in six of its courses — including first-year math, electrical circuits, and hair removal — to see if the use of game-playing improves attendance rates and student engagement.
Internet2 members can now access NET+ D2L Integrated Learning Platform via Internet2's advanced network to provide their constituents with mobile tools, webcasts, data analytics, collaboration tools and more.
Now that most of the institutions in the University System of Georgia are tapped into a centralized LMS, the state system is ready to put that data to work with predictive analytics.
KeyLemon, a company that makes biometric identification tools, and SwissTeach have partnered to demo facial recognition on the latter's online learning management system (LMS), Global Teach.
Students taking high school or college-level Spanish language courses can now connect to tutors 24/7 via Tutor.com.
Educause is teaming up with the University of Central Florida to offer a free massive open online course on Instructure's Canvas Network.
The university is looking to gain increased reliability, improved tools for online interaction and more collaboration capabilities with the new system, which it has dubbed "Canopy."
In this debate, the question might not be so much about whether online education is effective, but whether it could be any worse than the existing model.
This fall, the University of Maryland will offer a new online master's degree program in technology entrepreneurship.
A new online foreign language program offered through Blended Schools Network will let high school students earn college credit from Seton Hall University.
There's a hidden gem in Moodle called the Feedback activity. It might not receive a lot of attention, but, once you start experimenting with it, you'll likely find a lot more possibilities for it than you imagined — from simple quiz creation to class discussions designed to keep students engaged in the learning material.
Georgetown University is calling on its entire campus community to explore what the institution of 2030 will look like and to experiment with new ways of educating students. The impact of its discoveries may ultimately end up being felt throughout American higher ed.
ConnectYard has partnered with Pearson to integrate its social engagement platform with Pearson LearningStudio.
Instructure is bringing its Canvas virtual learning environment to the United Kingdom.
With more and more faculty being asked to teach blended or online courses, the need for faculty training has never been higher. CT looks at tried-and-tested strategies for molding better online instructors.
Two of the major MOOC providers in the U.S. announced new executives yesterday.
The University of North Carolina, Greensboro has entered the massive open online course arena with it's first offering, "The Soul and the Search for Meaning: From the Greeks to the Present."
Harvard Business School is ready to dive into the waters of online learning. The institution will soon begin enrollment in the first set of courses to be offered on HBX, a new e-learning platform the school has been quietly developing over the past year and a half.
Wichita State University has begun expanding its adoption of Blackboard products and services to provide better support for students, faculty and staff and put in place "the necessary infrastructure" for enrollment growth and support of accreditation activities.
Instructure's Canvas LMS has added a new gradebook designed to help teachers keep track of students' concept mastery.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is launching an online doctoral program in kinesiology.
Moodle experts Tim States and Emmett Dulaney show how courses can be enhanced with interactive exercises using the Choice activity.
Three Moodle updates were released over the weekend, addressing security issues and bugs and adding some minor feature enhancements.
edX is opening up its membership beyond its initial 32 charter institutions. With its new membership structure, the online course provider will bring colleges, universities and other organizations into the fold as regular members, including 12 new institutions announced today.
A new report from Cornell argued that, despite the promise of online learning, caution should be exercised in implementing policies that might overburden faculty. The report also recommended against awarding credit for MOOCs at Cornell.
MOOCs should be the Holy Grail of student data, but they aren't there yet.
$43,477 is the average cost for an online bachelor's degree in the United States, according to data released by Hanover Research. An online master's degree cost about half as much.
California's statewide Online Education Initiative hopes to dramatically improve student success rates online.
The Sloan Consortium is partnering with a group of higher education and inter-governmental organizations to launch a new research initiative focused on the global impact of online learning.
The University of Houston System is launching its first three massive open online courses, two of them targeted to high school seniors preparing for advanced placements tests and one for K-12 teachers.
The New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering is collaborating with a private partner to launch an online continuing education program in March.
Kaplan University's online program will be using digital content supplied by Ingram Content Group.
Progressive new approaches to medical education aim to give doctors-in-training more practical, hands-on experience.
Launched last October, European MOOC platform iversity.org has now reached nearly 500,000 enrollments in its 28 massive open online courses.
Every year, more than 2 million adults are released from prisons and jails in the United States. Of those, some 40 percent find themselves incarcerated within three years of their release. But prison education programs can curb the three-year rate of recidivism by as much as 13 full percentage points. Unfortunately, according to a new report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, those education programs saw some drastic cuts in the four years immediately following the start of the recession, especially in states with higher prison populations.
Marist College has launched a student-driven online collaborative learning environment called The FOLD (Fashion Online Learning Domain).
Swiss developer Connect-i has released a hosted version of its Drupal-based learning management system, Opigno.
NovoEd, the online learning platform launched last April by Stanford professor Amin Saberi, today announced agreements with 16 institutions spanning the higher education, research and technology sectors.
Researchers at the University of Florida have received a four-year, $1.97 million grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a national network that brings together professional and amateur paleontologists.
A new online learning platform aims to put the student in the driver's seat of his or her own education.
A community college in central Pennsylvania has seen great success with a blended model boot camp for developmental math.
California's Coastline Community College is giving its students the option of completing a bachelor's degree in psychology through Penn State's online campus, World Campus, thanks to a new partnership between the two institutions.
A Ball State University doctoral candidate in education studies is preparing to teach her second comic book-based MOOC.
Alma has launched a free cloud-based student information system and learning management system. Availability of Alma in 2014 is limited to the first 500 schools to sign up.
The University of Florida has launched UF Online to offer undergraduate degree programs online for new and transfer students.
The latest Horizon Report from the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative has identified the top six trends that will drive changes in higher education for the remainder of this decade.
Western Governors University has been selected as a partner in 100Kin10, a national network that aims to train 100,000 science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers over 10 years.
Stanford PERTS is seeking research proposals for a new initiative, called the Mindset Challenge, which aims to find ways to boost student motivation and outcomes in online learning environments. Deadline for proposals is April 1.
Online course provider Udemy has reached the 2 million-student milestone, only five months after it reached the 1 million-student mark.
Virtual assistants, flipped classrooms and "the quantified self" are three of the six technological developments that will have a significant impact on higher education within the next five years, according to the NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition, released by the New Media Consortium and Educause Monday.
SNHU went from a small, relatively unremarkable New England institution to one of the biggest nonprofit online educators in the country.
This summer, Blackboard plans to introduce a virtual bookstore accessible directly within the learning management system.
New Enterprise Data Hub feature integrates Taskstream with Blackboard and Moodle systems.
Brandman University, a private nonprofit institution part of the Chapman University System, is working with Flat World Education to offer an online, competency-based bachelor's degree in business administration.
Harvard researcher Andrew Ho on what we can learn from the first set of edX MOOC data.
The Roman goddess of wisdom has lent her name to a new university in which students will meet much of the time online but live together in the same physical location.
The State University of New York has formally introduced a new online program that allows students to access courses, degrees, professors and academic resources from any of SUNY's 64 campuses.
A totally MOOC-based master's degree in computer science announced last spring has opened for business with about 375 students.
Students get up to two hours of free tutoring through new program.
The ruling this week by a federal court on the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) Order may turn out to be, as one commenter called it, "a terrible idea," or, as another observer put it, a source of "a lot of overheated rhetoric." Education, for its part, could well see major changes to how it's able to deliver learning content to students online.
Eleven colleges and universities will launch pilot programs of a new learning management system (LMS) designed primarily for mobile devices.
More than 7.1 million students took at least one online course at a higher education institution in fall of 2012, according to a new report, Grade Change: Tracking Online Education in the United States, 2013.
New Android app enables students to access course materials and information, view on-demand video and more.
This spring, George Siemens will make the move stateside to the University of Texas-Arlington, where he will base his research on how technology and digital networks influence the knowledge development process within society, and related implications for the future of higher education institutions.
A technology startup with free software that allows people to do collaborative authoring has released a new version of its online program.
Clemson University's College of Health, Education and Human Development has recently gone public with its deployment of an enterprise video platform to flip classrooms in an effort to increase student access to required courses.
George Siemens, an expert in the field of digital learning known for creating one of the first massive open online courses, has joined The University of Texas at Arlington to lead a lab exploring the critical demands new learning technologies place on higher education.
Learning Tools Interoperability is helping both IT and faculty turn the learning management system into a more seamless, fluid platform.
We asked 5 higher ed IT experts to rate the "hotness" of MOOCs, e-textbooks and more.
What new tech trends will knock massive open online courses out of the spotlight this year?
During a recent symposium on the Federal Reserve System, George Washington University announced that it would offer its first massive open online course on the same subject.
A software-as-a-service application that allows teams of users to create online courses has gone into open beta.
Indiana University is rolling out a new videoconferencing solution across its eight campuses this spring in a move to support its growing distance learning and digital collaboration initiatives.
A joint project of Stanford University and Carnegie Institution for Science will make forest monitoring tools and training freely available to allow people around the world to monitor the health of their forests through raw satellite images.
San Jose State University has gone back to the drawing board and tweaked delivery of a much-maligned program set up with MOOC provider Udacity.
A law school located in St. Paul, MN that has produced at least three Minnesota governors, various members of Congress, and multiple state and federal court justices, expects to offer a hybrid variety of education starting in 2015, which it claims is the first of its kind. The William Mitchell College of Law will offer an online and on-campus juris doctor program that has been approved by the American Bar Association.
Adobe Connect users have a new way to build games into their online sessions and foster discussion and interaction among meeting attendees.
A Stanford professor has unveiled a prototype of a scalable virtual lab for use in massive open online courses, at schools with limited lab equipment or even by members of the public.
Completion rates for on-campus courses are only slightly higher than those for online courses, according to a new report from the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies.
Dartmouth College has selected Canvas, from Instructure, for campus-wide deployment, following an 18-month 18-month review and pilot program.
Villanova University has launched a new Master Certificate in Business Process Management, a three-course program that can be completed entirely online.
Sebastian Thrun threw a wrench in the MOOC model by declaring that massive open online courses don't work for higher education. What's next for the online learning trend?
Booz Allen Hamilton is sending its employees to Polytechnic Institute of New York University to earn master's degrees and certificates in high tech fields.
Convergent technologies have the ability to support streams of low-cost, personalized content, both at home and in college.
Ruhr University Bochum in Germany has implemented a lecture capture solution that records course visuals and video of the instructor, so students can attend lectures virtually on their own schedule.
MOOC content can be a valuable addition to course materials, but more experimentation is needed.
A sense of isolation is a leading cause of dropout among online students. CT looks at proven strategies for building an inclusive, collegial atmosphere in online classes.
Sally M. Johnstone, a true pioneer in the use of technology in higher education, joined a 25-year retrospective session at the recent WCET annual conference in Colorado, with panelists particularly reflecting on changes online learning. Below, CT asked Johnstone to share some of her own perspectives.
Half of university faculty members have deployed the flipped classroom model or plan to within the next 12 months, according to a new survey from the Center for Digital Education and Sonic Foundry.
Cloudera, a provider of Hadoop-based software and services, and online course prvider Udacity have partnered to offer Hadoop and data science courses.
Following six months of development, Moodle HQ has released a major update to the open source learning management system Moodle.
Moodle has been updated to version 2.5.3. The new version includes minor updates, including bug fixes, accessibility improvements, and feature improvements.
With the help of a smartphone or tablet, graduate engineering students at USC can access live streaming lectures, and interact with their lecturer and fellow students.
Through a partnership with Khan Academy, the J. Paul Getty Museum is expanding its open educational content program.
The International Association for K-12 Online Learning has released a new report examining collaborations between educator preparation programs and online schools, Partnering for Success: A 21st Century Model for Teacher Preparation.
A company that works with colleges and universities to place their courses online and grant credit to students from other institutions has added its first international offerings.
Eschewing the talking-head approach of mainstream MOOCs, NovoEd stakes its claim on MOOCs that emphasize student-centered learning and collaboration.
In an effort to support personalized learning, the University of Scranton and Canisius College, two schools in the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, are migrating their LMS to Desire2Learn Learning Suite.
Nearly half of all state colleges in the United States offer at least five undergraduate degrees online, but only 15 percent of private colleges do the same, according to two new surveys from Learning House.
The University of Oklahoma has launched its own online interactive learning community called Janux.
Western Nevada College has implemented a video content management and webcasting system to serve its 4,800 students, approximately half of whom take courses entirely online.
Florida is leading the nation with its online education initiatives. A new online-only public university program now promises to shake up higher education beyond the state's borders.
With the end of the latest Google "Summer of Code," the open source learning management system Moodle has added several new plugins and feature enhancements thanks to student coders.
While online instruction — including MOOCs — is frequently peddled as a way to expand access and deliver learning without barriers to students, the format is ill-suited to help those who could most benefit from a college education. Those are the parting thoughts from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education, a coalition of faculty groups, in its last of three reports examining the potential fallout from higher ed's seemingly unstoppable rush to adopt online forms of education.
A new report, Open Access, Megajournals, and MOOCs: On the Political Economy of Academic Unbundling, in Sage Open compares the disruptive potential of open access for academic articles and massive open online courses and finds that MOOCs are more likely to change the course of higher education.
Moodle is looking for quality assurance testers as developers gear up to release version 2.6 next month.
Auburn University's Harrison School of Pharmacy has implemented a video collaboration solution to enable distance learning and lecture capture, as well as remote pharmacy services for underserved areas.
Cost savings promised by the expansion of online education are tough to pinpoint, including those programs that promise to be free for students.
At the Educause 2013 conference Wednesday, Blackboard revealed several new e-learning tools, including an integrated virtual classroom for Blackboard Learn, an updated mobile learning app, and a free student response system designed to work with phones, tablets, and traditional computers.
Lectora has released a new learning management system designed for rapid deployment, Lectora Express.
Instructure, the maker of the Canvas learning management system and the Canvas Network MOOC platform, is awarding $100,000 in grants to K-12 and higher education institutions.
A consortium of Chinese universities will launch the country's largest online learning portal, XuetangX (SchoolX), using the edX platform.
A coalition of faculty groups has declared war against online learning, particularly massive open online courses (MOOCs), because it said it believes that the fast expansion of this form of education is being promulgated by corporations — specifically for-profit colleges and universities and education technology companies — at the expense of student education and public interest.
The Museum of Modern Art will begin offering digital badges for completion of "Catalysts: Artists Creating with Sound, Video, and Time," a six-week online course about the history of multimedia art at the museum.
Desire2Learn has introduced a new all-encompassing version of its flagship offering, Learning Suite, and has also launched a service for delivering MOOCs that integrates with the learning platform.
An online certificate program in food security, several programs of study that help educators learn how to deliver instruction online, and multi-degree program that includes online career fairs and webinars with experts were among the recipients of this year's innovation awards from Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C).
Semester Online, an online learning program that offers for-credit courses through a consortium of universities and colleges, has opened enrollment for its spring semester with a wider offering of courses.
A University of California, San Diego team is launching a massive open online course, "Bioinformatics Algorithms — Part 1," with a substantial research component.
The French Ministry of Higher Education and Research will launch a national portal for massive open online courses and blended learning using the open source platform from edX.
Cornell University will launch four massive open online courses next semester. The classes will be the first MOOCs offered by the university, which joined edX in May.
Mexico City's Universidad Anahuac will begin offering several degree programs online this month to meet higher demand for enrollment.
In a joint report, the Big Ten universities analyze the potential of MOOC platforms to improve instruction across members schools and extend the reach of a powerful brand.
Given the crisis in education, more universities should be willing to undertake innovative experiments--even if they ultimately fail.
The University of Texas at Austin is trying scenarios to teach its students how to apply specific skills in the real world, but the practice will be online and supplied by an outside company.
Gardner-Webb University's School of Education this fall began using a new Web-based program to augment in-class instruction and help student educators fine tune their teaching practices.
Stanford has launched Financing Innovation: Valuing Projects and Firms, the eighth course in its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Online Certificate Program.
EdX, a nonprofit massive open online course provider launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, has expanded its course lineup for fall 2013.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has partnered with NovoEd to offer a massive online open course designed to help students in developmental math courses.
Ivy Tech Corporate College has launched a program designed to boost enrollment and provide students with access to an enhanced body of online not-for credit courses.
To accommodate the growing number of students who take advantage of online learning, educational assessment provider ETS is expanding its online, off-campus testing options.
Two schools share what tools they use to improve student engagement and commitment in their distance learning programs.
MITx, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's massive open online course program, will begin offering certificates for completing sequences of related modules through the edX platform.
A charter school for adults opens in Washington, D.C. this week to serve people who have faced chronic under-education and unemployment, and it intends to rely heavily on technology for delivering instruction.
Wake Forest University has become the eighth school to join 2U's Semester Online program, which offers hybrid, self-paced, credit-bearing courses.
Two Texas institutions are developing a degree program that will use competency-based credits. Texas A&M University-Commerce and South Texas College are creating a bachelor of applied sciences in organizational leadership.
Education programs in prison have a massive impact on recidivism. Based on a new study, the largest to date measuring the effectiveness of prison education programs, "inmates who participated in correctional education programs had 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison than inmates who did not." The study also set out to find whether technology-led instruction among inmates could cut down on recidivism as well as teacher-led instruction. The results were positive.
Online learning solutions provider Edmentum has launched eight career technical education courses for its Plato Courseware online learning curriculum, with 24 more CTE courses to be released in 2014.
Edvance360 LMS-SN has added support for digital badges through integration with Credly, a credentialing and badging service.
EdX has partnered with Google to develop the nonprofit massive open online course provider's learning platform, Open edX, and expand availability to institutions and individuals.
West Virginia University at Parkersburg is transitioning its online degree programs to a new platform and is restructuring and enhancing up to 220 of its courses with e-learning content and assessment.
Stanford has expanded its Three Books summer reading program to include online elements in an effort to engage incoming freshmen in the academic community before they ever step on campus.
The WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET), Mozilla, Blackboard, and Sage Road Solutions have joined forces to offer a new MOOC that will delve into the subject of badges for academic and professional credentials.
The Alliance for Excellent Education and the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University have announced a new version of their free Digital Learning Transition massive open online course (MOOC) for educators.
Three updates have been released for the open source learning management system Moodle for the 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 branches. The minor updates include security patches, bug fixes, and small functionality improvements.
More than 120,000 people from around the world have signed up for an upcoming massive online open course (MOOC) designed to help students of all disciplines tap into their innate creative potential.
Cambridge University Press and Knewton have partnered with the stated goal of improving the publishing company's next generation of digital English language teaching products.
A 3D immersive environment to deliver business education and connect business students from around the world will launch during the month of October in a global business simulation competition for MBA students.
The University System of Georgia is launching a massive open online course program that will allow students to earn credit toward USG degrees.
As MOOCs are made available for credit, credible--scalable--assessment options are essential. CT looks at the options.
Massive open online courses were never meant to be dull and lonely. But how can the courses encourage more student-to-student and student-to-faculty interaction?
What do massive open online courses mean for the future of higher education?
Oregon State University Ecampus has inked a deal that will provide incoming online students with personal coaching and feedback on the overall online experience as part of the school's continuous improvement efforts.
MH's latest release includes an updated gradebook as well as features for identifying at-risk students and automating classroom tasks.
The University of California, Irvine will launch a massive open online course based on AMC's popular zombie drama "The Walking Dead."
MOOCs will change higher education radically, but not in the way we expect right now.
MOOCs' massive class sizes can breed a sense of isolation, but they also offer unique opportunities for student interaction and collaboration.
San Jose State University has published the findings of a study of its recent experiment with for-credit Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Student performance improved between the spring 2013 pilot program and the following summer program in all three of the initial classes offered. However, the overall retention rate for the summer program dropped.
The sheer size and diversity of the student body in a MOOC force faculty to use strategies for planning, teaching, and assessment that differ radically from those used in traditional classes.
A virtual network of scholars, artists, and students who work on technology, science, and feminism will be running a "distributed open collaborative course," or DOCC, that looks at technology through a feminist lens. Planned activities include a "storming" of Wikipedia to write women "back" into the history of technology.
Combining in-class instruction with high-quality MOOCs may resolve some of the hurdles facing stand-alone MOOCs, but questions about cost and the impact on faculty remain unanswered.
WizIQ is making its distance learning platform free for college and university instructors.
American InterContinental University has completed a pilot program that integrated adaptive learning technology into online math and English courses and, based on the program's success, it is now integrating the technology into other courses.
The Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California has overhauled the technology supporting its online engineering master's program. The university will debut its multi-million dollar technology investment when students return to the program this fall.
A company with a learning management system (LMS) primarily used for professional development — but also in standard higher education classes — has updated the software to improve reporting and management.
While the term "MOOC" brings to mind thousands of students viewing recorded lectures without much interaction, alternative models are fostering creativity and collaboration with peers.
Capella University has received sign-off from the United States Department of Education to allow students in two of its degree programs to receive federal financial aid in order to pursue "competency-based" credits in lieu of Carnegie units.
Cloud content management service provider Box inks new partnerships in an effort to broaden its reach to the K-20 education market.
Howard University has joined the growing ranks of universities offering expanded online and blended courses with its launch of Howard University Online.
With millions of students taking high-quality MOOCs for free, schools and course providers are now searching for a viable business model.
Given how quickly MOOCs are evolving--and how much hype surrounds them--we all need to pay more attention.
How can you minimize the time faculty are pulled away from teaching during an accreditation review period? Learn how Johnston Community College leveraged their existing classroom management technology to streamline the process.
California State University will allow students to take online courses from any of its 23 campuses beginning this fall in an effort to alleviate overcrowding of certain courses.
The University of Pennsylvania has launched an effort to unify its four undergraduate schools and 12 graduate and professional schools under one campus-wide learning management system.
Course topic is the biggest motivating factor for participants in massive open online courses and quality of the learning experience is the main reason they complete the courses or quit early, according to a new survey performed by Qualtrics.
Following a pilot program to test a new learning management system, faculty at Florida State College at Jacksonville have voted to stick with their existing LMS.
Steven Mintz, executive director of the Institute for Transformational Learning at the University of Texas System, writes that instead of arguing about whether MOOCs will stratify education or threaten tenure and job security for instructors, educators should see them as an opportunity to rethink pedagogy and instructional design for a new century and a new generation of students.
At a time when many universities are still trying to determine where they fit in the MOOC landscape, San Jose State University (CA) had the vision to become the first university to combine MOOC content with college credit.
San Jose State University (SJSU) is taking "a short breather" from its ground-breaking experiment with for-credit massive open online courses, better known as MOOCs, the school disclosed this week. But university representatives insisted that this break is part of the plan and not a reaction to preliminary findings indicating that some students didn't do as well in the unsupervised online courses as they might have done in traditional courses.
A distance learning network program is providing busy professionals the opportunity to earn dual executive MBAs from Cornell University's Johnson School of Business in Ithaca, NY and Queen's University's School of Business in Kingston, Ontario.
Bank Street College of Education will launch a fully online fieldwork and advisement pilot for its graduate math education program.
Temple University's Fox School of Business will launch the institution's first massive open online course this September.
Blackboard's CourseSites is wooing additional institutions to its free learning management offering to run their massive open online courses.
A San Francisco, CA-based startup has unveiled a beta version of its free Web-based course-creation publishing platform.
Moodle HQ has released minor updates to the open source learning management system Moodle. The latest updates (available for the 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 branches) fix security flaws and bugs and also include minor functionality enhancements.
The launch of an accredited MOOC degree by a major university may be risky, but it almost certainly changes the landscape of higher education for good.
Lectora is kicking off a private beta of a new cloud-based, on-demand learning management system, Lectora Express LMS.
A public opinion survey conducted by Brodeur Partners of parents, students, alumni, donors, and employers in the United States regarding attitudes and understanding of massive open online courses has come back with mixed results, hinting that a full-fledged switch to MOOCs for the higher education experience may not be the wisest choice for colleges in the immediate future.
Fulton, MO's Westminster College has offered online courses to high school students in Turkey this summer.
Kaplan University's School of Information Technology is expanding its gamification and badging efforts following positive results from a recently conducted pilot program.
Teachers using Questionmark OnDemand to create and deliver exams can now make assessment data available to students via LTI-compliant learning management systems.
The number of college students taking at least one online course nearly doubled, from 23 percent to 45, over the last five years according to the 2013 College Explorer, a new report from market research company re:fuel.
Educational technology company Pearson has launched its OpenClass Exchange for instructors. Out of the gate, the new open education resource (OER) catalog will include links to 680,000 instructional and learning items.
Instructure has formally launched a new tool that allows users to add third-party extensions to its flagship LMS, Canvas, with a single click.
A school-vendor partnership intended to test a new twist on the MOOC went belly-up a day after it was announced.
Online course provider Udemy has launched a summer grant program to encourage new teachers to join their ranks. The grant will award $5,000 plus 100 percent course revenues for life. The company is also providing an inside peek into its instructors' earnings, including top earners and average instructor earnings.
The International Monetary Fund has partnered with edX in an effort to reach government leaders worldwide and open its training to the public.
Mozilla's Open Badges initiative has received the official nod from educational technology company Blackboard, which has integrated digital badges into its learning management systems Blackboard Learn and CourseSites.
Though all classrooms are different, there are four critical elements that successful flipped classrooms have in common, according to a new report developed by the Flipped Learning Network, George Mason University, and Pearson's Center for Educator Effectiveness.
A school-vendor partnership will be testing out a new twist on the MOOC: offering a three-credit course in social sciences for $50, considerably less than the course costs through the university.
Online video platform developer ShareStream has unveiled Version 2.0 of its video tool that integrates with the open-source Sakai Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE). The ShareStream Video Tool is available now.
Video capture and management provider Panopto has enhanced its integration with Instructure's Canvas learning management system with the intent of enhancing ease-of-use for students, teachers, and IT administrators who use video capture and streaming.
The University of London International Programmes will launch four massive open online courses on Coursera, becoming the first English university to offer classes on the platform.
Students who enroll in Paul Smith's College will be able to take certain freshman-level courses through an online course provider at a lower rate.
With the growing success of asynchronous online classes, why are some schools adopting room-based telepresence systems for distance learning?
California state senators voted unanimously last Thursday to pass Senate Bill 520, despite opposition from faculty at California Community Colleges, California State University, and University of California.
From working and adult students to veterans and active duty military, a diversity of students at Upper Iowa University will have the opportunity to take advantage of flexible, online courses, independent study, and degree programs.
In what is becoming a MOOCs arms race, Coursera has just released the latest salvo with the news that 10 additional universities and university systems will be tapping its massive open online courses and its instruction platform. The news comes in the same month when edX announced the addition of 15 universities to its MOOC program.
In a partnership with higher education course provider StraighterLine, Upper Iowa University students will be able to access and complete online, self-paced or professor-led accredited courses at their own pace. The program is aimed at working adults, veterans, and active military personnel.
Northern Arizona University has launched a competency-based online degree program using a subscription model for tuition.
ConnectEdu will integrate CoursEval, its online course evaluation software with, Canvas, Instructure's open, cloud-based learning management system.
Massive open online course provider edX has added 15 universities, more than doubling the number of participating universities for a total of 27.
Blackboard has collaborated with Vital Source Technologies to launch a pilot program to test e-textbook integration with its Blackboard Learn learning management system.
A new report is encouraging California's institutions of higher education to reconsider how they structure online courses for optimal impact.
Moodle HQ has released Moodle 2.5, a major update to the widely distributed open source learning management system.
More than 100 teachers from Catholic schools run by the Diocese of San Jose will participate in a year of professional development to earn a certificate in blended learning in an effort to improve educational outcomes for students.
Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Computing will offer a Master of Science degree that can be completed entirely online through the massive open online course (MOOC) format.
Jenzabar has released the newest version of its learning management system, Jenzabar eLearning (formerly eRacer), with synchronous collaboration tools and the ability to grade from within discussion forums.
A new initiative to encourage development of Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) applications for education will reward developers with "bounty" money. The program is sponsored by a group of education technology vendors and the IMS Global Learning Consortium.
The Campus Technology MOOC Community is a place to share ideas about massive open online courses.
A university study comparing learning management systems has concluded that the latest crop of learning management systems evaluated have made "significant progress" since the assessments started in 2005. However, one of the report's authors noted, "We believe much more needs to be done."
Moodle HQ has released an all-new HTML5-based mobile app for both Android and iOS.
Massive open online course provider Coursera has partnered with Chegg to launch a pilot program that will provide Coursera students free electronic versions of textbooks from Cengage Learning, Macmillan Higher Education, Oxford University Press, Sage, and Wiley.
Heed these top tips for setting up a new, or tweaking an existing, online synchronous learning initiative.
Blackboard has updated its online collaboration and Web conferencing system, Blackboard Collaborate, and launched a version for Android.
