HOUSTON — On the third floor of a bank building near Rice University, the future of higher education is being written. Or at least, edited. Perched in lime green desk chairs, dozens of employees of OpenStax work here to transform physics, calculus and psychology materials into digital textbooks that students can study at no cost. […]
How a University Took on the Textbook Industry Read More »
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jerard Briscoe is away at school. Or at least, that’s what he tells his kids. It’s a plausible story. He studies for GED math exams. He reads e-books and takes courses using a tablet computer. He even wears a uniform: an orange jumpsuit and white Velcro sneakers. “If you’re at college, you
In DC, Teachers Run the Jail. It’s Turning Inmates Into Students. Read More »
The act of talking with others—having social debates and conversations—is key to human learning, and this “social learning” has now become an important tenet of teaching and learning. Yet we tend to overlook how ingrained social learning is in our institutions, especially in higher education—how purposefully college campuses are designed to maximize the accidental run-ins
Colleges Need to Build Digital Quads to Support Social Learning for Online Students Read More »
News that Arizona State University and edX have archived 10 of their 14 Global Freshman Academy courses raises questions about the viability and purpose of credit-eligible MOOCs. When it launched in 2015, the Global Freshman Academy was marketed as a low-cost way for students to complete their first year of college by taking open online
What If No One Seeks Credit for a Credit-Eligible MOOC? Read More »
2U CEO Chip Paucek came to New York this week in part to assuage concerns around his publicly traded online degree program provider. In July, the online education company’s stock tumbled more than 50 percent after Paucek announced that the company expects double the net loss for this fiscal year and it would debut fewer
Layoffs, Deferred Tuition and More Transparency Among 2U Changes Since Stock Fall Read More »
Nearly 200 colleges face federal civil rights investigations opened in 2019 about whether they are accessible and communicate effectively to people with disabilities. Among the newer aspects of these kinds of complaints is whether college social media communication meets accessibility standards. While some institutions have tried to punt responsibility for the accessibility of digital tools
