May 15, 2013
The University of Arizona (UA) Eller College of Management today announced that its internationally-recognized MBA program will be available online beginning this fall. Applications for the program are currently being accepted.

"Business schools need to be responsive to the changing needs of their students, and we are committed to offering many modes of graduate business education," said Len Jessup, Dean of the Eller College. "Making the MBA program more flexible for highly-qualified students is part of our broader effort to expand access to the University of Arizona and will go a long way toward increasing its footprint in Arizona and beyond."

Associate Dean of Eller MBA Programs Hope Schau added, "Offering our program in an online format opens it up to a new segment of students. We pride ourselves on meeting the needs of highly-qualified students at all stages of their careers, and this new offering reflects that commitment."

With a focus on innovation, application, and communication, the Eller MBA experience is designed to give graduates what they need to effectively lead in today's changing global marketplace. Like its full-time, evening, and executive MBA formats, the Eller online MBA program is fully accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International).

UA has chosen Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, to help convert the program into an online format, recruit students, and support student retention efforts. AP will work closely with Eller faculty to ensure that the new online degree program maintains the highest educational standards. The company will also use its integrated marketing and branding strategies to extend the university's reach, increasing the enrollment of highly-qualified students.

The University of Arizona's new online MBA program will begin in September 2013. Click here to apply or learn more about the program.

About the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona

The Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona is internationally recognized for pioneering research, innovative curriculum, distinguished faculty, excellence in management information systems, entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller undergraduate program #14 among public business schools and three of its programs are among the top 20 — Entrepreneurship, MIS, and Management. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller MBA Full-Time program #44 in the U.S. and #21 among public business schools. The College leads the nation's business schools in generating grant funds for research. In addition to a Full-Time MBA program, the Eller College offers an Evening MBA program and the Eller Executive MBA. The Eller College of Management supports approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 700 graduate students on the UA campus in beautiful Tucson, Arizona.

About Academic Partnerships

Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation. Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contacts:

For the University of Arizona
Liz Warren-Pederson
+1.520.626.9547
news@eller.arizona.edu

For Academic Partnerships
Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
+1.214.438.4144
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

April 15, 2013
Heather Farmakis and Michelle Pacansky-Brock Named Directors of Academic Services

DALLAS (April 15, 2013) – Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities’ online learning in the United States, today announced that it has named Heather Farmakis and Michelle Pacansky-Brock as directors of Academic Services.  Dr. Farmakis and Ms. Pacansky-Brock bring significant expertise designing and implementing student-centered online learning experiences to the company.  They will report to Academic Partnerships’ Vice President of Academic Services Whitney Kilgore.

“Heather and Michelle are well-respected in the academic arena for their work in the evolution of online teaching through the delivery of exemplary professional development,” said Ms. Kilgore.  “They share Academic Partnerships’ commitment to providing best-in-class faculty support services to our university partners, and I am delighted that they have joined us.  I look forward to the contributions they will make on

Faculty eCommons, our social learning community for faculty in online university programs, to support our partners in the scholarship of teaching and learning.”

Dr. Farmakis was most recently a Technology Program Specialist at the School District of Palm Beach County (SDPBC) in Fla.  In this role, she was responsible for overseeing the SDPBC’s online learning management system and the district’s professional development programs for teachers, administrators, and others.  Additionally, Dr. Farmakis was the co-host of the television shows Palm Breeze Café and Teaching with Technology, which promoted technology integration in education.  She is also an online adjunct professor for Lynn University and teaches technology leadership courses at the graduate level.  She serves on the University’s Advisory Board for the College of Education, planning and collaborating on graduate programs for the working adult.  Dr. Farmakis holds a B.A. from Florida Atlantic University and a M.Ed. and Ph.D. from Lynn University. Based on her experiences in these roles, Dr. Farmakis wrote an eBook for students new to online learning entitled iLearn: Tips and Tricks for Online Learners.

Noted online instructor and faculty development specialist Ms. Pacansky-Brock has held numerous leadership roles in the national online teaching community and is the author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies.  In addition to consulting for a variety of companies and colleges, she served as a Steering Committee member of the Sloan-C Emerging Technologies for Online Learning (ET4Online) Symposium in 2013 and 2012.  In 2010, she was awarded a Sloan-C Effective Practice Award for her use of VoiceThread, the Web-based application that allows users to create a shared presentation as a media album and interact with via voice, video, or text.  Ms. Pacansky-Brock is also a recipient of the Sloan-C Excellence in Online Teaching Award, a National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) award for Teaching Excellence, and the Capella Educator Advancement scholarship.  She is the author of the forthcoming eBook How to Humanize Your Online Class with VoiceThread, which will be available this summer.  Ms. Pacansky-Brock holds a B.A. from San Jose State University, a M.A. from the University of California, Riverside, and is currently completing her doctoral work in Education Leadership and Management at Capella University.

About Faculty eCommons 

Developed by Academic Partnerships, Faculty eCommons is a social learning ecosystem for faculty across the globe to work together and better online education.  The site offers industry research, guidance, best practices, and professional development, with a focus on national quality standards.  Academic Partnerships has a strategic alliance with Sloan Consortium and a subscription to the Quality Matters™ program, which are available to AP Partner faculty.  For more information, please visit www.facultyecommons.com.

About Academic Partnerships 
Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation.  Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States.  The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education.  AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally.  For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contact:

Jaquelyn M. Scharnick

Academic Partnerships

+1.214.438.4144

jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

Point of view: Virtual classes give lesson in reality

By James Dean
Can an online MBA programme be of the same high quality as a campus-based programme? From a teaching and learning perspective, there can no longer be any doubt that online education can match and, in some ways, exceed the performance of conventional education.

Online MBA programmes match or exceed the quality of on-campus programmes when done right. Doing it right does not mean simply transmitting taped lectures or using Powerpoint slides with a voice-over lecture. It does mean:

• Rigorous courses taught by excellent teachers who assess students’ work and provide feedback

• Students working in teams on group projects:

• Students actively engaged with classmates and professors, forming a lifelong network.

Doing online right is very hard work, and requires investments of time and resources. But it is possible and worthwhile, and MBA@UNC is the proof.

Any quality programme is built on the foundation of excellent students, faculty and curriculum. It must be engaging, interactive and supportive. A quality online programme is no different. Furthermore, while the experience is not exactly the same, the differences might surprise you.

With the right design, an online programme can offer experiences that you might think students miss by not being on campus. Our students participate in simulations and group projects, listen to corporate speakers and engage in a virtual consulting project. Live classes, capped at 15 students, feature a high level of direct student-faculty interaction. Students build strong relationships with each other and the school. They have virtual happy hours and virtual hallway conversations. When our first class graduates in July, a member will serve on our school’s alumni council.

Frankly, what we discovered is that using traditional education as the gold standard is outmoded.

• In our small, live classes, professors and students are visible at all times. There is no back row, so everyone can and must participate in ways that do not always occur in on-campus classes. Students are more accountable and their levels of energy and engagement are higher. Professors can better gauge their understanding in real-time.

• We archive everything, including live sessions. Students watch taped classes as many times as they need to master a subject; the class does not “evaporate” when the session ends. Professors can evaluate sessions and go back to a specific moment – for instance, to identify when a student became confused. Importantly, we have given essentially the same tests to our full-time and online students and seen virtually identical performance.

• Online students master virtual teamwork – a skill that companies require and value.

• Professors think deeply about what exactly they want students to learn and how to communicate that in new ways and then redesign their courses. They often incorporate those changes into their on-campus classes.

Beyond the purely curricular perspective, the picture is more complicated. Full time and online programmes have a portfolio of strengths and weaknesses, and meet the different needs of different student populations, with EMBA programmes, in many ways, the intermediate between the two.

For students who want to make significant changes early in their career paths, full-time programmes offer on-campus access to recruiters in ways not easy to replicate. Yet MBA@UNC students receive individualised career management support, assessments and coaching as students. And their employers reap the benefits of what they are learning. MBA@UNC students apply what they learn in class on Thursday at work on Friday morning. Employers so value their learning that about 30 per cent of our students have received promotions and new jobs after only one year in the programme.

Among the most compelling reasons for a top online programme are increased access and unparalleled flexibility for people who thought a quality MBA programme was out of reach. Those students might live in a place without proximity to a top programme and cannot or do not want to leave their jobs or relocate their families. What is the highest cost for on-campus students? To forego income for one or two years.

Asking whether an online programme can match the quality of a traditional programme might ultimately be the wrong question. As technology evolves, the question will increasingly become what are the characteristics of a high-quality programme for a particular student segment, however it is delivered.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/b04eb9b8-859d-11e2-9ee3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2NHwzvati

March 14, 2013
Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, today announced that it has appointed Barbara Truman as Vice President, Learning Technologies. In this newly-created position, Ms. Truman will be responsible for developing strategies to increase the effectiveness of online course delivery and foster faculty and student engagement. She will report to Academic Partnerships' Chief Academic Officer and Senior Vice President of Academic Services Dr. Charles Green.

Ms. Truman joins Academic Partnerships from the University of Central Florida (UCF), where she was most recently the Director of Course Development for the Center for Distributed Learning. Ms. Truman was a member of the leadership team for the university’s online education initiative Online@UCF, which served 60,000 students in Central Florida, and she founded the department that was a precursor to the university’s current award-winning online learning initiative.

"I am delighted that Barbara has joined the Academic Partnerships team,” said Dr. Charles Green, Chief Academic Officer and Senior Vice President of Academic Services. “Her experience leading the online learning initiative at one of the fastest growing universities in the United States and developing innovative faculty development programs built on research and collaboration will be of tremendous value as we work to expand access to higher education and support the faculty and students who are taking advantage of the opportunities presented by online learning."

In addition to her groundbreaking work at UCF, Ms. Truman actively promotes online learning and advocates for non-traditional adult learners through her work with various professional associations. She served as an inaugural faculty member of EDUCAUSE’s Learning Technology Leadership Institute in 2005-2007 and has also served on program committees for the organization's seminars in Academic Computing, its Learning Initiative, and its 2009 annual conference.

Ms. Truman earned her B.A and M.A. from the University of Central Florida and is currently completing her doctoral work in computer science and emerging media at Colorado Technical University.

About Academic Partnerships
Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation. Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contact:

Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
Academic Partnerships
+1.214.438.4144
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

Student-Loan Delinquencies Among the Young Soar

By Ruth Simon
The number of young borrowers who have fallen behind on their student loan payments has soared over the past four years, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a report released Thursday.

According to the report, 35% of people under 30 who have student loans were at least 90 days late on their payments at the end of last year, up from 26% in 2008 and 21% at the end of 2004.

The new figures, which exclude borrowers who are still in school or aren't yet required to make payments, show that young Americans are having a tougher time repaying college loans as debt loads increase and job prospects remain shaky.

Amplifying the burden: a growing number of young adults have become student borrowers. All told, 43% of 25-year-olds had student debt in the fourth quarter of 2012, up from about 33% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Concerns about higher debt loads and rising delinquencies are leading government officials and families to focus more on the payoff from a college degree. Meanwhile, colleges and universities are facing increased pressure to limit tuition increases. Some are even freezing or cutting their charges.

The high delinquency rate is very worrisome, said Wilbert van der Klaauw, an economist with the New York Fed, noting that higher education has traditionally produced a sizable financial payoff. "We hope the returns to these educational investments are going to be there" as the labor market rebounds, he added.

The amount of U.S. student-loan debt increased 11% last year to $966 billion and is up 51% since 2008, according to the report. Student-loan debt climbed even as other types of borrowing fell.

While 40% of student-loan borrowers owe less than $10,000, a growing number have higher loan balances. Nearly 47% of borrowers owe between $10,000 and $50,000, up from 38% in the fourth quarter of 2005. The share of borrowers with balances of $100,000 or more has also jumped, to 3.7% from 1.7% during this period.

Student-loan borrowers of all ages are struggling to make their payments, according to the Fed report. Overall, the portion of borrowers who are 90 days or more past due climbed to 31% in 2012 from 24% in 2008. Delinquency rates were highest for borrowers under 30, with 35% of them 90 days or more past due last year, up from 21% in 2004.

The New York Fed's numbers exclude the roughly 44% of borrowers who don't have to make loan payments, typically because they are still in school or have been granted a loan deferral or forbearance. The share of all borrowers who are 90 days or more past due climbed to 18% in the fourth quarter from 10% at the end of 2004, according to the report.

The amount of other types of consumer debt held by borrowers ages 25 to 30 tumbled between 2005 and 2012 even as student loan balances have increased. The reduction in other types of debt was greatest for borrowers with $100,000 or more in student loan debt, a group that includes many borrowers with advanced degrees.

Borrowers who are behind on their student loan debts are far more likely to also be late on auto-loan, credit-card and mortgage payments, according to the report.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323978104578332222805526516.html

Big Increase In High School Enrollment In College Courses

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a new report documenting the rapid and sustained growth of dual and concurrent enrollment nationwide, demonstrating the important role that partnerships with colleges and universities have in increasing the rigor of the high school experience.

During the 2010-11 school year, NCES estimates that nearly 15,000 public high schools (82 percent) enrolled students in 2 million college courses, for which students earned both high school and college credit. This is an increase from 71% in school year 2002-03, when NCES last conducted the study. Over the intervening eight years an additional 4,000 public high schools established dual and concurrent enrollment partnerships to offer college courses.

The majority of students were able to take college courses without leaving their high school campus through the concurrent enrollment model, which utilizes college-approved high school instructors to teach college courses. Over three-quarters (77%) of dual enrollment students were taught at secondary school locations, including career centers run by the public school system. At 89% percent of high schools where academic college courses are offered on site, high school instructors deliver some or all of the college courses.

Sandy González of Schenectady County Community College in New York, President of the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP) remarked: “The new report from NCES documents the remarkable growth in concurrent enrollment partnerships between high schools and colleges throughout the past decade. Colleges and universities increasingly recognize the need to share resources and create a more continuous education system for students.”

The report, conducted by the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Education, provides nationwide estimates based on a representative survey of public high schools. It concludes that high school students took 2 million college courses in 2010-11, up from 1.2 million in 2002-03. This represents an annual growth rate of greater than 7% over the intervening eight years. Even higher growth rates were seen in schools where a majority of students are ethnic or racial minorities (12%), rural schools (12%), and in the Northeast and Southeast regions of the country (9%). A companion report on postsecondary providers of dual enrollment courses will be released in March.

Research studies show that earning college credit while in high school improves college transitions and creates the academic momentum necessary for students to complete college degrees. Recent reports from the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and the Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) have called on colleges and universities to further engage with their secondary partners to address the critical need to improve students’ readiness for college.

http://collegepuzzle.stanford.edu/?p=2917

A College Degree Sorts Job Applicants, but Employers Wish It Meant More

By Karin Fischer
Yet half of those surveyed recently by The Chronicle and American Public Media's Marketplace said they had trouble finding recent graduates qualified to fill positions at their company or organization. Nearly a third gave colleges just fair to poor marks for producing successful employees. And they dinged bachelor's-degree holders for lacking basic workplace proficiencies, like adaptability, communication skills, and the ability to solve complex problems.

"Woefully unprepared" is how David E. Boyes characterized the newly minted B.A.'s who apply to his Northern Virginia technology consulting company.

What gives? These days a bachelor's degree is practically a prerequisite for getting your résumé read—two-thirds of employers said they never waive degree requirements, or do so only for particularly outstanding candidates. But clearly the credential leaves employers wanting. While they use college as a sorting mechanism, to signal job candidates' discipline and drive, they think it is falling short in adequately preparing new hires.

The tension may lie partly in changes in the world of work: technological transformation and evolving expectations that employees be ready to handle everything straightaway. And perhaps managers are right to expect an easier time finding employees up to the task—after all, three times the proportion of Americans have bachelor's degrees now as did a generation or two ago.

Some economists, like Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania, argue that employers' gripes about unprepared job candidates are just the same old, same old: "I understand that those doing the hiring in ancient Greece complained about the same thing."

Sine Nomine Associates, Mr. Boyes's firm, works with high-tech companies like Cisco and IBM. However, it's fundamental abilities that he says recent graduates lack, like how to analyze large amounts of data or construct a cogent argument. "It's not a matter of technical skill," he says, "but of knowing how to think."