Desire2Learn has introduced new functionality to its learning management suite, including new predictive analytics tools, improvements on the mobile and e-portfolio fronts, and an important addition in the area of accessibility.
For hybrid courses, finding the right blend of online and face-to-face instruction can be achieved only through experimentation--and will differ from class to class.
Blended learning can improve student performance and help schools meet strategic goals, but success depends on laying a solid foundation first.
Lost in a class of thousands, a MOOC enrollee yearns for a sense of community and shared learning.
As changing student demographics make it harder for today's learners to earn a four-year degree, educators are experimenting with smaller credentialing steps, such as digital badges.
In the wake of the refusal of tiny liberal arts school Amherst College to join edX last week, it's time to ask who benefits from the massive nature of MOOCs. Campustechnology.com spoke with experts on both sides of the issue to find out.
BYU recently transitioned from a traditional learning management system to a homegrown solution.
Penn State World Campus will invest $20 million over the next five years in an effort to boost online enrollment to 45,000 -- about triple the current head count.
Southeast Missouri State University aims to provide the same level of student services to online students as it does for its on-campus community.
Basbson Executive and Enterprise Education has launched an online simulation designed to test users' entrepreneurial skills.
In February, California Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg introduced a bill that would open the door for massive open online courses, such as Coursera and Udacity, to offer courses for credit to public college and university students in the state. Since its introduction, Senate Bill 520 (SB 520) has generated significant controversy, and a petition by the Berkeley Faculty Association opposing the bill has collected more than 1,500 signatures.
Seven schools of education have banded together to work with massive open online course provider Coursera to offer free online professional development courses for teachers and others.
With schools and students now able to secure high-quality online courses from beyond the ivy-covered walls, faculty--and institutions themselves--are weighing whether their stock is rising or falling.
New research center to focus on advancements in cyberlearning.
Blackboard has added a new supports for at-risk students to its learning management system, Blackboard Learn. The new retention tool is one of several enhancements added to the latest version of Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 Service Pack 12.
Five courses from Sophia Pathways for College Credit have received recommendations from the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service.
rSmart, the Scottsdale, AZ-based technology solutions provider known for its implementation and support services for education market instances of the open source Sakai (collaboration and learning environment) and Kuali (administrative systems and software suite) platforms, announced on April 11 that Asahi Net International, a company operating in New York with roots in Japan, had acquired the Sakai division of its business. CT asked rSmart CEO Chris Coppola about the acquisition, and about rSmart’s increased focus on the Kuali part of its business.
Instructure today revealed a new tool that allows users to add third-party extensions to its flagship LMS, Canvas, with a single click.
LSCS aims to improve student completion rates for its on-campus and distance learning students by migrating to a new learning management system.
San Jose State University announced Wednesday its intentions to take a leadership role in the use of MOOCs in blended courses. The institution plans to open a center of excellence based specifically on the experiences it has garnered through a fall 2012 course on circuits and electronics involving MOOC provider edX.
When it comes to secure testing online, even high-tech solutions rely on an old standby: a human proctor. But is such an approach sustainable in the long run?
Pennsylvania College of Technology's new LMS enables students to access course information and documents from their handheld device and gives teachers advanced reporting tools for tracking and analyzing student performance.
Stanford University and edX have partnered to integrate parts of the former's Class2Go platform with the edX platform ahead of the public release of the edX source code June 1.
Lectora has released several new features and updates to its CourseMill learning management system, which allows instructors, students, and administrators to oversee, manage, track, and take online courses and curriculum.
When Associate Professor and Chemical Education Researcher Danaè Quirk Dorr noticed a correlation between student learning styles and achievement in her large organic chemistry course, she decided to flip her classroom and crunch the numbers to see if there was a better way to reach all her students.
Telepresence and simulation technologies offer remote learners the real thing in training for patient care.
Using floor-to-ceiling projection and a banks of 80-inch LED displays, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has created a new classroom collaboration system designed to connect students nearly 3,000 miles apart.
In an effort to better prepare the state's K-12 educators for online instruction, Indian River State College (IRSC) will create a series of courses designed to overview the various methods associated with teaching and learning in the virtual environment.
In a Q&A, the CIO of the University of Maryland discusses his school's involvement with Coursera, its institutional goals, and what it takes to create a MOOC.
Echo360 will integrate its active learning platform and lecture capture solution with the Instructure Canvas cloud-based learning management system.
Florida International University has implemented an online learning platform to offer its own massive open online courses.
The Alliance for Excellent Education and the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University have launched a massive open online course for educators called Digital Learning Transition, which is designed to help school district leaders develop a set of digital learning goals and strategies to meet the needs of their students.
Moodle HQ has released Moodle 2.4.3 one week after the release of version 2.4.2. The update addresses a regression that accidentally made its way into 2.4.2, preventing teachers from accessing server files in some circumstances.
Users of the open-source learning management system Moodle will now be able to access course information and other features from their mobile devices.
Georgia Tech Online, the university's distance learning operation, is using a new PESA Cheetah 288XE digital video router as part of an upgrade to HD production for its online professional education courses.
Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, of the California State Senate, has proposed legislation that would allow some college students in the state to take a massive open online course for credit.
EdX has released source code to the general public that supports interactive learning built specifically for the Internet.
Are your students reading what you're displaying? Professor of Instructional Technology Scott Fredrickson and Associate Professor of Educational Administration Patricia Hoehner, both of the University of Nebraska at Kearney, provide eight factors to consider when presenting text for online courses.
Ready or not, schools are being forced to offer online or hybrid classes. AV Specialist Michael David Leiboff shares five tips to help colleges and universities prepare their classrooms for the lecture capture needs of today and tomorrow.
Faculty members at Brevard Community College fight plagiarism on the same battlefield that has spawned a proliferation of copying, borrowing, and improperly citing information sources.
Blackboard Collaborate has added support for Learning Tools Interoperability specifications. The move makes the online collaboration platform available from any LTI-compliant learning management system.
ShareStream recently unveiled a new version of its video extension for teaching and learning that integrates with Desire2Learn's learning management system, Learning Environment.
In an effort to address anticipated needs in big data analysis, Columbia University will launch online versions of its Master of Arts in Statistics and Master of Science in Actuarial Science programs.
Ottawa University, a 7,000-student institution, has just signed a first-of-its-kind agreement to help it deliver on a major program expansion.
Canvas users will be able to share Google Docs with groups of individuals more quickly following Instructure's update of its learning platform as the result of an update to the system.
The Connecticut Board of Regents, which oversees the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, will adopt a new learning management system to connect all 17 of its higher education institutions on one platform.
Educational technology startup Coursera has signed agreements with an additional 29 American and international academic institutions to provide free online courses.
At the American Public University System, creating an online library course guide for every course the university offers (now numbering over 1,800) is just a first step. It's the application of metrics and data analysis for a higher level of quality assurance that will sustain the program into the future.
WizIQ has released an update to its virtual classroom plugin for the open source learning management system Moodle 2.4.
Mississippi Virtual Community College will this summer begin offering its e-learning classes through a new cloud-based learning management system.
Eastern New Mexico University students—in particular non-traditional students and those living in rural areas—have a better way to take online courses, thanks to the school's new lecture capture tool.
Brandman University and the Capistrano Unified School District have partnered to improve the online and virtual learning of California Preparatory Academy and Capistrano Virtual School students.
Available at no charge, these new tutorials, developed by a Mayo Clinic surgeon and professor, walk students through the surgical process.
University of California, Irvine, has had its free online algebra and pre-calculus courses approved for credit by the by the American Council on Education.
The University of Virginia's Darden School of Business has launched a massive open online course that will offer real-world experience by providing students with the opportunity to analyze actual entrepreneurial and nonprofit ventures.
Stanford is the cradle of the MOOC movement, but the appointment of four high-level administrators to focus on online learning shows that the school now really means business.
The University of Arkansas System has partnered with a global online learning company to expand the degree offerings of its institutions.
Small schools with limited IT resources are discovering that cloud-based services can give them a competitive edge.
Wearable gadgets, gamification, and learning analytics are three of six technologies that will have a major impact on strategic technology planning in higher education in the next five years, according to the latest NMC Horizon Report released by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative.
Via Response and Instructure have partnered to integrate Via's LTI 1.0 with Instructure's Canvas Learning Management System (LMS), automating the sharing of student data for institutions that use both the Canvas LMS and the Via Response Student Response System (SRS).
For students seeking to tentatively test the college waters before signing up, nine public universities will offer a free initial course as a massive open online course.
As we embark on a new year, CT asks five IT experts to pick the winners and losers among the trends swirling in higher education.
Three leaders in flipped classroom instruction share their best practices for creating a classroom experience guaranteed to inspire lifelong learning.
StraighterLine has has added five new science courses and four new science professors to its science department, bringing the online college course provider's total number of available science courses to 15.
Knowillage Systems has released Knowillage LEArning Path (LeaP), a personalized and adaptive learning development tool for the Instructure Canvas learning management system.
A private university in Minnesota is about to launch a version of its decades-old public safety master's program fully online.
Santa Barbara Business College has moved its learning management system to a private-cloud-as-a-service to gain more control over feature implementation and customization.
How ePortfolios can help "tame" the flood of openness and educational opportunity arising with MOOCs and other new modalities.
San Jose State University will develop a pilot program, dubbed San Jose State University Plus, to offer online credit-bearing courses to students and non-students.
A Los Angeles couple's $1 million gift will be used to grow and support online learning programs at Santa Monica College.
This summer Webster University will be transitioning to a new learning management system for WorldClassRoom, its global education organization.
According to Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States, a new report from the Babson Survey Research Group, more than 6.7 million students are now taking at least one course online.
eInstruction has unveiled a new piece of software designed to simplify formative and summative tests in higher education. The software, Wave, connects the institution's LMS with classroom clickers and other devices.
Six universities have received grants under an expanded program aimed at researching teaching practices involving the use of technology, including flipped classrooms and blended learning.
The University of Wisconsin System is experimenting with a new "flex" program that allows non-traditional students to obtain course credits through massive open online courses , online classes, and assessment.
Instructure has released Canvas for Android, a free app that allows students and faculty to access the company's learning management system from Android mobile devices.
Not-for-profit online learning initiative edX has opened registration for spring classes, adding several courses in the humanities and social sciences for the first time.
Marian University in Indianapolis has completed its implementation of a new learning management system to serve students, faculty, and staff.
Five key challenges institutions run into with blended learning programs and sage advice on how to work around these issues.
Utah State University is launching a new distance learning program for students pursuing a Master of Science in Human Resources.
Georgetown University has joined edX, bringing the number of institutions participating in the not-for-profit online learning initiative to six.
New Jersey's Rutgers University will expand its online offerings to include undergraduate and graduate degrees available completely online.
One member of the Texas state university system is partnering with an educational publisher to provide access to online courses and materials to its 15,000 undergraduate students in an effort to improve student performance.
Beginning next May, American University’s School of International Service will offer an online version of its master's degree in international relations that it expects will draw students from around the world.
A Pennsylvania university has revamped its master's in business administration program to allow students to complete portions of the program both online and on-site.
Edvance360 is testing new learning management system cloning technology that the educational software company said will be of great interest to schools that want to standardize curriculum across multiple campuses.
Ellucian has released the latest version of its integration solution, Colleague Intelligent Learning Platform, which enables educational institutions to manage information from Colleague by Ellucian and their learning management system (LMS).
While predictive analytics can help students succeed, we must not lose sight of the fact that college is also a time of exploration and self-discovery.
The University of South Carolina will be moving undergraduate and graduate programs online in an attempt to improve access for students.
A California university has implemented a new open-source learning management system after completing a review of the campus' needs.
Most classroom models for world language instruction inherently limit the amount of exposure and immersion available to students. The result is frustration coupled with a fundamentally limited world language experience. Armed with a new model for online language courses, BYU Independent Study (BYU-IS) has set out to change that.
The Open Academic Analytics Initiative, an NGLC grant recipient, is seeking to engender an ecosystem for learning analytics based on open source technologies. Its research includes scaling factors for learner analytics, the portability of predictive models among different types of academic institutions, and intervention strategies that leverage Open Educational Resources. Marist College, the lead institution on the grant, has partnered with two community colleges and two HBCUs to accomplish OAAI goals.
Wellesley College will begin offering a series of massive open online courses, starting fall 2013.
Two community colleges in Massachusetts will be trying out a blended model of instruction that integrates online content from edX.
The University of Delaware¹s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics will be offering an online master's degree in business administration that's expected to launch in spring 2013.
In an effort to grow its online learning program, a New York university will deploy a new learning management system across its 24 colleges and institutions, including its growing continuing education program.
South Carolina's Coker College has selected a new learning management system as part of an effort to improve enrollment and retention.
Five business schools have recently gone public with their decision to implement the same new learning management system because it complements the schools' emphasis on educational innovation.
Ten universities from Brandeis and Duke to Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, and Washington University in St. Louis are pulling together to launch a new program that delivers credit-bearing online courses to students that may or may not be enrolled in their own institutions.
Udemy, a company that has more than 4,900 courses online, many of them for free, has launched an iPad app that allows students to view videos and related resources on their mobile devices.
Altius Education has debuted its first course for the Helix platform, a learning environment that takes a narrative, storytelling approach to online education, matching students' interests with the information being taught.
Echo360 this week completed its acquisition of education technology developer LectureTools.
Iowa Central Community College implemented student response systems campus wide this fall. The initiative originated from the interests of faculty, and the college has kept faculty choice as the key factor in the deployment and use of the clickers in any course or program. Here, CT asks Jennifer Condon, the dean of Liberal Arts & Sciences, about the progress of the clicker initiative and lessons learned.
Students using Blackboard Learn can now view high definition video from the LMS on their PC and Mac computers or mobile devices running iOS.
Pearson will be showcasing three solutions this week at Educause 2012 designed to foster personalized education and access to Open Educational Resources (OER).
Three universities that are preparing to launch open, online courses have selected a cloud-based system as a platform for those courses--including Arizona State University, which is launching a "global classroom" in conjunction with a German institution.
Desire2Learn has unveiled new capabilities for its flagship learning platform, including integration with several collaboration, communication, and accessibility tools.
Blackboard checked in with 600 students through focus groups and interviews, surveys, and usability testing to come up with a number of new features that appear in the latest service pack update of its learning management system. Likewise, the company said it also worked with 600 educators to refine Blackboard Learn SP10.
Blackboard has started beta testing a new LMS-agnostic, cloud-based learning object repository, xpLor. Seventy-two K-12 schools, colleges, and universities have joined the beta program as of Nov. 5.
After more than two years of deliberation, the memberships of two of the highest-profile organizations producing open source software for the higher education marketplace have voted to go ahead with their long-considered merger. Sakai and Jasig will merge and become "Apereo" by early 2013.
Desire2Learn has launched the first new release of its flagship learning management system (LMS) application suite following the infusion of an $80 million investment into the company.
Instructure has launched a new platform to let users of the learning management system Canvas create online courses--both open and private. The service, Canvas Network, is being made available free to Canvas users.
In the wake of a dramatic power struggle at the University of Virginia, the potential for online learning to rescue higher education is receiving even greater scrutiny.
A community college in Northern California has struck a deal with Pearson to provide the institution with free use of the vendor's learning management system and charge a flat fee to students for use of digital content and courses
VMware has partnered with not-for-profit massive, open, online course provider edX to deliver free virtualization software to students enrolled in a computer science course offered through the platform.
A public university in Germany is joining the MOOC movement with a course that will come with "university credit points" that it said could be accepted by degree programs.
ConnectYard is expanding its footprint in the Blackboard realm by updating its Blackboard Learn Building Block and offering a free emergency notification service.
The University of Phoenix will close 115 locations before the end of 2013, including 25 main campuses and 90 smaller satellite learning and student resource centers.
Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) has awarded $5.4 million in new grants to assist 13 secondary and postsecondary educational organizations in the development of new models of personalized, blended learning, where traditional classroom teaching methods are combined with computer-mediated activities.
The University of Texas System has joined edX, an online learning initiative launched in May by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Florida inmates are participating in a novel blended learning program to earn their secondary degrees and professional certificates. The program, operated under the Florida Department of Corrections, was undertaken in an effort to lower recidivism rates and reduce costs.
Bryan University has announced plans to implement a new cloud-based learning management system (LMS) with the intent of enhancing the student experience.
Blackboard President, CEO, and Co-Founder Michael Chasen said he'll resign from the company at the end of the year. Blackboard has already chosen Chasen's replacement, Jay Bhatt, a corporate executive from outside the ed tech realm.
McGraw-Hill Education's Tegrity division has launched a stand-alone version of a service for secure online exam administration.
Online higher education institution Nixon University is adopting an open source course management system to help its instructors customize course delivery and assessment to the needs of individual students.
The Inter-Organizational Task Force on Online Learning, consisting of representatives from six different national organizations for online and e-learning in higher education, has released a report outlining the steps it plans to take to advance online learning in higher education.
Despite the hoopla surrounding the launch of MOOCs and edX, smaller institutions and for-profits have been steadily improving online learning for years. Post University shares its strategy for online success.
The spread of cheap and powerful videoconferencing tools had led to widespread adoption of the technology in an effort to lower costs and put resources to better use. But Education Consultant and Executive Director of Academic Programs and Faculty at Daymar Colleges Group Ruth Reynard argues that it can improve teaching and learning as well.
Online learning can--and should--elevate the state of teaching in higher education.
Elsevier, a publisher of scientific and health information, is providing free content to edX, a nonprofit online learning program formed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Students can answer e-mail, get a daily wrap-up of new assignments, and access course materials with WebStudy's new mobile app for Android and Apple smartphone users.
The College of Nursing at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) has partnered with HCA Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio to boost the number of students in its Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program.
A company that develops an open source database will be offering courses about its product on a free online academic class delivery platform.
At Campus Technology 2012 in Boston, the keynote speakers painted a picture of higher education undergoing a seismic shift--and offered a vision for the future.
Bisk's new shoulder-mount cameras capture HD and SD footage in ready-to-edit file formats on SDHC memory cards.
Social learning management system Lore has added a new feature that lets on-campus clubs and groups collaborate using the free tool.
Coursera's on a growing streak. The number of new institutions of higher education to sign onto the free online course site has more than doubled, bringing the total count of colleges and universities participating to 33 from 16. Among the new schools participating: Berklee College of Music, Columbia University, Ohio State, Vanderbilt, and Wesleyan.
Virtual classroom provider WizIQ has released a new Android app for students, which includes a subset of features available in desktop application.
A new guide shows beginner and veteran developers how to create e-learning materials for the iPad.
AAEEBL's President and CEO Trent Batson examines trends in the ePortfolio marketplace. Through a series of recent interviews with 14 companies that provide the technology, Batson identified key areas to watch as this fledgling market blends with other important technologies and begins to find some real maturity.
In a move to cut costs and add features, a Florida university has deployed a new open-source learning management system.
Ivy Tech Community College will integrate an enterprise student success system with its existing learning management system, student information system, and degree-audit system in an effort to foster student success systemwide.
Moodle HQ has released updates to the Moodle open source learning management system. The new Moodle 2.3.2 and 2.2.5, available now, incorporate several minor fixes and enhancements and resolve a number of security-related issues.
With today's emphasis on student success and retention, along with more restrictive funding that's increasingly performance-based, community colleges are sharpening their strategic decision making and gearing up their toolboxes with predictive analytics.
Western Illinois University is finalizing its shift to Desire2Learn from Blackboard WebCT software to run Western Online, its distance learning system.
The second-largest university system in the United States, California State University, is launching a new, fully online program called Cal State Online, which will offer a selection of undergraduate degree completion and professional master's degree programs.
The online teaching and learning platform WizIQ is offering a free one-year membership for K-12 and higher education teachers and their students at qualifying institutions.
A former digital media czar and small town mayor are working together to launch a new fully online university that will be free for students. The two founders, CEO Curtis Pickering and President Scott Hines, said they expect to open World Education University at the end of October or beginning of November 2012.
If you were to gather together a thousand academics, researchers, university IT and instructional technology leaders, institutional librarians, technology and media company executives, authors, journalists, futurists, association presidents, and other interested people and ask them to consider the possible impact of the Internet on higher education, the outlook you'd get would closely resemble the rich patchwork of perspective offered in a recent report from Elon University's School of Communications, as part of its "Imagining the Internet" project. Most of them would say there's a lot of change coming.
Business students act as consultants, evaluating platforms and providing recommendations to their school's administration.
A consortium of community colleges in Arizona has decided to expand deployment of a new learning management system to eight more of its schools in the fall semester, following the implementation at one of its colleges.
IU's two-year pilot program will explore two new technologies that aim to drive learning and engagement.
The University of St. Thomas is developing a new portfolio of online programs, the first of which is scheduled to launch spring 2013.
Holy Apostles College and Seminary will begin to offer massive online open course programming through a partnership with Edvance360 and the Catholic Distance Learning Network involving two certification programs for the fall 2012 semester.
Ellucian has introduced Colleague Intelligent Learning Platform 3.2. The platform, originally introduced in 2010 by Datatel, brings together course management, grading, student information management, and collaboration tools.
The University of California, Berkeley, the latest university to join the not-for-profit online learning consortium, will offer classes through the edX platform, starting this fall.
Kaltura, an open source online video platform developer, has released a new version of Cross Campus Media Suite, a video solution designed for educational institutions that is optimized to deliver video on a variety of devices and manage media content across multiple systems.
The University of Central Florida (UCF) has selected a new learning management system following two semester-long pilot projects that involved 20 faculty members and nearly 900 students.
Blackboard has integrated standards for teacher preparation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education into Blackboard Learn.
The collaboration tool automatically syncs data between ExamSoft and BlackBoard Learn.
Hybrid teaching methods that combine interactive online learning with limited classroom teaching produce equivalent learning outcomes to traditional classroom teaching methods, according to new research released recently.
The private, liberal arts college takes a hybrid course completely online with its new learning management system.
Interactive learning online produces essentially the same outcomes as traditional face-to-face education at the university level, according to a recent report from Ithaka S+R. The report suggested that educational institutions looking to reduce costs in the face of shrinking budgets can confidently turn to online education as a means of saving money without diminishing educational outcomes.
An organization that partners with historically black colleges and universities is shifting its attention to K-12 in an initiative that will push its member institutions to help in the creation of new secondary "feeder" schools that will in turn offer both online and in-person courses.
Students at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) now have access to improved course video captioning, a service that is particularly important for the students of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), one of RIT's colleges.
Turnitin and Desire2Learn have announced enhancements to the integration of OriginalityCheck and GradeMark with Desire2Learn Learning Suite 10.
The University of Maryland will begin running a pilot of Instructure Canvas as its new enterprise learning management system (ELMS) starting this fall, with a full rollout planned for January 2013.
Duke, Caltech, and John Hopkins are among 12 top-tier universities to sign agreements with Coursera to offer massive open online courses, or MOOCs, at no charge.
As institutions are increasingly pressed to graduate more students and to do so more efficiently, says AAC&U Fellow Gary Brown, understanding how quality is defined will be critical--and building consensus around competency is an emerging strategy for ensuring quality.
The current generation of college-age students could be the first to receive less education than the one that came before it. According to recent data, only half of those who start college complete their degrees--worse, only 12 percent among lower income students. But technology can help change that, according to Mark Milliron, chancellor of Western Governors University Texas.
Desire2Learn has released updates to three of its mobile solutions: Desire2Learn Campus Life, Capture, and Assignment Grader. The updates were announced the this week at FUSION 2012, the company's ninth annual users' conference.
Ed tech developer WizIQ has released an updated version of its virtual classroom plugin for the open source learning management system Moodle 2.3.
Echo360 has released an update to its flagship lecture capture platform, EchoSystem. The new release, EchoSystem version 5.1, adds support for live webcasting and incorporates new student study tools.
At the Campus Technology 2012 conference taking place this week in Boston, Laurie Burruss, professor at Pasadena City College and education consultant for lynda.com, will offer up tips for faculty members looking to move their teaching "beyond the classroom walls."
New online learning program scheduled to launch January 2013 will allow students to receive credit for prior learning or experience.
The University of Hawaii has upgraded its videoconferencing setup for high-definition production across all of its campuses.
Moodle HQ is ending development of native My Moodle mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Greenville College in Illinois has implemented a new learning management system, completing a migration process that began with a pilot program back in January.
Ingram's electronic textbook platform, VitalSource Bookshelf , is making its way to Blackboard Learn and Blackboard Mobile Learn.
This fall, faculty and students will no longer need access to a Blackboard institutional license to use Blackboard mobile applications--as long as they're willing to shell out $5.99 for the software or an annual subscription fee of $1.99.
LoudCloud Systems revealed this week that it will release version 3 of it's learning management system for higher education in August.
Blackboard has updated its Web conferencing application to add mobile support, user-oriented improvements, and tighter integration with learning management systems, including Moodle.
UniversityNow is acquiring Oakland-based Patten University, a private, four-year liberal arts institution with enrollment of 900 students, and will begin offering a full distance education program this fall.
Moodle's developers have released Moodle 2.3.1 just two weeks after the last major (2.3) update. The new version (along with updates to four other development branches) addresses minor bugs and also corrects some as-yet-unspecified security vulnerabilities.
As part of an ongoing collaborative effort Pearson has integrated its MyLab/Mastering learning solution within the Blackboard learning management system.
Moodle's developers have formally released version 2.3 of the open source learning management system Moodle. The latest release includes about 50 new features for end users, including major enhancements to the course interface and file management.
Teachers, administrators, and students who are part of the Cisco Networking Academy will soon have access to a cloud-based LMS.
MIT Professor of Physics David Pritchard is running a free online physics course this summer to help teachers and students brush up on their knowledge.
This week, unified communications vendor Polycom announced that the University of the West of England (UWE) is providing Polycom RealPresence video collaboration solutions to staff and students across its network of campuses.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education and Instructure have partnered to expand support for McGraw-Hill Campus, a service specializing in providing digital resources and course integration, within Instructure's Canvas, an open source LMS.
Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, MO, will make its Master of Laws in U.S. Law for Foreign Lawyers (LLM) available online through a new program called @WashULaw.
Today, instructional designers at community colleges have exciting opportunities to improve instruction and service to students, as their toolkit has grown to include an amazing array of Web 2.0 tools and new media. CT asked Michael Medlock, the director of Instructional Design and Technology at Rio Salado College how instructional designers and a team of faculty, subject matter experts, and media developers follow instructional design principles and strategies that leverage technology and new media to create robust learning designs that advance instruction at Rio Salado College.
After a process that began in December 2009, the University of Massachusetts Online has selected a replacement for its learning management system, about 11 months later than it expected to.
As demand rises--and technology and course design improve--distance-learning programs are taking off at traditional brick-and-mortar schools.
The acquisition of Moodlerooms by Blackboard brings two archrivals under the same tent. Just what does Blackboard have in mind for open source education?
Coppin State University, pushing to increase its graduation rate above 20 percent, has entered into a partnership with Pearson Education to launch an online bachelor's degree--a first for the Baltimore university.
Babson College, a Boston area school with about 3,300 students, will be upgrading its learning management system to the newest version of Blackboard Learn.
A nine-month evaluation process has led the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges to begin contract negotiations with Instructure to use its learning management system, Canvas.
The 34 institutions that make up the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges are dropping their legacy LMS and moving to a cloud-based system.
There's ample evidence of a cultural shift in focus in higher education, from teaching to learning, from classroom-centric to learning-centric, from lecture to activity. These and other examples, especially the shift from learning in courses to continuous learning, represent areas that may have an impact on the LMS. Is it possible that the values of the LMS will become more aligned with those of the ePortfolio? Will these two previously distinct technologies merge to serve more common purposes?
Cengage Learning and Blackboard have partnered in an effort to give instructors and students more streamlined access to Cengage Learning's digital learning solutions and core curriculum materials through the Blackboard Learn learning management system.
Educational software vendor Jenzabar and online syllabus management provider Intellidemia have joined forces to develop a collaborative solution designed to help schools streamline administrative processes and centrally manage syllabi in a more collaborative academic community between educators and students.
Harvard University and MIT have partnered to launch edX, an initiative to offer free online courses worldwide and develop an open source platform to deliver them.
Thrust into online learning at scale in 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina--a disaster that put 45 percent of its physical campus out of commission--New Orleans-based Delgado Community College experienced the aftershock of realizing that many of its students were not "online ready." Success rates--and therefore retention and completion rates--suffered just because of a student skills gap in online education. A self-guided online learning module, DORM, has made a big difference even as a doubling of enrollment since 2006 has put further pressure on available classroom space.
Altius Education has launched a developer preview of Helix, an online learning environment designed to personalize higher education.
Blackboard has added both an open enrollment option and mobile support for its CourseSites cloud-based course option.