Mr. Boyes, who takes on one or two new employees a year, isn't alone in finding recent graduates weak in those areas. While fresh hires had the right technical know-how for the job, said most employers in the survey, they grumbled that colleges weren't adequately preparing students in written and oral communication, decision-making, and analytical and research skills.

That might come as a surprise to college leaders, who frequently cast the value of a degree in those very terms. But Julian L. Alssid, of the nonprofit Workforce Strategy Center, says that although business and higher education may use the same language, it doesn't always have the same meaning. Educators often think of such competencies "in a purely academic context," Mr. Alssid says, while employers want "book smarts to translate to the real world."

"It's a matter of how to apply that knowledge," he says.

Such a push, however, tends not to go over well with faculty members who look down on any instruction perceived as vocational.

The Boeing Company in 2008 began to rank colleges based on how well their graduates perform within the corporation; it plans to conduct the same evaluation again this year, says Richard D. Stephens, senior vice president for human resources and management.

While the results have not been made public, Boeing did share them with colleges. Some took the findings seriously, even working with the aerospace company to refine their curricula, while others dismissed them. Colleges' responses, Mr. Stephens says, have affected where Boeing focuses its internship programs and hiring.

"To expect business to bring graduates up to speed," he says, "that's too much to ask."

With many people now moving from job to job and employer to employer throughout their careers, on-the-job preparation no longer makes economic sense to a lot of companies. Mr. Boyes, the technology consultant, puts all new hires through a yearlong training program, but he's an outlier.

"Once upon a time, 'trainee' used to be a common job title," says Philip D. Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. "Now companies expect everyone, recent graduates included, to be ready to go on Day One.

"The mantle of preparing the work force," he says, "has been passed to higher ed."

Whether colleges want to accept that responsibility is another matter. While some institutions tout their career centers, internship offerings, and academic programs designed with industry input, others argue that workplace skills ought to be taught on the job. Higher education is meant to educate broadly, not train narrowly, they say: It's business that's asking too much.

And if college graduates aren't up to scratch, some campus leaders ask, why do employers keep hiring them? The unemployment rate for Americans with bachelor's degrees, after all, is less than 5 percent; for those with only high-school diplomas, it's nearly double.

Well, because even though employers may kvetch about college graduates, they generally make better employees than those who finished only high school, says Paul E. Harrington, who leads Drexel University's Center for Labor Markets and Policy. If nothing else, having gone through four—or five or six—years of schooling proves that they can stick with a task. "It's a relative bet," he says.

Survey respondents echoed that idea, calling a college degree "absolutely required," "a must," and "indication a candidate ... can work toward achieving a goal." A B.A. shows that somebody has "staying power," one employer said. "It helps distinguish between those that have put in effort," another noted, "versus those who have not."

But Mr. Harrington and others worry that bachelor's-degree holders may be squeezing those with less education out of the job market, particularly during this lingering downturn. A recent study by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a research-and-advocacy group, found that nearly half of all American college graduates in 2010 were underemployed, holding jobs that require less than a bachelor's degree.

Those findings are contested by some in higher education, such as the Lumina Foundation's Jamie P. Merisotis, who calls the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupational definitions, on which the study is based, imprecise or out of date. A college degree may not be necessary to sell shoes, but it probably is to sell sophisticated medical devices, Mr. Merisotis says. Both occupations are classified as "sales" by the bureau.

In fact, in the Chronicle-Marketplace survey, some lines of work that traditionally haven't required a degree, including manufacturing and the service-and-retail sector, are where employers now place a higher value on a college education. Other fields, like nursing and respiratory therapy, have begun to require a bachelor's degree for even entry-level positions.

The trend may reflect the growing complexity of certain professions, but it worries Barbara R. Jones, president of South Arkansas Community College, a rural institution that enrolls large numbers of working adults and first-generation students.

Additional schooling isn't always feasible or affordable for them, she says, and all the focus on the bachelor's degree could make it more difficult for those students to climb toward a solid career.

"My concern," she says, "is that we don't eliminate rungs on the ladder."

Students go to college to get an education and a job. Yet the things they look for in colleges to help propel them forward don't always square with what employers value.

In a national survey, freshmen at four-year colleges most often cited the option "This college has a very good academic reputation" as very important in deciding where to enroll. After they spend years doing well in school to get into college, straight A's often remain an expectation. And in some circles, the name on the rear-window decal of the family car is all-important.

But students' grades and their colleges' reputations are hardly the most important factors for employers, according to a survey by The Chronicle and American Public Media's Marketplace. Employers want new graduates to have real-world experience. Internships and work during college matter most: Employers said that each of those was about four times as important as college reputation, which they rated least important. Relevance of coursework and grade-point average rounded out the bottom of the list.

Those results track with other research into what employers want, says Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. "Students and families overestimate the importance of selectivity enormously," he says. "The economy is much more democratic than higher education is."

Yet there is less of a discrepancy between how families and employers look at college than there used to be, says David Strauss, a principal with the Art & Science Group, a higher-education consulting firm that studies enrollment decisions. Top students used to feel confident about life after graduation, he says. Not anymore.

Second to academic reputation among students' reasons for picking a college is that its "graduates get good jobs," according to the survey of freshmen. Some directors of campus internship programs report fielding questions from prospective families. And, responding to consumer demand in 2007, the Princeton Review scrapped its ranking of best academic colleges, replacing it with one for career services.

That recent interest aligns with employers' focus on practical experience. For Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, which hires some 8,500 recent college graduates in a typical year, such experience can come from an internship, a job, "anything that allows them to see what the real world is like—the more professional, the better," says Marie M. Artim, vice president for talent acquisition. The company's own internship program serves as a significant pipeline.

The same goes for General Electric. The company concentrates its recruitment on 45 American and 60 foreign campuses, from which it makes two-thirds of its hires, says Steve Canale, manager of global recruiting and staffing. So while there are good candidates elsewhere, he says, GE homes in on where it will get the greatest return. That means even a standout student at an unknown college is less likely to catch a recruiter's eye.

Beyond experience, the rest of what matters to employers can be murkier: It depends on the company and the job. Take grade-point average. Many employers are little concerned with grades, as the survey reflects. Others, like GE, use a cutoff to shrink the pool. As for graduates' majors, they matter a great deal in some fields, like engineering; you need a certain background to design a jet engine. But recent graduates angling to work, say, sales, don't need a particular major as long as they have other skills. Communication, integrity, and ambition are three qualities GE looks for in all its hires.

Between teenagers and careers stand colleges, and both sides expect them to be a bridge. "Universities across the U.S. are working to bring those two pieces together closer all the time," says Gene Wells, who directs the career center at the University of Evansville.

Evansville's president has made a big push on career development, says Mr. Wells. "We want to make sure our education is a value proposition for students, parents, and our other set of customers: employers and our community."

The campaign begins even before students enroll. Last summer Evansville began offering free career-assessment and -advising sessions during campus visits by prospective students. Career counselors also talk with them outside the visit program, sometimes via Skype. From last August to December, 160 prospective students took part in some kind of counseling, Mr. Wells says.

They may have an idea of what job they'd like to pursue—perhaps because they've seen it on TV, he says—but they haven't learned yet to think broadly about various ways their interests might line up with the world of work. That's where Evansville can help.

But while colleges are doing more to prepare students for the job search, employers aren't necessarily satisfied with the results. Nearly a third responded in the survey that recent graduates were unprepared for that search. Their interviewing skills, employers said, were particularly lacking.

Students start college with a limited understanding of the professional world, says Christopher E. Reeves, a counselor at Beechwood High School, in Fort Mitchell, Ky. Parents care a lot about their children's finding jobs after college, but at the admissions stage that mostly translates into a fixation on major, says Mr. Reeves. Parents feel better "if the major describes the job," he says. The liberal arts, he finds, can be a tough sell.

Perhaps that limited awareness shouldn't come as a surprise. Should high-school students know exactly where they want to go to college to plot a precise course to a career? Teenagers may be clueless about what they might do with their lives, but they're being pushed to start figuring it out.

The pressure is on. Already the admissions process is starting earlier, and the stakes are high. College prices are rising, family incomes are not, and more students are turning to loans to make up the difference. As greater shares of students graduate with debt, they must think fast about earning a living in a job market that remains weak.

Students have much to gain, then, in figuring out what employers want. Of course, they can always just go to graduate school.

That's where Rachel Vandernick, a senior at Messiah College, in Mechanicsburg, Pa., learned how to fail. It happened during one of her six internships, when she inadvertently sent the wrong press release to 40 news outlets.

Until then, says Ms. Vandernick, a public-relations major, failure meant getting a B-minus, showing up to class late, or not knowing the answer to a professor's question. Failure in her internship affected other people and the company's brand. She had to send out 40 new e-mails to make things right.

"I learned," she says, "how to clean up a mistake."

The lessons internships can teach, their growing prominence, and the enormous value they carry for college graduates are turning them into a key marketing asset for higher education in a tough economy—even as the experiences can prove difficult to weave into the traditional curriculum.

Students don't just want internships; they need them. When evaluating recent graduates, employers weigh internships most heavily—more so than applicants' college, their grades, or their major, according to a survey commissioned by The Chronicle and American Public Media's Marketplace.

"An internship is the single most important credential for recent college graduates to have on their résumé," wrote Maguire Associates, the higher-education consulting firm that conducted the survey.

Internships also present a paradox. While a college degree delivers higher earnings over a lifetime, it is often internships that start graduates on their way. And yet the experiences unfold almost entirely outside traditional academic bounds.

Internships take many forms. Professionally focused disciplines may require them, sometimes by other names: fieldwork, co-op, practicum. Some internships pay; some ask that interns receive academic credit; some do both or neither. Two students in the same major at the same college can intern for the same company, work for different supervisors, and emerge with two very different experiences.

Such variety can make it difficult to quantify internships' educational value. And yet colleges often must do just that. Federal guidelines, intended to protect interns from exploitation, consider academic credit a fair substitute for compensation. At least that's how companies see it—and they often require that interns get that credit.

To increase oversight of internships and bolster their educational validity, colleges have erected considerable institutional scaffolding around them. The most robust programs screen and counsel students, offer a concurrent internship course, craft learning contracts with employers, conduct site visits, assign students writing exercises, assess their portfolios, and ask students and employers to evaluate each other.

Although such efforts are helpful, they're not the only factors that lead to real learning, says Michael True, director of the Internship Center at Messiah and manager of a national e-mail list on the subject. In good internships, students are bound to learn, whether their college takes an active role or not. The hope, he says, is that institutions will push students to think more deeply than they otherwise would.

"The reflection is what brings the deep learning," says Mr. True. "We know that doesn't always happen," but "that's the ideal."

Educators certainly see the potential of internships. They are one of several "high-impact practices" identified by George D. Kuh, founder of the National Survey of Student Engagement, or Nessie. Like service learning, study abroad, and open-ended research projects, internships often place undergraduates in challenging situations with complex tasks and elusive answers.

"You can't easily simulate that kind of real-world experience," says Jillian Kinzie, associate director of Nessie. "When done well, they connect students to opportunities where they can apply what they're leaning to a different context."

Internships also come with real-life consequences, as Ms. Vandernick, of Messiah, discovered. Working with colleagues can carry lessons as well. Students will often find themselves alongside people of different ages, backgrounds, and views, which can also spur self-reflection and learning.

But colleges aren't always thorough in prompting that reflection. Less than half of students granted academic credit for an internship had to write a paper or deliver a presentation on what they learned during their experience, according to Intern Bridge, a recruiting-and-consulting firm, which analyzed survey responses in 2011 from nearly 9,000 students at 300 colleges.

Even in internship programs with apparently sound educational guidelines, lessons aren't guaranteed.

The University of Connecticut's internship program in writing is one that makes a deliberate effort to connect the classroom to the workplace. Students serving as interns take a course that assigns one to two pages of reflection following each day of work, says Ruth Fairbanks, the program's director.

Such exercises don't always ensure connections, at least at first. Jacquelyn M. Lomp, who graduated from UConn last May with a B.A. in English, initially wasn't sure how her internship, in which she wrote newsletters for the university's pharmacy department, related to her studies. "I'd go from dissecting different pharmaceutical research," she says, "to studying Norse mythology."

Only after college did she come to recognize that both her academic work and her internship required intense focus and the ability to analyze language for deeper meaning.

In some practically oriented fields, the classroom is direct preparation for the workplace. An internship can add a necessary dose of messiness.

Shannon Duffy, who graduated from Xavier University in Ohio with a degree in nursing, says internships helped her see obstacles that can arise in clinical practice. While her coursework taught her that a bacterial infection can be cured with antibiotics, her experience revealed that the patient may not understand the instructions, have enough money to fill the prescription, or finish the prescribed course.

"There was always a jolt to see or do something for the first time with a patient, compared to in classes," Ms. Duffy, who is now a pediatric nurse in an intensive-care unit, wrote in an e-mail.

Such stories suggest that internships will continue to bring educational value to students. Whether this value is the result of, or irrelevant to, a sometimes-disconnected academic enterprise is debatable. In a depressed labor market, in which an internship has become more or less a prerequisite for a job, those concerns may also be beside the point.

Survey Results and Methodology

The findings on these pages come from a survey developed, fielded, and analyzed by Maguire Associates Inc., a higher-education consulting firm, on behalf of The Chronicle and American Public Media's Marketplace. Maguire invited 50,000 employers to participate in the study. Experience.com, a career-services consultancy, helped develop the sample by providing a contact list of employers that recruit recent college graduates.

The survey was conducted in August and September 2012. There were 704 responses.

Results were organized by industry and hiring level. Hiring levels were divided into human resources, managers, and executives.

http://chronicle.com/article/A-College-Degree-Sorts-Job/137625#id=overview

Public-University Costs Soar

By Ruth Simon
Tuition at public colleges jumped last year by a record amount as state governments slashed school funding, the latest sign of strain in the U.S. higher-education sector.

The average amount that students at public colleges paid in tuition, after state and institutional grants and scholarships, climbed 8.3% last year, the biggest jump on record, according to a report based on data from all public institutions in all 50 states to be released Wednesday by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. Median tuition rose 4.5%.

The average state funding per student, meanwhile, fell by more than 9%, the steepest drop since the group began collecting the data in 1980. Median funding fell 10%. During the recession, states began cutting support for higher education, and the trend accelerated last year.

Rising tuition costs are "another example of the bind that public institutions are in," said Sandy Baum, a senior fellow at the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development. "Unless we make public funding a higher priority, the funds are going to have to come from parents and students."

To be sure, last year's decline in state funding nationwide was driven heavily by cutbacks in California, which has the largest state system and lashed funding per student by 14.3% last year. Not including California, per-student funding fell 8% and tuition rose 6.3%.

Paul Lingenfelter, president of the higher-education association, noted that 31 states increased higher education funding in 2012-13, and a number have proposed an increase for the coming year as well.

Kaylen Hendrick, a senior at Florida State University in Tallahassee majoring in environmental studies, is graduating in three years rather than four in order to keep costs and borrowing down.

"Growing up, I thought if I made good enough grades, that college would not be a problem," said Ms. Hendrick, 20 years old, who has taken out about $15,000 in student loans and works 20 hours a week to pay for college.

State funding for the State University System of Florida has declined by more than $1 billion over the last six years, even as enrollment has grown by more than 35,000 students, a spokeswoman for the system said.

Nationally, average tuition, after institutional grants and scholarships, increased to $5,189 in 2011-12 from $4,793 a year earlier, according to the report, which is based on the 2011-12 academic year and adjusted its figures for inflation. Tuition revenue accounted for a record 47% of educational funding at public colleges last year.

The price increases at state schools come at a time when many private colleges are reining in price increases and awarding generous scholarships to attract families worried about rising debt loads and a still shaky job market. In some cases, state tuition has risen so much that costs approach what students might pay at a private college.

At Pennsylvania State University's main campus, in-state undergraduate students receiving financial aid paid an average of $21,342 after grants and scholarships in 2010-11, according to the U.S. Department of Education, up 12% since 2008-09. State funding now accounts for less than 14% of the school's educational budget, down from as much as 62% in 1970-71. "When the appropriation is cut, tuition rises," a Penn State spokeswoman said.

In addition to raising tuition, many states have pared spending. The California State University System declined to take the vast majority of transfer students this spring and has turned away about 20,000 students who qualified for admission during each of the past three years, a spokesman said.

In Kentucky, higher tuition prices make up for just half of the loss in state funding, said Robert King, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, which oversees the state's system.

Kentucky's colleges have increased efforts to promote online education, and are also taking steps that could hurt academic quality, such as reducing course offerings and increasing the use of adjunct faculty. The University of Kentucky is tapping revenue from its athletic department to fund construction of a new science building, he added.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324539404578342750480773548.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Financing for Colleges Declines as Costs Rise

By Tamar Lewin
State and local financing for higher education declined 7 percent in fiscal 2012, to $81.2 billion, according to the annual report of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, and per-student support dropped 9 percent from the previous year, to $5,896, in constant dollars, the lowest level in at least 25 years.

“Tuition revenues are up substantially due to higher prices and more enrollments, but not enough to offset losses of public funding,” said Paul Lingenfelter, the president of the higher education group, based in Boulder, Colo. “Students are paying more, while public institutions are receiving substantially less money to educate them. These one-year decreases in funding and increases in student costs are unprecedented over my 40-year career in higher education.”

Mr. Lingenfelter said he was particularly troubled by the long-term trend of shifting the cost of higher education from the public onto students and their families.

Over the last 25 years, the share of public university revenues coming from tuition and fees has climbed steadily to 47 percent past year, from 23 percent in 1987. And with ever-higher tuition, full-time college attendance is out of reach for an increasing number of students, which bodes ill for their chances of completing a degree.

“We’ve developed a culture that says part-time study is O.K.,” Mr. Lingenfelter said. “But the more you go to school part time, the less likely you are to finish. We should be providing enough assistance that students can pay attention to their education, and not making a living for a short period of time, so they’ll be prepared to make a good living for a long time.”

In 2008, before the recession, state and local government provided a record high of $88 billion to colleges and universities. And while the recession cut sharply into state financing, the federal stimulus funds helped keep the level of support relatively stable in 2009-11. But by last year, most of that stimulus money had been spent, bringing a large decline in government support.

Enrollment at public universities, which had increased 28 percent since 2002, dropped by 0.7 percent in 2012.

The worst of the financial troubles may be past. Education appropriations for 2013 increased in three out of five states, although the national total for state higher education appropriations is still slightly down.

“This is not a hostile environment for higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, a higher education policy expert. “But politicians are really feeling pressure on the affordability and debt issue. In a couple of states, when they put money back in, they also put a lid on tuition. Anyone who thinks we’re going to get back to the status quo ante, that’s simply not in the cards.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/education/aid-for-higher-education-declines-as-costs-rise.html?_r=0

UK Universities 'Face Online Threat'

By Sean Coughlan
Sir Michael Barber, chief education adviser for Pearson, says online courses will be a "threat and opportunity" for the UK's universities.

This "avalanche" could see some middle-ranking universities closing, he says.

"There are too many universities doing the same thing," says Sir Michael.

The report, An Avalanche is Coming, argues that higher education faces an unpredictable global revolution, driven by the impact of the rise in online universities.

The former Downing Street adviser says he would be "very surprised" if such disruption in higher education did not mean the closure of some universities within a decade.

The report, published by the IPPR think tank, warns that the UK's universities will have to adapt to direct international competition.

There are already big US networks of universities offering courses to students anywhere in the world, with two consortiums having already signed up almost four million students.

These offer hundreds of courses from partner universities in Europe and Asia as well as the US.

These so-called MOOCs - massive open online courses - give students online access to lectures and courses from leading academics and universities around the world.

Sir Michael says this creates an opportunity for the UK - and that there is nothing inevitable about this emerging market being dominated by big players from the US.

Futurelearn, an online consortium of UK universities, is expected to launch courses later this year.

Sir Michael forecasts that this more competitive environment will see the component parts of universities being "unbundled".

Research could be taken over by private specialist institutions or universities could focus on the quality of teaching, using lectures and course materials created elsewhere.

It could also see universities emerging that are more systematically integrated with their local economies.

Such internationalisation will also mean challenges for national government, says Sir Michael.

The current undergraduate finance model, where students borrow to study for three years in a UK institution, does not provide for a future in which students might want to take course units from a range of universities, both in the UK and abroad.

Sir Michael also says the government will have to reconsider how they can develop start-up businesses around universities, following the pattern of hi-tech industries in the United States growing around Stanford University in California and MIT in the Boston area.

"The certainties of the past are no longer certainties. The models of higher education that marched triumphantly across the globe in the second half of the 20th Century are broken," write the report authors, Sir Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly and Saad Rizvi.

"Just as globalisation and technology have transformed other huge sectors of the economy in the past 20 years, in the next 20 years universities face transformation."

Sir David Bell, vice chancellor of Reading University, said: "Success in the future will depend on agility, rather than a simple choice between one model of university or another."

He suggested that this would mean combining advanced research and international campuses as well as being "intensely local".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21670959

Mar. 5, 2013
LSU today announced that it will be collaborating with Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, to bring four of its most popular master’s degree programs online.

Slated to launch this spring are online degree programs from the E. J. Ourso College of Business (Master of Business Administration); the College of Human Sciences & Education (Master of Arts in Education with a specialization in Higher Education and Master of Science in Human Resource Education with a concentration in Human Resource and Leadership Development); and the College of Engineering (Master of Science in Construction Management).

"We recognize that higher education has become a global market, and LSU wants to actively participate as our domestic students are coming to see their future as tied to their global citizenship," said William L. Jenkins, interim president and chancellor of LSU. "New technologies and the global marketing network that Academic Partnerships brings us will accelerate LSU's ability to recruit and educate students around the world."

LSU Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Stuart R. Bell added, "The quality of LSU’s business, education, and engineering programs is well known, and we look forward to expanding the reach of these programs while carrying on their tradition of excellence."

Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships, said, "We are delighted to be collaborating with LSU. It is a great American university and a truly global brand. Providing degree programs online will give LSU the opportunity to take its high academic quality to greater scale."

Academic Partnerships was selected due to its successful track record of helping public universities expand access. AP has assisted more than 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited thousands of students for its U.S. and international partners.

About Louisiana State University
LSU is the flagship institution of the state of Louisiana and is one of only 30 universities nationwide holding land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant status. Since 1860, LSU has served the people of Louisiana, the region, the nation, and the world through extensive, multipurpose programs encompassing instruction, research, and public service. The quality of LSU’s academics is reflected in the number of nationally ranked programs and nationally recognized scholars at LSU. Since its first commencement in 1869, LSU has awarded nearly 200,000 degrees. That number continues to grow and includes some of the nation’s best and brightest graduates. For more information, please visit www.lsuonline.lsu.edu.

About Academic Partnerships
Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation. Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contacts:

Kristine Calongne
LSU
+1.225.578.5985
kcalong@lsu.edu

Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
Academic Partnerships
+1.214.438.4144
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

Minister urges universities to put courses online

UK universities should invest in online courses if they are to take advantage of a "historic opportunity", according to Universities Minister David Willetts, who said that countries such as India and Indonesia have a soaring demand for university courses – creating a market for the UK's universities – writes Sean Coughlan for the BBC.

But he argued that the scale of demand would need to be met by online courses as well as campus universities. Willetts, speaking at the Guardian Higher Education Summit, told university leaders that online universities were going to be an important part of the global expansion in student numbers.

The minister described as "astounding" the likely rise in demand in Asian countries for university places, driven by demographic and economic changes. But he questioned whether the classic model of a traditional campus university would be able to respond to such a "huge appetite" for higher education. Full report on the BBC site.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130301135902981

Financial Pressures Drive Down College Completion - CLASP RADD Chart Series Continues

Confronted with high costs and unmet financial need, low- and modest-income students and their families face a difficult choice: work more while in college, borrow more, or do both. When students cannot afford college, it not only limits access to higher education and drives up debt, it also increases (sometimes significantly) the time it takes to earn a degree and/or ultimately complete a credential.

Though students fail to complete postsecondary programs for a variety of reasons, financial pressures appear to be the single largest factor. A 2009 survey of young adults who had left college confirms this phenomenon: 71 percent of students said one reason for leaving was because they had to “go to work and make money;” 54 percent listed this as a “major reason.”

Researchers also think the need to work substantial hours while in college largely explains why so many students now attend college part-time. A recent study by the National Student Clearinghouse of nearly two million undergraduates over a six-year period found that more than half (51 percent) attended college a mixture of full and part-time. This affected how quickly they could complete their degrees. After six years, 76 percent of full-time students had completed, with just 4 percent still enrolled. By contrast, among students attending a mix of full and part-time, only 41 percent had completed and 27 percent were still enrolled.

We can start to address these issues by protecting Pell Grants, simplifying and better targeting the $34 billion+ we spend annually on tax-based student aid, and giving students and parents the facts about college outcomes. Read our report for policy recommendations to help address the affordability gap.

http://www.clasp.org/postsecondary/in_focus?id=0083

By Ruth Simon
Most people assume a degree in the arts is no guarantee of riches. Now there is evidence that such graduates also rack up the most student-loan debt.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of new Department of Education data shows that median debt loads at schools specializing in art, music and design average $21,576, which works out to a loan payment of about $248 a month. That is a heavy burden, considering that salaries for graduates of such schools with five or fewer years' experience cluster around $40,000, according to PayScale.com.

The figures are based on the amount of federal education loans in 2010-11; they include those taken out by students and their parents, but consist of only students for whom there is borrowing. That group is growing. Almost 67% of college students who graduated in 2012 had loans, up from 63% a decade ago, estimates Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.com, a financial-aid website.

The "College Scorecard" released by the government last week offers prospective students a new way to help gauge the financial return on a college education. Families can search by school to see how much money students owe on federal student loans when they leave college, as well as estimated monthly loan payments. About 10 states, including Virginia, Florida and California, already publish salary information by school and program or are expected to do so this year.

The scorecard also includes information on graduation rates, loan defaults and average costs after grants and scholarships, all of which was previously available on a Department of Education website. That earlier site also shows the average amount students at different schools borrow in a year, but it doesn't spell out how that debt can add up or what it will take to repay it.

Lisa Collins, who has three children in college, said it would have been "absolutely wonderful" to have such information when her family was picking colleges. Ms. Collins, of South Amboy, N.J., said her children, who this year are attending Monmouth University and Rutgers University in New Jersey as well as online institution Thomas Edison State College, have racked up about $100,000 in student debt, an amount she called "frightening."

Among the 4,000 colleges and universities in the federal database, the Creative Center in Omaha, Neb., a for-profit school that offers a three-year bachelor's in fine arts, had the highest average debt load, at $52,035. Median pay for graduates of the school with five or fewer years' experience is $31,400, according to PayScale.com.

"Salaries can be pretty darn high or pretty low" for the school's graduates, who typically get jobs in graphic arts or advertising, said Creative Center President Ray Dotzler. "We have graduates making six figures, which we think is really good," he adds, though "a lot of them start in the twenties."

New York's Manhattan School of Music had the second-highest median debt load, at $47,000. Graduates with up to five years' experience earn an average of $42,700, according to PayScale.

"Manhattan School of Music offers world-class musical education at a reasonable price," said interim President Marjorie Merryman. She called the government figures "misleading," noting that typically 30% to 50% of the class borrows and class size is small, typically 65 to 90 students, meaning year-to-year figures can turn on the actions of a handful of students. Many students work abroad and take years to realize their full earnings potential, she added.

The federal data aren't complete. Families can't compare schools side by side or use the tool to see what kind of money people can expect to earn after graduation. Graduation rates include only first-time, full-time students. And loan figures also measure debt at the time students enter loan repayment, meaning they don't take into account whether or not students complete college. That could understate debt loads for graduates of schools with high dropout rates.

Department of Education officials said they plan to add a comparison tool and make other revisions. The government expects to make salary information available later this year and is looking at ways to use Social Security data, Labor Department records or other information.

New York University, with a median debt of $29,260, had the highest borrowing among schools with more than 10,000 students.

"Excellence in higher education is costly," particularly in a big city like New York, an NYU spokesman said in a statement, adding that NYU doesn't benefit from a large per student endowment or state funding and is "upfront" about costs. The federal data "seems to be dated" and doesn't take into account a recent decline in median borrowing, he added.

Sara Moe, a junior majoring in political science and public policy, figured she would have to take on substantial debt at NYU. "But I was hoping for five digits, not six," said Ms. Moe, who expects to rack up more than $100,000 in loans by the time she graduates. Said Ms. Moe: "It's important to know what you are getting yourself into."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324432004578306610055834952.html

By Julia Lawrence
How responsible are institutions of higher education for making sure that their graduates are job-ready? That is the question being asked by Joshua Wyner, the Executive Director of Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, in an article for the Huffington Post.

He takes for his departure point the statements made by both President Barack Obama and the current GOP frontrunner for the 2016 nomination Senator Marco Rubio that the economic recovery will be the key to the reversal of the decline of the American middle class. And one way that this economic recovery could be pushed forward is with college programs that do a better job to filling the employment gaps in the country’s most forward-looking industries.

Research shows that there are about two million jobs in the United States today going begging because Americans don’t have the skills needed to fill those jobs. If domestic and multinational corporations are to fill those jobs here in the U.S. rather than moving them overseas, two things will need to be done.

There have been nascent efforts to fill that gap at the high school and college level. New York City’s successful P-TECH school, which got a mention during the President’s State of the Union address and which teaches its students skills necessary to begin an entry-level job at IBM upon gradation, is one such move that’s promising success. Yet most colleges still continue to run their programs as if the realities of the job markets don’t exist. Few make the effort to liaise with industry representatives to find out what they expect from their potential employees.

Last year, a story on NPR provided a good example of the challenge. There are thousands of computer-related jobs in the high-tech Seattle area that are going unfilled despite the fact that qualified students are clamoring to get into computer science and computer engineering programs at the University of Washington. How is this possible? Because while the University of Washington has an undergraduate program designed to train and place students in this field, that program has not been expanded since 1999 even though the number of high-tech jobs has exploded. Good jobs and eligible students make for what might seem like a perfect match, but there is log jam: Students can’t access the training that they need to be prepared for those jobs.

What is preventing the program expansion at the University of Washington and elsewhere is, of course, money. Funding for public universities has been shrinking on both the state and the federal level, and schools often can’t afford to hire additional faculty and dedicate additional resources to meet student demand.

To fix the problem, Wyner calls on the federal government to find a way to financially reward schools that make an effort to produce more graduates in shortage fields. But the schools must also be willing to make hard choices like “realigning their own resources” from less job-oriented programs to the ones for whose graduates the local businesses clamor.

http://www.educationnews.org/higher-education/colleges-should-do-more-to-align-programs-with-job-market/

Johnny Manziel taking only online courses, only on campus once a month

By Frank Schwab
Johnny Manziel is the big man on campus at Texas A&M, except for the fact that he's never really on campus. Manziel met with reporters before a Davey O'Brien Award dinner, and Brent Zwerneman, the Aggies beat writer for the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle, tweeted out a couple of interesting tidbits from Texas A&M's quarterback about his classwork this semester.

Most notably, his education is all coming online.

We're not suggesting any of this is afoul with NCAA rules; Texas A&M obviously knows of Manziel's online classes and wouldn't mess around with the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner's eligibility. But it's just a little weird. After all, it doesn't seem normal that Cam Newton, the 2010 Heisman Trophy winner who has two NFL seasons under his belt, is spending more time on Auburn's campus this semester than last season's Heisman winner who will be playing college ball in the fall is spending at Texas A&M. But, since the school apparently has no problem with it (and online classes aren't exactly new ground or anything), it seems there's nothing more to the story other than it being a bit unusual.

There's probably good reason for Manziel to take online classes. And Texas A&M is proud of its online schooling. Manziel has to be a major celebrity at Texas A&M already (one other nugget from Zwerneman is that Manziel said he'll look at all his NFL options after the season), and he probably deals with many distractions when he is on campus.

In the Express-News, Zwerneman wrote that Manziel signed up for an on-campus English class, but quickly saw he was the center of attention.

“I went one day — it was a small class of 20 or 25 — and it kind of turned into more of a big deal than I thought,” Manziel told the paper. “The (athletic department) did a good job of saying, 'Let us know if you need anything and we'll figure it all out,' but (by then) I had all online classes, so we didn't need that.”