ShareStream has unveiled a streaming video extension for Blackboard Learn that integrates with the learning management system's (LMS) assignment tool, allowing for the creation and assessment of video assignments.
After an expansive "conversation" among faculty, students, and staff, the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School has decided to adopt Instructure Canvas as its next learning management system (LMS).
The Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC) has renewed the contract with its online learning platform provider, extending a relationship that dates back 12 years.
Tufts University is taking its enterprise content, course, learning, knowledge, and curriculum management system for health sciences, known as Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase (TUSK), open source.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will be launching a new master's degree in public administration in its School of Government that's fully online.
Can the goals of 21st century learning be met by retooled legacy LMSs, or does the future belong to open learning platforms that utilize the latest technology?
Watchitoo and Pearson eCollege have teamed up to add an integrated collaboration solution, including real-time video chat, to the Pearson LearningStudio SaaS online education platform.
In this Q&A, Blackboard Learn President Ray Henderson and Moodlerooms Chairman and CEO Lou Pugliese explain why Blackboard is getting into the open source business, what's different about delivering services to those customers versus Blackboard's traditional customers, and what might be next on the open source agenda for the No. 1 learning management system company in the world.
Education customers that are still running the Angel learning management system and wondering what they should do when the product is officially retired have received a reprieve.
Blackboard is buying out two major players in the open source services space: Moodlerooms and NetSpot. With the purchases, the company is also launching its own open source division: Blackboard Education Open Source Services.
Bristol Community College, an urban college in southeastern Massachusetts, has redesigned many of its courses around common learning outcomes. With the help of a Title III grant from the Department of Education, BCC has supported faculty by developing Course Design Toolkits and identifying an array of digital instructional artifacts relevant to course content and supportive of learning outcomes.
A partnership announced by Datatel+SGHE and Blackboard will integrate Colleague with Blackboard Learn 9.1 using Datatel+SGHE's Intelligent Learning Platform to centralize information from academic and administrative systems. The collaboration will bring together course management, grading, and collaboration tools for colleges and universities.
Harrison College has debuted KnowU, an interactive virtual campus designed to build community and offer support to the school's growing base of online learners.
Open education has the power to reinvigorate higher ed campuses.
End user license agreements can allow professors teaching online to go beyond the syllabus by requiring students to agree to terms set forth before they even begin the class. Anderson University Associate Professor Emmett Dulaney explains how.
Five colleges in San Antonio will be migrating to a new learning management system over the next 10 months.
Blackboard has made available new integration options for its Blackboard Collaborate that allow for more interoperability and support across platforms for a variety of learning management systems, including the company's own Blackboard Learn 9.1.
CT asks three leading advocates of open education to evaluate the impact of the DIY U movement on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions.
Kingston University is providing its students and staff with access to the university's entire online student learning environment from any device running an HTML5-enabled browser.
Blackboard has launched Blackboard Developmental Education, a new program designed to help students "move from developmental courses to credit-granting courses sooner," according to information released by the company.
Desire2Learn, a provider of enterprise teaching and learning platforms for K-12 and higher education institutions, has signed a four-year Windows Azure global alliance agreement with Microsoft.
Moodlerooms will release a free plug-in designed to integrate open-source learning management system Moodle with Microsoft's Live@edu services.
E-learning provider LoudCloud Systems is taking its learning platform modular. According to the company, the LoudCloud Learning Management Ecosystems for K-12 and higher education will be available as individual components to be used on their own or in conjunction with third-party systems to augment their capabilities.
Blackboard has gone into general release with a new service pack for Blackboard Learn version 9.1. Service pack 8, or "Ocho," as it's nicknamed by the company, delivers changes to the user interface of the learning management system, as well as updates to workflow functionality, intended to help instructors and administrators use the application more efficiently and effectively.
The Idaho State Board of Education has structured a system-wide deal with Blackboard to save money at its public institutions that adopt the company's software.
The University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education (MAT@USC) and School of Social Work (MSW@USC) have released an Android app designed to give students access to multimedia materials and intra-school social networks.
To get some insights into what's on the horizon for e-learning, Campus Technology spoke with a group of academics and instructional technologists.
A private college in Pennsylvania has switched to a LMS based on open source software. The school in La Plume, which is in the process of expanding its online and blended course programs, was looking for a platform that would provide an intuitive user interface and additional communication features, easily integrate with current systems, and cut costs.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has created a live, cloud-based interactive classroom to provide distance learning courses to more than 27,000 students worldwide.
Arizona State University shut down all of its Web services for about two days during January to address a security breach. That included shutting down online classes for the duration of the outage.
The State University of New York will adopt a single platform for online learning in an effort to manage costs.
Colorado Community College System (CCCS) is deploying a new early intervention system across their 13 colleges and online consortium designed to identify at-risk students.
Pearson has released versions of its digital library of online courses for use on the Apple iPad.
Several schools are piloting Blackboard's new learning analytics solution, Blackboard Analytics for Blackboard Learn, in an effort to provide feedback and help shape the final product.
As the new year begins, education technology experts look at what's ahead for learners and educators.
The institution that led the call for freely available lectures, videos, and exams created by its instructors and shared with the world will now do the same with online learning.
The real value of IT in higher ed lies in its ability to support the institution's core mission--quickly and cost-effectively.
Northern Arizona University has chosen a proprietary learning platform over an open source competitor in an effort to reduce costs and management responsibilities for university staff.
Instructure has released a free mobile app for Apple's iOS that will facilitate communication among instructors and their students using Canvas, its Web-based learning management system.
The State University of New York (SUNY) Empire State College is expanding its student engagement offerings in order to help faculty and staff connect and collaborate more effectively.
Desire2Learn has unveiled a new release to its learning management platform, offering enhancements to streaming media delivery and new integration features supporting Google Apps for Education.
Three former University of Pennsylvania students have launched Coursekit, a free learning management system that emphasizes social networking for colleges and universities.
A Cleveland-based community college gave up on its in-house efforts to create a mobile app for its community and turned to Blackboard to handle the job.
Do you have lingering questions about the instructional validity of incorporating free educational materials in your online courses? Michael Cottam, Rio Salado College's associate dean over instructional design and new program development, helps shed some light on how open education resources may be better evaluated in the future so that course developers can leverage open resources more effectively.
Desire2Learn has struck a deal to make digital course materials from CourseSmart available to its learning management system customers as a new addition to its Partner Network.
Pearson LearningStudio has integrated Genius SIS to provide a Web-based student information system for customers.
Pearson has launched a new version of CourseConnect, its customizable online course library.
A $2 million Department of Education Title III grant designed to help institutions of higher education better serve Native American students is going to help Northeastern Oklahoma A&M (NEO) upgrade its distance learning offerings.
Blackboard has acquired CerBibo, a provider of higher education and K-12 online learning software and services in China. The move is designed to expand Blackboard's presence in Chinese education and to "simplify the process for bringing new products and investments to Chinese institutions."
Cisco has created a new TelePresence solution for small to medium-sized organizations with limited budgets and IT staff.
Pearson recently released an update to its digital repository, Equella. The 5.1 release includes new tools for working with Microsoft Office files, new notifications, and integration with Flickr and YouTube.
An international team backed by the European Union and based out of Berlin has introduced a new, free, dual-language learning management system with a large dose of collaboration functionality built in.
Lectora will release a redesigned user interface for its line-up of e-learning software this summer, and it is looking for schools to try out the beta version.
The University of New Brunswick is establishing a new Cisco Chair in Advanced Learning Technologies to promote, support, and lead innovation at the university through industry-linked projects.
LoudCloud Systems has added a pair of modules, virtual classroom and e-file cabinet, to its learning management system (LMS) for higher education.
Against his better instincts, an educator at West Texas A&M University shares his school's recipe for developing a successful online learning program.
After two years of consideration, a major British university will soon shift off of its current learning management system and onto Desire2Learn's Learning Suite.
Blackboard will soon offer a building block that institutional customers can plug into their Blackboard Learn learning management systems to help students find internships and jobs.
Desire2Learn has released an update to Campus Life, a mobile communications and collaboration tool for education.
Education technology company Blackboard wants to open up. This week at Educause, a prominent higher education IT conference taking place in Philadelphia, the company said it will support the publishing, sharing, and consumption of educational resources across its platforms.
Kentucky's Morehead State University chose to upgrade from Blackboard 7.3, its previous learning management system, to Blackboard Learn version 9.1 instead of implementing open source alternative Moodle.
Cengage Learning has announced it will partner with Moodlerooms and with Unicon on open source learning projects. Both partnerships are designed to increase functionality for the respective learning platforms through Cengage's new service, Mindlinks.
Moodle HQ has posted three updates for three different branches of the Moodle learning management system, tackling a total of 15 recently discovered security vulnerabilities. The new versions also provide minor improvements and bug fixes.
Berkeley College has selected Courseload, Inc. to provide digital material for the college’s online academic program.
While the LMS has become a ubiquitous feature of higher ed, doubts persist over how much--and how effectively--faculty use the technology. CT looks at five steps needed to engage faculty.
Inmedius has released an update to its Web-based learning management system for small organizations, Omnibus.
Publishing and education tech behemoth Pearson has introduced a new, free, cloud-based LMS for higher education--OpenClass.
Trent Batson's recent survey of ePortfolio technology providers shows that there's a move in the ePortfolio marketplace now, from its earlier concentration on institutional assessment portfolios to the inclusion of a wider range of products that support student-centered as well as institution-centered portfolios--opening up the potential for new learning designs.
Users of the Desire2Learn Learning Suite will have direct access to digital materials from Cengage Learning thanks to a partnership between the two companies announced last week.
Western Governors University has gone public with its use of a service that delivers textbooks in digital form to its students through its online learning environment.
The University of Cincinnati has deployed content management system Blackboard 9.0 for its new lineup of online certificate programs.
Martin University in Indianapolis, IN, will use a $1.25 million grant from the United States Department of Education to launch online certificate programs.
Educators and students in the United States will now have access to a cloud-based education interaction management product previously available exclusively in Europe. CampusIT, the service provider, announced earlier this week that it is bringing its online student interaction and transaction management system--one of Europe’s largest, according to the company--to U.S. colleges and universities.
Brown University will be implementing a new learning management system in the fall.
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis computer scientist and entrepreneur Ali Jafari has rolled out a free social network designed to connect educators and students from around the world with common interests and class subjects.
Streaming video allows the College of Medicine at Penn State to broadcast complex surgeries outside of the operating room.
The open source learning management system Moodle has a new mobile companion. Developers at Moodle HQ have released a free app for iOS designed to work with Moodle 2.1 or later. Apps for additional mobile platforms are planned.
Desire2Learn has partnered with ReadSpeaker to increase the usability and accessibility of the Desire2Learn learning platforms.
Blackboard's pending acquisition by a private equity firm has received shareholder approval. The company announced that at a special meeting held Sept. 16, 2011 shareholders representing 81 percent of outstanding shares approved the proposal put forth by Providence Equity Partners.
Blackboard has launched Blackboard Learn-Angel Edition 8.0, a new version of its online course delivery platform. Support for Angel will continue until October 2014, at which time clients will migrate to Blackboard Learn 9.1.
Panopto has released a new version of its Web-based rich media video lecture capture and library platforms.
Blackboard has released an upgrade to CourseSites, a free online course system, which includes support for six languages, and other new features.
In support of its strategic plan to increase student satisfaction, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide launched a live virtual classroom dubbed EagleVision nearly 5 years ago. The response from students has been overwhelmingly positive, and in fact the system has been life-changing for many. Becky Vasquez, Embry-Riddle CTO, reports that demand from students for this new learning platform has increased almost 100 percent in the last year alone.
A technician school with 11 campuses will be moving onto a new learning management system starting in 2012.
Echo360 is embedding its lecture capture EchoSystem portal for multimedia course materials within open source learning management system Moodle 1.9 and 2.0.
New Mexico State University in Las Cruces has made the decision to move its learning management system (LMS) work to a cloud version of Instructure Canvas.
Columbus State Community College has formed an alliance with Kaltura and TechSmith to create a turnkey lecture capture solution that can be deployed via the cloud.
At CT 2011, IT leaders took a long, hard look in the mirror and recognized that they must evolve or face irrelevance. Then they rolled up their sleeves to map the road forward.
Traditional colleges may think they have nothing to learn from for-profits, but when it comes to advanced use of technology, look no further.
Desire2Learn has released an update to its flagship e-learning platform, Desire2Learn Learning Suite, with a new emphasis on integrated social networking tools--such as Google+ and Facebook--and improvements in the areas of assessment, grading, and assessment tracking.
Centennial College in Toronto, Canada has adopted a new learning management system (LMS), the Desire2Learn Learning Suite, this summer.
Each state has its own regulations pertaining to education services offered in their state by out-of-state institutions. Some distance education providers will not be able to comply with every state's regulations, choosing instead not to serve students from those states where they find it too difficult or impossible to obtain the state's authorization. WCET and the University Professional and Continuing Education Association recently surveyed institutions regarding their approaches to state regulations--concluding it's the students who may suffer.
Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, KY, is switching from the Angel learning management system to Blackboard Learn Version 9.1.
Trivantis has released a new version of its CourseMill Learning Management System, which allows for increased customization and searching.
iLinc has released a new version of its presentation software that integrates with Moodle.
Wright State University, with nearly 20,000 students between two campuses, has wrapped a year-long migration to a new learning management system (LMS).
Shortly, Instructure's cloud-based and open source learning management system (LMS) will include a new messaging feature that replaces the standard LMS inbox. The company is also readying a mobile edition specifically for students.
The Human Presence Learning Environment is a sophisticated Moodle customization that engages students via multiple social components, including streaming media, voice boards, presence indicators, microblogs, and interactive class assessments.
Three-year-old Colorado State University-Global Campus, funded by a $12 million loan from the state university system, recently repaid a third of that loan.
As lecture capture and distance learning take hold in higher ed, colleges pursue different approaches to the issue of closed captioning and transcription.
Those who track such things tell us that we're now in the fourth decade of the IT revolution in higher education. And yet a lot of institutions are still grappling with core managerial issues, according to one of the leading trend trackers.
What's the future of the learning management system? What's its place in higher education environments of the 21st century? Will it even have a place in the coming years?
At the Campus Technology 2011 conference, happening this week in Boston, Moodlerooms and Cengage Learning revealed a new partnership that will allow the companies' learning tools to interact and bring new integration features to the open source learning management system Moodle.
Career Education Corp. and Grand Canyon University both revealed recently that they're adopting a cloud-based learning management system LoudCloud Systems called LoudCloud University Ecosystem.
While electronic learning will continue to grow in higher education, that growth will be a bit slower than previously anticipated, according to a new report released this week. In fact, that slowing trend will be felt worldwide across nearly all segments--with a few notable exceptions.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education will launch McGraw-Hill Campus, a service that allows schools to integrate the company's course solutions with any learning management system at no additional cost. It will be available July 21.
Wilkes University is consolidating its learning management systems onto a single platform. As a result of the move the school's faculty and approximately 5,900 undergraduates and graduate students will be on the same system beginning in August.
Desire2Learn is gearing up to release an update to its flagship e-learning suite, Desire2Learn Learning Suite 9.4. The company has also previewed new versions of its Campus Life mobile software and its lecture capture tool, Capture 7.1.
Kaltura, the developer of the open source rich media platform of the same name, is getting deeper integration with two major learning management systems: Desire2Learn Learning Environment and Blackboard Learn.
Auburn University, with about 25,000 students, has decided to move off commercial LMS and onto Instructure Canvas following an evaluation process lasting several months. Instructors will be expected to migrate to the new LMS by spring 2013.
Four major education publishers revealed new partnerships with Blackboard Wednesday, including Cengage Learning, John Wiley & Sons, Macmillan, and Pearson.
Blackboard has released an update to its flagship commercial learning management system, Blackboard Learn.
Blackboard has released a new version of its conferencing system, Collaborate, developed from the integration of technologies from Elluminate and Wimba, two companies Blackboard acquired a year ago.
Edvance360 has added video conferencing and plagiarism detection to its learning management system, Edvance360 LMS-SN.
The College of Charleston has gone public with its years-long transition to Desire2Learn's learning management system, Learning Suite.
A panel of leading technologists, educators, and vendors discusses the future of the LMS and the innovations needed to make it integral to 21st century learning.
Gartner researcher Marti Harris provides her perspective on the Blackboard acquisition and what it means for the company and its customers.
Blackboard reported it's being acquired by a private equity firm with a big stake in the education market.
For the LMS to remain relevant in higher education, it must move beyond the classroom and integrate seamlessly with the learning opportunities presented by the Web.
An acquisition done by Desire2Learn in November 2010 is extending its reach. The learning management system vendor has announced a new mobile developer program to encourage programmers to expand the functionality of the company's mobile platform, Desire2Learn Campus Life.
Educators who work in virtual worlds, such as Second Life, can now use a hosted learning management system (LMS) designed specifically to work within that virtual environment.
Determined to make introductory college science courses more manageable for students, two professors at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, are developing a digital textbook based on the free, open-source learning management system Moodle.
Two large education companies have started pilots to test out a new joint service to help students get through developmental mathematics.
A community college in Arizona is teaming up with the New York Times to produce online teacher preparation courses.
College America Services Inc. has chosen Pearson LearningStudio to provide online learning at the organization's four higher education institutions.
Kaplan University has released a native iPad app that allows students to attend class through the mobile device.
A company with its own learning management system (LMS) for academic and corporate use has taken the social networking aspects of its LMS and turned them into an add-on product that will work with competing LMSes.
A university in Fredericksburg, VA has begun its move to a new open source, SaaS-based learning management system.
A 2,260-student private college in Jefferson, TN is moving its course management onto Edvance360 LMS-SN from Edvance360.
A new version of the free and open source learning management system OLAT has been released.
Florida's Hillsborough Community College has begun its migration off of WebCT and onto Blackboard Learn version 9.1, Blackboard's latest version of its learning management system.
Moodle 2.0.3 has been released, incorporating more than 200 new features, improvements, bug fixes, and security tweaks (some of them classified as major).
The Oregon Community Colleges Healthcare Education Alliance is looking to expand availability of its healthcare-related degrees and certificates through distance education.
Coordinating a geographically dispersed student body that learns primarily online is just one of the key challenges that modern institutions of higher education are facing. With more education taking place online--and in some cases, all of that education happening on the Web--colleges are being forced to rethink their classroom and student management strategies.
In the popular imagination, the Web distances learners and teachers (and "face-to-face" in the classroom is then assumed more desirable). But in reality "face-to-face" can be the most distancing experience for the student, and Web-based learning the most connected of all. It is odd to realize that in many higher education classrooms, we find the real "distance learning."
Ocean County College in New Jersey is advancing its institutional goal to exploit the potential for distance learning.
Blackboard has released updates to Elluminate Live and Wimba Classroom, two software tools that make up its Collaborate suite.
Pearson Learning Solutions, which develops and markets the online learning management system LearningStudio and custom textbooks, will now be offering its customers Panopto's technology for recording and publishing lectures.
A small law school in Vermont is looking to create a model for other non-profit schools with the introduction of two new online master's degrees in environmental law.
University ASPs can benefit both the host institution and smaller client colleges, but there's a cloud on the horizon.
University of Phoenix owner Apollo Group has released PhoenixMobile, an app that will allow students with iPhone and iPod touch devices to participate in class activities on the go.
Washington's statewide public college system is supporting its ballooning online and blended education programs with lecture capture. The adoption hasn't been painless, but it's helped to further the college system's goals for growth and to support innovation in teaching and learning.
Sooner than expected, a course system has been launched from Blackboard and McGraw-Hill Higher Education that blends course management from one company with content from the other.
Pearson has released an update to Equella, a digital repository for higher education and K-12. The latest release, version 5.0, gains new interface enhancements, as well as support for customizing dashboards and building portlets.
CourseSmart and Pearson eCollege have partnered to provide more than 20,000 electronic textbooks, custom products, and other digital materials through a single sign on.
Instructure, the relative unknown that swooped in last December and won learning management system business away from entrenched competitors at the Utah Education Network, has just finished a new round of financing that will help the company scale up its staffing.
The University of Southern California Rossier School of Education is providing a native application for Apple's iOS platform that allows online students to do their work on an iPhone or iPad.
ConnectYard is extending its reach into BlackBoard Learn through use of the latter company's Building Block technology. ConnectYard said its social channel communication functionality will now integrate with Learn 9.1's Announcements and Discussions sections.
News University, the Poynter Institute's e-learning project, has launched a partnership with Florida Atlantic University and Missouri State University as part of its Journalism 101 pilot program.
Twenty-nine proposals from colleges, universities, and education groups received grants this week totaling $10.9 million under a new initiative aimed at fostering academic success through technology.
An instructional design team from Columbia University's School of Continuing Education will be using the Pearson LearningStudio engine as the basis for developing a new, more social platform for delivering online programs.
A top-ranked business school launches an online program in partnership with a for-profit business. Are we finally on the road to success?
Campuses respond quickly as the higher ed mobile marketplace takes shape.
A professor and a former student at State University of New York at Fredonia have recently updated one of their Android applications for academic use.
The University of Kansas is looking to grow its distance learning offerings, but not before Barbara Romzek, interim senior vice provost for academic affairs, answers the questions: How we can organize online better? And how can we facilitate more courses through online media?
Moodle's developers have released an update to the popular open source learning management system. The latest Moodle 2.0.2 and 1.9.11 releases address several major security vulnerabilities and also include some bug fixes and performance enhancements.
Ed tech developer Cengage Learning has launched a new online learning platform for higher ed. Called MindTap, the platform is designed to work across devices--traditional computers, smart phones, and tablets--to deliver coursework, learning management, and a range of educational materials.
Echo360 has debuted a major update to its flagship lecture capture platform, EchoSystem. The latest version, 4.0, will include new mobile capabilities, HD and dual display support, and social features designed to boost student engagement.
Desire2Learn has released Campus Life, a new mobile communications and collaboration tool for education.
SUNY Oswego has taken the gradual approach to building its recently launched MBA program. But behind its seemingly modest efforts, the university's ambitions lie in wait to see just how scalable the model is.
California State University, Chico will be sticking with a Blackboard product for its course management. The university will be upgrading to Blackboard Learn release 9.1 from WebCT Vista over the next couple of years.
Software developer Serebra has released an update to its flagship learning management system, Serebra Campus. The latest release gets performance enhancements and new administrative capabilities.
Purdue University is launching an online-only version of its master's degree program focused on learning design and technology.
Cisco is extending its umi line of video communication and collaboration tools so that home users will be able to connect with businesses using TelePresence.
Desire2Learn is releasing a new version of Learning Suite, an educational software package that includes a learning management system, electronic portfolio, learning repository, and analytics. The new release, version 9.2, expands support for mobile Web users and also brings several enhancements in the areas of assessments and grading.
Skidmore College has adopted the latest release of Blackboard's learning management system.
A small, four-year college in Georgia will be moving off of a home-grown learning management system and onto an LMS from Edvance360. Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs made the move in an effort to address a growing demand for online courses for its 800 students.
Discussions of technology strategy and planning for new media at colleges and universities are informed by many factors of higher education culture and the way its core constituents--faculty and students--work and learn. One rapidly evolving area is online assessment, whether for fully online programs or for blended learning environments. Here, learning designer Judith Boettcher examines online assessment strategies beyond the traditional end-of-term paper.
After a selection process that began in 2008, the University of Colorado at Boulder has decided to migrate off of its Blackboard Campus Edition 8 learning management system and onto Desire2Learn.
The most affordable online bachelor's in healthcare is available from Western Governors University in Salt Lake City, according to a survey of online programs.
Blackboard has launched a free hosted course management service. The system, CourseSites is an online platform that enables faculty members to set up Web-based class sites where they can post course materials, communicate with students, encourage collaboration, monitor performance, and manage grades.
Webster University, which has 100 campuses and 21,000 students around the world, has selected a syllabus management system to ensure consistency among all of its locations.
Global Grid for Learning, a unit of Cambridge University Press, is teaming up with Moodlerooms to provide access to a digital media repository through the joule learning management system.
A Utah-based company has fired a warning shot across the bow of learning management system (LMS) companies, including market leader Blackboard, with the announcement that it's turning its new LMS into open source. Instructure has publicly released the source code to its Canvas learning management system, which was launched in 2010.
A slew of schools are testing out a blend of course management functionality and textbook content that could make for a simpler transition for institutions to the use of more digital curriculum.
By 2015, 25 million post-secondary students in the United States will be taking classes online. And as that happens, the number of students who take classes exclusively on physical campuses will plummet, from 14.4 million in 2010 to just 4.1 million five years later, according to a new forecast released by market research firm Ambient Insight.
Nine days after filing a civil suit against a statewide network of colleges and universities that had chosen an alternative learning management system (LMS) from a new competitor, Desire2Learn has backed away from its legal protest.
Blackboard has released a major update to its cross-platform mobile learning management system, Mobile Learn 2.0. The new version expands the types of content users can create via their mobile devices and also offers an enhanced UI and support for some Angel and WebCT customers.
Ontario-based Mohawk College has finished its transition to a new learning management system after more than three years of due diligence and course migration.
Two southern California community college districts will be moving to newer versions of Blackboard software from older versions for their learning management work. Both the San Diego Community College District and Riverside Community College District will be upgrading from Blackboard's WebCT Vista to version 9.1 of Blackboard Learn.
Blackboard this week announced support in its learning management system, Blackboard Learn, for two open standards--Common Cartridge 1.0 and Basic Learning Tools Interoperability.
Edvance360 has released version 6.0 of its flagship learning management system, Edvance360 LMS-SN. The new release expands mobile access to the online systems and adds enhancements for cloning courses and sending out notifications and reminders to users.
Blackboard's product strategy has moved from that of a course management platform to a suite of integrated, enterprise systems that span a range of institution-wide services from communications to e-commerce. And Blackboard leadership--including Blackboard Learn President Ray Henderson--has placed a new emphasis on client support and openness. Trent Batson spoke with Henderson about the company's new direction.
Developers have released Moodle 2.0.1, a minor update to the popular open source learning management system.
Should states form an interstate compact to provide reciprocity for education that crosses state borders? That's the question at the heart of a new research initiative being undertaken by the Presidents' Forum, a consortium of 150 institutions that exchange knowledge regarding operation in an online environment.
Pearson has introduced a new service targeted at K-12 schools and colleges and universities that want to help their instructors develop skills for teaching online.
Three higher ed tech experts discuss technology trends for the year ahead, citing increased mobile and wireless access and cloud computing among them. But are campuses also in for a little bit of a return to the "basics" in the coming year?
A CIO has introduced his college to a virtual environment where most communications and collaboration take place online, creating a digital working and learning hub while cutting back on paper waste in the process.
As cloud computing comes into its own in the higher education space, at least one university has been quietly pioneering an innovative way to deliver technology services on demand, via the Internet, to other institutions. Since the late-1990s, Drexel University in Philadelphia has been serving as an outsourced IT department for a group of colleges that lack the infrastructure necessary to run their own enterprise-wide systems.
Nearly a million more students were taking at least one online course in the United States during the fall 2009 term than the previous year. That dramatic growth rate is about 10 times higher than the growth rate of the overall higher education student population. But, according to researchers, "... the time of unbridled growth may be ending."
Following more than two years of development, the Moodle community has formally released Moodle 2.0, a major update to the popular open source learning management system.
HP has launched a set of applications for high definition (HD) videoconferencing using technology from Vidyo, fulfilling a product plan originally publicized in June 2010.
Lexington Theological Seminary has introduced technology into its online classes that allows students and faculty to interact via video and audio.
The Sakai Foundation has opened the call for submissions for the 2011 annual Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award competition, now in its 4th year.
Forty-four percent of colleges and universities in the United States have restructured their online education programs in the last two years. And, according to new research, 59 percent will restructure them in the coming two years.
Blackboard has brought its Mobile Central app to the Android platform. The app, intended for smart phones, is custom-built for each institution then made available to the campus community for free.
Desire2Learn is integrating Microsoft's Live@edu service into its Learning Suite, an educational software package that includes a learning management system, electronic portfolio, learning repository, and analytics tool.
Adobe this week launched Connect 8, an update to the company's Web conferencing tool designed for online teaching, group collaboration, and remote meetings and presentations.
Arizona State University is making a giant leap with its online program, with ambitions to grow enrollment tenfold.
Colorado State University's engineering department has taken its labs online to augment classroom activities and help students get their assignments done while away from campus.
As part of a classroom renovation project, Ball State University has upgraded its video production systems. The teleplex initiative includes a transition to digital production in its three classroom studios that handle production services for distance learning courses.