Still, this probably won't be promoted by the NCAA, which tries to pass off the notion of "student-athlete" as its highest profile athlete isn't living the normal student life, at least for this semester.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/johnny-manziel-taking-only-online-courses-only-campus-233900102--ncaaf.html

Feb. 21, 2013
Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, today announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Internships.com, the world's largest internships marketplace serving students, employers, and higher education institutions. Through this strategic partnership, all of Academic Partnerships' current and future university partners will be able to offer a next-generation virtual career solution to the students enrolled in their programs free of charge.

"We are committed to providing industry-leading offerings to the universities with which we partner, and the virtual career platform that we have created with Internships.com is another example of that committment," said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. "Colleges and universities play an important role in supporting students seeking internships and employment opportunities, and we are pleased to provide our partners and the students they serve with a tool that will contribute to their success."

"We are delighted to be working with Academic Partnerships on this important initiative," said Robin D. Richards, chairman and CEO of Internships.com. "Academic Partnerships offers students access to world-class educational programs; now it will be able to offer a world-class career solution as well."

Students at Academic Partnerships' partner universities will have online access to more than 125,000 internship, part-time, and full-time job opportunities, as well as a next-generation virtual career solution to support their entry into the workforce. Every student will be able to access premium tools, including a database of millions of companies with contact information and industry resources, that aid in networking and career searches; a set of professional assessment tests that identify a student's values, skills, personal qualities, and preferences; and a professionally-created online certification course that trains students in practical workplace skills. The platform will also be integrated with the leading social networks to enable students to leverage their social connections. Internships.com will custom-brand and integrate its platform into the Academic Partnerships' network, providing students at partner universities with a truly customized and seamless online experience.

Named a "Top 10 Careers Website" by Forbes and selected to support the White House's 2012 Summer Jobs+ initiative as a co-lead technology partner, Internships.com is a leader in web-based internship and career platforms for higher education institutions. Microsoft, AT&T, and NBC Universal are among the companies that have recently posted opportunities on Internships.com.

Academic Partnerships has a successful track record of helping universities expand access and scale the delivery of their high-quality online degree programs. AP has assisted more than 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited thousands of students into online degree programs for its U.S. and international partners.

About Academic Partnerships

Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation. Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

About Internships.com

Internships.com, part of CareerArc Group, is the world's largest internship marketplace bringing students, employers and higher education together in one centralized location. The innovative, Los Angeles-based company, named by Forbes as a "Top 10 Careers Website," develops a wide variety of interactive, world-class tools and services to enable every student, employer, and educator to better understand and optimize internship opportunities. For more information, please visit www.internships.com.

Contact:
Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
Academic Partnerships
+1.214.438.4144
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

How Colleges Should Prepare Students For The Current Economy

By Susan Brennan
One of the most pressing concerns for higher education institutions today is whether they’re offering real value for the considerable tuitions they’re charging.

This unease, which has permeated campuses across the country, is absolutely warranted.

Students and their families are increasingly worried about the return on their investment in higher education; as a result, the burden of proof has now fallen on colleges and universities, which must demonstrate that they can truly prepare each and every student for a successful life and career after graduation.

Unfortunately for students, parents and educators, there is no established or readily accepted standard or metric to measure how “successful” a college or university is in arming students for the post-diploma decades.

And this presents a genuine problem, because, if the current confusion, uncertainty – and even cynicism – about higher education continue, we may find that one of America’s greatest institutional assets is downgraded in people’s minds. In fact, according to one survey, it’s already happening. The collateral damage from this reputational degradation will only hamper our nation’s future economic prospects and possibilities.

Recognizing the stakes, a number of colleges are doubling down and enhancing their career placement services for students. They are doing this in a pragmatic and thoughtful way that ensures that short-term skills and training for the “real” world don’t eclipse or erase higher education’s over-arching mission of creating a generation of curious, analytical and open life-long learners.

At my university, for example, we’re offering a four-year career development plan called “Hire Education.” The program is focused on four themes tied to each college year: Explore, Experiment, Experience and Excel.

The “Explore” phase begins freshmen year for students, with a career development seminar that’s taught in close collaboration with corporate partners and lays the foundation for a lifetime of career management. During the class, students start to discover their professional path with a Strong Interest Inventory® Code Assessment and begin to hone vital career skills during interactive lab sessions where they come face-to-face with corporate recruiters for mock interviews and elevator pitches.

The seminar lays the foundation for students’ subsequent career development as they “Experiment” with industries through career fairs and networking events; “Experience” internships, more than 90 percent of Bentley students complete at least one; and, ultimately, prepare to “Excel” in a dynamic workplace.

By the time graduation is in sight, students have had four years of focused and targeted career advising and, in the process, they’ve developed and implemented a customized career action plan that offers a solid and sustainable bridge to the economy of the 21st century.

There are a host of other noteworthy job counseling and placement programs at other colleges and universities such as Xavier University and Washington University in St. Louis.

We are seeing results and helping to make the education we offer our students more relevant and more valuable. In fact, 98 percent of our 2012 graduates received job offers or are in graduate school. And this placement rate has been above 90 percent since 2007.

There are other positives here, too – especially the low default rate on students’ college loans. The latest number at my university is .09 percent, which means that 99 percent of our students successfully pay back their loans, a direct correlation to successful job placement efforts.

Higher education is at a crucial crossroad today. New models and new programs are proliferating, as the role of colleges and universities in our society is being debated. All of this is well and good – even healthy.

But, in the meantime, I believe we need to place much greater focus on both career development and measurable employment outcomes for our students. As we offer students a quality education, we must also set a higher standard for their future.

Finding and holding a good job is the first big step toward students’ post-graduate success.

http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-need-to-prepare-students-for-the-current-economy-2013-2#ixzz2LTQE7BnF

It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk

By Cathrine Rampell
The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job.

Consider the 45-person law firm of Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh here in Atlanta, a place that has seen tremendous growth in the college-educated population. Like other employers across the country, the firm hires only people with a bachelor’s degree, even for jobs that do not require college-level skills.

This prerequisite applies to everyone, including the receptionist, paralegals, administrative assistants and file clerks. Even the office “runner” — the in-house courier who, for $10 an hour, ferries documents back and forth between the courthouse and the office — went to a four-year school.

“College graduates are just more career-oriented,” said Adam Slipakoff, the firm’s managing partner. “Going to college means they are making a real commitment to their futures. They’re not just looking for a paycheck.”

Economists have referred to this phenomenon as “degree inflation,” and it has been steadily infiltrating America’s job market. Across industries and geographic areas, many other jobs that didn’t used to require a diploma — positions like dental hygienists, cargo agents, clerks and claims adjusters — are increasingly requiring one, according to Burning Glass, a company that analyzes job ads from more than 20,000 online sources, including major job boards and small- to midsize-employer sites.

This up-credentialing is pushing the less educated even further down the food chain, and it helps explain why the unemployment rate for workers with no more than a high school diploma is more than twice that for workers with a bachelor’s degree: 8.1 percent versus 3.7 percent.

Some jobs, like those in supply chain management and logistics, have become more technical, and so require more advanced skills today than they did in the past. But more broadly, because so many people are going to college now, those who do not graduate are often assumed to be unambitious or less capable.

Plus, it’s a buyer’s market for employers.

“When you get 800 résumés for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,” said Suzanne Manzagol, executive recruiter at Cardinal Recruiting Group, which does headhunting for administrative positions at Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh and other firms in the Atlanta area.

Of all the metropolitan areas in the United States, Atlanta has had one of the largest inflows of college graduates in the last five years, according to an analysis of census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. In 2012, 39 percent of job postings for secretaries and administrative assistants in the Atlanta metro area requested a bachelor’s degree, up from 28 percent in 2007, according to Burning Glass.

“When I started recruiting in ’06, you didn’t need a college degree, but there weren’t that many candidates,” Ms. Manzagol said.

Even if they are not exactly applying the knowledge they gained in their political science, finance and fashion marketing classes, the young graduates employed by Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh say they are grateful for even the rotest of rote office work they have been given.

“It sure beats washing cars,” said Landon Crider, 24, the firm’s soft-spoken runner.

He would know: he spent several years, while at Georgia State and in the months after graduation, scrubbing sedans at Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Before joining the law firm, he was turned down for a promotion to rental agent at Enterprise — a position that also required a bachelor’s degree — because the company said he didn’t have enough sales experience.

His college-educated colleagues had similarly limited opportunities, working at Ruby Tuesday or behind a retail counter while waiting for a better job to open up.

“I am over $100,000 in student loan debt right now,” said Megan Parker, who earns $37,000 as the firm’s receptionist. She graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta in 2011 with a degree in fashion and retail management, and spent months waiting on “bridezillas” at a couture boutique, among other stores, while churning out office-job applications.

“I will probably never see the end of that bill, but I’m not really thinking about it right now,” she said. “You know, this is a really great place to work.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/college-degree-required-by-increasing-number-of-companies.html?_r=1&

Why Your College Could go Bankrupt

By Blaire Briody
As the higher education system in the U.S. faces rising costs and reduced state funding, many are asking, What will colleges of the future look like?

According to a recent cover story in The American Interest, some won't look like anything at all, because they'll cease to exist. Author Nathan Harden estimates that in 50 years, half of the approximately 4,500 colleges and universities in the U.S. will go belly-up.

How could this happen? Through technology, he argues. Virtual classrooms, lectures through streaming videos, online exams — we've already seen these innovations crop up at major academic institutions, but they'll only proliferate on a much larger scale and disrupt the higher education system as we know it.

Harvard and MIT already have the online education venture edX, while Stanford has Coursera and has formed agreements with Penn, Princeton, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan to manage their online education programs. Harden also predicts that as online education becomes more widespread, a college-level education will soon be free (or cost just a minimal amount) for everyone in the world, and that the bachelor's degree will become irrelevant.

"If a faster, cheaper way of sharing information emerges, history shows us that it will quickly supplant what came before," he argues. "We may lose the gothic arches, the bespectacled lecturers, dusty books lining the walls of labyrinthine libraries, but nostalgia won't stop the unsentimental beast of progress from wreaking havoc on old ways of doing things."

Prestigious institutions, he says, will be in the best position to adapt, while for-profit colleges and low-level public and non-profits will be the first to disappear. "Universities of all ranks below the very top will engage each other in an all-out war of survival. In this war, big-budget universities carrying large transactional costs stand to lose the most. Smaller, more nimble institutions with sound leadership will do best," he writes.

While Harden takes the extreme outlook, signs of the traditional university's bumpy future are already apparent. Moody's Investors Service recently gave a negative outlook to all U.S. universities, citing "mounting fiscal pressure on all key university revenue sources," as a number of states continue to cut higher education budgets, endowments fall, and enrollment numbers and tuition dollars dwindle. Long-term debt at not-for-profit universities has been growing at 12 percent a year, according to consulting firm Bain & Company and private-equity firm Sterling Partners. For-profit colleges, booming businesses only a few years ago, have seen their enrollments fall 7 percent from 2011 to 2012 (compared to a 1.8 percent decline for all higher education institutions), despite efforts to offer generous tuition discounts.

Other colleges have gone into survival mode — some are deferring billions of dollars of maintenance needs, cutting staff, and combining resources with other nearby schools. Minnesota's St. Olaf College and Carleton College, for example, have begun discussing combining libraries, technology infrastructure, human resources and payroll — and possibly even their academic programs.

While many students and parents worry that an online education won't offer the same quality or formative experience as a brick-and-mortar school, Harden cites research at Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative and Ithaka S+R, an academic research and consulting service, which looked at machine-guided learning combined with traditional classroom instruction. They found that students who receive computer instruction do equally well on tests as traditional students, but can learn material much faster.

Other experts have come out recently on the traditional university's doom: Billionaire investor Mark Cuban compared the current higher education system in the U.S. to the newspaper industry. Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen also predicts "wholesale bankruptcies" among standard universities over the next decade due to online technologies.

As Harden puts it, "Why would someone pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend Nowhere State University when he or she can attend an online version of MIT or Harvard practically for free?"

http://theweek.com/article/index/240205/why-your-college-could-go-bankrupt

Boise State University (Boise State) has announced that it will be collaborating with Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, to add an MBA program to its online offering.  The online MBA program, which will be offered through Boise State's College of Business and Economics (COBE), will begin accepting applications this spring.

The new program will be offered in addition to Boise State's unique full-time MBA program for recent graduates, part-time evening MBA program for working professionals, and Executive MBA program.

"The online business program will provide high-quality graduate education for an entirely new segment of students," said Boise State Provost Martin Schimpf.  "We are truly committed to expanding access to our programs in order to better serve the needs of our students, and this new program is yet another example of that."

Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships, added, "We share Boise State's commitment to providing high-quality and engaging online programs to students near and far.  We are delighted to have been chosen to help Boise State deliver its MBA program online and look forward to helping the University increase its footprint in Idaho and beyond."  

Academic Partnerships was selected due to its successful track record of helping universities expand access and scale the delivery of their high quality online degree programs.  AP has assisted more than 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited thousands of students into online degree programs for its U.S. and international partners.  The company will work closely with Boise State's faculty to ensure that the new online degree program maintains the highest educational standards.  AP will also use its integrated marketing and branding strategies to extend the University's reach, increasing the enrollment of highly qualified students.

As with Boise State's College of Business and Economics current business curriculum, the new online degree is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).  AACSB accreditation ensures students that they are receiving a top-quality education and ensures employers that business school graduates are ready to perform immediately upon graduation.

Boise State's new online business programs will be launched in the fall of 2013.  To learn more about the programs, please visit http://cobe.boisestate.edu/onlinemba/.

About Boise State University
A public metropolitan research university with more than 22,000 students, Boise State comprises seven academic colleges, serving undergraduate and graduate students in nearly 200 majors and programs. Located in Idaho's capital city, the university plays a crucial role in the region's knowledge economy and famed quality of life.  Learn more at www.BoiseState.edu.

About Academic Partnerships  
Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation.  Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States.  The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education.  AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally.  For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contacts:

For Boise State
Sherry Squires
+1.208.426.1563 
ssquires@boisestate.edu

For Academic Partnerships
Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
+1.214.438.4144 
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

Hernán Jaramillo: Tareas Plus está Revolucionando la Educación

Sentados con Hernan Jaramillo, fundador y director de Tareas Plus en las oficinas de The Hachery en San Francisco, nos cuenta cómo llegó a Silicon Valley con una idea y unos pocos ahorros; y consiguió llevar su idea acabo. Este es uno de los ejemplos que ofrece este servicio.

- ¿Qué es Tareas Plus?

- Tareas Plus es el lugar donde los estudiantes de latinoamérica están estudiando física, química y matemáticas. La variable de tiempo ya no es un problema, es decir, la educación está limitada, al mismo momento de la clase, si el alumno no lo entiende en ese instante, ya no lo puede volver a recuperar, pero con Tareas Plus puede repetir la lección tantas veces como quiera, en el iPad, en el móvil o en su casa en delante del ordenador. Tenemos la biblioteca de vídeos educativos más grande del mundo. Además, los estudiantes, que son nativos digitales, lo primero que hacen cuando no entienden algo en clase, buscan «online» para ver la respuesta y nos encuentran a nosotros. Para un adolescente, el primer sitio para mirar es su teléfono móvil. Por esa razón, la aplicación de Tareas Plus para «smartphone» está en el top 50 de aplicaciones más descargadas.

- ¿Y cuántas personas se conectan?

- Estamos revolucionando la educación, más de 50.000 personas al día se conectan a tareas plus para ver los tutoriales que ofrecemos. Cada segundo un estudiante en latinoamerica aprende matemáticas con nosotros.

- ¿Cuéntanos cómo llegaste hasta Silicon Valley?

- Necesitábamos encontrar un sitio donde convergiera tecnología y capital, por eso me vine a Silicon Valley, vendí todo lo que tenía en Colombia y me vine aquí a buscar inversión para poner en marcha la idea. Busqué inversión durante meses, sin conocer a nadie, con los ahorros que podía tener una persona de 37 años. Conté el número de «NOS» que me daban antes de recibir el primer «Sí», cuanto tiempo llevaría, y lo más importante cuánto dinero tenía para «aguantar» aquí.

- ¿Qué es a lo que queréis aspiráis?

- Que todo el conocimiento, todas las clases estén en Tareas Plus, que sea como una Wikipedia para estudiantes, es decir, un añadido para los libros y la enseñanza tradicional.

- ¿Y qué tal Tareas Plus en España?

- Es el tercer país que más nos visita, después de México y Colombia. Pero pasa algo curioso que no pasa en otros países, y nos hemos dado cuenta que en España, los que más usan Tareas Plus son los profesores para buscar contenido para sus alumnos, en el resto de países, son los alumnos los que acceden directamente al canal.

http://www.abc.es/tecnologia/noticias/20130213/abci-tareas-plus-hernan-jaramillo-201301281307.html

More proof that the economics of higher education must change Annual survey reports a growing number of students are choosing schools based on cost

From staff and wire reports

Two-thirds of incoming freshmen said their choice of which college to attend was significantly affected by current economic conditions. Continuing a recent trend, more incoming freshmen at four-year colleges said money was a key factor in their choice of school—and the percentage of students who said their main reason for attending college was career-focused reached an all-time high.

These are the primary takeaways from an annual survey released Jan. 24, and they lend further support to the idea that the economics of higher education must change as colleges compete for students. Each year since 1966, UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute has conducted a massive survey of incoming freshmen at four-year colleges, asking questions about their motivations, their plans, and their political views. Typically, big shifts are only apparent over long time periods. But sometimes economic and political currents can lead new college students to give responses noticeably different from what their predecessors said.

This year’s survey is based on the responses of 192,912 first-time, full-time students at 283 four-year colleges. The responses are statistically weighted to reflect the broader population of such students—approximately 1.5 million at 1,613 institutions nationally.

Here are some key findings

• Two-thirds of incoming freshmen (67 percent) said their choice of which college to attend was significantly affected by current economic conditions, up from 62 percent two years ago, when UCLA first asked the question. More are also deciding to live with family or relatives (17 percent, up from 15 percent last year) and fewer in dorms (76 percent, down from 79 percent a year ago).

• About 84 percent expect to graduate from college in four years. In fact, only about half are likely to do so.

• New college students are increasingly career-focused when it comes to what they want out of higher education. Among reasons for attending, getting a better job was the most common response and hit an all-time high of 88 percent, 20 points higher than in the mid-1970s. Other top reasons most students reported include making more money and gaining an appreciation of ideas (No. 3 on the list).

• More than 30 percent of incoming freshmen reported frequently feeling overwhelmed when they were high school seniors. But there were wide gender gaps: 41 percent of female students said they’d felt overwhelmed, compared to 18 percent of male students.

• Politically, compared to 2008 when President Barack Obama was elected the first time, fewer freshmen now identify as liberal (30 percent, down from 34 percent). More students call themselves middle of the road (47 percent, up from 43 percent), and the number calling themselves conservative is about the same (23 percent).

• Movement has been sharper, though in varying political directions, on specific social issues. Support for same-sex marriage rose to 75 percent, up 4 points from just a year ago and up 24 points from 1997. Among freshmen calling themselves conservative, 47 percent support same-sex marriage, up from 43 percent a year ago. The number who believe abortion should be legal also has increased, from 58 percent in 2008 to 61 percent this year, while 65 percent believe the wealthy should pay higher taxes (up from 60 percent in 2008).

However, the percentage who said they believe “a national health care plan is needed to cover everybody’s medical costs” fell from 70 percent in 2008 to 63 percent this year.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/more-proof-that-the-economics-of-higher-education-must-change/

Shared Crisis

Colleen Flaherty

Citing a recent wave of unilateral moves to eliminate academic programs by university administrators claiming financial crisis, the American Association of University Professors today released new guidelines designed to tighten the definition of financial exigency and increase faculty participation in deciding whether to close programs.

“We had a standard, and that standard was clearly being ignored” by a variety of institutions, said Michael Bérubé, who led a two-year AAUP investigation into department closures that resulted in the proposed guidelines and an accompanying report, "The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency." “But addressing them one-by-one was like playing ‘Whack-a-Mole.’ ”

AAUP accepts that academic programs may be cut due to true financial exigency or sound educational reasons, said Bérubé, professor of English at Pennsylvania State University and immediate past president of the Modern Language Association. But some of the cuts in recent years have not been based on a “you’re bankrupt and owe money to the mob tomorrow” imperative, but rather “festering” financial crises related to the greater economic climate in which administrations have looked to cut instructional costs before other, extracurricular priorities, such as athletics.

Institutions named in the report include the University of Northern Iowa, several within the University of Louisiana System and the State University of New York at Albany; all have eliminated academic programs and in some cases, associated tenure-track positions within the last several years, pointing to financial imperatives but without declaring financial exigency. Under longstanding AAUP policy, only colleges that have declared financial exigency may eliminate the jobs of tenured professors.

Additionally, Bérubé said, administrations in some cases have cut programs with low numbers of majors without thinking about broader curricular implications. At Northern Iowa, for example, he said, cutting the physics program last year left other science majors with a hole in their course loads where they would have taken physics classes. This is more commonly associated with recent cuts to language departments, a trend that can leave undergraduates with fewer options to fulfill language requirements. (A spokesman from University of Northern Iowa referred questions on this topic to earlier statements by President Benjamin Allen in response to a related but separate AAUP report on program cuts. In those statements, Allen said AAUP’s position was mere opinion, without punitive teeth, and that it mischaracterized the process by which the university identified programs for cuts and “misapprehended” the severity of the university’s financial emergency, among other criticisms).

Fundamentally linking budget concerns with curriculum concerns, the new recommendations outline a strict protocol for faculty participation in declarations of financial exigency and department closure discussions. Peer-elected faculty members should be involved alongside administrators at all levels of the discussion, with access to least five years' worth of the institutions’ audited financial statements; current and following-year budgets; and detailed cash-flow estimates for future years, as well as program, department and administrative-level budgets. Program cuts – and the tenure-track job losses that usually accompany them – should also be a last resort, following attempts to cure budget ills by furloughs and other means, including cuts to extracurricular expenditures.

The new recommendations, which build on existing regulations dating back to the 1970s, also offer a clearer-cut definition of financial exigency, falling somewhere between an immediate threat to the survival of the institution and ordinary attrition in operating budgets; exigency can only be declared when “substantial” injury to the institution’s academic mission will result from prolonged and drastic reductions in funds available to the institution and only when determination of the institution’s financial health is guided by generally accepted accounting principles. The report includes an appendix with metrics by which administrators and faculty can jointly assess the severity of their financial crisis.

When cuts to programs are unavoidable, faculty should be given at least 30 days’ notice. The report also outlines a process by which tenured faculty should be reassigned, where possible, to another academic department.

John Lombardi, a former president of the Louisiana State University and expert on institutional finance, said that financial exigency has historically been a point of contention between administrations and faculty precisely because it means different things to different groups at different levels of the institution. Union groups tend to hold that any available funds should be spent on keeping jobs, while administrators have to balance a wider variety of obligations.

“Given the financial challenges of many institutions, we can expect to see continued controversy over these issues,” said Lombardi. “Often it's best to be sure everyone understands the budget, understands the context, and understands the decisions. This rarely produces agreement, but it does reduce paranoia and tends to focus on the real issues involving the money. Then, when the administration makes a decision, we all know how it arrived there, even if we do not agree with the decision.”

Kent Chabotar, the president of Guilford College in North Carolina, who also has written extensively about the intersection of institutional finance and management, agreed that such debate will be ongoing. But administrations can ease such discussions by maintaining financial transparency at all times – not just in financial crises. That way, he said, there will be less suspicion and more financial literacy among faculty when it comes to making tough decisions. Institutions also can maintain standard student-to-faculty ratios or student-to-administrator ratios that will take some of the mystery out of the decision-making process in times of true financial exigency, he said.

Although AAUP’s investigation began as a probe into financial exigency, Bérubé said it ultimately became more about the importance of shared governance – something already “in tatters” across higher education. The report and revised recommendations are intended to be a “wake-up call” to faculty as well as administrators.

“You should be involved in this stuff,” he said of downtrodden faculty. “This is not something you should be taking lying down.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/15/aaup-calls-faculty-participation-financial-exigency-declarations#ixzz2Kbd84ytw ]]> http://www.randybest.com/shared-crisis/feed 0 http://www.randybest.com/631 http://www.randybest.com/631#comments Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:39:34 +0000 Randybest1273 http://www.randybest.com/?p=631 Continue reading →]]>

UC spends big to market its online courses — but reaches only one person

Christina Farr

In an effort to show off its array of online courses, the University of California has poured millions of dollars into promoting its UC Online system. But as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, only one person from outside the UC system has taken a class.

For its operating costs, UC Online took out a $6.9 million loan from UC. Since the earliest meetings in 2010, it has spent about $5 million, with most going to a marketing company. Back in 2010, prestigious universities like Harvard and Stanford began to offer their most popular courses online free of charge. In subsequent years, the movement known as the Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) has caught on. In recent months, universities began to accept them as a form of college credit.

On sites like Coursera, over 700,000 users worldwide can pick and choose from hundreds of courses in the humanities and sciences from dozens of elite universities. With all the competition in this space, it hasn’t been an easy run for UC Online, given that many of its classes cost over $1,000. The university was only able to attract one high school girl, who paid $1,400 for an online precalculus course at UC Irvine and four units of UC credit.

In a recent interview with VentureBeat, Coursera founder Andrew Ng said their approach worked because they took the time to “build up communities around the courses.” He explained, “Too often, universities had been putting up videos on the web and hoping for the best.”

UC has achieved better results with its student population. Seventeen hundreed UC students are taking 14 classes that launched last year. Keith Williams, the interim director for UC Online, told the San Francisco Chronicle that these courses were developed by the faculty and had undergone rigorous peer review.

Funding for public schools is in short supply. To ensure that the project doesn’t circle the drain, Gov. Jerry Brown — a Democrat who’s had to aggressively cut California’s budget due to multibillion dollar shortfalls – got involved with the UC Online project. He invited popular MOOC provider Udacity to show UC how it’s done.

During a visit in November, Brown made a comparison to the U.S. Postal Service, “a venerable institution being upended by digital change.”

College Rankings: a Guide to Nowhere

By Debra Houry

This month high-school seniors have been frantically submitting their college applications for the January deadlines.

Students aspire for acceptance into a reputable college, yet how do they determine which one is the best for them? Many of them turn for guidance to U.S. News & World Report and other resources that rank institutions.

Unfortunately, those "one size fits all" rankings, which are influential to both students and institutions, are often poorly designed and untrustworthy.

In November, George Washington University disclosed that it had been inflating class-rank data for the past decade, which resulted in its own inflated ranking in U.S. News. It was the third institution last year to admit to providing inaccurate and inflated data. The other two, Claremont McKenna College and my own employer, Emory University, reported inflated SAT scores. And there are most likely many more instances of data falsification.

I'm not absolving anyone of blame, but there is an inherent conflict of interest in asking those who are most invested in the rankings to self-report data.

Furthermore, the formula used in the rankings is poor. U.S. News calculates "student selectivity"—how picky the college is—based in large part on how many students were in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes. However, the National Association for College Admission Counseling reported that most small private and competitive high schools no longer report class rank, and some public high schools are also forgoing reporting this rank to their students and colleges. But U.S. News still includes it as a category.

While the rankings themselves are suspect, U.S. News's criteria are a disincentive for colleges to evolve. For example, they discourage colleges from selecting a diverse student body. An institution that begins accepting more African-American students or students from low-income families—two groups that have among the lowest SAT scores, according to the College Board—might see its ranking drop because the average SAT score of its freshmen has gone down.

The rankings also discourage colleges from keeping pace with the digital revolution and doing things more efficiently. For example, in its law-school rankings, U.S. News rewards higher numbers of library volumes and titles, even though the move toward digital formats should make that measure obsolete. Meanwhile, dollars spent per student are rewarded as well, so if colleges perform more cost-effectively, perhaps by using newer technologies like online learning, they are penalized.

Other ranking systems aren't any better. Forbes, which also annually rates colleges based on value and quality of teaching, includes as part of its scoring system student evaluations from Rate My Professors (notorious for its "hotness" category). These student evaluations are anonymous and unverified, so a student unhappy with her grade or even the professor can comment.

In some systems, colleges can pay to be included. The QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings now has a "star system." The QS star system is able to use publicly available data for some institutions, like Harvard. But beginning in 2011, the vast majority of other colleges included in the QS star system paid $30,400 for an initial audit and a three-year license for participation. A New York Times article last month highlighted how many of those paying colleges received high star marks in the QS ratings, yet aren't rated highly in other ratings systems.

Defenders will say these rankings provide a place for prospective students to compare data from various institutions, and may get them to consider ones they were not aware of. Although the rankings do highlight information on institutions, including class size and graduation rates, they miss important measures such as student learning and the university experience. A recent survey conducted by Gallup for Inside Higher Ed reported that only 14 percent of admissions directors believed that these rankings helped students find a college with a good fit.

Students might be better off turning to reports like the National Survey of Student Engagement, which annually collects information from more than 500 institutions about student participation in programs and activities geared toward learning and personal development. At Emory, for instance, we started a program called Living-Learning Communities, which gives upperclassmen incentives to live on campus and participate in residential learning. But you would never learn about that from the ranking formulas.

Competition and colorful magazines are alluring, but we should expect the scores to be meaningfuland accurate. Emory, for its part, has developed a data-advisory committee to ensure a consistent and accurate method to report all institutional data. Other colleges should put in place similar checks of internal data validity or have external audits.

Meanwhile, ranking organizations should develop more-meaningful measures around diversity of students, job placement, acceptance into professional schools, faculty membership in national academies, and student engagement. Instead of being assigned a numerical rank, institutions should be grouped by tiers and categories of programs. The last thing students want is to be seen as a number. Colleges shouldn't want that, either.

Debra Houry is an associate professor in the School of Medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.

MOOCs – Mistaking brand for quality?

Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic

In 2012 MOOCs were the sensation of the year in US higher education, and they continue to fascinate the media and bloggers.

The recent annual conference of CHEA, the US Council for Higher Education, in Washington, DC, held a session on MOOCs that brought together the enthusiasm of Coursera – a for-profit start-up that helps some 30 universities to offer MOOCs – the views of university President Paul Leblanc, and the perspective of US regional accrediting body NEASC (New England Association of Schools and Colleges).

Where are MOOCs going?

Educational technology has a history of fads. However, the volume of MOOCs activity, even though largely US-based, means that MOOCs will evolve rather than disappear.

The UK is now joining the fray as Futurelearn, a new company owned by the Open University and which includes 10 top UK universities, the BBC and the British Council – launches its global MOOCs initiative.

Other countries will follow suit including, hopefully, some developing countries.

Following Coursera’s claim that its MOOCs are the answer to excess demand for higher education in poor countries, the movement already has a neocolonialist flavour. This will raise hackles, as did the first open educational resources (OER) when MIT launched its open courseware in 2001.

However, as well as MOOCs there are initiatives to expand online programmes with less fanfare. Thirty US state universities have teamed up successfully with Academic Partnerships. Students gain credit and degrees and there is a sustainable business model.

Some of its university partners will make the first course in their regular online programmes a credit-bearing MOOC and Academic Partnerships is now seeking alliances in developing countries.

In another promising experiment edX is working with Bunker Hill and Mass Bay community colleges are to offer MIT’s Introduction to Computer Science and Programming MOOC to 20 students. This will show whether using MOOC material can strengthen other institutions.

What about quality?

At the CHEA conference NEASC’s Barbara Brittingham suggested that accreditation and quality assurance agencies should let the MOOCs bandwagon roll for a while before turning their attention to it. Since these agencies focus primarily on study leading to credit and awards, which is not yet the case with most MOOCs, the market can take care of things for the time being.

Another paper noted that quality assurance systems for orthodox university courses and programmes usually make judgements after reviewing quality on various dimensions such as student support, student counselling and, above all, completion rates.

In most MOOCs these are either absent or, in the case of completion rates, dismal. But competition will now produce greater diversity and healthy experimentation in MOOCs. Soon the media, student groups and educational research units will start publishing assessments of MOOC courses that will feed into quality rankings.

Meanwhile, it is risky to assume that university brand is a surrogate for course quality.

Research universities, which have little previous experience of online teaching, dominate the MOOCs offerings and this is evident in the outdated behaviourist pedagogy most in evidence. Most MOOCs are little more than OER with test material added.

MOOCs and the new dynamics of higher education

MOOCs are just one manifestation of the emerging trends explored at UNESCO’s 2009 World Conference, on the “New Dynamics of Higher Education”.