A new version of the free and open source learning management system ATutor has been released. Version 2.0.1 is primarily a maintenance update, although it does incorporate a number of functionality improvements as well.
The LMS is an enterprise-wide and critical platform, but it has mostly remained unconnected to the cloud and to the social Web. But now a new management platform, plugjam from CommonNeed, turns the LMS into a truly seamless member of the Web.
The free and open source learning management system OLAT has been updated to version 7.0. The latest release, which rolled out in late September, has gained a new course creation wizard and enhanced integration with external tools.
Blackboard is expanding the parameters of its professional services beyond technical services and training. The company recently announced that it would offer its clients consulting help specifically in planning and deploying mobile solutions. The company also announced version 9.x of Learn, launched in January 2009, has been more widely adopted than any other version of its learning management system and is now in use by 1,000 organizations.
Two major education software players--Blackboard and K12--have announced plans to jointly develop a learning platform specifically targeting students taking remedial courses. Under the agreement, the project will deliver K12's adaptive courses through Blackboard Learn.
An Iowa community college is taking a four-pronged approach to using technology as a retention-boosting tool for its expanding distance learning program.
Following up on a commitment made at the time it acquired the two companies, Blackboard has announced that Collaborate, its new collaborative learning suite that taps into technology from Elluminate and Wimba, will work with competing learning management systems. This will allow Collaborate to pull user, course, and enrollment data from the various LMSes.
Pepperdine University will formally switch to Sakai as its university-wide LMS beginning Jan. 1. In this guest viewpoint, Timothy Chester, Pepperdine's CIO and vice provost for academic administration, reveals five reasons for the shift to the open source LMS and offers tips for other IT leaders in higher education contemplating similar moves.
According to Jeff King, in 10 years people are going to have a new understanding about the true value of the learning management system (LMS)--as a tool for keeping track of learning outcomes. "And that's gold," proclaimed the director for the Koehler Center for Teaching Excellence at Texas Christian University, a private college with 8,800 students in Ft. Worth.
At the end of this year, Pepperdine University in California is formally switching over its learning management system from Blackboard to one based on Sakai, an open source learning management system.
After piloting a few courses and receiving positive feedback from faculty and students, Benedict College in Columbia, SC moved to a new learning management system.
Nearly a third of college students reported that their parents or guardians would be "very upset" to know how little they actually attend classes in person. The reason: They're watching the courses through streaming video instead.
A company affiliated with National University and other institutions within the National University System has extended a contract to continue its use of Pearson's Web-based learning management system for an additional five years.
Teaching and learning in higher ed have advanced incrementally alongside rapid changes in technology. Is it time for some radical shifts?
Although it's still a small segment of the overall ed tech market in the United States, mobile learning is growing in colleges and universities. According to new data released by market research firm Ambient Insight this week, that growth is projected to be in the double digits in terms of dollar expenditures through 2014, driven by e-readers and mobile versions of learning management systems.
In order to give a much-needed boost to campus tech support, Central Michigan University's IT department mobilized an interdepartmental team of experts to evaluate and implement a system that has delivered greater efficiency and expanded IT's reach well beyond its previous capabilities.
As the centerpiece of a new mobile computing initiative, Monterey College of Law in California is distributing Apple iPads to all students enrolled in a supplemental curriculum program that helps them prepare for the state's bar exam. All entering first-year students signed up for the program within the first week, as did 70 percent of the remainder of the student body.
The University of New England in Armidale, Australia will be adding another open source learning management system to two other systems already in use on campus, Blackboard and Sakai.
Edvance360 has updated its learning management system, Edvance360 LMS-SN, expanding course development and reporting features and adding in new learning outcome management tools.
As part of an effort to expand its distance learning offerings, the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff will be converting class materials to online curriculum with the use of CM Group's Luminosity e-learning authoring system.
The National Federation of the Blind has certified the latest version of Blackboard's learning management system (LMS), which means that blind users can more fully interact with the application's functionality.
Walters State Community College leverages its distance learning capabilities to reach out to high schools across Tennessee.
Open source service provider Moodlerooms is teaming up with Perceptis to provide 24/7 help desk services for Moodle.
Systems Alliance, an IT consulting company that sells SiteExecutive, a content management system used in higher education, recently released a hosted online video service.
Ohio's Board of Regents will be working with Blackboard in developing a program to host distance learning courses in the state. Chancellor Eric Fingerhut chose Blackboard's consulting team to build a new, statewide digital learning clearinghouse that will provide a common platform for online courses.
After a lengthy review, Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia will be migrating to Desire2Learn as the primary application for delivering Web-based course material and assessment tasks.
Not many mannequins have their own Twitter accounts. But for a week in February 2010, more than 90 nurse educators followed Stanley Sim, a mannequin in the Duke University (NC)School of Nursing’s simulation lab, as he tweeted about love, Duke basketball, pulled pork sandwiches, and the cardiac care he was receiving for chest pains.
An online university that offers tuition-free education is teaming up with an organization that works to make computer labs available to young people in developing countries.
Videoconferencing has been promoted as a way for classes to meet during storms and pandemics. It has provided a way for students to get instruction from experts around the world. But at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis the technology has also helped sustain an academic degree that might otherwise not have survived.
Blackboard has teamed up with textbook providers McGraw-Hill, Follett, and Barnes & Noble to enhance the availability of educational content in Blackboard Learn, the company's flagship online learning management platform.
Faculty members and campus IT staff aren't exactly in agreement on the necessity of some technologies in education. According to a new survey, some of the key differences in perception are in the areas of virtual education and online collaboration, though those aren't the only differences. On the whole, IT places a much higher importance on technology than educators themselves.
Kaltura, a company that develops open source products for creating and managing video on Web sites, has published a Blackboard Building Block that allows users to integrate video into their Blackboard Learn environments.
Desire2Learn this week unveiled an update to its mobile learning management system client, Desire2Learn 2Go.
Beginning this fall Washington State University will accept freshmen into its four-year fully online degree programs. Previously, the Pullman institution has offered its online-only classes to adult students who wanted to finish their degrees.
Blackboard is buying out ed tech developers Elluminate and Wimba, whose technologies are in use by more than 2,600 schools, colleges, and universities in the United States and around the world.
In the past, the learning management system (LMS) was a fairly simple program. Its job was to connect an instructor to a student for an individual course. The student could track grades without harassing the faculty member...
Mississippi University for Women, a public university in Columbus, has launched a new independent online college catering to working professionals seeking to complete degrees, adult learners needing to acquire or update skills, and community college students who want to finish their four-year degrees.
Datatel has launched a new platform that integrates enterprise resource planning with learning management system (LMS) features. The platform integrates technology from Datatel with the open source LMS Moodle.
West Chester University in Pennsylvania has cut off campus access to its Blackboard learning management system (LMS) as of last week.
A flashy new videoconferencing technology is making distance learners at a Wisconsin college forget they're not face-to-face with their distant classmates and instructor.
Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD has introduced a Web program to allow students to check their readiness for taking online classes.
Cengage Learning has introduced Course360, a set of applications for running classes online. The new platform includes course content and works within major learning management systems.
Brigham Young University in Provo, UT is developing a custom gradebook that will allow its students to develop and maintain their work in any online tool and simply submit a URL to the faculty member.
Moodle has released an update to its open source, cross-platform learning management system. Moodle 1.9.9 includes fixes for minor bugs and also addresses four security vulnerabilities, including two that Moodle developers have labeled as "critical."
At their annual conference held this week in Denver, the Sakai community is officially welcoming Ian Dolphin as the new Sakai Foundation executive director.
Following the release in April of Mobile Learn for Apple's iPad, Blackboard has released the mobile version of its learning management system for Android-based phones; Apple iPhone and iPod; and BlackBerry devices.
Our Lady of the Lake University has launched a new 30-credit hour program that allows students to earn an online master's degree in computer information systems and security that has been certified by the National Security Agency.
A community college in Illinois has added an academic partnership with one of the world's largest online universities to its transfer options. Students at Joliet Junior College will be able to transfer credits and receive reduced tuition from Capella University, a for-profit institution that specializes in online degree programs for working adults.
A small junior college in West Virginia has launched a pilot program that combines the open source learning management system Moodle with the immersive virtual world Second Life. The combination has allowed distance learners to create an avatar in Second Life and attend classes through the virtual world. It's proved highly popular, and, though in the early stages yet, the indication is that it's helping to build a connection between Huntington Junior College and its non-traditional student base.
Arizona State University will begin a fully online bachelor of science degree in criminology and criminal justice next fall.
The real innovation in higher education IT is not the technology itself. This may seem obvious now, but it wasn't in the past. It's a recent revelation that comes with changes in the roles of IT staff and faculty in innovation with technology for teaching and learning and in IT organizations and departments on campus.
Edvance360 has updated its learning management system, Edvance360 LMS-SN, expanding course development and reporting features and adding in new learning outcome management tools.
Portland State University in Oregon has finalized its decision to move to Desire2Learn's learning management system from its current LMS.
Marist College’s Director of Academic Technology and eLearning, a Campus Technology 2010 keynoter, talked with CT about potential disruptive changes ahead that may not only alter how we use technology for teaching and learning, but might turn higher education infrastructure on its ear.
Ed tech developer Interactyx has brought its learning management platform, Topyx, to Apple's iPad.
Ed tech company it's learning is adding Microsoft Office Web Apps and Outlook Live to its electronic learning platform.
IntelliResponse had made its Answer Suite product accessible through Blackboard Learn.
American Public University System has begun implementing the open source Sakai learning management system (LMS) to replace a platform built on Ucompass' Educator.
Moodlerooms has released an update to its learning management system, joule. Version 1.2, released just about a month after version 1.1, expands reporting and content management features and gains integration with Adobe Connect.
The center of technology activity in academia has moved from the computer center to the faculty. and, now, after more than 30 years since the microcomputer took technology outside the computer center, it is moving to the students themselves. No, not texting and Twittering but students using learning management tools whose primary clients are students. What impact will this market shift have?
An Ontario university is switching to Desire2Learn after an academic year filled with problems in trying to keep its newly updated Blackboard learning management system operational.
Desire2Learn is publicly unveiling a major update to its Learning Suite this week, including the Learning Repository and ePortfolio.
Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS) has begun offering courses online that run just a few weeks in duration and are short enough to warrant partial credits for their completion.
Blackboard has updated its learning management system with the release of Blackboard Learn version 9.1.
In an effort to give students a greater choice in textbook ordering, New York University's four bookstores have been experimenting with the sale of digital textbooks this school year.
With open source learning management systems offering an increasingly rich slate of features and add-ons, more schools are considering a move. Smaller colleges and universities, which may hesitate owing to concerns over support, often turn to third-party companies for help.
ePortfolios have been used widely in recent years for institutional assessment, but now academic ePortfolios have finally "arrived."
Moodle has released an update to its open source learning management system for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
Microsoft has released a new plugin that lets Office users connect directly with the open source learning management system Moodle.
Moodlerooms has released an update to joule, its learning management system based on the open source Moodle platform. The latest release, version 1.1, expands support for chat and adds new forum features and enhanced administration.
Blackboard has released Mobile Learn for Apple's new iPad. Mobile Learn, which was announced last month, is a new version of the company's flagship learning management system ported for mobile devices, such as Android-based phones, iPhone, iPod, and BlackBerry.
Despite budgetary barriers, Campus IT leaders aren't lowing their sights; rather, they're targeting projects that are ambitious, forward-looking, and broad in scope. Campus Technology talked with some of them to get a sense of the kinds of projects they'll be implementing this year.
Two companies have teamed up to expand the use of video capabilities in the Moodle online course management system.
Rutgers University in New Jersey has selected an application delivery controller from Crescendo Networks to optimize performance of its Sakai learning management system.
When the Univerity of Alabama Crimson Tide took the national football championship in January 2010, it was the 13th such victory in the school’s history. But it represented a first for the university, as well—the first year the university got to test its e-commerce football ticketing system for a championship game.
Open source learning management system Moodle is gaining additional Web conferencing capabilities thanks to a new open source plugin from Remote-Learner that integrates the LMS with the Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro service.
Datatel has begun testing a new integrated offering among its institutional customers that combines its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with a learning management system (LMS).
Houston Community College is giving their students more flexibility while taking some of the enrollment pressures off Texas universities. Campus Technology speaks with Houston Community College's Vice Chancellor for Information Technology, William E. Carter, about flexible, online programs--in particular, HCC's Ready When You Are.
OLAT, an open source learning management system (LMS), has been updated to version 6.3, expanding various media resources, adding new search capabilities, and enhancing notifications and reporting.
Blackboard is preparing to release Blackboard Mobile Learn, a new version of the company's flagship learning management system tailored for smart phones and other mobile devices. It will debut as a native application for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and "other Web-enabled devices" in the late spring.
Commercially produced materials presented online have begun to take an increasingly important role in continuing education for physicians. If current trends in the use of online education continue, according to the authors of a new study on the topic, half of continuing medical ed used by physicians will be delivered via online means within seven to 10 years.
An associate professor in Pennsylvania has been recognized at her university for innovative teaching in the MIS department that included simulating the experience of working on a development project as part of a virtual team.
An organization that provides media and technology to Michigan colleges and schools has begun recommending to members a learning management system built on the open source Moodle platform.
Early adopters may wonder why other faculty seem so slow to incorporate technology in their courses, but there are actually many external barriers to adoption, including long-held expectations by students and their parents, the endurance of classrooms designed as lecture spaces, and several other standing elements like existing syllabi, textbooks, and even the need to fulfill tenure requirements.
In this candid and eye-opening interview, Philip Hutchison, a household name in SCORM and the man behind Pipwerks, gives his thoughts about the current state of SCORM and e-learning in general, touching on subjects such as how he became one of the go-to SCORM resources, why the authors of SCORM were trying to do too much, and how the PowerPoint-ization of training isn't a good development for e-learning.
Autodesk has introduced free curriculum to teach post-secondary students how to develop games. The "Vehicle for Games" is a free, 16-week Web-based course with hands-on training for the entire game development pipeline, from concept art to creating an engine-ready asset.
Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario just signed a five-year agreement to implement the Desire2Learn Learning Environment across the entire university, replacing its legacy WebCT learning management system.
What do you do when 500 applicants are competing for 60 seats in your nursing program? If you're Riverside Community College, you don't just turn those students away. You scramble your technology leaders and launch a distance learning program to help meet the demand.
Wisconsin's Saint Norbert College uses video games in the classroom to correlate gaming behaviors with learning behaviors.
By virtually every measure, electronic learning is experiencing unprecedented growth and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. A new analysis and forecast released this month by research firm Ambient Insight bolstered previous research in this area, showing that electronic learning, by dollar volume, reached $27.1 billion in 2009 and predicting this figure will nearly double that by 2014, with academic institutions leading the way.
Two companies are teaming up to create mobile applications for education. Moodlerooms, which develops education programs that run on the open source course management system Moodle, will be working with DubMeNow, which creates mobile software.
The Louisiana Community & Technical College System has reported enrollment success in an initiative to help working students statewide earn college degrees online. Launched in January 2009, LCTCSOnline enrollments have jumped 43 percent from the spring 2009 to spring 2010 semesters, to 424 current enrollments. Total enrollment system-wide--nearly 70,000 students--grew by an average of 16 percent over that same period.
A Web site that connects prospective online students to colleges and universities reports that business administration and MBAs top the list for inquiries and that "caring" professions are making a big showing.
New York Institute of Technology's videoconferencing capabilities have brought the school closer to its overseas learning partners.
Theological education will get a makeover in fall 2010 at Lexington Theological Seminary when it begins offering its masters programs through a hybrid online model using a combination of video, audio, and PowerPoint presentations. The seminary, based in Kentucky, expects to deliver a mixture of short courses online and on-campus intensives to students.
Hope College, a liberal arts institution in Michigan, isn't afraid to put technology in the classroom and to get faculty involved in the process.
Intellidemia is updating its online syllabus application to include files and generate real-time alerts. The company's newest release of Concourse includes functionality that enables users to embed file content directly in the syllabus and notify students automatically when edits or changes have been made.
Westwood College, a for-profit institution, will be implementing learning materials from Cengage Learning for its 18 physical and online campuses. The institution, which has 18,000 students, will be using textbooks, online courseware, homework tools, instructional design, and online delivery from the company.
Information technology has taken us well beyond the collection-and-search of information archives. Educators should consider how they will respond to an era in which the teaching and learning conversations must center not around pre-existing, "finished" and past-tense information, but around information that is currently being created in the "continuous tense."
The Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award (TWSIA) program recognizes a broad range of creative uses of the Sakai collaborative learning environment for teaching and learning. If your institution is using Sakai in innovative ways, here’s some basic information you might want to read about TWSIA and how to submit a nomination for the 2010 awards.
Establishing ties between domestic and international colleges is one thing, but when the overseas institution has been forced into exile by its home country, the situation becomes a bit more complex.
Giving students a Web-based tutorial on plagiarism is more effective in deterring the behavior than threatening students with detection and punishment. That's according to the results of an experiment conducted by professors at the University of Michigan and Swarthmore College and published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
A company in the digital textbook business is wooing new users by allowing students and faculty to try its books free for a week.
Kaltura has released video extensions for both Moodle, an open source course management system, and Joomla, an open source content management platform. The extensions allow site-builders for either application to manipulate video and other rich media on their sites, including content management, syndication, monetization, transcoding, uploading, importing, and editing.
More than 4.6 million college and university students took at least one course online in 2008--more than a quarter of all post-secondary students in the United States. This represents 17 percent growth over the previous year, drastically outpacing higher education's overall enrollment growth rate of 1.2 percent in the same period, according to a new report released this week.
Reazon Systems has released a student assessment module that works with the Sakai open source course management system. iRubric for Sakai integrates with Sakai CLE (collaborative learning environment) to perform rubric generation, assessment, and reporting. Users can access the functionality directly from the Sakai gradebook.
Midway through its second year, Abilene Christian University's mobile learning initiative expands to include classroom management and blogging, with mobile podcasting on the way.
Ever since the first customer relationship management (CRM) tools found their way onto North American campuses around 2002, higher ed administrators have cringed at the mention of the word “customer,” preferring to substitute “constituent” for the more sales-driven term. Yet, with competition for qualified candidates heating up over the past decade and the recent economic downturn decimating recruiting budgets, nomenclature has come to matter a good deal less than fresh intelligence and the ability to attract top-level prospects.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem will offer its first accredited online Biblical Hebrew courses to overseas students through eTeacher Group's site ClassicalHebrew.com.
Bridgepoint Education, parent company of Ashford University and University of the Rockies, has finished its migration to a new learning management system. The migration to LearningStudio, formerly known as eCollege, has been in process since Oct. 1, 2009.
EdTek Services, which provides services to colleges and universities, has chosen an online learning environment from It's Learning as the company's learning management system (LMS).
Open source learning content management system ATutor has been updated to version 1.6.4. It now includes support for the IMS Common Cartridge Lite 1.0 content interoperability standard.
South Carolina State University will be trying out a Web-based service in an effort to improve student writing. The Orangeburg-based institution, which has about 5,000 students, has signed with Waypoint Outcomes, a company that develops customized Web-based academic assessment and analysis programs.
A team of researchers from the University of Arizona is working on a project to develop an "International Internet Classroom" as a way to centralize information and resources that could be of value to teachers. The effort, led by members of the Computer Science department, will rely on artificial intelligence and user-generated data to bring together pertinent educational resources into "unit packages."
Brigham Young University-Idaho, a four-year university serving 12,000 students, has selected streaming technology from Optibase to stream live and on-demand content on campus and over the Internet.
The University of Chicago will be implementing an online training solution from Interactyx for its medical students. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center will commence using the company's service, Topyx, as its e-learning solution in 2010 for a two-year period.
Two state systems have formally agreed to work together in sharing tools, services, planning, and implementation strategies to bolster their online student services. The University System of Ohio and Minnesota State Colleges & Universities, both consisting of numerous public campuses, have signed the memorandum of understanding to expedite rollout of online and hybrid courses in their respective programs.
Nottingham Trent University in Nottingham, UK said it plans to develop and extend its standards-based repository infrastructure to include new services. This two-year project will work on enhancing processes and technology for better integrating learning object repository in the university's virtual learning environment.
Blackboard and Desire2Learn have formally ended their three-and-a-half-year legal dispute, a conflict that was triggered when Blackboard received a hotly disputed patent for electronic learning technologies and proceeded to enforce it through litigation against D2L.
Educators who create learning content with LodeStar Learning's e-learning authoring tool, lodeStar can now maintain those objects in the Equella Digital Repository from Learning Edge North America.
Howard Community College in Columbia, MD is implementing a software widget from ConnectYard to extend its Blackboard Campus Edition functionality to social networks.
After a three-semester trial, Ivy Tech Community College - Northeast in Fort Wayne has officially adopted CourseCast from Panopto to record courses, including video, audio, and screen images such as PowerPoint slides.
Wadsworth Cengage Learning has introduced Speech Studio, an online video upload and grading program for higher education students enrolled in public speaking courses.
In most classrooms around the world, using cell phones to send text messages and laptops to access sites like Facebook and Twitter are very much discouraged. Not so at Purdue University, where some professors have come to embrace social networking as an instructional aid.
Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, NJ, which specializes in distance learning, has received funding from the feds to help it expand how college courses are delivered.
If you could have a choice between a 'teacherless classroom,' where chunks of knowledge are packaged and pushed out to potential learners by technology, or a 'classroom full of teachers,' where students are included in the teaching/learning conversation via technology, which would you pick?
The Laurier School of Business & Economics in Waterloo, Ontario will be using Desire2Learn's mobile application, 2GO. Beginning this fall a hundred incoming students enrolled in the full-time MBA program on the Waterloo campus began using Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry 8900 smart phones as part of their program.
SoftChalk is partnering with two companies, The Learning Edge International and Merlot, in integration projects for its e-learning content authoring software.
Jenzabar has released both a new course management system and a new version of its software for managing non-traditional course programs.
Two standards efforts from the IMS Global Learning Consortium gained steam last week during Educause with support announcements coming from a number of high profile vendors, including SunGard Higher Education, Oracle, Jenzabar, Pearson, and Desire2Learn. IMS is a non-profit organization that develops interoperability standards for education technology.
Blackboard has added the Research in Motion BlackBerry to its list of supported devices for the new Blackboard Mobile platform.
Blackboard and Microsoft have joined forces to offer students access to information from their online courses on Web browsers.
Many ePortfolio systems focus on institutional assessment data, putting student assessment--especially students' own reflections on their work--in second place. Batson advocates a voice for students in the assessment process.
Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN will be working with SunGard Higher Education to convert the institution's student success software into a packaged product. Signals, developed by Purdue, monitors students' behavior patterns and academic performance to determine if they're at risk of earning a low grade and allows faculty to intervene with suggestions on actions they can take to help students improve their grades.
Users at Northwestern University will be able to log into both Blackboard Learn and Google Apps with a single signon thanks to the efforts of the institution's IT development team. The code created by the team as a Blackboard Building Block and named Bboogle has also been released as open source to let other institutions use or build on the technology at no cost.
When Mark Van Dyke, Ph.D., signed on with Marist College five years ago, he knew that online education would play an integral role in his new position. Conversant in basic computer applications, Van Dyke had used technology as a management tool, but never for teaching or learning.
The College of Westchester in White Plains, NY has selected Timecruiser's Solution Suite--CampusCruiser and CourseCruiser LMS--as its academic portal and learning management system.
Moodlerooms has released Joule, a new course management system built on Moodle, an open source CMS.
While students and faculty seem to agree on the importance of technology in education, the two groups do not agree on how well it's being implemented. According to new research released Monday, only 38 percent of students indicated that their instructors "understand technology and fully integrate it into their classes." Students also rated that lack of understanding as "the biggest obstacle to classroom technology integration."
Nearly 12 million post-secondary students in the United States take some or all of their classes online right now. But this number will skyrocket to more than 22 million in the next five years, according to data released recently by research firm Ambient Insight.
DeVry, parent company of DeVry University and several other for-profit career training institutes, has chosen digital repository Equella for its system-wide curriculum content development.
Moodlerooms, a Moodle service provider, has released a data exchange tool and announced two new programs: a partnership with the Cisco Entrepreneur Institute and a new partner program for the development of plugins.
Not all faculty are actively engaged in using technology in their classrooms. For some, technical support or basic technology resources on their campuses may be lacking. But still others may be clinging to the idea that nothing has changed...
Moodlerooms and Datatel have teamed to integrate learning management functionality with enterprise resource planning (ERP). The integration combines Moodlerooms' learning management "platform" with Datatel's Colleague ERP system to give institutions a more complete view of their students.
ConnectYard, which builds education-related applications, has developed a widget that can be added to a course management system for delivering queries to the user via social networking sites and other means. QuickConnect Widget works with Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai, and other LMS platforms, according to the company.
Josh Baron's examination of two award-winning implementations of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment.
Socrates with a twist: Trent Batson reports on how "Brigham Young University Idaho has found a way to combine a Socratic approach with simple technology to create a hybrid lecture that guides students to teach each other." The idea is to ensure that students will always be prepared for class.
In an effort to boost the impact of technology on learning, the University of Strathclyde Glasgow is consolidating its disparate learning systems on the open source Moodle platform and launching a “Learning Technologies Support Network” to help improve the educational experience for students and faculty.
Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN has signed Oxygen Education to help it develop online components for the university's Technical Assistance Program (TAP) Green Enterprise Development Program. Purdue's program provides energy-related classroom-based and online instruction for workforce training.
Moodlerooms is integrating the EQUELLA digital repository into its learning management platform, powered by the open-source Moodle LMS. Through a new partnership with The Learning Edge North America, the platform will incorporate EQUELLA without adding any new licensing fees.
Universities across the country are using technology to put undergraduates at the center of content creation. Here's how.
Beyond the money-saving feature for students, electronic textbooks offer another benefit: They can be more convenient for professors, who can easily review a new textbook online, then make a quick decision to include it in a course.
Consider an educational institution that allows individuals to interact and learn online without worrying about how they're going to cover next semester's tuition bill. That's precisely what Shai Reshef had in mind when he developed the concept for University of the People, the first tuition-free online university, which opened earlier this month.
The University of Cincinnati is projecting a 6.8 percent increase in online enrollments for this semester compared with fall 2008, an increase that's expected to account for half of the university's overall enrollment growth for 2009-2010.
Panopto this week released an update to CourseCast, the lecture capture system that's made available to academic institutions at no cost through a special program offered by the company.
Over the last 11 years, San Jose State University, an early adopter of online learning, has experimented with technology tools to enhance its Web-based course offerings. One of the institution's most recent additions to that lineup is a videoconferencing system that allows faculty and students to interact in a "face to face" format online.
Regularly scheduled lab time has long been an accepted standard in science courses. Now there may be an argument for extending the standard to include all disciplines....
Ed tech developer Tegrity has debuted a new system to allow colleges and universities to continue instruction online in the event of a campus closure.
Four universities--the University of Texas-Pan American, Columbus State University, and two University of Missouri campuses, Columbia and Kansas City--have gone public with their adoption of lecture capture software from Tegrity.
Assessing an open source or community source solution, particularly at small and mid-sized institutions, presents unique challenges. Without vendor demonstrations, user groups, and sales departments, how do you evaluate a community source product?
Michigan-based MiCTA, a national non-profit technology consortium, is endorsing the Blackboard learning management system for its members, following a competitive bid process conducted jointly with the Maryland Department of Education.
The Utah Education Network (UEN) has selected Respondus LockDown Browser to reduce common methods of cheating and copying during online assessments.
The phrase "course content delivery" is familiar to us all, but its usage could stand some updating. In fact, we may be due for a millenial change in our perceptions of learning design as current technology tools offer opportunities to change teaching and learning models.
When it comes time to implement new technology solutions, universities either shop around to find the vendors, programs and/or equipment to meet their needs, or they build the technology themselves. Walden University in Minneapolis took the latter route this year by developing a mobile learning platform for its 33,000 students, many of whom are working professionals.
In an effort to streamline processes, respond to student inquiries faster, and optimize staff time, Fanshawe College in London, Ontario has integrated its student information system with its Desire2Learn course management system.
Inter-American University in Puerto Rico and the American University of Antigua--both in the Caribbean--have signed onto Blackboard Connect for text, voice, and e-mail notification services.
Education technology developer Elluminate has released Plan V2 for general availability. Plan V2 is an update to the company's planning and development tool for conducting live, interactive educational sessions via the Internet.
"Where on this weather map do you expect it's going to rain today?" Dr. Perry Samson asks the 200 students in his introductory class on extreme weather. Almost instantly, dots begin to appear on the displayed map, as students indicate their answers through their wireless laptops. In moments, a clear pattern emerges on the classroom display as Samson continues the lecture.