Online learning and various new providers are responding to a major global development, the massification or universalisation of higher education that is creating huge and unmet demand in the developing world.

Compared to the earlier 1998 UNESCO higher education conference, the international spread of quality assurance was a major discussion item in 2009. Quality assurance agencies have multiplied into most jurisdictions.

However, speaking at that time, CHEA President Judith Eaton described this trend as "the spread of the familiar", concerned that there was not enough variety in approaches to quality assurance around the world.

The universalisation of higher education will require quality assurance to face many new challenges, and one definition of quality will not fit all.

Open education

MOOCs and the related phenomenon of OER are just two new developments that challenge traditional approaches to quality assurance. How does one determine the quality of OER, given that their main purpose is to evolve as people adapt, modify and reuse them?

The 2012 Paris OER Declaration, in one of its recommendations, called on states to: “Promote quality assurance and peer review of OER. Encourage the development of mechanisms for the assessment and certification of learning outcomes achieved through OER.”

This is easier said than done, but the focus on assessment, certification and learning outcomes is right. If in doubt, quality assurance should always focus on what students are gaining from their study.

Competency based-education

In this respect, the expansion of competency-based education is an important development, which inspired a thoughtful talk at CHEA by Paul LeBlanc of the Southern New Hampshire University.

Another contribution, by Sunny Lee of Mozilla, showed that open badges are an effective way of certifying competency-based learning. Quality assurance must adapt to such new methods of communicating learning outcomes.

Disaggregating accreditation, unbundling QA?

Accreditation and quality assurance are now facing a world where the teaching-learning process is increasingly disaggregated. The processes of teaching and certification used to be integrated in the same institution, but now there are a multitude of providers, some public, some private, some for profit, looking after different parts of the student experience.

Do accreditation and quality assurance also need to unbundle their work? Barbara Brittingham noted that when institutions incorporate into their awards significant credit obtained or certified elsewhere, accreditation must take an interest in these other providers.

This will certainly apply to credit from MOOCs, where it is likely that bodies other than those offering the MOOCs – either other higher education institutions or consortia like OERu – will award credit and help students to progress towards a degree.

The main objective of the CHEA International Quality Group is to review the changing needs for quality assurance as they emerge internationally. MOOCs provide a striking example of the challenge.

University of Texas at Arlington Sets Enrollment Record

BY Patrick M. Walker

Enrollment at the University of Texas at Arlington has hit an all-time high this spring, according to unofficial numbers, but thousands of those students may never set foot on campus.

Many of the university's 33,806 students -- a 304-student jump from the university's previous record set a year ago and a 35 percent increase since 2008 -- are enrolled in its online programs.

The College of Nursing, for example, hit a new peak of 7,995 students this spring, more than four times its fall 2008 level. Of those, 5,575 students, or about 70 percent, are enrolled in online degree programs in partnership with more than 350 healthcare institutions across Texas and beyond.

The increasingly popular online offerings, along with a massive building boom on campus and the growing prestige of many of its academic programs, are making UT Arlington the first choice for many students, said Ronald L. Elsenbaumer, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

"This is not the institution it was 10 years ago," Elsenbaumer said. "If anybody who hadn't been here in five or 10 years walked the campus today, they would probably say, 'I don't recognize this place.'"

Hayli Ballentine, a sophomore history major from Flower Mound, is in her first semester at UT Arlington. A 2006 high school graduate, she is resuming her studies after taking time off to work. The choices came down to the University of North Texas in Denton and UT Arlington.

The latter won out, she said, because it "was a little easier for me to get to."

As Ballentine relaxed and studied in the E.H. Hereford University Center on Tuesday afternoon, thousands of her fellow students were scattered around the world.

Since UT Arlington's online programs -- which, unlike traditional courses, offer staggered start dates -- solidified beginning in 2009, the university has seen a shift in its peak enrollment from fall to spring, Elsenbaumer said.

The enrollment growth this spring is being driven by gains in business, nursing, engineering, science and social work. In many cases the students are military veterans returning from combat zones who want to study the same type of job they had overseas, university spokeswoman Kristin Sullivan said.

The nursing college's program was developed by outgoing Dean Elizabeth C. Poster, who is stepping down this spring and returning to her faculty position in 2014. The college boasts a 94 percent graduation rate.

More than 90 percent of nursing students pass state licensing exams on their first attempt, and more than 95 percent of master's level nurse practitioner graduates pass national certification exams.

The School of Social Work saw the biggest percentage increase this spring, growing 13.5 percent to 1,437 students. Sullivan said many students have indicated that they want to be trained in a new career and that they want it to be one in which they can make a difference in people's lives.

Traditional programs also continue to be a draw. Dennis Marquart, 35, is about halfway toward a doctorate in business management that he hopes will lead to a job as a college professor.

"I knew of some of the professors here," he said as a reason for his choosing UT Arlington. "It seems to be a rigorous program."

UT Arlington wasn't the only public higher education institution to report a boost in enrollment this spring.

The University of North Texas in Denton also reported enrollment gains based on 12th-class-day figures, which don't become official until verified by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. UNT has 33,715 students, up 210 from a year ago.

Tarrant County College's spring student headcount is up 1.2 percent, with a total unduplicated credit enrollment of 46,750 on its five campuses, each of which also marked individual gains.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02/05/4602711/university-of-texas-at-arlington.html#article#storylink=cpy

Arkansas Universities Expand Online Degree Programs

By Kevin Hudson

The University of Arkansas System (UA System) has partnered with a global online learning company to expand the degree offerings of its institutions.

Academic Partnerships (AP) was selected to deliver the UA System's undergraduate and graduate degree programs online. The company was chosen for its expertise in online delivery of instruction, along with the global marketing and recruiting capabilities to extend the UA System's brand and increase access to higher education for qualified students in Arkansas and beyond, according to a company release.

"Today's technology allows students to access our high quality curriculum through dynamic and innovative digital environments," said Donald Bobbitt, president of the University of Arkansas System, in the release. "We are excited to work with Academic Partnerships--a company with an excellent track record and a commitment to quality--as it assists us in achieving the System's expansion of online academic offerings while maintaining the University's rigorous, robust academic standards."

AP's track record includes partnerships with more than 40 public institutions that have expanded access and scaled the delivery of their online degree programs. The company has also assisted more than 750 professors in converting more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format, along with aiding the recruitment of students into online degree programs for its partners in the United States and the world.

The UA System enrolls more than 70,000 students, employs more than 17,000 employees, and has a total budget exceeding $2 billion. The system includes five four-year universities, five community colleges, an academic health sciences university, a presidential graduate school, a mathematics and sciences high school, and units related to agriculture, archeology, and criminal justice.

Academic Partnerships is based in Dallas and partners with universities to deliver full degree programs online. The company was founded in 2007 by entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing learning solutions to improve education. Academic Partnerships helps universities increase access to education by providing the technology, student recruitment, and faculty support necessary to serve online students.

For more information about the University of Arkansas System, visit uasys.edu. Go to academicpartnerships.com to learn more about Academic Partnerships.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/02/06/arkansas-universities-expand-online-degree-programs.aspx?admgarea=news

Feb. 7, 2013
Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, today announced that Ms. Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic will join the company as a senior advisor. Former Chief of the Higher Education Section of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science, and Culture (UNESCO), Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic is an international leader in education reform, innovation, quality assurance, and accreditation who brings more than 20 years of higher education experience to Academic Partnerships.

"I have long been an active participant in the growth of international higher education," said Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic. "In collaboration with Academic Partnerships, I have the opportunity to work with innovative universities that are seeking to make higher education more accessible to students around the world."

"We are excited to welcome someone with Stamenka's extensive knowledge and experience in the higher education space to our team," said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. "Stamenka's higher education background in numerous countries brings a broad perspective to Academic Partnerships as we work to serve universities on a global basis."

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic's first senior role in higher education was as Secretary-General of the Association of Universities in Yugoslavia. In the early 1990s, she joined UNESCO's European Centre for Higher Education in Bucharest with the goal of enhancing the quality of higher education throughout a more integrated Europe. Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic was quickly promoted to lead the unit managing higher education at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Her major achievements include developing the 2005 UNESCO-OECD Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education; launching the Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation, and the Recognition of Qualifications; and implementing the UNESCO-World Bank partnership for capacity-building in quality assurance for developing countries.

Inspired by her work with innovative providers in a world with huge unmet demand for higher education, Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic collaborated on the A Tectonic Shift in Higher Education paper with education pioneer and Academic Partnerships Senior Advisor Sir John Daniel and Asha Kanwar.

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic was voted International Higher Education Professional of the Year 2009 by her peers in the International Community of Higher Education. That same year, as UNESCO's Executive Secretary, she was centrally involved in the organization of the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education. The conference was attended by more than 2,000 ministers, officials, and institutions from countries all over the world.

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic continues to be a consultant to UNESCO on issues related to the Recognition of Degrees and Qualifications in Higher Education. In the past year, she was a Senior Consultant to the Commonwealth of Learning in a project that resulted in the 2012 UNESCO Paris Declaration on Open Educational Resources adopted by acclamation. She is the Education Master with the DeTao Masters Academy in China and was recently named Senior Consultant to the U.S. Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) for the creation of its International quality group.

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic studied at the Universities of Belgrade and the Sorbonne.

Academic Partnerships has a successful track record of helping universities expand access and scale the delivery of their high quality online degree programs. AP has assisted more than 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited thousands of students into online degree programs for its U.S. and international partners.

About Academic Partnerships

Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation. Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contact:

Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
Academic Partnerships
+1.214.438.4144
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

Feb. 6, 2013
Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities offering online learning in the United States, today announced that it is currently accepting proposals for Round One of its 2013 Research Grant Program, which supports faculty research on the impact and effectiveness of online learning. Proposals are being accepted through Feb. 28, 2013.

The Academic Partnerships Research Grant Program, which has committed to providing $100,000 in funding in 2013, offers faculty members working in online courses within the AP partnership the opportunity to win grants to foster research that could increase understanding about the power of online learning. Priority funding for longitudinal research will be provided in recognition of those proposals that include:

• Research on quality assurance as a system in higher education
• Data points related to student retention
• Data points related to improvement of student learning outcomes
• Aspects regarding Quality Matters' (QM) impact on student learning outcomes, student retention, improving instruction, or forming teaching practices if the applicant's institution is a subscriber to QM
• A focus on the any of the following:
  • Evaluation of emerging technologies, tools, and concepts and effectiveness in online education (e.g., xMOOCs, cMOOCs, gamification, competency based evaluation, etc.)
  • Effectiveness of a quality assurance process in online education
  • New or effective ideas for online course design

Proposals are being accepted online at http://facultyecommons.com/academic-partnerships-faculty-research-grant-application-form/.

Awardees will be informed in writing by March 31, 2013 and announced on Faculty eCommons, an AP-sponsored site supporting online faculty around the world, shortly thereafter. Funds will be disseminated over the duration of the project and will be paid to the institution's grant or equivalent office.

The second round of the program will commence this summer.

Academic Partnerships has a successful track record of helping universities expand access and scale the delivery of their high quality online degree programs. AP has assisted more than 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited thousands of students into online degree programs for its U.S. and international partners.

About Academic Partnerships

Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation. Serving more than 40 state institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contact:
Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
Academic Partnerships
+1.214.438.4144
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

Jan. 5, 2013
The University of Arkansas System (UA System) today announced that it will be collaborating with Academic Partnerships (AP) to deliver undergraduate and graduate degree programs online. Academic Partnerships, one of the largest representatives of public universities online learning in the United States, will use its expertise in online delivery of instruction and its global marketing and recruiting capabilities to extend the UA System's brand and increase access to higher education for qualified students in Arkansas and beyond.

The UA System includes five four-year universities, five community colleges, an academic health sciences university, a presidential graduate school, a mathematics and sciences high school and units related to agriculture, archeology and criminal justice. The partnership will give UA System institutions the opportunity to work with Academic Partnerships to deliver new and existing online courses and programs.

"Today's technology allows students to access our high quality curriculum through dynamic and innovative digital environments," said Dr. Donald R. Bobbitt, President of the University of Arkansas System. "We are excited to work with Academic Partnerships—a company with an excellent track record and a commitment to quality—as it assists us in achieving the System's expansion of online academic offerings while maintaining the University's rigorous, robust academic standards."

"The University of Arkansas System has a very creative and progressive vision for using technology to scale its quality, reach underserved populations and compete for the top students around the world," said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. "The System is anxious to meet the expectations and needs of 21st century educational consumers by being an innovator in online learning."

Academic Partnerships has helped more than 40 public universities expand access and scale the delivery of their high quality online degree programs. AP has assisted more than 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited thousands of students into online degree programs for its U.S. and international partners.

About the University of Arkansas

Since its inception, the University of Arkansas System has developed a tradition of excellence that includes the state's 1871 flagship, land-grant research university; Arkansas's premier institution for medical education, treatment and research; a major metropolitan university; an 1890 land-grant university; two regional universities serving southern and western Arkansas; five community colleges; two schools of law; a presidential school; a residential math and science high school; and divisions of agriculture, archeology and criminal justice. The individual entities of the UA System maintain cooperative strength as well as diverse offerings that exhibit unmatched economic and social impact to the state.

The UA System provides communities in Arkansas with access to academic and professional opportunities, develops intellectual growth and cultural awareness in its students and provides knowledge and research skills to an ever-changing society. The system enrolls more than 70,000 students, employs over 17,000 employees, and has a total budget of over $2 billion. An intrinsic part of the texture and fabric of Arkansas, the UA System is a driving force in the state's economic, educational and cultural advancement.

About Academic Partnerships

Dallas-based Academic Partnerships partners with universities to deliver students full degree programs online. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. Academic Partnerships helps universities increase access to high-quality education by providing the technology, student recruitment and faculty support necessary to serve online students. Academic Partnerships is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit http://www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contacts:

University of Arkansas
Ben Beaumont
501-686-2951
bbeaumont@clintonschool.uasys.edu

Academic Partnerships
Jaquelyn Scharnick
214-438-4144
jaquelyn.scharnick@academicpartnerships.com

MOOC2Degree Initiative Raises the For-Credit Profile of MOOCs

Last week, Academic Partnerships introduced the MOOC2Degree program. Through this innovative effort, some of the public universities that Academic Partnerships works with are going to offer an initial course in a degree program as a free MOOC. Students who complete the course successfully will be eligible for full college credit for the course if they choose to enroll in the full degree program. This is an exciting step forward for the intriguing new world of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), bringing them a step closer to wider acceptance for college and university credit.

Under this initiative, one of the initial course offerings in selected online degree programs from some major universities will be converted into a MOOC. “Each MOOC will be the same course with the same academic content, taught by the same instructors, as currently offered degree programs at participating universities,” according to the press release.

I spoke briefly with Randy Best, Founder and Chairman of Academic Partnerships, about MOOC2Degree and he was particularly pleased that this initiative is making MOOCs more ‘inclusive’ than they have been thus far. Many of the MOOCs offered to date have been from the likes of Princeton and Stanford and other high profile private universities, but these new offerings are from public institutions. Best also expressed confidence that the completion rate for these offering will be higher than the low rates seen thus far from MOOCs (often in the 10 to 20% range at best). Since these courses are germane to specific degree programs, it would seem likely that students who enroll would be interested in moving on to the degree, and therefore be more invested in completing the course.

Another intended benefit of this program is the potential to slightly lower the cost of attaining a degree, depending on each university’s approach to implementation of the MOOC2Degree program. While some may charge full cost to have the credit awarded, others may charge just a testing or proctoring fee for final exam.

Academic Partnership’s has a strategic partnership with Canvas Network, which these universities can choose to use at no cost to offer MOOC2Degree courses. Some of university partners already have an existing LMS system and may choose to use that instead.

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, broadly known as a scholar of disruptive innovation, see this evolution in MOOCs as an exciting step forward for the concept. “The foothold Academic Partnership’s initiative creates for students and universities is truly exciting. This is exactly the spot in a market where successful disruptions always take root.”

http://www.emergingedtech.com/2013/01/mooc2degree-initiative-raises-the-for-credit-profile-of-moocs/

Wielding 'Power Users'

Nils De Jonghe is a busy student these days. Since the spring he has registered for 32 courses, the equivalent of a typical bachelor’s degree, and he aims to have completed nearly all of them by the end of next summer. And he is not receiving formal credit for any of them.