San Jose State University (SJSU) in California will be moving to Desire2Learn for its preferred learning management system (LMS) over the next year. The school began an evaluation of multiple applications earlier in 2009.
Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, LA is implementing curriculum from IBM in its information systems program to provide a focus on skills required for jobs in emerging fields such as electronic medical records, intelligent transportation systems, and smart energy grids.
To show 600 high school honor students what college is like, the University of Texas at Austin handed out clickers from i>clicker at an Honors Colloquium.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is creating podcasts from its School of Law with the use of lecture capture application Echo360. The software has been deployed in 10 classrooms so far.
Executive MBA students at the University of Cambridge will be using an application from Interactyx that combines elements of a course management system with social networking. Over the next two years students in Cambridge's Judge Business School will be working with Topyx eLearning.
Desire2Learn this week announced that its Desire2Learn Learning Environment has been certified by the IMS Global Learning Consortium to comply with the IMS Common Cartridge Standard 1.0.
Panopto this week announced that it has developed a module to integrate CourseCast with the open source learning management system Moodle. Moodle. CourseCast is a lecture capture platform that is available free for academic institutions.
The CampusEAI Consortium is expanding capacity in Switch and Data's data center to accommodate infrastructure growth. The non-profit organization, which has 260 educational institutions as members, facilitates the development, exchange, delivery, and support of what it calls "community-source" software and digital content.
Several textbook publishers have recently joined the ranks of publishers offering their works in electronic format. Last week, seven, including Elsevier Science and Technology, SAGE, and Taylor & Francis signed on to offer their higher education textbooks through CourseSmart's eTextbooks service.
Vanderbilt University Library in Nashville, TN will make its integration for Apple's iTunes U application available to the Blackboard client community, providing a popular tool to other institutions looking to support the use of multimedia content in courses.
Suffolk University's Sawyer Business School in Boston has rolled out a lecture capture system to support both on-campus students and the expanding base of students coming through its online program. The twist? The lecture capture software was free.
Blackboard's patent on learning management system technologies has been overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The court ruled Monday in favor of Desire2Learn and invalidated some claims in patent No. 6,988,138, also known as the "Alcorn patent" or the "138 patent." But the saga will continue.
Blackboard has launched a service for student identity verification, powered by technology from Acxiom, a company that specializes in interactive marketing and risk mitigation services.
Echo360's lecture capture technologies are making their way onto the Blackboard Learn platform.
Ontario's McMaster University, with 23,000 students, has deployed an A10 Network AX Series Advanced Traffic Manager appliance to ensure availability of its Blackboard online education learning system.
Harvard University has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Spaced Education for a new online learning technology that was developed and used at Harvard Medical School.
Microsoft is bringing its widely adopted Live@edu collaboration suite to Moodle, the open source learning management system (LMS) that's installed at more than 35,000 registered, validated sites worldwide. Microsoft also unveiled today its new Education Labs site, which will serve as a repository for education software developed on an accelerated cycle.
Montana State University has switched its learning management system to the Desire2Learn eLearning Suite across all four of its campuses. The university system previously used WebCT.
The Desire2Learn Learning Environment is gaining new collaborative capabilities thanks to the integration of the eLearning platform with Elluminate Live!, a suite of Web-based tools designed to facilitate online learning.
Blackburg's Virginia Tech College of Engineering will be extending its use of tools from The MathWorks in a three-year initiative with the university's engineering and science students.
Blackboard today announced support for Amazon.com's Kindle electronic book reader through a new Blackboard Building Block. It's being released as open source software.
Blackboard today announced that it has acquired ed tech developer Terriblyclever Design, the maker of MobilEdu, a campus communication application designed for iPhone and other mobile devices.
Walden University has begun deploying a new course content delivery system for its students. Dubbed MobileLearn, the system is designed to allow mobile students to tailor the way they receive course materials.
Education technology developer Scholar360 reported this week that it has expanded its Scholar360 LMS to address the needs of nursing schools and other healthcare-related schools.
Four universities have joined the Cooperative Support Program for the open source Sakai collaboration and course management platform, the uPortal enterprise portal framework, and Centralized Authentication Service (CAS) single-sign-on platform.
The United States Department of Education reported recently that it's found some evidence to support the notion that blended learning is more effective than either face to face or online learning by themselves. Further, between online and face to face instruction, online is at least as good and may even have the advantage in terms of improving student achievement and potentially expanding the amount of time (and quality time) students spend learning.
Lehigh University of Bethlehem, PA will be expanding its distance learning educational program using Keystone Enterprise Services' interactive satellite-training network.
Just buying an ePortfolio system doesn't guarantee you're going to get the most out of assessment. Better assessment isn't automatically achieved by using new digital methods--it will probably take another approach to assessment as well. The place to start reassessing your assessment strategies may be in trying to capture what learning means to the students.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania recently used Sonic Foundry's Mediasite to deliver an online course on the global financial crisis, which has been viewed by 50,000 students, alumni, and members of the public worldwide.
Homework assignments in Lisa Dysleski's general chemistry courses at Colorado State University were supposed to help students--mostly freshmen--understand the subject better and make them reach beyond mere facts and actually think. Instead, students became frustrated with difficult questions, the assistant professor said, and were simply giving each other homework answers.
The College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has incorporated Web-based courses from SS&C Technologies into its MBA courses. Both the executive MBA and the aerospace and defense MBA programs will be using Zoologic Learning Solutions MBA Essentials Web-based programs.
The University of Texas (UT) System has expanded its adoption of Copyright Clearance Center's annual copyright license from its Austin campus, which it announced in September 2008, to the entire UT System. The nine academic campuses and six health institutions that the UT System comprises make it one of the largest higher education systems in the United States.
Drexel University in Philadelphia, Utrecht University in The Netherlands, the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and the University of Bath have all gone public in the last several months with deployments of lecture capture systems within classrooms. Do those increasingly common installations define a new baseline operating requirement for institutions of higher education, or are they simply a new feature that some schools are dabbling in?
Bluenog said it will extend Bluenog ICE, its suite of content management, portal development, and business intelligence software, to interface with educational support systems including SunGard Banner, Resource25, Sakai, Moodle, and Blackboard.
The University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School has subscribed to TopSchool's Student Lifecycle Management (SLM) system to help launch a new online certificate program.
Elluminate has rolled out a new version of its Elluminate Learning Suite, a collection of collaborative software tools for education.
Southwestern Oklahoma State University has launched a new publicly accessible online digital repository, providing access to the university's historical documents.
Starting this fall, California State University, Long Beach will roll out iClicker as its preferred student response system. Clickers were already popular at Cal State Long Beach, and the student senate, representing 38,000 students, voted to encourage faculty to incorporate iClicker in the instruction, mostly because they liked the instant feedback.
Moodle has released an update to its open source learning management system. Moodle 1.9.5 adds a number of gradebook improvements, new administration features, and several security enhancements. Moodle has also released an update to the 1.8 branch, version 1.8.9, which includes several fixes and security improvements.
Bryant & Stratton College graduates will receive their degrees where they earned them--online. In what may be a first, the college will host a fully online, Second Life college graduation ceremony June 10, 2009. About 40 graduates from Bryant & Stratton's online degree programs have committed to receive their hard-earned degrees in their avatar form on the college's virtual campus.
Ed tech developer SoftChalk has released SoftChalk V5, an update to the company's authoring suite for instructional content.
The United States Department of Justice is apparently taking an interest in Blackboard's recent acquisition of Angel Learning. DOJ has been asking questions about the controversial buyout, according to Blackboard's chief rival in the commercial LMS space, Desire2Learn.
ePortfolios today are largely institutional reporting tools--assessment management applications. A new professional organization, called AAEEBL, aims to address two additional areas with ePortfolios.
Dominican University of California has increased response rates for its course evaluations by implementing Scantron's Class Climate course evaluation software as a Blackboard Building Block.
Learning management system developer Scholar360 has released a new version of its LMS, Scholar360 LMS-SN 4.2.
Collaborative technology developer WebNotes has released WebNotes Pro to the public. The hosted service is designed to help researchers and students share and annotate content and disseminate work through automatically generated reports.
As demands for tutoring have skyrocketed in recent years, Valdosta State University in Georgia has signed on with AskOnline to provide online tutoring services for its students.
Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma has gone public with its use of EchoSystem's Echo360 for lecture capture. The college, which has been using the application for three years, is hoping to increase access to nursing education in Oklahoma by recording thousands of lectures.
Michigan State University is using its lecture capture system to stream class sessions for students enrolled in its Executive MBA program, helping them catch up on missed classes and review lectures for exams. But the system has also proved to have an unexpected secondary benefit: generating revenue.
Amidst the Web 2.0 tsunami, life on campus goes on as normal. Faculty members are still expected to publish in traditional journals, still expected to meet their classes in rooms equipped with chalkboards and designed for lectures, and still expected by their students to tell them what they should know so they can write it on paper during a test. Where's the tsunami?
Blackboard is buying out Angel Learning, the maker of a major competing learning management system, Angel LMS. Blackboard President and CEO Michael Chasen explains what it means; users respond.
Atlanta-based Morris Brown College is partnering with Education Online Services to convert courses currently offered only on campus to be offered online as well. In addition, Education Online is customizing new course offerings and an online student information and management system as well as supplying online tutoring services.
The University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education is launching a master's of arts in teaching degree that will be delivered online. The new program begins in June of 2009.
The five-campus Lone Star College System in Texas has adopted Angel LMS from Angel Learning as the learning management system for its online operations.
Wellesley College, a liberal arts institution for women, is gearing up to revamp its Web presence using software and services from Bluenog in an effort to boost functionality and provide a richer and more consistent experience for prospective and current students.
Northeastern University is deploying a new content management system to to help simplify management of video used on the university's news portal.
A visit to the virtual campus of Greenville, NC-based East Carolina University makes it clear that this is a working campus--walls displaying dozens of renderings and peer review instructions, graphics explaining management principles, and a career services center that leads job seekers to Web pages about improving resumes, long-distance job searching, and stress-free interviewing.
Wimba and Moodlerooms have partnered to offer a hosted implementation of the Wimba Collaboration Suite within Moodle, the popular open source learning management system.
Desire2Learn has released new versions of its Learning Environment, Learning Repository, and ePortfolio software, as well as Desire2Learn 2GO, a new mobile application for Blackberry.
Sweden-based Xcerion has launched icloud, an online service that provides free storage, applications, a virtual desktop, and backup accessible from any computer connected to the Internet.
Wilkes University School of Education has introduced a new online master's degree program in online teaching. The program, which launches this summer, is for educators and other professionals who wish to use technology for training and instruction over the Internet.
Faculty can use Concourse to create, update, and share a syllabus on the Web.
Charged with providing logistical, process, and developmental support for the massive California State University system, the Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) is a big advocate of technology usage, both in and out of the classroom.
Panopto has released CourseCast 2.1, an update to the company's classroom capture system that's available free to academic users.
Moodle, the widely deployed open source learning management system, now has the ability to communicate in real time with Oracle's student information system, the Student Administration Integration Pack, thanks to new features developed by Moodlerooms.
American University in Washington, DC has launched a new community-focused Web site built using CommonSpot Web content management software from PaperThin. Huge and North Highland provided site design and development.
Wimba has announced an update to the Wimba Collaboration Suite. The new 6.0 release, introduced Tuesday at the Wimba Connect 2009 user conference, adds a number of new features to the individual applications in the suite, including new whiteboarding capabilities in the instant messaging module.
Seattle Pacific University (SPU) has selected Camtasia Relay, TechSmith's lecture capture and presentation program, as its campus-wide lecture recording solution.
A team of researchers at North Carolina State University has created a suite of tools that it's selling to help teachers implement "safe" Web 2.0 environments in the classroom.
When it comes to remote collaboration in eLearning, it's all about where we are now vs. where we are going.
A new program developed by researchers in the University of Southern California is helping high school students strengthen their math skills and teaching them how to build complex computer games.
Ed tech developer Blackboard has released a new LMS tool for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. The free app, Blackboard Learn for Apple iPhone, allows users to access information in their Blackboard accounts and to receive notices through their iPhones.
Recently, some universities have decided to end their laptop programs for students because of the economic challenges facing those institutions. But what has been the effect on students? There's no clear or consistent answer.
PupilCity and Acxiom have teamed up to address authentication needs of distance learners. Students completing online work proctored by PupilCity's ProctorU service will be able to verify--via Acxiom's identity services--that they are the ones enrolled in the course.
Microsoft has launched new tools for developing and managing Web sites at its MIX09 Web developer conference last week.
MIT's faculty members last week decided on a new policy to make all of their scholarly articles available free to the public online. Articles will be disseminated using an open source platform called DSpace, which was developed by the MIT Libraries and HP.
The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and St. Paul has deployed Oracle Universal Content Management to allow those departments that have adopted it to manage content on their public Web sites.
The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) in Canada is piloting Desire2Learn's learning management system. The rollout began this winter, and a campus-wide deployment is expected to be completed in fall 2009.
Pearson is adding instant messaging capabilities to its online language learning software, MyLanguageLab. The hosted suite for higher education will incorporate Wimba Pronto, a collaboration tool designed specifically for education.
Nestled among regions owned by NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the National Space Society is an area run by Elon University of Elon, NC. The effort is funded largely by grants from the university and provides a place for STEM undergraduate students to design and create.
The School of Nursing at the University of Virginia has chosen content management system (CMS) software from TerminalFour to manage its Web site.
California State University, Long Beach is adopting the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to power BeachBoard, the e-learning environment that makes discussion boards and instructional materials such as syllabi and quizzes available to students online.
A large public university e-text research trial is currently being conducted by Northwest Missouri State University and McGraw-Hill Education. The purpose of the test is to examine the potential for replacing students' printed textbooks with electronic versions.
Blackboard and Acxiom have teamed up to authenticate the identities of distance learning students. Acxiom will make its Risk Identification Suite, prevalent in authenticating online banking transactions, available to Blackboard clients to verify the identity of distance learning students.
Your students have created ePortfolios that reflect their academic progress and offer samples of their work. But how can you be sure a potential employer will be able to access the ePortfolios, and will the information survive future technology changes?
Pellissippi State Technical Community College near Knoxville, TN has tracked an increase in the retention rate of students in developmental studies mathematics, an increase that surpasses that of non-developmental studies students.
The College at Old Westbury, a comprehensive college of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, is standardizing on a single learning management system. The move is part of an effort to make online learning more simple and straightforward for students, according to the college.
PBwiki has launched a new academic version of its collaboration service, PBwiki Campus Edition. The new edition offers premium hosted services for academic institutions.
In the previous article in this series, Real-Life Teaching in a Virtual World, we looked at the state of Second Life as it pertains to higher education. There are so many schools represented that one could spend days exploring the college and university campuses. The ways they are used in the 3D online virtual world vary drastically, and how much and how well they are used appear to vary as well.
Abilene Christian University and its online learning services integrator, Embanet, have developed a new ePortfolio system for use with ACU's Moodle learning management system.
Many educators and administrators have caught the ePortfolio bug. But where does this bug lead them? It leads, seemingly, in many different directions. And here's why: ePortfolios mean differing things to different people.
The PBwiki Campus Edition launched this month allows schools with up to 1,000 students, faculty, and staff to roll out an unlimited number of PBwikis rather than purchasing them individually.
Microsoft has expanded its online services to 19 countries, the company announced Monday. In addition, Microsoft plans to roll out two new online offerings in April.
Once viewed as inferior alternatives to four-year institutions, two-year colleges are now enjoying a spike in popularity--and are investing in technology to meet the growing demand.
Jahia has released an update to its open source Web content management system, Jahia Community Edition 6, under GPLv2. The latest version expands the enterprise content management system's portal and document management features and also includes new Web 2.0 enhancements.
Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, PA has adopted college portal CampusCruiser from Timecruiser Computing. The portal will provide a single entry point to Blackboard, the college's learning management system, and will connect users to integrated calendars, e-mail, chat, blogs, and message boards.
Google Apps Education Edition is coming to an open source learning management system near you. Moodlerooms, a Moodle partner, is launching a new enhancement to the open source LMS in collaboration with search giant Google to provide access to the application suite using a single sign-on.
Moodlerooms, a service provider for the open source Moodle learning management system, has released a patch designed to enhance Moodle's external database authentication and enrollment plugins. Moodlerooms contributed the patch to the Moodle community this week; users can vote to make it a standard component of Moodle.
The New Media Consortium's NMC Campus Observer is a site rich with short blog entries about technology and learning.
Despite years of implementations in United States colleges, universities, and K-12 systems, ePortfolios are still generally in an identity crisis. The battle still rages over such issues as: Will personal ownership of learning be expanded and defined by personal portfolios, or will portfolio systems evolve into a set of technologies that further control and define learning from the institutional perspective?
Few technologies have been subject to more hype and subsequent disappointment than Second Life. Corporations from shoe manufactures to cruise lines to news services set up shop with hopes this new frontier would bring soaring profits. Most evacuated shortly thereafter when the effort resulted in spaces devoid of audiences and buyers. A notable exception, though, is education.
The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston (UTHSC) has deployed a multi-site Webcasting platform that enables students, faculty, and staff in its medical, dental, and nursing schools to search and replay lecture content.
Textbook publishing is an entrenched industry, but some new digital publishing efforts are leveraging true Web 2.0 business models to offer not only better cost options but often an enriched product.
ConnectYard has launched new social learning services, ConnectYard Student and Enterprise Editions, which provide virtual learning communities and are powered by Facebook Connect.
Angel Learning this week previewed a forthcoming update to its learning management system, Angel LMS 7.4. The update, currently in an open field trial, incorporates new mashup capabilities, grading enhancements, and templates, as well as new administration, development, and content management features.
Utrecht University in The Netherlands has chosen Mediasite from Sonic Foundry to do lecture capture as a key component of its long-range online learning plan. The university rolled out its centralized course capture plan under the name LectureNet this semester.
The University of West Alabama will be using a secure environment from Software Security to deliver testing to its 3,000 online students. Students will be able to take Web-based exams with Securexam Remote Proctor, which, according to the company, provides exam-room integrity comparable to what's found in a proctored classroom.
Panopto reported that it's gearing up to release CourseCast 2.1 this month, an update to the company's classroom capture system that's available free to academic users. Panopto will also release its new Blade Pack, a collection of addons for CourseCast that provide enhanced multimedia capabilities and analytics.
To get a new social networking initiative off the ground, Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, GA has implemented Jive Software's collaboration platform, Clearspace.
Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, AZ has completed deployment of a commercial satellite communications system that will provide distance learning for its students.
Sonic Foundry has released a new module for Moodle called the Mediasite Content Module for Moodle. The new software provides integration between the open source learning management system and Sonic Foundry's Mediasite classroom capture and Webcasting suite.
Moodle has released updates to four of its most recent branches. The latest point update, 1.9.4, addresses security vulnerabilities and includes a number of minor fixes and enhancements. This round of upgrades also marks the end of development for the 1.6.x and 1.7.x branches.
The classroom wall is falling: Employers are now assessing student work in progress at Washington State University... Imagine inviting colleagues in your field to help assess your students during the semester, and rating what kind of job in the field the students are ready for based on their work while still in school. And imagine how your students would see the ultimate hiring decision that used to seem so distant and vague.
Tambov State University (TSU), in the Central Chernozyom Region of Russia, has deployed a new Xirrus 802.11 abg+n WiFi Array. TSU installed the arrays on campus to deliver wireless connectivity to students and professors for accessing the Internet and internal file servers for electronic learning.
At the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the California State University, Fresno, desktop videoconferencing is a key tool used in support of the institutional mission.
Elsevier has launched SciTopics, a free online expert-generated knowledge sharing service for the research community, which is intended to provide technical, scientific, and medical knowledge on a variety of subjects.
American Sentinel University, an online school, has added a Bachelor of Science degree program in health systems management (HSM).
When a generous donor offered the University of Ottawa the largest donation in the university's history, the funds were put to use constructing state of the art multimedia facilities, including a centerpiece multi-purpose room that would serve as a showcase for the university with VIP guests.
Blackboard has released an all-new version of Blackboard Learn, formerly known as the Blackboard Academic Suite. The new 9.0 release adds social learning and Web 2.0 tools, as well as capabilities for integrating the software with open source systems like Moodle and Sakai.
Blackboard announced a number of colleges and universities that have recently decided to deploy its campus commerce and security management platform, among them Endicott College in Beverly, MA; Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO; and Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, CA.
A well-planned system for flying or for learning is only ultimately valuable if it frees those using it--pilots or teachers and learners--to invent as they go along.
Grantham University, a completely online university, is implementing the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS). Angel is a Web-based learning platform that allows faculty and students to interact and collaborate within their course work and academic programs.
Business administration and psychology top the list of most in-demand degree programs for online education, according to a survey by eLearners.com. Online business administration degrees, whether undergraduate or graduate, were the most popular programs searched for or inquired about on eLearners.com, followed by psychology and nursing degrees.
Adobe has debuted its new eLearning Suite, a system designed to facilitate courseware authoring, media editing, and the creation of other learning materials. The company has also launched Captivate 4, an upgrade to its eLearning content authoring tool.
Peking University in Beijing has teamed up with Chinese software firm Longtop Financial Technologies to establish a financial risk management laboratory in the School of Mathematical Sciences.
The Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia has selected Mediasite from Sonic Foundry as the class capture platform for the newly constructed Alter Hall, its $80 million business school facility opening this month.
The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia has standardized on one Web conferencing system to use both for courses and for administration.
Green River Community College of Auburn, WA, has selected the Angel LMS suite of learning management applications to operate its online and hybrid course offerings.
Among online students who dropped out of their degree or certificate programs, 40 percent failed to seek any help or resources before abandoning their programs, according to a recent EducationDynamics survey.
Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, FL took the top spot in a ranking of online colleges and degree programs by the Online Education Database. The OEDb Online College Rankings 2009 evaluates and ranks 44 undergraduate colleges and universities that offer most or all of their degree programs online. Nova Southeastern has both traditional classrooms and a distance education degree program.
A consortium of university and other libraries in South Carolina faces the prospect of shuttering the bulk of its online library system in the face of state budget cuts. The Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) lost $1.8 million--90 percent of its funding--in cutbacks, forcing the organization to cancel database and electronic journal subscriptions and reduce its services to three days a week from five. The organization has projected that it will be able to maintain the scaled back delivery schedule through the middle of 2009.
An old adage that evolved from the establishment of static print media is, "If it's in print, it must be true." And we collected literally tons of the stuff. The digital realm has turned that thinking on its ear, and ePortfolios may help make sense out of our new process of collecting "tons" of bits--not static, but shifting bits.
The word "ownership," when linked to technology, usually conjures up images of lawyers and of the most feared and revered 2 letters in higher education: IP. But this little story is not about intellectual property per se and is most definitely not about lawyers. It's about students' perception of ownership in higher education's geography.
A consortium of colleges and universities in Taiwan has launched the "Open Course Ware Consortium," with the goal of sharing its resources with the public. The program is modeled after the OpenCourseWare Consortium originally developed by an MIT faculty committee wishing to share their course materials openly on the Web and now involving 200 institutions and organizations.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston is implementing a software-as-a-service (SaaS) version of learning management software from Meridian Knowledge Solutions to manage its compliance training.
Last year, higher education institutions flocked to digital asset management systems to keep data straight. This year, they're using the tools to drive new revenue streams.
From the team behind the Texas Tech University Libraries' groundbreaking 3D Animation Lab: A 21st century model for your campus's own 3D learning initiative.
Are you exploiting Web 2.0 tools for recruitment and retention? If not, you may be sacrificing your competitive edge.
In this virtual roundtable, our panel of experts weighs in on the evolution of worldware: from the desktop software of two decades ago, to today's Web 2.0 and social 'cloud' technologies, and on to the discipline-specific tools of the future.
Facebook remains the number one Web site this year among college students, according to a survey by Anderson Analytics, which has tracked US college students' attitudes and behaviors since 2005. Besides ranking the most popular Web sites, this year's study took a closer look at students' use of social media including blogging, discussion boards, and social network services (SNS) such as Facebook, Myspace, and professional networking site LinkedIn.
California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Atwater Research Group has chosen eTouch SamePage enterprise wiki for the group's internal communications. Atwater is engaged in interdisciplinary materials and device research, spanning photonics and electronics and with applications in Si-based photonics, plasmonics, renewable energy, and mechanically active thin film devices.
A new study concludes that real-time videoconferencing, streaming, and lecture capture solutions for distance education and e-learning markets is growing not to address the needs of remote students but to accommodate demand from campus-based users who want the ability to attend class whenever and however they wish.
Those educators among us who are familiar with constructivist and constructionist models of learning understand the impact that social learning theory has had on the field. Likewise those of us who are familiar with the application of new technology in learning understand that customization (or "the user") is what drives every structure, every program, and every software function.
CCC Confer, a project out of Palomar College in San Marcos, CA, is expanding its Web collaboration capabilities. The organization, which provides Web-based conferencing capabilities for the massive California Community College System (CCCS) enterprise-wide, has upgraded to the Elluminate Learning Suite unlimited license.
Becker College in Worcester, MA has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to support its online and blended degree programs.
DeVry University and IBM have launched a new enterprise computing track within the university's computer information systems (CIS) bachelor's degree program. Available beginning in March 2009, the new track will incorporate multiple IBM technologies into a single degree program to train students on midrange and mainframe platforms.
North Idaho College will be implementing a new classroom capture system as part of an effort to provide accessible education to students with disabilities. The college will be using SpeakerBox from ClearSky Systems for the lecture capture program beginning in January 2009.
Now that we are conducting at least a part of our business of education virtually and often meeting in virtual environments, let's explore the really big question for academics in a Web 2.0 era...
How IBM's new release is following through on old challenges... big ones.
The College of Southern Nevada (CSN), a community college in Las Vegas with 41,000 students, has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to support its online course offerings. In Spring 2008 CSN began evaluating alternatives to WebCT, which it currently runs, and made the decision to adopt Angel in the fall. In January 2009, CSN's 865 sections of online enrollment will be delivered using the Angel LMS.
A college or university without a Web site is inconceivable today, but with every site comes the challenge of managing content. Some sort of automated system is a given, but how much should the site's content management system integrate with other aspects of the campus computing infrastructure?
The William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) has received a donation from Micros Systems that will allow the college's students to use its Opera hospitality software in classes.
Cerego has released new content creation tools for its iKnow social learning platform, adding support for creating learning modules in any of 188 languages. The company has also expanded language support for the text-to-speech technology used in the iKnow platform.
Southwest Baptist University (SBU) in Missouri has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to deliver and manage Web-enhanced instruction in traditional face-to-face classes and hybrid and online courses. The university chose to consider an alternative to its Blackboard implementation, which it's had in place since 1997, due to increasing costs and a decline in technical support.
Hodges University has reported a 250 percent increase in online enrollment following its adoption of the Tegrity Campus 2.0 service, a class capture Web service for higher education. Hodges deployed Tegrity in fall 2007 in an effort to provide more flexible learning tools to help students boost academic achievement.
New versions of Moodle have been released, bringing the most recent stable build to 1.9.3. The latest round of updates includes a number of bug fixes and security enhancements, as well as improvements to the SCORM module.
The word "content," as used in education, is troublesome for many educators today who see education as a constructivist process, an interaction between knower and learner, and as a student-centered activity.
IBM has launched a new social networking tool aimed at facilitating collaborative knowledge sharing within organizations.
The California State University system is providing new learning management system support options to its 23 campuses. Through a new agreement with Moodlerooms, campuses will be offered the option of adopting the open source Moodle virtual learning environment and will be provided with hosting, training, and other support services. In addition to Moodle, the CSU system is also offering a similar service to schools that adopt Angel LMS, a commercial learning management system.
New Mexico's Innovative Digital Education and Learning program (IDEAL-NM) has selected the Wimba Collaboration Suite to pilot as its statewide collaborative learning platform. IDEAL-NM will deploy Wimba's in its statewide network of K-12 and higher education institutions, which includes 89 districts and 22 college campuses, to enhance student engagement and collaboration and increase learning outcomes.
There are, in my experience, six strategies to consider with any use of technology that will guard against rote use of technology and facilitate critical analysis of teaching and learning effectiveness. In this article, I'll share with you the checklist I work with and encourage others to work with in learning about and using new technology.
How can an institution incorporate Web 2.0 learning opportunities for students, and evidence of learning from those opportunities, into existing campus technologies and processes? PlugJam is providing part of the answer.
The Pennsylvania State University's World Campus and Kryterion have gone public with results of a pilot in which students completed proctored exams online using Webassessor Online Secured Testing. The technology is intended to deliver tests without the need for an in-room proctor present.