In the world of MOOCs (massive open online courses) De Jonghe, 25, is what techies might call a “power user.” The Belgian grad student, who is also working on his thesis for a master’s degree in communication sciences at the University of Ghent, has completed four MOOCs so far. He has also dropped out of two, but still De Jonghe’s persistence is notable: Only about 12 percent of students complete a given Coursera course, and De Jonghe recently became one of only 2 percent of registered students to complete the final exam in what appears to have been a particularly harrowing course on Social Networking Analysis.

He is scheduled to participate in another 26 courses -- a diverse array that includes courses on reasoning, storytelling, data analysis, astrobiology, nutrition, computer science, economics and gaming -- within the next nine months. He has also signed up for four courses through Canvas.net, another MOOC provider.

He’s not sure if he will finish all of them. Nevertheless De Jonghe, perhaps more than any of Coursera’s 2 million other registrants, embodies the enthusiasm that has collected around this new species of online course. But with the company’s “certificates of accomplishment” bearing no well-defined value, and pathways to credit still very much under construction, the ability of Coursera and other MOOC providers to continue stoking the enthusiasm of their users turns on their ability to redeem their labors with rewards that are intangible yet compelling. And power users such as De Jonghe stand to play an increasingly important role in this process.

MOOCs have generated a lot of buzz with their five-, sometimes six-digit registration figures. But equally they have drawn scorn from critics with their striking attrition rates. Conventional wisdom suggests that the fact that registration is simple and cost-free attracts a lot of casual participants who are not necessarily interested in completing an entire course.

But user experience may also determine how many registrants stick around. And in a type of course that relies heavily on fruitful exchanges among students, how many registrants stick around may determine the quality of the user experience, says the company.

“We’re trying to figure out what the best way is getting students involved in keeping the class running, alive,” says Norian Caporale-Berkowitz, a member of the course operations team at Coursera.

Caporale-Berkowitz has been helping coordinate experiments in various MOOCs that seek to deputize certain students into the company’s instructional model. Professors have begun recruiting “community TAs” (teaching assistants) from its class rolls based on a combination of academic performance and activity in online discussion forums. “This has been piloted out only in a couple classes so far, and we're still working on figuring out what works best before rolling this out more broadly,” says Andrew Ng, one of the co-founders of Coursera.

The company is still feeling out what should qualify students to be TAs and what sort of administrative privileges they should get. The models have differed across courses, says Caporale-Berkowitz, but the most promising so far has been in a course on Probabilistic Graphic Models, taught by Daphne Koller, one of Coursera’s co-founders. That course has been held twice; the second time around, Koller selected 18 high-performing participants from the previous iteration who had also been active on the forums and appointed them community TAs.

In addition to an icon next to their posts in the discussion forums identifying them as TAs (as well as flags on discussion threads to which they have made contributions), those 18 students also had an exclusive channel to Coursera’s administrative team.

The idea is to give these power users “the sense that they’re contributing and helping build this with us,” says Caporale-Berkowitz. And there could be more perks in the future, he says. The company could grant TAs special certificates of achievement indicating that they have learned the content well enough to help teach it. As for courses with a peer-grading component, feedback from users who have “shown proficiency in grading the way the professor might have graded” may get extra weight, says Caporale-Berkowitz.

Assigning administrative status to selected outsiders is a common organizational principle of websites, such as Reddit and Wikipedia, that stake the value of their product at least partly on user-generated content. Coursera likes to boast that students who post questions to course discussion forums are likely to get a useful answer from another user in 20 minutes. The stakes of user participation are especially high in the company’s humanities courses, which use a peer grading system that relies on participants to score and give feedback on each other’s essays.

De Jonghe, the Belgian power user, has not served as a TA and was unfamiliar with Coursera’s experiments. But he does agree that to some degree the company’s quality and success will be linked to its ability to wield the labors of its more committed users.

“The platform could really use more people doing TA stuff from what I've seen,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Rarely do professors really interact on the forums, and I think it's perfectly understandable when they don't” -- so far there has been no indication that Coursera’s institutional partners have given participating faculty relief from their normal course loads, and either way, being a dynamic force at the head of a classroom of 50,000 students is a tall order for a lone instructor.

For his part, De Jonghe says he would relish the chance to lend a hand. Over the course of several e-mails to Inside Higher Ed he described several bugs in the model -- particularly the peer grading system in a literature course he took over the summer -- and proposed a raft of suggestions for how the company and its institutional faculty might fix them.

“I have e-mailed the staff a suggestion of giving students an option that lets them track all impending deadlines, along with information about the score penalties associated with each one,” De Jonghe wrote in October after getting docked for turning in late work in one of his MOOCs, “but have not heard back from them, nor do I really expect they will contact me."

Universities to offer free online courses with credit, let us try before we learn

It's not really practical to give universities a meaningful test drive. Not without ample amounts of money and time to throw at a practice semester, at least. It's about to become comparatively trivial. Arizona State, the University of Cincinnati and 38 other institutions are teaming up with Academic Partnerships to offer the first course from certain online degrees for free -- and, more importantly, to make it count as credit. Money only matters to participants (and Academic Partnerships) if they move on to the full program. Prospective students will have to wait until the spring to sign up for what's ultimately a freemium education, but patience could be a virtue if it means understanding the workload before committing to what may be years of higher learning.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/24/universities-to-offer-free-online-courses-with-credit/

MOOCs - The Perfect Storm

The New York Times announced this week that forty public US universities are teaming up with the company Academic Partnerships to offer free online courses which lead to the award of credit towards degree programmes. This move, proposed as a 'free sample' to entice more prospective students onto courses is aimed mostly at professionals such as educators or those working in health services. The new offering, called MOOC2Degree, is the latest incarnation of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and comes weeks after 12 top UK Universities announced that they were going into partnership with the Open University to create FutureLearn, a new initiative to create UK based MOOCs.

But none of this is new. Since 1971, the Open University has been engaging students in distance learning using the best available technologies (then TV programmes with bearded presenters writing on dusty blackboards) and since then although the mode of delivery has been enhanced by the internet since the 1990s, the model remains the same. As learning technologies have developed in the 21st Century more traditional face to face Universities have begun to offer online courses for credit to fee paying students. This has been against a background of spiralling fees, which some sources in the US put at a 500% increase since the mid 1980's. While this increase is not quite mirrored in the UK, the hike to a top rate of £27,000 for a degree from the best UK institutions has made many prospective students and their parents question whether a degree is worth the money. Put that together with stalled labour market with a scarcity of graduate jobs and Higher Education faces an uncertain financial future in the new Higher Education 'marketplace' created by the coalition government.

Another element of the MOOC 'perfect storm' is the technologies. There are three essential elements in this. The first is the hyperlink, the ability to make a piece of text or image on a computer screen link out to something else, and for this to happen infinite times, means that reading using a digital medium is not just about print on screen , it allows each reader, or student, to take a unique route through the media. The second is social media and Web 2.0 - which allows everyone to both read and write with the idea that everyone else, potentially at least, can read it. We've all become publishers. Finally when mobile technologies are added into this mix, and I mean small, light touch screen devices with fruity names which can be used on the train, at 3am when feeding the baby or in the park during a lunch hour mean that connectivity to interactive learning and publishing is finally an anytime anywhere thing.

So put together these technological affordances with the higher education market place and drop it all into a global context and whoosh .... There is your perfect MOOC storm.

Even though the idea of a MOOC is new to some, the genre is already evolving. While MIT offers its MITx suite of courses which hold true to the original MOOC formula which is closer to the idea of a knowledge network constructed by its users, Coursea offer more free courses which are closer to the 'credit for free' model which Academic Partnerships have proposed. Given all of this, might it be worth prospective students waiting a year or two to see if, instead of spending £27,000 on a degree they can study for one free? I doubt it. A reduction in the cost of mass higher education does not seem to be in the interests of many institutions, or even the students if they still want their higher education to be taught by the leading researchers in their field. However the MOOC is quite definitely here to stay so we'd better prepare to ride out that storm.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/helena-gillespie/moocs-the-perfect-storm_b_2540633.html

MOOCs for Credit from State Universities: MOOC2Degree from Academic Partnerships

An Academic Partnerships program called MOOC2Degree takes existing programs that offered online (but not as MOOCs) and are fully accredited through their host institutions, and makes the first course into a MOOC — open to all and free, but awarding credit to those who complete successfully. MOOC2Degree Website Chronicle of Higher Education article “MOOCs for [...]

http://etmooc.org/hub/tag/moocs-for-credit/

USU to offer online master's program in human resources

Utah State University's Jon M. Huntsman School of Business this month will launch a new online Master of Science in Human Resources degree program. The program will offer 12, seven-week courses and is designed to help students living in rural areas advance their careers in human resources.

"Utah State University has offered distance education for more than 25 years," said Douglas D. Anderson, dean of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business. "By first utilizing a broadcast network and now through online platforms, USU is meeting the needs of Utah's students who are unable to attend an on-campus program."

Dallas-based Academic Partnerships will provide the technology, marketing, student recruitment and faculty support for the business school's new program. Course materials will be delivered through Canvas learning management system.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/print/865569755/USU-to-offer-online-masters-program-in-human-resources.html

Utah State University to Launch New Master of Science in Human Resources Program Online

Utah State University's Jon M. Huntsman School of Business will next month launch a new online Master of Science in Human Resources (MSHR) degree program. The program, which will offer 12, seven-week courses, is designed to help students living in rural areas further their careers in human resources.

"Utah State University has offered distance education for more than 25 years," said Douglas D. Anderson, dean of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, in a prepared statement. "By first utilizing a broadcast network and now through online platforms, USU is meeting the needs of Utah's students who are unable to attend an on-campus program. With the rapid advances in online instruction, we are now able to extend our reach even further to offer our MSHR degree to more students throughout Utah and beyond."

Dallas, TX-based Academic Partnerships will provide the technology, marketing, student recruitment, and faculty support for the business school's new program. Course materials will be delivered through Canvas learning management system.

The Huntsman School of Business, one of eight colleges at Utah State University, offers ten undergraduate degree and six graduate degree programs. The Logan, UT-based school is one of the oldest continuously running business colleges in the Western United States, according to the school's Web site.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/12/19/utah-state-university-to-launch-new-master-of-science-in-human-resources-program-online.aspx

Sir John Daniel: Openness Rather Than Scale is MOOC Contribution

"I'm delighted that openness has gotten to some very closed institutions," said Sir John Daniel. As the former CEO of Commonwealth of Learning and Vice-Chancellor of Open University, he knows a lot about higher education, open education resources (OER), and online learning.

Sir John's recent paper, "Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility," evaluates the impact and value of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). He concludes that it is not their scale that is the real revolution in higher education, but rather that universities with scarcity at the heart of their business models are embracing openness.

Sir John referenced our recent World Education University story (about free college courses). He wondered, "Is accreditation on the way out?" He suggested that as more people earn credits from MOOCs and competency-based strategies, the less relevant traditional accreditation will become.

But will MOOCs improve the quality of higher ed? Sir John thinks so. "The more people jump in the and the bigger it comes the more it becomes a pedagogy that institutions have to decide if they're going to get into this for real. It will cause the field will cause higher ed to think about what students learn." He noted that it "won't be long until all kinds of people begin making assessments of courses", and learning that results from courses people will have to decide what they mean by quality.

Sir John sees MOOC as a confirmation and expansion of the early insight at Open University. He appreciates that universities are sharing their content at no charge. But on the narrower issue of IP he acknowledges that the "there's probably been some messy copyright issues" because, as noted by the Stanford Daily, MOOCs aren't really open. Universities like Stanford "allows the company to deliver the course but not to own it."

While the paper says that "MOOCs will not do is address the challenge of expanding higher education in the developing world," Sir John is bullish on the expansion of high quality open content but he'd like to see it deployed locally with academic support systems (like edX and MassBay Community Colleges blended MOOCs and supports).

Sir John isn't worried about low completion rates, at least not yet, "The time to start making judgements is about six months down the road." In the meantime, there's a lot of faith-based investing and bandwagon hopping going on.

Dec. 12, 2012
Tareasplus, a San Francisco-based startup that has delivered more than 6 million video lessons to students throughout Latin America, today launches their education tutorials on the iPad, extending the reach of their educational platform to the 53M iPad users around the world.

Tareasplus continues to take a leadership role in empowering students to learn anything from anywhere. They developed the iPad version in response to the rising demand for Spanish video tutorials in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Argentina, all which have had 200 to 300% month-over-month traffic growth.

Tareasplus has already successfully launched both an iPhone and Android app, which currently ranks as one of the top 20 downloaded educational apps in Latin America. The search function is also enhanced, with a more complete video description included with each video to aid students in finding just the right tutorial to support their education.

"Our goal has always been to give more and more students the ability to learn math and science on their own time and to essentially 'unrestrict' the learning process. That's why we're thrilled to enter the iPad market so learners around the globe can master complex subjects at their own pace," said founder and CEO, Hernan Jaramillo.

With the launch of their iPad app, Tareasplus continues to answer the universal demand for math and science instruction, delivering K-12 and early college students complete lessons in general math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, calculus, differential equations, statistics and more. Tareasplus' library of more than 1600 free videos engage students with concise and comprehensive lessons, which answer the most sought-after questions in calculus (a subject covered across 300 videos), as well as topics such as Multiplying Fractions, Scientific Notation and Parabolic Motion.  This entire video library is now available on the iPad.

"Our student users asked for it and we listened. We're thrilled to give students around the world a tool to better visualize complex problems and take learning with them wherever they go," said Jaramillo.

About Tareasplus
Tareasplus helps students at all age ranges learn math with quick and compelling video explanations in Spanish. The company is founded by math expert Roberto Cuartas and serial entrepreneur Hernan Jaramillo. Tareasplus is based in San Francisco and has offices in , Columbia. For more information, visit www.tareasplus.com.

Online courses can end higher education’s financial crisis

Numerous articles and commentaries from inside and outside of academia are raising the alarm that American public higher education faces an unprecedented financial crisis.

For years, state legislatures have been disinvesting in public colleges and universities. The result: rising debt, deferred maintenance for aging facilities, reductions in programs and course offerings, dismissals, elimination of many student and faculty services, and loss of talented faculty — many of whom haven’t received raises in years — to private universities.

To try to offset these challenges, universities are raising tuition and fees to historically high levels. The cost of tuition alone has soared from 23 percent of median annual earnings in 2001 to 38 percent in 2010.

Given the demands on state budgets, it is unlikely that funding for higher education will return to pre-2007 levels any time soon. In fact, analysts predict that financing levels will continue to decrease, to the point where a number of colleges and universities may be forced to close.

In some states, campuses are being consolidated. In others, enrollments have been capped. With the average cost of providing one year of on-campus education at a public university now topping $32,000 and the average tuition covering only 20 percent of that, the problem is real and it isn’t going away.

In addition, enrollments are declining for the first time in 15 years, student debt is topping $1 trillion, parents are questioning why their children are struggling to find jobs, and employers are complaining about the costs of retraining college graduates.

Some universities are finding a way out of this morass through online classes. Growth in online education is now outpacing traditional enrollments. Why? Because it is well-suited to the needs of an increasing number of learners, extending access and allowing students to both work and study.

In addition, learning measures for online students have matched or exceeded those for on-campus students. Although graduate programs have seen the largest growth in online learning, significant increases in online undergraduate programs are expected over the next decade. Unfortunately, many universities remain averse to such change and hold to tradition and a classical notion of education.

In a recent hearing before state legislators, university officials questioned the value of moving online, testifying that there would be little, if any, savings from such a shift. These conclusions don’t hold up. Traditional university costs and services for students that a quality online education doesn’t require include: dormitories, student lounges and food courts; building maintenance, personnel and service vehicles; utilities; landscaping and campus beautification projects; mail service, supplies and procurement services.

Such facilities and services consume as much as half of what it takes to send a student to college. Including such costs for online students in this type of comparison only serves to cloud the huge value proposition that web-based learning represents. The real numbers tell a different story: Online education holds the promise for universities to not only shrink their deficits but also extend their programs to a vast number of students, all at significantly lower costs.