Wimba this week released Wimba Pronto 2.1, an update to the company's academic instant messaging software. The new version adds a Spanish language option and new accessibility features.
Software developer Panopto is reporting that it has partnered with Automatic Sync Technologies to integrate closed captioning into its CourseCast lecture capture system. The solution was developed jointly on behalf of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which is using the system to capture, caption, and publish classroom presentations.
Students now expect to use interactive, Web2.0 applications in their education environments. As part of a strategy to meet such expectations, Delta College in Michigan launched an online Delta iTunes U environment this fall.
Panopto this week announced a new software as a service (SaaS) version of its lecture capture system, CourseCast. Dubbed CourseCast Hosted, the new edition is designed for educational institutions to capture classroom presentations without the need to invest in the kind of infrastructure generally associated with lecture capture systems.
Humble Daisy has released an update to ProfCast, a software application designed for capturing and distributing classroom lectures as enhanced podcasts. ProfCast 2.2.1b2, a public beta of the presentation capture software, includes fixes and enhancements to previous releases and is available now for Mac OS X.
Blackboard is implementing Scalent Systems' Virtual Operating Environment for its Blackboard Managed Hosting service. Built on technologies from Scalent, Red Hat, NetApp, and Dell, the revamped environment is designed to provide greater flexibility for data center management and improved security and recovery capabilities.
Videoconferencing software developer Dimdim recently announced that it's releasing a Web-based conferencing solution specifically for education. The company's new Dimdim Virtual Classroom Pack, which debuted late last month, allows 10 teachers to host up to 40 students at a time in an online environment.
Phoenix-based Cernunnos Team has announced the public launch of Cernunnos 1.0.0, a set of Java component libraries for use with uPortal, an open source enterprise portal designed for universities.
Students at the Arizona State University (ASU) Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering now have access to more online lectures than any other university in the country, according to Sonic Foundry, the company that provides the Webcasting platform the school uses. The school recently recorded its 10,000th lecture.
Moodlerooms and Acxiom Risk Mitigation have teamed up to deliver a new solution to help verify student identities in higher education distance learning using Moodle, the popular open source learning management system.
Extending classroom walls through educational videos and other multimedia offerings has become common in higher education but often brings its own set of challenges. Managing the increasing amount of multimedia content, along with cataloging new material, such as live recordings, can be costly.
Wimba recently announced that it's expanded its support for Moodle, the popular open source learning management system. The enhanced support is designed to make it easier to integrate the Wimba Collaboration Suite in Moodle environments and broaden the features available, including a new new voice-mail feature that instructors and students can use to talk (literally) about homework or other issues.
Tegrity is updating its Tegrity Campus 2.0 class capture Web service with the introduction of Tegrity Community. According to the company, the update facilitates communication and collaboration among students, faculty, IT/ET staff, and campus administrators within and between institutions. Users can exchange best practices and course content, as well as brainstorm ideas for enhancing class capture ROI.
Ed tech developer Elluminate announced Tuesday that it's beginning a phased rollout of new versions of its Elluminate Learning Suite components, including Live V9 and Publish V2, as well as Elluminate vSpaces. New features are being rolled into these virtual learning applications now through December.
Iowa State University and Blackboard have partnered to develop technologies that will allow Blackboard's learning environment to integrate with the open-source Moodle learning management system. Iowa State will lead the development effort, with Blackboard providing support.
LodeStar Learning has announced a new partnership with eFolioWorld to integrate its electronic learning authoring suite, LodeStar, with the eFolioWorld electronic portfolio system. eFolioWorld is a hosted portfolio system developed jointly by ed tech provider Avenet and the Minnesota State College and Universities System.
Education technology developer Saba this week debuted a new solution it describes as an "enterprise social networking platform." The new system, Saba Social, is designed to extend Saba's collaboration platform and provide a vehicle for delivering and capturing informal, peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange.
In the first installment this two-part series, we looked at chat as an instructional tool in general terms. Now we take a look at some of the major concepts in using chat effectively in the process of moving the thinking process forward: building ideas, constructing media, and establishing which elements are critical to making the environment dynamic and relevant to the student.
The University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) is leading a project that will make it possible for language teachers to share their learning resources easily. The Language Box is a lightweight repository that acts as a host for language teachers to deposit their resources and share them with friends and colleagues in their community.
The Mississippi State Board for Community and Junior Colleges (MSBCJC) has selected the Wimba Collaboration Suite to deploy throughout Mississippi, allowing students and educators to connect through online video, voice, text, application sharing, polling, and white boarding.
We are seeing trends in higher education, good and maybe otherwise, that reflect the re-structuring of knowledge systems that seem to come with a point in time we're calling Web 2.0. Educational leadership in this environment means reform at an institutional level, not just technology adoption.
The idea of using chat as a communication tool with students is widely accepted in education. Using the same tool to progress critical thinking is not often discussed. That is, the question might be asked, "Why use an online tool when I can discuss with my students face to face?"
Students see campus technology is a key factor in selecting a college or university and consider it critical for their professional development. Yet higher education institutions on the whole aren't keeping up with student needs in this area, according to a new report released Monday by CDW Government (CDW-G).
Our ontology about teaching and learning is no longer workable. It is time for a change from pedagogy to andragogy and evidence-based learning.
Too often, institutions spend precious resources implementing a learning management system and associated collaboration, teaching and learning tools, only to find that a relatively small percentage of faculty use the tools to any significant degree. At Genesee Community College (GCC), we have achieved high faculty usage of online learning tools by focusing on institutional culture.
The Digital Arts Alliance, a consortium led by the Pearson Foundation that promotes digital arts in K-12 education, is expanding its membership with the addition of Fordham University. This follows on the heels of three other organizations joining the group back in July--the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation, the Foundation for Investor Education, and Employers For Education Excellence (E3).
Colleges and universities worldwide are turning to the hosted SaaS model and saying goodbye to issues like patch management and server optimization.
Blogging can be an effective tool for learning, but its benefits shouldn't be taken for granted. It takes careful planning and skillful management to make it work in an educational setting. Here are five of the most common mistakes for instructors to avoid when incorporating blogs into instruction.
In an effort to increase the number of graduates pursuing science and math teaching careers in rural areas, Western Governors University, an online university, is awarding 150 new scholarships through its new WGU Scholarships for Rural Mathematics and Science Educators program. A portion of a recent $3 million grant from the United States Department of Labor is funding the scholarships.
A suite of five software applications developed by students at Stanford University to run on Apple's iPhone is now being tested on campus. Two are for students, to manage course registration and bills. The other three will allow users to access Stanford's searchable campus map, get team scores and schedules, and check listings in the university's online directory, StanfordWho.
North Seattle Community College (NSCC) will be adopting Plato Learning's newest online software for post-secondary--Academic Systems Algebra--to support the college's developmental mathematics courses. The math series covers the principles of algebra in a self-paced online format. Since spring 2008, NSCC has utilized Academic Systems Algebra to instruct 200 students enrolled in basic, elementary, and intermediate algebra courses.
Serena Software acquired Projity Wednesday and is promoting that company's software as an open source alternative to Microsoft Project.
Chicago's DePaul University is trying out SS&C Technologies Zoologic Learning Solutions as its Web-based course content provider for graduate-level finance courses. Students will use 10 Zoologic Web-based courses as online study material in the "Financial Statement and Security Analysis" course. Zoologic course topics include accounting, credit risk, and equity.
Crown College, a Christian college in St. Bonifacius, MN with about 1,200 students, has decided to replace its existing online course management service with the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS).
Lecture capture has been gaining momentum in recent years, but that momentum is being outpaced by student demand. According to new research released this week by the University of Wisconsin-Madison involving about 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students, an overwhelming 82 percent of students said they would prefer courses that offer online lectures over traditional classes that do not include an online lecture component. The researchers also pointed out the implications for these findings extend well beyond the classroom.
Distance education students at the University of Wisconsin-Stout are enjoying the personal touch in their online technical communications program thanks to deployment of lecture capture from Echo360. EchoSystem captures in-class voice, video, and visual aids from such devices as smartboards and tablet PCs, then publishes the combined media to a school's learning management system, iTunes U portal, or Web portal.
Dynamic Biometric Systems has introduced a series of student authentication products based on its Bio-Pen hardware and related software systems. The company said its Bio-Pen addresses the verification requirement laid out in the Higher Education Opportunity Act that mandates educational institutions develop a student authentication method to ensure that students who receive credits for distance courses actually do the class work and take the exams.
"With clickers, you're giving every student a voice, even the introverts," according to Edna Ross, a resource teaching professor and the chair of the University Instructional Technology Committee in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, speaking about classroom response systems.
iParadigms, creator of the Turnitin plagiarism detection service, has released a set of tools designed to help students improve their writing skills through enhanced teacher-student communication and peer collaboration. The Web-based WriteCycle suite of services combines the company's Turnitin service with its new GradeMark Digital Grading service and a peer review collaboration and feedback tool.
Smart Technologies has recently added seven new languages to its Smart Meeting Pro collaboration software, intended to address the needs of a growing global customer base.
A new study by Saint Mary's University of Minnesota concluded that students who used the on-campus lecture capture archives, recorded by Tegrity, tended to have a higher cumulative GPA than those who didn't.
In the United States, IT spending in education will reach $47.7 billion by the end of this year and is expected to top $56 billion by 2012, according to a new report from Compass Intelligence, an IT consultancy and market research firm. This growth in education--both K-12 and higher ed--is being fueled in particular by expenditures in telecommunications, collaborative technologies, and outsourced IT services.
Echo360 has announced enhancements to its lecture capture platform, EchoSystem. Foremost is a Web-based editor that gives instructors the option to tailor their recorded lectures.
Blended learning sounds like a nice idea--mixing a traditional classroom environment with online components--but is it actually effective? It seems almost intuitively obvious that it is. And with the explosion of blended course delivery in recent years, despite the dearth of research, clearly education institutions take that point for granted.
Maybe you've heard people ask: "Who needs large lecture halls to learn? Who needs a sound studio or post-production facilities when you can have them on your laptop? If high-end lab equipment or scientific simulation software is also available via the Web, why do you need to visit a campus to run an experiment?" Is "Why attend college at all?" now a serious question?
A team of researchers from four universities has just received three grants totaling $1.1 million from the National Science Foundation to study how engineers are educated. Faculty from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, California Polytechnic State University, and the University of San Diego in California will be collaborating on issues related to recruiting, retaining, and educating engineers.
eCollege has announced a partnership with Cdigix that will give students at institutions using the company's course management system integrated access to rich media assets, including audio and video, among other things.
A class at California State University, Long Beach has signed up to receive online tutoring in Chinese from eChineseLearning. The company, based in Beijing, provides Chinese language lessons for academic, business, and personal use through Skype. The program was piloted earlier this year by eight students in CSU's Asian and Asian American Studies Department who were studying the fundamentals of Chinese. Each student received an hour of tutoring each week.
The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges is rolling out a new system to deliver online classes, presentations, and meetings. The organization recently signed on with Elluminate to use that company's Elluminate Learning Suite across its 34 member colleges.
Teachers Domain, a free online resource for educators, has announced expanded content in science, math, art, social studies, and language arts. The online library is also launching two new editions: Teachers' Domain College Edition, designed for higher education, and VITAL New York on Teachers' Domain, providing resources for New York teachers that are aligned with the state's core curriculum.
Johnson County Community College (JCCC) in Overland Park, Kansas has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to deliver online and blended courses. The largest of Kansas' 19 community colleges, JCCC chose to transition to the Angel LMS from Blackboard following a review of available products. According to a statement from the vendor, the college chose Angel for its stability, ease of use, and feature set.
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges has licensed the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to deliver online courses available through WashingtonOnline (WAOL). The board consists of 34 schools that serve 450,000 students annually.
Trent Batson considers a list of back-to-school resources for Web 2.0.
Campus Technology speaks with wiki expert Stewart Mader, who discusses choosing between commercial and open source wiki products, getting started with a wiki, and why Wikipedia is the single biggest stumbling block to wikis in higher education.
The University of Alabama in Huntsville said it has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS). The Angel LMS makes course content and a variety of collaboration tools available online for 24/7 access.
TurningPoint, which sells classroom response systems, has launched a Web-based service that works on AT&T-powered wireless smartphones, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, and laptops.
5 best practices for building your portal in a Web 2.0 world. (Here’s your chance to get it right for 2009 and beyond!)
Beginning this fall, students in Tiffin University's newest online program, Ivy Bridge College, will use eCollege, a course management system from Pearson, for all of their online courses. The 2,350-student Tiffin U is located in Tiffin, OH and offers both on-campus and online classes. Since 2005, those online courses have been managed through Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution.
Two universities are moving forward in their work with Sakai. The University of Hawaii System has adopted Sakai as its official learning and collaboration service, effective this fall, and Columbia University has recently upgraded to a new version of the open source learning management system as part of a pilot program in several schools and departments. At the beginning of August, the New York institution upgraded its Sakai pilot from version 2.4 to 2.5.
LectureShare has released an update to its free online course management system at lectureshare.com. New features include enhanced compatibility with common file types, a new student comments feature, and new gradebook functionality.
As a long-time expert in data warehousing and business intelligence (BI), David Wells has seen the technologies gradually come into their own in higher education. Now a consultant--Wells was formerly director of education for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), a sister institution of Campus Technology--he continues to advise colleges and universities on data warehousing and BI issues.
The Sakai Foundation has released the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment 2.5.2, the first maintenance update to the open-source learning management system since the 2.5 release in March. The new version includes performance enhancements, as well as a number of bug fixes and other enhancements.
Our culture is redefining itself and we are redefining how we see learning. It is time for educators to get out of the box of seat time, finally, and consider evidence-based learning.
Over the last six years, Stewart Mader has staked his career on the power of wikis. Mader first worked on wiki adoption initiatives in the IT department at Brown University, becoming fascinated by their power and potential. In this first half of a two-part interview, Mader talks about powerful ways to use wikis in education, content ownership issues, and how wikis tend to be used--and why.
Georgia Virtual Technical College has selected the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) as the platform for its portal to deliver Web-based instruction to Georgia's 33 technical colleges and one Board of Regents college.
Colorado State University has selected Campus Management Corp. to provide the infrastructure for its new online campus, known as CSU-Global Campus. The technology the Ft. Collins campus will use includes CampusVue, a student information system, and CampusPortal, an integrated, configurable Web site software.
Skoobit has developed a textbook rental system to allow college students to rent text books for months, semesters, or the year. College students will be able to rent any textbook for as long as needed with the simple commitment of returning it once they're done using it.
Collexis' Lawriter division has launched a social network for law students. The site, CasemakerX.com, was demonstrated in beta format at the American Association of Law Librarians Conference in Portland in July. A full launch is expected in early fall 2008 to coincide with the incoming class of new law students. Along with the social networking site, CasemakerX will provide free access to the Casemaker Suite of Applications for the American law student community.
IDG News Service is shedding some light on the current efforts of Microsoft and Google to gain acceptance in the education market. Both offer free services for institutions like mail and storage, along with free collaboration tools for students and faculty. Watch this video to see what representatives from the two companies had to say at the recent Campus Technology 2008 conference in Boston.
According to the National Association of College Stores in a 2007 survey, the average cost of a new college textbook was $53. The founders of Flat World Knowledge, which launches with its first run of college textbooks this fall, consider that too high--so high, in fact, that they'll be offering textbooks for free, at least in versions that can be read online.
Panopto has released CourseCast 2.0, an update to the company's classroom capture system that's available free to academic users. CourseCast 2.0 had previously been available as part of Panopto's beta program for educators since June.
Sakai, a popular open source learning management system, is adding content from McGraw-Hill Higher Education to its repertoire of educational tools. Through a technology called Katana, developed by McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions and The ETUDES Consortium, Sakai users will be able to tap directly into McGraw-Hill's electronic learning resources, including online courses, digital media, and curricula.
Loyola Marymount University, University of San Diego, Kent State University, and University of Virginia are among a dozen schools that have gone public with their adoption of Google Apps Education Edition. At the Campus Technology Conference in Boston Google announced that it counts a million users worldwide on campuses--both K-12 and higher education--using its suite of online services.
Digital media software developer Stream57 has released a new version of StreamLine, the company's Webcasting solution. The new 2.8 release adds a suite of e-learning features, including course management and assessment functionality.
This week, during a summit of researchers in Redmond, Microsoft announced a set of free software tools for helping researchers publish, preserve, and share data. The utilities include an authoring add-in for Word 2007 for capturing document metadata; a Creative Commons add-in for Office 2007; an e-journal service for self-publishing of online-only journals; a research output repository platform; and a collaborative workspace for researchers.
This fall Texas State Technical College (TSTC) will be offering a Digital Media certificate focused on virtual world technology using Second Life as the primary delivery method. An associate degree Digital Media will be offered in spring 2009.
At the Campus Technology 2008 conference being held this week in Boston, TechSmith launched a limited beta of its new lecture capture system, Camtasia Relay. The beta is open to the first 100 institutions that sign up for it.
Herkimer County Community College (HCCC) has adopted the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) to deliver its online courses. The college, which has about 3,300 students, is a two-year unit of the State University of New York (SUNY). HCCC offers 40 traditional degree programs and 20 online degree programs.
UC Irvine Extension, the continuing education arm of the University of California, Irvine, has announced a joint educational venture with Brazil-based Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV). Through the partnership, FGV--a nonprofit higher education institution and the largest provider of online education in Brazil--has created free online courses, presented in Portuguese, as part of the UC Irvine Extension's OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative.
Angel Learning has released a new version of ePortfolio, bringing it up to version 2.1. The new release expands integration with the Angel Learning Management Suite and includes new usability features.
An overwhelming student vote for Mediasite will put the Webcasting platform from Sonic Foundry into University of Wyoming lecture halls this fall. Mediasite is a presentation capture tool that records and synchronizes audio, video, and slides and then allows the presenter to provide it online for on-demand viewing or in podcast form. The tool also enables the presenter to make the presentation available online as it happens.
Desire2Learn this week announced a new mobile application of its Desire2Learn Learning Environment. Called Desire2Learn 2GO, the application ties in with Learning Environment 8.3 to provide access via Blackberry. The company also announced that it's streamlining integration Respondus 3.5, a quiz- and test-building application.
The changes and challenges that new technology has brought to teaching and learning are well documented. New technology has changed how people receive, understand, and apply new information and ultimately has changed student expectations and thinking skills.
Digital media developer Cdigix has expanded its C-Labs digital media platform to provide support for Blackboard environments on the course level.
The Heartland Centers at Saint Louis University School of Public Health will be implementing the software-as-a-service (SaaS) version of Meridian Learning Management System (LMS) from Meridian Knowledge Solutions. The Heartland Centers chose the Meridian LMS to provide preparedness training, among other types of education, for first responders and health workers in Missouri and nationwide.
Desire2Learn is reporting the first bit of (tentatively) good news to come out of Texas since Blackboard initiated its patent-infringement suit against it almost two years ago to the day. According to Desire2Learn, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Lufkin Division, has denied issuing sanctions in Blackboard's motion for contempt. But Blackboard told us Desire2Learn definitely is not in the clear.
Infinity Learning Solutions (ILS) said it has used the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform to develop a cloud computing solution for the open source learning management system Moodle.
Training services provider Learn.net this week announced the acquisition of distance learning and collaboration software from Savant Technology Group. The acquisition is part of Learn.net's move into blended learning to provide training services for public and private sectors.
San Jose State University (SJSU) School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) and Angel Learning are collaborating on a project to explore the integration of the Angel Learning Management Suite (LMS) and the Second Life virtual world. The work will focus on how student results from activities in virtual worlds can be securely shared with the Angel LMS. The expected outcome of the project is an Angel dropbox that students can use to share evidence of their work from within Second Life.
Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, and IBM have demonstrated virtual world interoperability by teleporting avatars between the Second Life Preview Grid and an OpenSim virtual world server. The Second Life Grid is a development platform created by Linden Lab, and OpenSim is an open source server for hosting 3D virtual environments.
The University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Community College System have signed on with Blackboard to deploy that company's electronic learning platform across 68 individual campuses.
As part of its Innovative Digital Education and Learning initiative (IDEAL-NM), New Mexico is launching a statewide program to standardize on a single electronic learning platform--Blackboard--spanning K-12, higher education, adult education, and government. The initiative will also support a new statewide virtual high school.
Three schools received top honors for technological innovation from ACUTA at the organization's 37th-annual conference in Las Vegas this week: Bryant University, Lee College, and Wayne State University. The University of Utah also received honorable mention for its wireless networking spanning 1,400 acres.
Mercer University will be deploying Campus Management's suite, One Campus Ecosystem. Mercer's implementation of the new system is expected to take 18 months or less and will include all of the vendor's software systems, including the student information system, Web portals, finance and human resources, application programming interfaces, and business intelligence software.
Syracuse University and Blackboard have partnered to develop technologies that will allow Blackboard's learning management systems to integrate with the Sakai Foundation's open-source learning management platform.
Ed tech developer eInstruction has released Workspace-ExamView Edition, a new version of the Workspace digital classroom suite that couples ExamView's assessment tools with interactive classroom technologies, such as clickers and whiteboards.
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
Sun Microsystems's Project Darkstar and the Wonderland Toolkit for building 3D spaces show why virtual reality is better for education than video conferencing. And Project Wonderland has announced its first education space.
Students taking a course in venture capital at Wake Forest University have, over the last semester, benefited from the use of Recordant audio-capture technology that allows Web-based archiving, searching, and playback of course lectures. The university said one of the goals was to get students to close their notebooks and focus on comprehension, secure that they'd be able to access the captured lectures later on.
This fall Lyon College, a four-year liberal arts school in Arkansas, will join the elite ranks of post-secondary institutions offering laptops to all incoming freshmen. The program is part of a larger initiative, called "The Lyon Experience," which aims to bring "additional value to the education" the school provides. How can a small college roll out such an ambitious technology program? It's all a question of priorities, according to Lyon College President Walter Roettger.
The lightweight, mobile nature of podcasting has the potential of moving education beyond familiar constraints of coursework and promoting a level of networking and input never seen before. But challenges still exist. Can more be achieved with podcasting that would heighten student engagement and maximize knowledge building in instructional contexts? Can we move beyond the obvious in their use?
On the heels of Blackboard's latest court action, Desire2Learn this week posted a response describing some of the commercial LMS leader's comments last week as "contempt(ible)" themselves and nothing more than a cynical attempt to create "fear, uncertainty, [and] doubt" in the marketplace. Blackboard filed a motion last Tuesday for contempt on the grounds that Desire2Learn had not fulfilled its obligations under a court order resulting from a patent infringement suit.
[Update 2, 2:30 p.m. PDT] As Desire2Learn predicted last week, Blackboard is indeed continuing to pursue its rival, this time with a contempt motion that claims Desire2Learn's Learning Environment 8.3 did not sufficiently correct its software to remove code and features that infringe on Blackboard's e-learning patent. D2L released Learning Environment 8.3 in March as a "design workaround" in response to losing a patent infringement suit to Blackboard in February.
A huge increase in freshman enrollment numbers for the fall semester has Loyola University in New Orleans pleased with its efforts to rebuild its student body after Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) is also looking at strong enrollment numbers, three years after the hurricane and its aftermath of flooding devastated New Orleans.
Harbinger Knowledge Products has released version 7.0 of Elicitus, its e-learning authoring tool. The new release provides usability enhancements, including an embedded sound recorder.
Learning management system provider Desire2Learn Thursday said that it's finished migrating all of its clients in the United States to Learning Environment version 8.3. The company also said it's paid off Blackboard more than $3 million for the judgment Blackboard won in court in February. But the story doesn't end there.
Conducting disaster preparedness meetings among 14 Pennsylvania universities no longer requires hours or even days of travel time for university administrators. Instead, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) is using interactive collaboration software from Wimba to conduct some of its state-wide staff meetings and training sessions.
Panopto told us this week that it's releasing CourseCast v2, an update to the company's classroom capture system, and making it available to educators free through its Socrates Project beta program.
Ed tech developer Elluminate Monday announced new collaborative learning bundles--the Elluminate Learning Suite and the Elluminate Next bundle--and launched a new tool for planning online learning sessions called Elluminate Plan! The company also told us it's revamping its education licensing structure, moving away from a concurrent user model to a structure based on the full-time enrollment of educational institutions.
iLinc released a new version of its Web conferencing tool, iLinc 10, which bolsters session management and adds a "green meter." The green meter shows cost savings, carbon emissions, and total distance not traveled by using Web conferencing versus in-person meetings. Administrators can also customize several variables in the meter to match their organization's specific policies.
With open source products maturing, Blackboard's ongoing lawsuit with Desire2Learn, and more and more functions linked to learning management systems, it can be a tough time for institutions to standardize on an e-learning platform.
A core debate about learning design arises from the fear that, if we allow learners too much freedom, they will not learn the right things. Web 2.0 exacerbates that fear because it is beyond the control of educators.
As we reported last week, Blackboard has responded to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, urging it to rescind its rejection of the company's electronic learning patent. Blackboard has also appended new claims to the patent. Rival Desire2Learn accused Blackboard of reversing its position on the reexamination.
Interactive classroom technology provider DyKnow this week released an update to its DyKnow Software Suite. The new release, version 5.1, includes updates to both components of the suite, DyKnow Vision and DyKnow Monitor, along with general administrative enhancements.
Education technology developer Smart Technologies this week announced a new version of its Senteo interactive response system, Senteo 2.0. The free upgrade is expected to be available in July.
In our day-to-day encounters with new media, online education, and vendor software products, we may sometimes be tempted to believe that encroaching technology is controlling the way people teach and learn. Is there a monster in our midst, determining our actions?
There has been a lot of recent debate on the benefits of social networking tools and software in education. While there are good points on either side of the debate, there remains the essential difference in theoretical positioning. Can social networking both as an instructional concept and user skill be integrated into the conventional approaches to teaching and learning? Do the skills developed within a social networking environment have value in the more conventional environments of learning?
Blackboard this week defended its e-learning patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The USPTO in March rejected all of the claims in Blackboard's patent following a reexamination prompted by requests from open source advocate the Software Freedom Law Center and commercial rival Desire2Learn. But the patent rejection was not final, allowing Blackboard a window of time to respond to the decision.
Angel Learning has teamed up with eInstruction to integrate the Classroom Performance System into Angel's learning management system. The integration will bring real-time gradebook input to Angel LMS, including attendance, assessments, and grade posting.
Moodle has released Moodle 1.9.1, the first maintenance update to the popular open-source learning management system since the 1.9 launch in March. The new version includes a number of minor fixes, as well as performance improvements and some new functionality.
Microsoft this week released an international beta of its Office Live Workspace (OLW) suite of productivity tools. The company also quietly launched an Office Live Update last week that takes on performance issues and brings in some additional functionality when working with Office 2007, XP, and 2003.
Four universities--two in the United States and two in Brazil--are testing inter-continental distance learning in a program facilitated by technology from Wimba. The U.S.-Brazil Consortium enables global collaboration among teachers and learners at The University of Georgia in Athens, Utah State University in Logan, Universidade Federal do Ceará and Universidade Estadual Paulista, Bauru.
Adobe this week launched a new slate of bundles and resources for educators looking to use Acrobat Connect Pro in their online teaching efforts. Adobe just introduced the new version of Acrobat Connect Pro about two weeks ago.
CMS/LMS provider Blackboard reported Monday that its plagiarism detection service, SafeAssign, has now been used to scan more than 1 million student papers. Blackboard debuted SafeAssign about nine months ago.
Angel Learning has released version 7.3 of the Angel Learning Management Suite, adding new capabilities in the areas of assessments, forums, and customization. The company also announced a deal with Elluminate to integrate the Elluminate Live! environment within Angel LMS.
Technology solutions work best when they well together. That is why the nonprofit group IMS Global Learning Consortium is developing learning tools interoperability standards for the education technology community...
Blackboard Inc. today announced Blackboard Sync, an application that allows students to receive course updates and communicate with classmates while logged on to Facebook.
In many ways, college campuses are an obvious implementation for a wiki tool. The decentralized nature of the technology and its ability to allow a wide range of individuals or groups to contribute ideas into a single area through Web browsers make wikis simple and compelling for higher education uses.
College coaches are turning to webcams as a way to stay in touch with potential recruits to bypass new National Collegiate Athletic Association restrictions that forbid in-person visits to high school campuses during the spring evaluation period, according to a report from AP.
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) said it will deploy the Wimba Collaboration Suite across 16 colleges to connect students and educators through online video, voice, text, application sharing, polling and whiteboarding.
Cengage Learning's Aplia division has launched a new Web-based homework system called Grade It Now. The system combines aspects of practice problems with graded problems to encourage students to improve results as they work.
Ed tech developer Tegrity reported this week that usage of its Campus 2.0 classroom capture system hit record levels last year, including, among other things, capturing 325,000 hours of faculty lectures on Tegrity servers in a 12-month period.
The Graduate School, USDA has standardized on Acrobat Connect Pro, a Web conferencing and e-learning platform from Adobe Systems. The school is a self-sustaining government entity created 87 years ago by the United States Department of Agriculture to provide adult continuing education.
Texas A&M University has signed a license agreement with BreakAway Ltd., a developer of game-based technology, for the worldwide rights to Pulse!! The Virtual Clinical Learning Lab. Pulse is a federally funded project in development at the Corpus Christi campus that allows medical professionals to practice decision-making protocol and experiential skills on PCs in a virtual hospital setting. The agreement grants BreakAway the rights to develop, market and distribute Pulse.
Technology integrator Unicon has announced that it's now providing commercial support for uPortal 3.0, an open source campus portal solution designed by members of the education community.
IBM has introduced a new tool for migrating content from Microsoft SharePoint and other data repositories into Lotus Quickr. The new Lotus Quickr Content Integrator, which recently began shipping, is designed to bring content from existing repositories into Quickr's "team places" for collaboration and sharing.
Georgia Tech announced recently that it's contracted with open source service provider Unicon to integrate CalDAV within its Sakai implementation. CalDAV is a calendaring protocol that allows for event and meeting sharing across various platforms via WebDAV.
Adobe has introduced a new version of Acrobat Connect Pro, the company's virtual meeting and eLearning tool. The new version includes enhanced integration with Blackboard, as well as several editing and management improvements.
Blackboard Thursday announced details for its upcoming BbWorld '08 conference, which will be held July 15 through 17 in Las Vegas. The show will feature about 140 sessions covering education technology strategies and issues, as well as keynote addresses from Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak (largely credited for inventing the first practical personal computer) and U Miami President Donna Shalala.
Ed tech developer Vantage Learning has launched a new edition of its writing remediation program, targeting high school seniors and incoming college freshmen. My Access! College Edition extends the standard "School Edition," designed for K-12, with greater emphasis on analysis and interpretation, as well as additional features.
Creighton University in Omaha, NE has implemented a suite of services from Web and audio conferencing company iLinc to update the distance-learning platform for its online doctor of pharmacy program. The school evaluated the software from several Web conferencing vendors and chose the solution from iLinc, in part because it integrated with Active Directory to enable single sign-on and authentication.
Integrating the classroom with the community to give students hands-on experience is a laudable goal, but not always easy to do. At the University of Arizona, J. Leon Zhao's upper-level and graduate business students gain an understanding of workflow management software and business applications through real projects in the surrounding business community in Tucson.
The Wyoming Community College Commission, which has seven colleges, and the University of Wyoming have subscribed to the ebrary Academic Complete e-book database, according to the company.
Education support services provider rSmart has rolled out an update to its commercial implementation of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, bringing it in line with the latest major release from the Sakai Foundation. rSmart's version is built on the regular Sakai software but also includes additional functionality and contracted support.
NASA this week moved a step closer to branching into educational gaming. The agency presented its vision of a science education-focused massively multiplayer online game to more than 200 potential software development partners in a workshop Monday sponsored by NASA Learning Technologies, an educational technology incubator project.
The digital textbook is one of those technologies that seem obvious but can take a long time to gain traction. In March, the concept got a boost when long-time textbook distributor and retailer Follet Corp. acquired Salt Lake City-based Fourteen40, and, along with it, CafeScribe, a Web site in its beta phase of offering electronic textbooks.
Yale University is piloting a new program that brings integration between its open-source learning management system, Sakai, and its digital asset and digital rights management system, C-Labs from Cdigix. Yale has used the Web-based DAM/DRM tool since 2004 to deliver online digital media to students in about 400 courses.
As free-Tibet protesters continue their efforts to block passage of the Olympic torch on its way to Beijing for the opening of the Summer Games, one US campus has decided that the best approach to changing the course of history is by educating China's populace.
Students at the University of Wisconsin at Parkside can now enjoy file collaboration capabilities via a free software-and-service product from Microsoft called Office Live Workspace. The university, which last year outsourced its student e-mail accounts to Microsoft Live@edu, now offers students, faculty, and staff the ability to store, share, edit, and collaborate on documents in common Microsoft file formats.
A technical report from a University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a hybrid class that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format.
CMS/LMS developer Desire2Learn this week launched Web Services 1.0, a set of Web-based enhancements for the D2L Learning Environment and D2L Learning Platform. Modules included with the 1.0 release include "organization structure management, enrolment management, and gradebook entry and lookup," according to the company.
Despite last week's apparent setback in the Patent Office, Blackboard is vowing not to go down without a fight even as Desire2Learn and the Software Freedom Law Center--the two groups that sought to have the patent revoked--celebrate victory. We have the first interview with Blackboard's chief legal officer, Matthew Small, since the action. He discussed Blackboard's plans moving forward and why he sees that patent as still being valid and strong.
Ed tech developer Tegrity has released an update to Campus 2.0, the company's enterprise classroom capture and student achievement system. The new version adds a wide range of features, from new recording and editing tools to enhanced administrative and reporting functionality.
Software developer Panopto reported to us this week that hundreds of educational institutions have applied for its Socrates Project, which allows K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to adopt the company's CourseCast system at no charge. The program, launched late last year, is aimed specifically at academic institutions.
Blackboard this week brought its Learning System CE and Learning System Vista in line with Learning System Enterprise edition, bringing the entire line to version 8.0. The company said the new releases represent a major advance toward its goal of unifying the codebase of its learning tools and infusing them with Web 2.0 technologies.
[Update 10] Blackboard's e-learning patent looks to be going down. The United States Patent and Trademark Office this week sent out a "non-final" determination on the reexamination of Blackboard's patent in which all of the claims on the patent were rejected. Blackboard still has a period of two months to respond to the determination.
Suffolk County Community College (SCCC), a three-campus community college in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, has selected Desire2Learn products to handle course management.
The Sakai Foundation has announced the establishment of the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award to recognize transformative education applications of Sakai.
Ball State University's Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts and Animation is leveraging years of innovation in 3D animation and virtual applications to support the university's entry into Second Life. CT interviewed IDIAA director John Fillwalk.
In search of an inexpensive solution to engage students in challenging courses like physics and astronomy, a semi-retired professor has created a popular interactive software tool that reportedly increases classroom participation and boosts grades and learning.
SAS has broadened the availability of SAS OnDemand for Academics, a service that allows faculty and students to integrate advanced data analysis in their teaching and learning activities. Users register for the service, download a SAS software application via the Web, and then perform processing by connecting to a hosted server at SAS.
In this exclusive interview, John Baker, Desire2Learn's president and CEO, discusses the company's recent patent infringement case, its impact on the company and its customers, and the implications for education technology as a whole.
Umpqua Community College in Winchester, OR announced in February that its Moodle course management system had been hacked earlier in the year, potentially exposing student information. According to a statement from the college, there was no evidence that personal records had been affected. The school also noted that the IT department knew how the system had been compromised and had taken steps to address the security vulnerabilities, which included shutting Moodle down temporarily.
Desire2Learn has released new versions of its Learning Environment and Learning Repository software, as well as its new ePortfolio product. The announcement comes on the heels of two legal setbacks in Desire2Learn's patent infringement case with Blackboard.
What does it take to convert a soon-to-retire engineering professor enamored of the chalkboard into someone who loves a technology tool? For Virginia Tech Alumni Distinguished Professor Charles Bostian, it took a collaborative teaching tool that he is using in engineering classes as large as 180 students.
Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) is making its digital collection of 3,000 Oxford titles available through ebrary, a California-based company that offers an online content management platform for libraries and publishers. OSO is a subscription service providing digital versions of books published through Oxford University Press, the publishing arm of the University of Oxford.
The Florida Institute of Technology has introduced 11 undergraduate degree programs that will be delivered through University Alliance, a division of Bisk Education, a provider of online degree and certificate programs. The online program will go by the name of Florida Tech University Online.
Southern Polytechnic State University's School of Computing and Software Engineering will be establishing a game design and development lab, which is expected to open in summer 2008. The lab will consist of 14 game development stations for the XBox 360, as well as a number of PlayStation 3 and Wii game consoles.
Web 2.0 is changing the landscape of higher education IT and the application of learning technologies. Washington State University's Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology Director Gary Brown explains why he thinks we're moving from collaborative learning environments (CLEs) and ePortfolios, to personal learning environments (PLEs) and worldware.
Education software company Blackboard has opened its fifth international data center. The latest one is located in Sydney, Australia, to host software services for higher education clients based in Asia Pacific time zones. The company said it currently has 520 clients that use hosted services, in sizes ranging from a few hundred end users to a million.
A "collaborative syllabus" is one in which the students have the ability to help determine the specifics of a course. Those specifics can be any element that a professor is willing to be flexible with and include such items as the objectives, grading, attendance policies, types of assignments, and so on.
Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada has deployed an online video portal that lets students view, index, annotate, remix, search, and share class lectures. Although the school has been offering streaming video for three years, the new portal, run on the Gotuit platform, implements more interactive features.
This week in San Francisco, Sun Microsystems is bringing together thought leaders in education from more than 30 countries for its annual Worldwide Education and Research Conference, this year themed, "The Power of Communities." Conference organizers are maximizing the reach of the conference through live broadcasts and blogs...
Blackboard has prevailed in an e-learning patent dispute against Desire2Learn. A federal jury in Lufkin, TX made the determination Friday afternoon, following a two-week trial. Blackboard was seeking $17 million in lost revenue, as well as an injunction against the company, which is based in Canada.
Louisiana State University has signed on with Moodlerooms to provide support, hosting, and other services for its Moodle deployment. As we reported in November, LSU is replacing two learning management systems on its campus with Moodle, an open-source LMS/CMS popular in higher education and elsewhere.
Just a week after higher education software maker Blackboard announced "tremendous" financial results for the year, it is finally facing off in a small-town Texas court against rival Desire2Learn in a patent dispute over e-learning software. Blackboard is seeking $17 million in lost revenue as well as an injunction against the company, which is based in Canada.
Collaborative technology developer Elluminate has brought its Live! virtual classroom software to the Moodle platform. The company released a piece of software Tuesday called Elluminate Bridge for Moodle, which is designed to integrate Live! into the open-source learning management system.
San Jacinto College District, near Houston, TX, has joined Capella University's Education Alliance Program. Capella, an online university that serves 20,000 students, offers online degree programs focused on higher education faculty, administrators, and students.
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) will be extending its distance learning and online collaborative efforts across all 14 universities in its system. The initiative includes a contract with Wimba to deploy its Wimba Collaboration Suite system-wide for collaboration between students and faculty outside of traditional settings.
Soldiers in the United States military who want to take college courses while they’re deployed overseas face some tough challenges. But they can also represent an attractive market for universities, especially those interesting in recruiting more business graduate school students to specific programs.
Blackboard has released version 8 of the Blackboard Academic Suite 8. The latest release of the learning management system for academic institutions adds a variety of enhancements driven in large part by feedback from the user community, including improvements for administrators and IT, student self- and peer assessments, improved grading features, and the integration of Blackboard's SafeAssign, a plagiarism detection and prevention service.
Rapid Intake, an eLearning solution provider, has launched a new-Web-based platform for collaborative development of eLearning projects. The new tool, Unison, debuted Monday at the Training 2008 Conference & Expo.
The Princeton Review already has its SAT LiveOnline courses, and Ohio University already has an island and an expert Second Life (SL) developer. Together, they are offering a series of SAT strategy sessions in a Second Life site within the Ohio University island at Second Life.
Perhaps more than anything else, the sight of a group of students clustered around a single computer screen, jostling for space and a better view, made Karalee Woody aware of the need for better collaborative computing tools at the University of Washington.
IBM has unveiled several new collaboration tools and Web 2.0 technologies, including IBM Lotus Mashups, a forthcoming commercial mashup maker designed to allow "non-technical users to easily create enterprise mashups." At the Lotusphere conference in Florida last Wednesday, the company also introduced new versions of Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr, a rich collaboration tool.
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada has announced a new initiative that will impact all public education within its borders, from kindergarten to higher ed. It's adopted a single LMS solution for al of its schools, colleges, and universities--the Desire2Learn Learning Environment--in an effort to unify and enhance collaborative learning.
The Princeton Review already has its SAT LiveOnline courses, and Ohio University already has an island and an expert Second Life (SL) developer. Together, they are offering a series of SAT strategy sessions in a Second Life site within the Ohio University island at Second Life.
Smart Technologies has released an update to its whiteboard software, Smart Board 9.7. The update comes on the heels of a full-version upgrade for the company's Notebook software, announced last week at the Macworld expo in San Francisco. Smart Board software powers Smart's line of interactive whiteboards (Smart Boards), its Sympodium interactive pen display, and its AirLiner wireless slate.
Temple University in Pennsylvania announced recently that it's shifting its campus systems over to SunGard Higher Education's "Unified Digital Campus." The move is part of an initiative to improve and unify campus services, including administrative functions, learning communities, and other technologies.
Is podcasting spreading like wildfire across campuses, or does it just seem like it? Can good podcasts on your school's site boost enrollment? How can educators get started in podcasting on a budget? What's the first rule to follow in considering whether or not to create a podcast?
A new Web platform for publishing collections and exhibitions online got a nod of fame last week when it was referenced in The Washington Times profile of George Mason University's Center for History and New Media, which the paper called "at the forefront of the new wave of collecting history." The free, open-source platform is named Omeka, a Swahili word meaning "to display or lay out goods or wares; to speak out; to spread out; to unpack."
CMS/LMS developer Blackboard announced this week its intent to acquire NTI Group. NTI is a provider of mass notification and emergency alert systems used in higher education and K-12. Both companies have already approved the acquisition, and the deal is expected to close this quarter, pending regulatory approval.
Smart Technologies this week debuted a new full-version update of its Notebook collaborative learning software and also launched new interactive whiteboard systems. The new Notebook 10, which will make its first public appearance at the Macworld Conference and Expo next week in San Francisco, adds 30 new features for lesson creation and delivery.
Sandy Schaeffer makes a call for higher education technology decision-makers to put pressure on the LMS vendor community to begin to un-bundle their products... with particular emphasis on greater flexibility in terms of content management.
The debate continues over just how useful virtual worlds like Second Life are for educational purposes. We spoke with Drexel University's Jean-Claude Bradley, who is e-learning coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences, and an associate professor of chemistry. Despite his initial skepticism, in 2007 Bradley helped establish Drexel's presence in Second Life, Drexel Island, and used Second Life last semester to augment portions of his Introduction to Organic Chemistry course. He has blogged extensively about his use of the medium. Here, he discusses the benefits--and drawbacks--of the much-discussed virtual world.
The University of Illinois is powering its latest online initiative using Desire2Learn's electronic learning solutions, including the Enterprise eLearning Suite and the D2L Learning Environment. The initiative, called the University of Illinois Global Campus, is aimed at expanding the university system's reach to provide affordable and accessible education to students in Illinois and around the world.
Active, collaborative learning is a laudable goal in the classroom, but with individual students at computers throughout the room, it's not always easy to achieve.
The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education has adopted Desire2Learn as the learning management system for the Oklahoma Higher Education Consortium, a public higher education consortium that focuses on the selection and deployment of technologies to be used in Oklahoma's colleges and universities.
Aurora University in Illinois has teamed up with HOSTS Learning to provide intervention programs to local middle school students through the HOSTS Mentoring and Intervention solution. Launched in October, the program will run through May 2008 out of Aurora's Institute for Collaboration resource center.
In the United States, the demand for self-paced electronic learning products will hit $13.6 billion by the end of 2007 and will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.01 percent over the next five years. This according to a new forecast from Ambient Insight detailed in report released this week entitled, "The U.S. Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2007-2012 Forecast and Analysis."
Five years after the initial pilot of MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative, it's now making its way into secondary education with the launch this week of "Highlights for High School," which aims to bolster high school STEM education through free and open course materials, from complete curricula and syllabi to videos, lecture notes, and animations.
Agilix Labs this week released Blackboard Backpack 3.1, an update to the company's mobility solution for the Blackboard Learning System. The new update adds support for the 2004 Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), including support for viewing SCORM content offline.
Composed of professional services such as those supporting online education and faculty recruitment that help institutions support teaching and learning objectives, the academic services market is serving key postsecondary priorities.
University researchers in the United States and the U.K. have started collaborating with IBM to develop open-source software solutions aimed at bringing accessibility to older workers to "help them adapt to and remain productive in the changing workplace of the 21st century," according to information released late last week by IBM. The effort is part of IBM's Open Collaborative Research initiative, which creates partnerships with universities for the purpose of developing and releasing open-source tools to the public.
Continuing and professional education (CPE) sites are somewhat effective at helping students with their enrollment decisions, but they're lacking in some key functionality areas: content, search capabilities, and multimedia. In the second of its three-part series of research reports, "Optimizing School Web Sites as a Marketing and Recruitment Tool," education consultancy Eduventures found that prospective continuing education students in large part think these sites come up short in areas they consider crucial and made specific recommendations for the types of content that should be added to these sites to boost their effectiveness.
The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) is expanding its e-learning activities by developing online and hybrid programs in health care. The move will help alleviate what the college described as a "backlog of potential students who previously were prevented from enrolling due to limited classroom space." The initiative includes new online nursing, paramedic, and medical lab technician programs.
Researchers in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new Web-based technology that's designed to take recorded classroom lectures to the next level. The technology, developed by a team led by MIT's Regina Barzilay and James Glass, provides search functionality for classroom video recordings. At present, the prototype only works with MIT's online lectures made available to the public through the university's OpenCourseWare initiative, but it may be made available to other institutions in the future.
A leading open source proponent explains why he says the characteristics institutions reward will be "replicated in the DNA of software companies."
Stanford University this fall began to offer its advanced computer security certificate program completely online in an effort to improve access to the program.
Students at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, the only liberal arts university in the world for the deaf and hard of hearing, are benefiting from lecture capture software that includes closed captioning. That lets students view videos of lectures on demand, complete with text captions along the bottom of the screen.
Louisiana State University is replacing two learning management systems on its campus with Moodle, an open-source LMS/CMS popular in higher education and elsewhere. According to information released by LSU's Office of the CIO, the move comes on the heels of a two-year system review process headed by the university's Flagship Information Technology Strategy (FITS) Task Force for Teaching and Learning that gathered input from the entire campus community.
The University of Akron is replacing its previous learning management system with Desire2Learn's Enterprise eLearning Suite. The move is designed to facilitate both online and Web-enhanced delivery of courses.
Chat software (text or media-based) provides an excellent tool in supporting academic dialog (exchange), critical thinking, and knowledge building. The immediacy of the technology provides students with a direct connection with the instructor as well as other students. While chat software is usually used for "chatting," and, therefore, it has a relaxed and colloquial protocol, with a little thought and planning, it can also be used well to support instruction.
Education technology developer Elluminate is bringing its Live! collaboration suite to the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, an open-source learning management system. The move is part of a new alliance with Unicon, a company that specializes in providing support and services for open-source software to education.
Microsoft has rolled its Office Live Workspace technology into Live@edu, the company's portal, communications, and collaboration suite for higher education. According to Microsoft, this is but the first in a "new wave" of Office Live services making its way into the higher ed space. The Live@edu service itself has also been upgraded to provide greater storage capacity and additional features.
Small and medium-size institutions looking for ways to beef up technology programs without adding staff might consider outsourcing some or all of IT. At Ocean County College on the coast of New Jersey, an outsourcing partnership has resulted in a popular and growing selection of online courses.
Mineral Area College in Missouri is deploying Jenzabar EX Total Campus Management. INTEC, signing on for licenses for Jenzabar's ERP, portal, and learning management solutions to improve administrative efficiencies and supplement learning the school's traditional learning techniques with online technologies.
Audio and even video capture of lectures is becoming more common on college campuses, which post the material to their Web sites so that students can revisit a lecture after the fact. But Drexel University....
The University of Northern Iowa, like a large number of universities in recent months, is deploying a classroom capture system to record lectures and make them available via the Internet. This one, though, is being used not only to provide access for UNI's students but also for an audience of K-12 teachers who will use the content to further their professional development.
Angel Learning this week announced new support for the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Common Cartridge standard in its learning management system, Angel LMS. The standard, developed through IMS GLC's Common Cartridge Alliance, is an open standard for content sharing. Angel last year contributed intellectual property for its development.
The University of California, Los Angeles is continuing its phased deployment of IP audio encoders for its classrooms. According to information released this week by Barix, the vendor supplying the Interstreamer encoding systems, UCLA's Office of Instructional Development has so far installed the devices in 43 classrooms, with plans for 200 classroom installations eventually.
Campus Management has completed beta testing on a program to integrate Moodle into its administrative and academic tools for higher education, including CampusVue. The result is a newly released learning management system called CampusLearning, which works with CampusVue, providing commercial support for the open-source platform and synchronization with the company's student information system.
Results from an initial study by a professor at Coppin State University in Baltimore indicate that class capture technology that allows students to view lectures online after the fact can improve course retention rates and grades. Chris Brittan-Powell, a psychology professor at Coppin State, developed the study to see whether using technology from Tegrity helped student grades and retention in his courses over a semester.
Education technology developer Wimba has released Wimba Voice 5.2, an update to the company's audio module for its Collaboration Suite, which also includes Wimba Classroom, Wimba Create, and Wimba Pronto. The new version expands the tool's functionality and end-user features and enhances some existing features.
Spurred by growth in collaboration and communications technologies, the academic computing market is forecast to hit $419 million by 2010, according to a forecast from education consultancy Eduventures.
Angel Learning has contributed more of its source code to the open source community. The company this week made its TiddlyWiki customization technology freely available for development for educational purposes through Eduforge.
Hitachi Software Engineering America has debuted its new StarBoard FX 77 Duo, an interactive whiteboard that supports multiple simultaneous input. Targeted toward the education and presentation market, the whiteboard uses Hitachi Soft's StarBoard software to allow multiple users to interact with the device at the same time and to allow for gestural control of presentation materials.
Earlier this year, three universities in the U.K. formed an alliance for collaborating on biological and biomedical sciences called the South West London Academic Network. Now the collaborative alliance is deploying technologies to deliver a series of courses that share resources between the three participating universities.
Regulation drives a surge in innovative solutions for stormwater treatment. As fun as creating a course in Moodle is (the subject of part 1 of this two-part series), eventually it will go live, and the real excitement can begin as administration kicks in. The first thing you will come to realize is that while you believed you had thought through every single thing, you missed about half.
It was more than two years ago that Blackboard Inc. approached Seton Hall University to join its product development partner program to work on the Blackboard Outcomes System. Now, technology leaders at the university expect that in the coming year the system will be in use across the campus for reporting and learning outcomes.
Stanford University librarian Michael Keller will join other leading digital archiving experts November 14-16 in Paris for the inaugural meeting of the Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group, a group dedicated to working on the unique problems of storage and data management, workflow, and architecture for very large digital repositories. The Sun PASIG brings together a large group of organizations for an ongoing global discussion of their research and sharing of best practices for preservation and archiving. Here, CT asks Keller for his perspectives on the effort and the goals of the Sun PASIG.
Campus Technology will host a live Webinar Oct. 16 on the topic of classroom capture and its impact on enrollment and academic outcomes. The Webinar will present a case study on the University of Alabama, which has increased enrollment 30 percent over the last three years while also improving student retention and outcomes.
Education technology developer Tegrity has launched a new program for its flagship classroom recording system, Campus 2.0: free, semester-long trials for higher education institutions.
In a recent article, I mentioned my newfound affection for the open-source course management system Moodle. It's a great CMS, but there's not a lot of current information available on it. So, in this two-part tutorial, we'll walk through the use of it, starting in Part 1 with the creation of a class and setting up the resources needed for it.
Wildform, a developer of multimedia tools primarily for online presentations, has unveiled a new hosted service for educators called Wildform Online. The service is designed to provide educators with tools that help them track how users interact with their learning materials and tests.
Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) in the Dominican Republic is deploying an ERP solution from Jenzabar called Jenzabar EX Total Campus Management. INTEC, a non-profit university, had previously been using systems developed in house. The university will implement the Jenzabar EX student suite, as well as the Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution, over the next two years.
The Network for Computational Nanotechnology at Purdue University has been awarded an $18.25 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The five-year grant will focus on expanding "capabilities and services for computer simulations," according to the university.
Grand Canyon University in Arizona has deployed Angel Learning Management System from Angel Learning to deliver classes to its students. The university made the switch to Angel after seven years with another CMS/LMS provider.
A number of higher education institutions have recently added voice capabilities to their online learning programs, including blended and fully online courses, according to Wimba, an education technology developer. The company said that eight universities and colleges have augmented their Collaboration Suites with Wimba Voice implementations.
Giving people the ability to update their slice of the campus website doesn't sound like a revolutionary idea--at least not in an era ruled by mass participation in social networks, the sharing of mashups, and the craze to add widgets to personal websites.
The Monterey Institute of Technology and Education has launched HippoCampus, a website designed to supplement learning for high school and college students in order to assist with credit recovery and home schooling, as well as AP and general ed use. HippoCampus is an open education resource and is available free of charge to all users.
Test preparation company PowerScores' new Virtual LSAT Course will begin instruction in October for the Dec. 1 LSAT test. While PowerScore holds onsite test instruction, the online course offers students across the globe the chance to prepare remotely for the test from their homes or offices.
Novell next month will begin shipping two new workspace and collaboration tools for its Open Workgroup Suite: Novell Teaming and Novell Teaming + Conferencing. The tools are designed to boost team productivity and streamline processes involved in creating, managing, and sharing information.
At Western Oklahoma State College, students in a single classroom, with one instructor present, can be taking either of two introductory algebra classes. That's just one of the advantages the college has discovered in offering computerized online instruction to augment several of its developmental mathematics courses.
Blackboard today launched a new language pack for its course management systems in support of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, the day on which people across the globe can use expressions like "ahoy" and "yar matey" without fear of retribution.
Georgia Tech librarian Brian Matthews has teamed up with GT computer science professor Blaire MacIntyre to develop a space in the Second Life virtual world from which students could "check out" land parcels in order "to hang out, explore, and learn the basics of the software."
Naugatuck Valley Community College in Connecticut has deployed online math curricula for 11 of its remedial math classes this fall. The school is using Academic Systems Algebra from Plato Learning.
Medical and pharmaceutical programs at three colleges have recently implemented 1:1 tablet PC initiatives for students and faculty through IT solutions provider CDW Government, which provided hardware, software, and consulting for the three deployments.
A shortage of physicians in rural areas isn't a problem unique to Canada, but the highly sophisticated technology solution that the University of British Columbia has set up to solve it may well be.
Duke University will use Tizra's Agile PDF hosted white label service to repackage, deliver, and sell textbook content in electronic formats.
Lehigh University has added a virtual class to its curriculum this fall called Bioscience in the 21st century. The multidisciplinary class is designed to allow anyone interested to watch lectures and study course material or PowerPoint presentations posted on the university's website for free. Lectures are also available from iTunes U, according to Lehigh University.
The National Science Foundation has awarded the University of Rochester Warner School of Education $634,157 to "help encourage and train both talented undergraduate majors in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering and STEM professionals considering a career change to work as math and science teachers in high-need school districts," according to the university.
In the past five years, social networking has rocketed from a leisure activity to a "phenomenon that engages tens of millions of internet users," according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a nonprofit that follows the impact of the internet in differing social environments. In a recent national survey on teenagers and social networking conducted by Pew, more than half of all online American youth ages 12 to 17— 55 percent to be precise—are heading to online social networking sites. What does this mean for higher ed? Simply this: Your incoming students are now expecting a presence of your college or university on social networking sites.
Digital media service provider Cdigix has added HD capabilities to its C-Labs solutions. C-Labs are designed to provide tools for higher education faculty and institutions to maintain and post online digital media while complying with copyright laws.
There's a business management principle known as the "hedgehog concept." The whole thing apparently comes from a Greek poet, Archilochus, who wrote: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Okay, so right away I think, "I want to be a fox!" But, no. Apparently, in the business world, the thing to be is a hedgehog.
Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom has signed on with Desire2Learn to deploy that company's learning management system. The goals of the deployment will be to enhance student learning and allow the university to expand into new markets domestically and internationally, supporting online and blended learning.
Colleges and universities across the nation have realized that technology is an absolute when considering how courses on their campuses will be delivered--either face to face sessions, through distance learning sessions, or in mixed formats.
Drexel University will collaborate with the University of Michigan and Florida State University to help transform its 10-year-old Internet Public Library (IPL) into a "virtual teaching and learning laboratory for digital reference," the university announced.
Open-source homework system WeBWorK is being ramped up for new multimedia capabilities and enhanced assessment functionality. Developers met earlier this month at an American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) workshop to help fine tune the software and plan for these enhanced capabilities, some of which are presently in the developer release. An interim update (2.4.1) was also released last week, adding various minor improvements and fixes.
Instructors in colleges of education cannot teach prospective teachers to use technology unless the faculty, themselves, use technology in the college of education classrooms as a part of their instruction. There is something about "modeling" that goes a long way in education, regardless of the level of education under consideration.
LectureShare has debuted its free online course management system (CMS) at lectureshare.com, which lets instructors upload class announcements, documents, and audio and video files.
Anystream this week acquired lecture capture technology provider Lectopia and added it to its higher education division, Apreso. The two units will be combined to form a new entity called Echo360, which will focus on lecture capture and dissemination.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a University of North Texas computer science professor a half-million dollar grant to study the performance and behaviors of student software development work groups, the university announced.
The State University of New York-Maritime College this fall will debut two new online courses developed in collaboration with The History Channel. Both courses are to be based around History Channel television series and will be offered for credit, marking the first time The History Channel has developed a course for college credit.
Randy Jackson examines the quest at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, to create added value in existing learning environments.
Blackboard this week debuted a new tool called SafeAssign, which is designed to eliminate plagiarism in student assignments. The service detects plagiarized works in student papers and delivers reports on such incidents through the Blackboard Learning System.
Any instructor who has had the experience Duncan describes can appreciate the idea of using clickers, or personal response devices, to gauge student participation and understanding.
A checklist of the best strategies for designing and delivering online courses to train online faculty.
Technology integrator Unicon has launched a new program for education institutions looking to adopt Sakai as their learning management system. The program, dubbed the Sakai Pilot Program, is a hosted service that allows universities to deploy Sakai for six months for 500 users.
More than a dozen colleges and universities have joined the ranks of campuses using technology from Xythos Software to collaborate with, store, share and manage their documents.
More than a dozen colleges and universities have joined the ranks of campuses using technology from Xythos Software to collaborate with, store, share and manage their documents.
With an already strong foothold in the enterprise sector, e-learning is advancing in K-12 and higher education teaching environments, according to San Jose, CA-based market researchers Global Industry Analysts, which project the global e-learning market to surpass $52.6 billion by 2010.
Half of a group of prospective college students who said they would be interested in taking an online course in the next 12 months also said they would like to enroll in a completely online degree program, according to a recent survey conducted by the American InterContinental University Online.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach, FL) has debuted EagleVision, a Web-enabled, collaborative virtual classroom designed for aviation and aeronautical education.
Learning management provider Blackboard is expanding its "Greenhouse" initiative into the area of immersive virtual learning. Through a new program, called the Greenhouse Grant for Virtual Worlds, a single recipient will receive a $25,000 for the integration of virtual worlds into teaching and learning.
Michele Kimpton will lead the new DSpace Foundation, formed by MIT and HP, as its executive director.
The University of New Orleans will begin offering classes this fall on a virtual campus in Second Life. There are currently about 6.5 million people who circulate in the electronic community.
Adobe today announced an update to the company's electronic learning software, Captivate. The new version 3.0 will add enhanced recording capabilities and integration with Microsoft PowerPoint. It will ship in August.
The University of Washington is hosting its first Summer Academy for Advancing Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Computing, a nine-week program during which students will learn how to program software, write computer code, model 3D objects, and make cartoon figures move.
The California Community College System (CCCS) is deploying an enterprise-wide Web conferencing solution from Elluminate called Elluminate Live! CCCS is the largest higher education system in the world.
You can almost hear the sigh of relief today, as more and more students review course requirements and see that they will be learning, creating, and presenting with their iPods, as well as reading text and listening to course content with them. The Apple iPod and its related set of technologies are bringing a freshness, spontaneity, and engagement to learning experiences that we haven’t seen in a while; possibly, ever. Why are these small devices having such an impact?
While many colleges and universities scramble to get an emergency messaging system in place in the wake of the Virginia Tech mass murder, the University of Cincinnati is already there.
Eight colleges and universities have recently adopted Live Classroom, a collaboration tool designed for higher education that allows institutions to build virtual classrooms and conduct courses online.
While CLEs are tools they are also much more than tools; they are tools that are developed, maintained, and financed by an evolving community of investors, educators, and software developers.
Michael Korcuska will become the Sakai Foundation’s new executive director later this month, leading the Sakai community in the continued development of its open source collaboration and learning environment.
Northwestern University has developed an extension for Blackboard systems that allows the CMS to communicate with Xythos applications. The tool, File Bridge, is being made available to colleges and universities as open-source software.
IBM is using "serious game" technology developed by graduate students at Duke University and the University of North Carolina to help explain the concept of service-oriented architecture to potential customers.
IBM Corp. has cut a series of curriculum development deals with Indian universities designed to train students in the field of "service science," skills associated with the burgeoning market for offshore technical services and support.
Maryland's Towson University has formed a partnership with the United States Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service to offer U.S. government employees discounts on Towson's professional online education programs.
Northwestern University has developed an open source File Bridge Extension to facilitate content exchange between Blackboard and Xythos applications. The software is available for download freely by colleges and universities.
A bevy of recent studies on students' experience listening to recorded lectures via podcasts confirms what many lecturers already know: that the pedagogical value of podcasts depends almost entirely on student motivation and the learning "context" of the application.
Information technology researchers and executives from around the Middle East convened in Qatar recently to participate in an "Arabic Search Engine Workshop" hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ).
Education software developer Haiku Inc. has released an update to its learning management system, Haiku LMS. The new 2.0 release, which launched June 20, adds a variety of functional and UI enhancements. A 2.1 upgrade is also expected within the next few weeks.
At the InfoComm show in Anaheim, CA last week, Luidia previewed several upcoming enhancements to its line of classroom technologies, including new student response capabilities and various updates to eBeam-based systems.
Education technology developer Elluminate has released Elluminate Live! V8, an update to the company's flagship e-learning, conferencing, and online collaboration tool. The new version adds a variety of functional enhancements and is available now. The company's vRoom, a free conferencing tool based on Elluminate Live!, is also being updated to incorporate some of the functionality of Live! V8.
Software tools that allow colleges and universities to deliver classes over the Internet, either standalone or as a component of a traditional face to face class, are nothing new. But personalizing the online experience beyond slides can be a challenge.
Today's students have little patience for trudging to the library and researching a question on paper. For better or worse, they're far more likely to jump online and use tools like Google and Wikipedia to try to find answers quickly.
Software Secure (Cambridge, MA) has released its Securexam Remote Proctor system, which provides exam security for distance learning environments. Working with Troy University's (Troy, AL) distance learning program--which maintains an advanced distance learning program--the system eliminates the need for remote students to take exams on-site or in the presence of a proctor.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education and the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) will jointly develop college learning solutions with an eye toward innovation and affordability.
Education technology developer DyKnow has released DyKnow Vision and Monitor 5.0. Both tools, designed for classroom environments, add enhancements in the areas of compatibility, user interface, and various productivity features.
A free product that helps make writing assignments less subjective and more understandable to students is saving Santa Ana College Professor John Howe huge amounts of time and helping him grade writing assignments much more consistently.
Education software developer Desire2Learn is releasing version 8.2 of its flagship Desire2Learn Learning Environment starting June 1. The new version expands and optimizes LE's capabilities and introduces new features to enhance the user experience.
Apple has launched a new iTunes feature called iTunes U, a new department in the iTunes Store that provides free education resources from American colleges and universities. The idea is to share resources from these campuses, such as lectures and research, free of charge.
The Sakai Foundation recently released version 2.4 of its Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (SCLE), an update six months in the making. SCLE is an open-source course management system targeted toward schools, colleges, and universities.
The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ordered Vancouver University Worldwide (VUW) to stop granting degrees in the province. The court had upheld a suit by the B.C. provincial government that argued that for profit distance education provider VUW was breaking the province's Degree Authorization Act by offering degrees without authorization.
The University of Washington, in an effort to improve access to classroom materials for students, has deployed IP-based audio encoding devices throughout 24 classrooms, standardizing on Barix Instreamers.
I became involved with hybrid teaching simply as a common-sense approach to the challenge of transitioning traditional faculty from classroom to online learning environments while I was director of a center for instructional technology at a university in the South.
A statewide initiative launched in Mississippi will bring Blackboard's CMS and LOM systems to 15 community and junior colleges. The program was initiated by the Mississippi State Board for Community and Junior Colleges.
Pearson said this week that it plans to acquire eCollege, an online distance education provider. The deal will cost Pearson $477 million net, including the agreed $41 million sale of eCollege's Datamark division to a group of investors. The acquisition is expected to take place next quarter and has not yet been approved by shareholders.
Like most medical residents, Paul Sucgang regularly puts in 80-hour weeks as a third-year resident at USC's Keck School of Medicine's family practice residency program in Los Angeles.
University of Essex, located in England, has teamed up with Kaplan, a provider of education and training solutions, to launch an online higher education program called Kaplan Open Learning. Students in the program can take courses and receive their degree using the online venue.
I look forward each year to the EDUCAUSE annual Current Issues Survey Report. There is always something new and interesting, be it the ways in which the survey instrument itself has been shaped to reflect the association’s view of the field or in the results of the survey.
Angel Learning has released Angel LMS 7.2, an update to the company's learning management system. The latest update brings in native podcasting features and adds several new learning tools, including learning outcomes management (LOM) capabilities and native support for additional standards.
The Software Freedom Law Center's (SFLC) Eben Moglen is one of the high-powered attorneys representing the challenge to Blackboard Inc.'s patent of certain learning technologies.
Angel Learning this week rolled out enhancements to its Angel LMS (learning management system), bringing integration with Tegrity Campus 2.0, a widely used student achievement system.
The University of California signed a contract to purchase a learning management system to host the delivery of compliance training materials and services throughout the UC systems. The university purchased the LMS from SumTotal Systems Inc., along with software for creating training content called TotalLCMS. The system will track and deliver compliance training for the system's 170,000 faculty and staff across 10 campuses.
Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands said it plans to develop online learning solutions with Virage's Rich Media Management software from Autonomy, a developer of software to support infrastructures. The technology will be used to satisfy the new requirements to support advancements in education by the Dutch government.
Autodesk Inc. was presented April 17th with the Software & Information Industry Association’s CODiE award for best postsecondary instruction solution, for the company’s Student Engineering and Design Community.
Campus Technology is seeking nominations through May 15 for its 2007 Innovators Awards for exemplary use of technology by colleges and universities and their vendor partners.
An artificial-intelligence based tutoring system that gauges student understanding of math and helps them learn at their own pace has greatly boosted student progress and retention in college algebra at Black Hills State University.
Silverchair Science plus Communication, a developer of medical technology, and McGraw Hill, recently launched AccessPharmacy, part of a series of medical Web applications. The site is designed to complement the curricula for medical students pursing pharmacy doctoral degrees and hosts interactive resources and a reference library.
Blackboard Inc. last week held its annual conference for users of its electronic commerce platform, the Blackboard Commerce Suite. During the program, two of its academic customers were recognized with Greenhouse "exemplary service" awards: Duke University and the University of Alabama.
University of Miami's Global Business English live classroom courses debut April 23 using Vemics' LiveAccess software. Students at the University of Moscow will be among the first participants to use the university's video collaboration technologies.
The Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC), made up of seven community colleges, is using an outsourced LMS to offer its online courses to students across Iowa....
Philadelphia, PA-based Drexel University Online, a subsidiary of the well known Philadelphia technical university, has begun providing special-rate distance learning services to Montgomery Hospital Medical Center (MHMC), a 210-bed hospital serving central Montgomery County, PA.
While the notion of "finding individual voice" is not new to the learning process, new technology such as blogging has presented a unique opportunity for teachers and students to work intentionally at this process. The notion of individual voice, however, is difficult to manage and evaluate. How individual is a comment? How personalized is the voice of the student? Are students aware of a developing voice? Does this voice raise the confidence of the student in the learning process? Do students perceive the blogging process as helpful or just another task/assignment?
The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and the Center for Digital Education honored the top 30 most technology-aware community colleges in the country, according to a survey of administrators at 200 community colleges. They were asked a set of 24 multiple-choice questions and five written questions regarding technology services for students, faculty, and their host communities.
What are the most popular online programs in higher education? According to a report from education consulting firm Eduventures, most students enrolled in programs online are participating in bachelor's degree programs, followed by associate degrees.
Products that can record a classroom lecture and make it available after the fact sometimes raise concerns that class attendance will drop off as a result.
As with any higher educational institution, the University of Advancing Technology seeks to engage students on a multitude of levels. In the Summer of 2006....
The University of Michigan's School of Information (SI) announced a graduate-degree specialization in "social computing" through a Master of Science in Information. The university said the program is the first in the country to focus on social computing, the term describing the wave of open technologies that enable masses of people to interact and exchange and sort information.
Systems and services for recruiting, advising, and support of online students have seldom been at the top of the list when planning online and distance learning programs. That is now changing: Forces pushing advising and support services into the foreground include recognition of the student learner as “customer” and the increasing expectations and demands of government and business in our global information economy.
UMassOnline yesterday announced record enrollment and revenues for fiscal 2007. UMassOnline is the online learning division of the University of Massachusetts. The organization said it credits the record enrollment with "the depth and breadth of our program offerings," according to David Gray, CEO.
Sakai, Kuali, uPortal, Moodle, and others are taking advantage of a better way to build software through open source communities....
IBM is working with several universities to expand a repository of reusable learning materials that will make it easier for student developers to make software more accessible to people with disabilities. The repository will help change a culture in which the majority of faculty respondents do not teach accessibility in the classroom, IBM said.
The Defense Department is relinquishing the stewardship of SCORM, a collection of standards for e-learning interoperability, so that the initiative can more readily fulfill its purpose as an international e-learning standard.
Vemics, a provider of real-time learning technology, has launched its first project with newly acquired company e-Learning Desktop at Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. The company, e-Learning Desktop, will be offering an online Russian language curriculum scheduled to begin in September.
National Instruments recently announced the availability of NI LabVIEW, a version of LabVIEW graphical programming environment for The Infinity Project. The LabVIEW program is designed to aid The Infinity Project in providing curricula for high school and early college engineering education.
The Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba has created a wiki of "Net Technologies for Teaching and Learning."
E-learning technology provider Elluminate has rolled out the final release of its new, free Web conferencing system, vRoom. The company has also announced version 2.0 of its Blackboard Building Block extension for Elluminate Live!, a distance learning tool.
The University of Mary Washington (UMW) in Virginia has launched into an e-learning partnership with KZO Networks, a developer of interactive learning tools. UMW will deploy KZO's tools to enhance its e-learning capabilities with Flash-based presentations, both live and archived.
Because it often gets the most press for being "open source" software, you may not know that Sakai has unique features--many not found in other course management systems.
CSU Fresno has implemented Turnitin for combating plagiarism on campus. But one professor is using its modular features to save time with grading and record keeping as well.
A report released this week by Eduventures, Sloan Consortium, and Babson College, shows a slow but steady decline in the percentage of blended courses offered by colleges and universities, while purely online courses continue to grow. At the same time, the report found that colleges and universities have not been meeting consumer demand for online course offerings.
Digication has released an update to its e-Portfolio tool, bringing integration with the company's eponymous online classroom suite. The newly revamped suite continues to be free for up to 1,000 users at accredited institutions in the United States.
East Carolina University in Greenville, NC is implementing Saba-Centra Live from software provider Saba to support distance learning through the university's academic outreach program.
Ivy Tech is a large Indianapolis-based community college with 23 campuses across the state, along with some 100,000 students and 8,000 instructors.
A recent survey by the Digital Learning Lab at Howard University shows that 40 of 103 historically black colleges and universities are offering distance courses this year, up from 29 a year ago.
This week Desire2Learn introduced a new course management/ learning management system targeted toward smaller institutions.
Second Life, the virtual world that's becoming increasingly popular in education, will soon add proximity-based 3D voice capabilities, according to developer Linden Lab.
Academic publisher Thomson Learning this week announced that it's adopting technologies from Sakai Foundation for the delivery of its learning products for higher education.
Education software developer Angel Learning has announced a new version of its learning management system, Angel LMS 7.2.
The challenge facing every university that supports an online curriculum is creating engaging materials that make online courses more than glorified textbooks.
Software developer Desire2Learn is lowering the ante for campus-wide CMS/LMS adoption.
Last year, Ohio University purchased two islands and built several buildings on it, including a student center, learning center, and arts and music center.
Last year, Ohio University purchased two islands and built several buildings on it....
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) this weekend granted Desire2Learn its request for a reexamination of Blackboard Inc.'s e-learning patent.
Yesterday, we reported that Blackboard had released a legally binding pledge stating that the company would not assert its patent rights against open-source developers in the CMS space or against developers of "home-grown" systems. The non-assertion pledge also covers those who service such systems, including hosting, maintenance, support and customization. And it includes the current patent, as well as patents pending. We spoke with Blackboard representative Matthew Small, who provided some insight and clarification on the pledge. Since then, we've also had a chance to speak with Chuck Severence, executive director of the Sakai Foundation--a central player in the patent discussion--for additional comments.
Course management system giant Blackboard has launched a social bookmarking service--"customized for education"--and aimed at Blackboard and WebCT customers.
It’s near-impossible to think about course management systems (CMS) without thinking about innovation, collaboration, and the sharing of ideas across institutions and even from vendor to vendor. Yet, “the next step” in CMS now means distinctly different things to various colleges and universities as, going forward, they consider their landscapes of learning, and requisites that didn’t even exist five years ago.
A clear sign that online and distance learning is maturing is that we are struggling with how to organize and fund these programs on an ongoing basis.
This month Arizona State University (ASU) and Google made the first large-scale deployment of Google Apps for Education, to the ASU student community.
As educational institutions establish an online presence, initial successes are often due to individual faculty members (“early adopters” of this new technology), working long hours to develop material more or less single-handedly. Frequently, they are leaving behind scattered projects, which are of intrinsic value, but of little use for the institution and far less for the larger academic community.
In this article we explore the state of LMS accessibility and provide both a broad review of LMS accessibility and the practice of site and tool design, and attend to the successes and challenges of LMS accessibility.
Check out the new technology products and
upgrades that caught our editors’ attention. If
you’re heading to the Educause expo in Dallas,
don’t miss these booths!
As you may know, Blackboard Inc. was recently granted a patent on aspects of Learning Management Systems and filed an infringement lawsuit against competitor Desire2Learn.
Creating a college course totally as an online computer game seemed feasible when Assistant Dean Nora Reynolds and I first discussed it last year. After all, our team had developed over a hundred online courses and had been creating interactive games as drop-in learning objects in courses for years. We would simply “step up the effort a little.”
It’s been a year since Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding devastated New Orleans, and a new hurricane season is underway. At Delgado Community College, last year’s havoc hit hard. But the tragedy has resulted in some positive changes.
Would you install a different phone system in every room of your house? At the University of Texas at Austin, Kurt Bartelmehs, program manager for instructional technology, uses that analogy to explain why he’s worked so hard to standardize technology in classrooms across campus.
Head down and working on the road, I missed last week’s court filing by Blackboard, Inc. against Desire2Learn, Inc. for infringement of Blackboard’s recently-received course management system patent. Arriving back home, it didn’t take too long for me to begin hearing the chatter across the eLearning community – first a press release from a Blackboard competitor, then a series of posts in a number of blogs I follow. Then a quick Web search revealed the rising interest in this issue within the eLearning community.
New York University is the largest private university in the United States. This urban university has a residence hall program that houses 11,701 students in 23 facilities. The facilities themselves are located across the Manhattan landscape, although many are within the general footprint of the campus. About a third of housed students are freshmen, though the campus provides housing to 57% of all undergraduates and 23% of all students. As one might expect, the university serves a very diverse student population.
We are at an important milestone for technology in higher education. I urge you to take stock of your campus’ position on the cost of licensing software and ask if we all couldn’t do better for our students – more choices, better outcomes, and lower cost.
At any point in time, there is a college IT director trying to determine whether to upgrade, migrate away from, or stay the course with some software package that the faculty and students rely on to meet their instructional needs.
Two years ago when I wrote my first viewpoint for SmartClassroom (then eLearning Dialogue), I issued my university an “Incomplete,” with the suggestion that faculty spend more time developing their Blackboard skills. Now as a recent graduate of the University of Puget Sound, I am ready to issue a final grade, with one notable change to the primary criterion for the evaluation. For this viewpoint, evaluation is primarily based on how the campus use of Blackboard added value to my education.
Open source has changed life for visionary CIOs
and their campus communities nationwide. Here’s
what these technologists see as the benefits—and
the considerations.
Distance learning in music education, how is this possible? Skeptics wonder
if videoconferencing technology can capture superior sound quality or has the
necessary clarity for tracking minute movements during performance. The surprising
answer: Yes, to both.
Blended learning is the "new" buzz in higher education. Many educational
researchers have discovered that online learning environments are particularly
useful for communications and collaboration. When you add in management and
administrative tools available in most course management systems today online
learning environments are fairly robust. But giving up the classroom seems a
little drastic and premature.
KUMC currently uses Blackboard as its primary Learning Management System. In
the Spring of 2005, an advisory committee was convened to identify additional
learning management system capabilities needed to support current and forthcoming
online learning initiatives. The School of Medicine requested a comprehensive
online system to facilitate the redesign and delivery of an integrated basic
science curriculum. The School of Nursing sought a system to support the design
and delivery of a new online Doctorate of Nursing Program.
During the academic year 2002-2003, as I attempted to keep track of developments
in electronic portfolios, I wasn't quite frantic. Given the widespread distribution
of portfolios-in classrooms, in academic programs, in extracurricular programs,
for employment-this was no easy task, and at the end of that year, I concluded
that my search to keep up wasn't probably successful after all, unless of course
we measure success by exhaustion.
Unlike many other institutions, at Virginia Tech we do not have a production shop on campus to
accommodate our classroom instructors. Instead of designing individual websites
or adapting content for use with a course management system, we train faculty
to do the work themselves. Our professional development program, though voluntary, has a 96 percent faculty
buy-in rate.
Today's college students are adept at downloading music, using instant messaging
to chat with friends, sending e-mail, and surfing the web-but do they know how
to effectively find, evaluate, and use information appropriately?
What interesting times at Educause, one week after the announced Blackboard-WebCT
merger. Most of those involved in running a course management system, any course
management system, were reading tea leaves, seeking assurances, reflecting on
the plane ride home about what to report to campus.
Faced with the need to meet
regularly to implement its many projects, and challenged by the busy schedules
and increasingly costly travel of the multiple committee members, we’ve
begun to “walk the walk” of eLearning by convening an increasing
number of our meetings as electronic conferences. For more than two years, we
have used Elluminate.
Illegal sharing of music and videos
by students garners most of the attention—and the concern—devoted
to campus copyright infringement. But adherence to copyright law, particularly
in the use of course management systems by faculty and staff, also is critically
important.
Blackboard Inc., and WebCT, Inc., two of the leading
purveyors of course management software, sought
to reassure customers this week that their announced
merger is good news on campus.
A client recently asked me to specify an annotation system for their presentation
system. "Make it easy to use, but with lots of functions. Make it high
quality, with maximum flexibility, but it needs to be small. It needs to handle
any possible input source: dedicated PC, user-provided laptop of any native
resolution including DVI-D, VCR/DVD player, document camera, digital camera,
camcorder, codec. Insert thoughtful pause here. "But not too expensive.
Melissa Grill is exactly the sort of student who benefits when colleges and
universities put together solid distance learning programs. Grill, returning
to school for a graduate degree while working full-time, took 12 courses from
Capitol College over two years to earn her graduate degree in information telecommunications
systems management, all via a broadband connection from home.
Talk to virtually any student about the cost of textbooks and you will likely
hear loud complaints about the expense associated with course texts.
In a relatively short time – three years – e-Learning offerings
at <strong>The Ohio State University</strong> (representing supplemental, blended
and fully online courses) grew to include a significant share of total courses.
VIEWPOINT<br>
* Reflection in an Always-On Learning Environment: <br>
Has It Been Turned Off?
<p>NEWS and PRODUCT UPDATES</p>
<p>* Fifty-one Competencies for Online Instruction</p>
<p>* SimSchool: The Game of Teaching</p>
<p>* Learning Objects: A Rose By Any Other Name</p>
<p>CASE STUDY<br>
* ePortfolios Help Clayton State University <br>
Assess Student Learning and Program Outcomes</p>
<p>TECH NOTES<br>
* Katrina Articles and Resources for Campus IT</p>
<p>ONLINE RESOURCES<br>
<a href="http://www.campus-technology.com/resources/index.asp%20" target="_blank">http://www.campus-technology.com/resources/index.asp
</a><br>
Forging change via comfortable transitions, these two campus pilot projects are ideal eLearning models.
At Ohio’s <strong>University of Akron</strong>, a pilot program introduced
last year is successfully using wireless feedback devices to increase student
involvement in the learning process. The relatively simple technology uses portable
infrared receivers connected to faculty laptop computers, and a small infrared
“clicker” device for each student in class.
VIEWPOINT <br>
* eLearning: Are We Making Money?<br>
<br>
NEWS and PRODUCT UPDATES<br>
<br>
* Horizon Wimba Enhances Audio for Live Classroom<br>
<br>
* Firm Markets "Clone" of CMS Platforms<br>
<br>
* Higher Ed Buying Co-op Adds Online Text<br> Services<br>
<br>
CASE STUDY<br>
* eLearning Utopia: iPods Meet Course Management in the Classroom<br>
<br>
TECH NOTES<br>
* Syllabus2005 Keynote Videos Online<br>
<br>
<p>The knock on elearning in some quarters is that faculty just throw notes and
lectures online and call it elearning. It’s a persistent stereotype,
and there’s some research to fuel it. </p>
<p>I’m less interested in debating the notion than ensuring that readers
get a full flavor of at least one notable exception: my course at Georgia College
& State University.
The rise of eLearning and technology in higher education—including distance education, digital repositories, and electronic courseware products—has changed the way faculty and institutions regard ownership and control of these materials.
Maybe. But in online ed, what do we mean by "making money?"
Colleges and universities that are disappointed in the performance of their audio visual equipment often look for the next step up–a brighter projector, a newer codec, a camera with more pixels, or a more expensive control system.
I was re-reading “Learning for the 21st Century” the other day as background material on a forthcoming undergraduate teacher preparation project. I was struck by how well the report navigates the political waters of educational reform, so decided to use this Viewpoint to bring this report to the attention of those who have not yet read it.
When technology experts
are involved from the get-go,
"smart classroom" construction
projects are dramatically
improved and less costly.
The latest releases, services, and new product versions.
It was a daring experiment, and one that caught immediate criticism because
some saw the university as “giving away toys” to the incoming freshman
class. Well, iPods are ‘toys’ in a sense, and of course they were
mostly used for entertainment. But some pretty interesting lessons were learned.
The University of Arizona’s Learning Technologies Center (LTC) provides
centralized support for instructional blogging and hosts blogs for administrative
units exploring new ways to provide information to students.
Online course offerings are becoming increasingly more common in education.
Nearly three million U.S. students are currently taking university level courses
online and more than half of all higher education institutions see online education
as critical to their long-term strategy.
After a market lull, AV vendors finally have dazzling tools and technologies<br>
for "smart" educators.
With our first NCATE visitation two years away, the <strong>University of San
Diego</strong> was in search of a viable mechanism for formal and summative
assessment.
We have begun to leverage the students’ comfort level with synchronous communication tools to foster collaboration in online learning environments.
While the presence of CMS has grown, wonderful new collaborative communication tools such as blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds have emerged and are often informally and immediately adopted by the “new learner.”
This fall the Missouri School of Journalism will offer students a new major, the first change of that magnitude in more than 50 years. The 1,000 or so undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the world’s first school of journalism can now specialize in convergence as well as the traditional disciplines of advertising, broadcast news, magazine, newspaper and photojournalism.
In April I attended the Apple Digital Leadership Institute hosted by the University of Missouri.
We’ve all talked about synchronous online collaboration, but new tools may allow us to truly “know” this kind of collaboration for the first time.
Not sharing the CMS is a missed opportunity to bridge some of the gaps between instruction and administrative areas.
The University of Minnesota is implementing ePortfolio in a major way. Other colleges and universities are in various stages, some starting with pilot projects. How will this new tool fit into the lives of students and faculty.
Did you know the next big thing in educational technology is probably something you’ve never even heard of?
Believe it.
Digital Content Servers are coming that will make life easier for everyone on campus using PowerPoint and other digital media as part of their lectures and presentations.