So what is the true incremental cost of serving an online student at a state university? A study by the University of Texas, comparing online versus on-campus instruction across 15 institutions serving more than 150,000 students, demonstrated a 30 percent to 50 percent cost savings for the web-based approach.

On-campus tuition will continue to rise, to cover increasing costs for services and facilities. This, in turn, will further reduce enrollments, and campuses will become less diverse, accessible only to students from affluent families. Online education presents a huge opportunity to reverse these trends and improve the economic health of public colleges and universities.

Those institutions that recognize this and move their programs online will succeed. They will ensure job security for their faculty, find themselves able to reduce tuition, and extend access to underserved and under-represented students who need education to advance in their jobs, raise a family and provide a quality education for their children.

Online education isn’t a solution for all that ails our public universities, but it must be a major component in solving the financial crisis facing higher education.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/commentary-online-courses-can-end-higher-education/nTPDT/

Dec. 5, 2012
University of South Carolina is partnering with Academic Partnerships to move undergraduate and graduate degree programs from the system's flagship research institution in Columbia, as well as the senior and regional universities, online. Academic Partnerships' innovative learning technologies and its global marketing capability will be utilized to increase access to USC's high quality curriculum in collaboration with faculty from across the Systems' campuses.

"I am excited that USC has chosen Academic Partnerships to help support its bold new initiatives in online learning," said Dr. Michael Amiridis, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost of the University of South Carolina<. "Academic Partnerships works only with public universities and possesses valuable expertise that will assist USC in the preparation and implementation of high-quality, state-of-the-art online programs delivered at affordable prices through the new Palmetto College and select graduate programs.  We look forward to working with our newest partner."   

A Master's in Engineering Management will be one of the first degrees offered online through the new partnership. "Bringing our courses online is one of the many ways to cultivate the next generation of thinkers and meet the growing demand for engineers. I am thrilled with this latest wave of innovation at USC which continues to push the envelope," said Michael Sutton, a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Carolina.

In addition, Academic Partnerships will assist USC with the design and development of courses for Palmetto College, the university's new online, baccalaureate degree completion program scheduled to start in fall 2013.  Palmetto College will enable South Carolinians who have finished 60 hours of course work to complete a degree in several fields including business, criminal justice, education and nursing.  Students will take courses in an affordable, convenient and flexible online format while having the advantage of the university's extensive support system.

"Academic Partnerships is anxious to provide the latest learning technologies, assuring that University of South Carolinas' campuses remain highly competitive and cutting edge as they serve 21st century students throughout the state and beyond," said Randy Best, Chairman of Academic Partnerships. "The System's interest in serving all qualified students through the utilization of technology will help its institutions flourish far into the future."

Academic Partnerships has a successful track record of helping institutions of higher education expand their access and deliver quality and scalable online degree programs. AP's efforts have helped over 600 professors convert more than 1,000 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited more than 100,000 students into online degree programs with U.S. and international partners. 

About the University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina develops leaders and inspires cutting-edge thinking and practical problem solving through innovation in learning, research and engagement. Founded in 1801, this vibrant and diverse community with 46,000 students on eight campuses, more than 300 degree programs – including law, engineering, public health and medicine – and 250,000 alumni, improves the lives of individuals and builds healthier, more educated communities in South Carolina and around the world. A recognized global leader in fuel cell research, USC has received the highest research designation awarded by the Carnegie Foundation.  In 2012, faculty generated more than $238 million in funding for research and sponsored awards.  Additionally, USC garners national recognition for its prestigious South Carolina Honors College and undergraduate and graduate International Business programs. Learn more at www.sc.edu.

About Academic Partnerships 
Dallas-based Academic Partnerships partners with public universities to deliver students full degree programs online. The company was founded by social entrepreneur, Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning experiences to improve education. Academic Partnerships helps universities increase public access to high-quality education by providing the technology, marketing, student recruitment and faculty support necessary to serve online students. Academic Partnerships is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit http://www.academicpartnerships.com.

Dec. 4, 2012
Academic Partnerships announces today that international online learning pioneer Sir John Daniel has joined the company as a Senior Advisor. Sir John Daniel will support Academic Partnerships' mission of assisting top universities worldwide to increase access to higher education through technology. Sir John Daniel is one of the world's eminent practitioners and thought leaders in open, distance and technology-mediated learning. He has had a profound influence on distance learning in higher education and received recognition on all continents for his accomplishments in the field, particularly as related to the use of technology to expand the scope, scale and quality of human learning.

"We are pleased that Sir John Daniel will contribute his unrivaled accumulation of more than 40 years of international expertise to help our partner universities make excellent online education accessible to everyone, everywhere," said Randy Best, chairman and founder of Academic Partnerships.

"Online teaching and learning is a wonderfully liberating development that is increasing access to education dramatically," said Sir John Daniel. "However, students want success as well as access so good online learning must be supported by online contact between students and teachers. Academic Partnerships provides this, which explains why it is has good completion rates compared to the horrendous drop-out rates in the first round of massive open online courses that assume all teaching and learning can be automated."

Sir John's recent acclaimed paper, "Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility," evaluates the impact and value of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). He concludes that it is not their scale that is the real revolution in higher education, but rather that universities with scarcity at the heart of their business models are embracing openness.

Most recently, Sir John was the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning. Prior to this role, he served as UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Education. He also headed the British Open University for 11 years and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his service in higher education. He holds 31 honorary doctorates from universities in 17 countries and is responsible for 330 publications and books, including Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education and Mega-Schools, Technology and Teaching: Achieving Education for All.

About Academic Partnerships  Dallas-based Academic Partnerships partners with universities to deliver students full degree programs online. The company was founded by social entrepreneur, Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. Academic Partnerships helps universities increase access to high-quality education by providing the technology, student recruitment and faculty support necessary to serve online students. Academic Partnerships is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit http://www.academicpartnerships.com.

Dec. 3, 2012
Academic Partnerships announced today that Bob Rae has joined the company as President and Chief Operating Officer.

Academic Partnerships announced today that Bob Rae has joined the company as President and Chief Operating Officer. He has assumed responsibility for daily operations of Academic Partnerships, a leading higher education service provider to top universities around the world. Bob joins Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships, to support the firm’s rapid global expansion.

Bob Rae brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in technology, marketing and process innovation.

“Bob’s extensive background in managing rapidly growing businesses makes him the ideal leader to guide Academic Partnerships through the next period of its development,” said Randy Best. “Bob will also continue to expand the level of support we provide our university partners and their students.”

Prior to joining Academic Partnerships, Bob Rae was an executive at Mosaic Sales Solutions, a leading marketing and merchandising service firm with more than 10,000 employees. Before joining Mosaic, he was the EVP of Operations and Technology at Securus Technologies, a niche software applications and telecommunications service provider. He also served in leadership roles at Fujitsu and Bell Atlantic.

“I am excited to join the Academic Partnerships team at a time of truly unprecedented transformation in higher education,” Bob commented. “I look forward to applying my experience from the technology and service sectors and leading Academic Partnerships through this period of exceptional growth.”

Online Classes Mean No Dorm, Gym or Debt

Numerous articles and commentaries from inside and outside of academia are raising the alarm that American public higher education faces an unprecedented financial crisis.

For years, state legislatures have been disinvesting in public colleges and universities, leaving campus administrators to struggle with how to make do with less. The result: rising debt, deferred maintenance for aging facilities, reductions in programs and course offerings, dismissals, elimination of many student and faculty services, and loss of talented faculty -- many of whom haven’t received pay increases in years -- to private universities.

To try to offset some of these challenges, universities are raising tuition and fees to historically high levels. The cost of tuition alone has soared from 23 percent of median annual earnings in 2001 to 38 percent in 2010.

Given the pressing demands on state budgets, it is unlikely that funding for higher education will return to pre-2007 levels anytime soon. In fact, analysts predict just the opposite: Financing levels will continue to decrease in the years ahead to the point where a number of colleges and universities may be forced to close.

In some states, campuses are being consolidated. In others, enrollments have been capped. With the average cost of providing one year of on-campus education at a public university now topping $32,000 and the average tuition covering only 20 percent of that, the problem is real and it isn’t going away.

Enrollment Shift

In addition, enrollments are declining for the first time in 15 years, student debt is topping a trillion dollars, parents are questioning why their children are struggling to find jobs, and employers are complaining about the costs of retraining college graduates. Such conditions cannot continue.

Some universities are finding a way out of this morass through online classes. Growth in online education is now outpacing traditional enrollments by a wide margin. Why? Because it is well-suited to the needs of an increasing number of learners, extending access and allowing students to both work and study.

In addition, learning measures for online students have matched or exceeded those for on-campus students. Although graduate programs have seen the largest growth in online learning, significant increases in online undergraduate programs are expected over the next decade. Unfortunately, many universities remain averse to such change and hold to tradition and a classical notion of education.

In a recent hearing before state legislators, university officials questioned the value of moving online, testifying that there would be little, if any, savings from such a shift. These conclusions simply don’t hold up. For example, traditional university costs and services for students that a quality online education doesn’t require include:

-- Sports teams, playing fields, gyms and training facilities

-- Dormitories, student lounges and food courts

-- Building maintenance, personnel and service vehicles

-- Utilities including phones, air conditioning and plumbing

-- Landscaping and campus beautification projects

-- Mail service, supplies and procurement services

Such facilities and services consume as much as half of what it takes to send a student to college. Including such costs for online students in this type of comparison only serves to cloud the huge value proposition that Web-based learning represents. The real numbers tell a drastically different story: Online education holds the promise for universities to not only shrink their deficits but also extend their programs to a vast number of students, all at significantly lower costs.

Significant Savings

So what is the true incremental cost of serving an online student at a state university today? A study carried out by the University of Texas, comparing online versus on-campus instruction across 15 institutions serving more than 150,000 students, demonstrated a 30 percent to 50 percent cost savings for the Web-based approach. Given that students are asked to shoulder debt for services and amenities that are, objectively, nonessential to their education, people should take notice.

On-campus tuition will continue to rise to cover increasing costs for services and facilities. This, in turn, will further reduce enrollments, and campuses will become less diverse, accessible only to students from affluent families. Online education presents a huge opportunity to reverse these trends and improve the economic health of public colleges and universities.

Those institutions that recognize this and move their programs online will be successful and flourish. They will ensure job security for their faculty, find themselves able to reduce tuition, and extend access to underserved and under- represented students who need education to advance in their jobs, raise a family and provide a quality education for their own children.

Online education isn’t a solution for all that ails our public universities, but it must be a major component in solving the financial crisis facing higher education.

(Jeb Bush was governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Randy Best is founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships LLC, a company that designs online courses. The opinions expressed are their own.)

Instructure’s Canvas LMS now free to all Academic Partnership’s partner schools

Academic Partnerships has announced a partnership with Instructure to allow for all of Academic Partnerships’ current and future university partners to utilize the Canvas platform free of charge, in all of Canvas’ available languages.

With the recent announcement of the Canvas Network, institutions now have increased flexibility to define the structure of their online course offerings, whether in an open format like that of massive open online courses (MOOCs) or full, tuition-based degree programs. In turn, these enhanced Canvas capabilities will be extended to Academic Partnerships’ universities as they advance their online course delivery beyond a “one size fits all” model to a more flexible academic experience tailored to their students’ needs.

“One of the most rapidly developing trends in higher education is the delivery of quality university instruction to students around the world,” said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. “Technology is fueling this advancement and we are thrilled to join efforts with Instructure to offer Canvas, the most advanced and intuitive learning platform available today, at no cost to our partner universities and their students.”

This announcement comes on the heels of a dramatic change in higher education. Enrollment in online courses and degree programs are outstripping the growth of traditional on-campus instruction 10 to 1 (Sloan Consortium). Demand for online courses and degrees accessible via an advanced and flexible learning platform is growing at a rapid pace.

“We’re joining up with Academic Partnerships at a time when students around the world have unprecedented access to the best professors, the best schools and the best programs online,” said Devlin Daley, co-founder and chief technology officer at Instructure. “Through the reach of Academic Partnerships’ partner universities, we’ll be able to bring our innovative learning platform and the Canvas Network to improve the educational experience for exponentially more students.”

Nov. 28, 2012
Wright State University is teaming up with Academic Partnerships to make available online four of the university's leading graduate and post-graduate degrees in education, including the nationally recognized online Teacher Leader degree.

Students can soon enroll in four post-graduate academic programs, three of which are new Wright State online offerings:

* Master of Education-Teacher Leader * Master of Education-Principal * Education Specialist-Curriculum, Instruction & Professional Development * Education Specialist-Superintendent

Wright State's Master of Education Teacher Leader program, which has been offered online since 2004, is ranked number one by U.S. News & World Report for its faculty credentials and training. This program is also listed on the Online Education Programs Honor Roll.

"Wright State's programs will be delivered fully online in an asynchronous format, making new programs easily accessible to all educators, despite their busy schedules and commitments," said Interim Provost Thomas Sudkamp.

Andrew Hsu, Dean of Wright State's Graduate School, added, "Students want quality, reputation and convenience. The quality and the reputation of Wright State's curriculum are well established, now it's convenience that we're adding to assist professional educators everywhere."

"Academic Partnerships' expertise in distance learning will ensure that the online delivery of Wright State's curriculum retains its superior quality, offering students the most engaging and enriching online learning experience available today," said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships.

Academic Partnerships has a successful track record of assisting other leading universities expand their access and deliver quality and scalable online degree programs. The company's efforts have helped over 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited more than 100,000 students into online degree programs with U.S. and international partners.

The application deadline to enroll in Wright State University's upcoming programs is December 7, 2012. Classes commence on January 7, 2013. To learn more about the programs or to apply, please visit http://educationonline.wright.edu/.

About Wright State UniversityA Carnegie-classified research university, Wright State University's main campus is 12 miles northeast of downtown Dayton, Ohio, near the historic landmarks where the Wright brothers taught the world to fly. The university operates a branch campus, Wright State University-Lake Campus, on the shores of Grand Lake St. Marys in Celina, Ohio. Wright State serves nearly 18,000 students and offers more than 190 undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and professional degree programs through eight colleges and three schools, including Professional Psychology and the Boonshoft School of Medicine. For more information, please visit www.wright.edu.

About Academic PartnershipsDallas-based Academic Partnerships partners with universities to deliver students full degree programs online. The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. Academic Partnerships helps universities increase access to high-quality education by providing the technology, student recruitment and faculty support necessary to serve online students. Academic Partnerships is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit http://www.academicpartnerships.com.

SOURCE Academic Partnerships

Nov. 28, 2012
The next big thing in aerospace just might originate from the University of South Carolina.

USC President Harris Pastides recently announced a $5 million gift from South Carolina businesswoman and philanthropist Anita Zucker to provide support for innovation in aerospace education and workforce development.

“I have had a long working relationship with the faculty members at USC and can attest firsthand to the impact of their research. It has proven to be a tremendous benefit to our engineers and helped to improve our products,” said Zucker, chairman and CEO of The InterTech Group, owner of PBI Performance Products. “The growth of South Carolina’s economy, especially in high-tech fields, is dependent upon the development of a highly educated workforce. I’m excited to be a part of supporting the expansion of aerospace education in our state and pleased to support the McNair Center as a leader in that endeavor.”

Zucker’s donation will endow the Zucker Institute for Aerospace Innovation and the McNair Chair, a new professorship in USC’s McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research.

The McNair Chair has attracted an eminent scientist, Zafer Gürdal, from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands to serve as technical director of the McNair Center.

“Anita’s generosity and shared vision that South Carolina can advance the future of air and space flight has enabled us to recruit a world-renowned expert to lead our efforts,” Pastides said. “Dr. Gürdal is wellknown for having a rare combination of native intelligence, common sense, curiosity and interest in research. He has a great capacity for hard work and perhaps most important, the ability to lead and motivate others. He is a brilliant addition to the university’s stellar team of scientists.”

A native of Turkey, Gürdal spent nearly 20 years on the faculty of Virginia Tech developing an internationally recognized research program, with particular expertise in designing and optimizing composite materials. Since 2004 he has headed a highly successful effort at Delft University to better align the aerospace program with what students need to succeed, both in academia and industry.

“USC has a number of faculty members who are well recognized for their contributions in aerospace engineering related fields,” Gürdal said. “Unifying those activities under a unique McNair Chair umbrella and spearheading new initiatives with the faculty will be a highly rewarding experience.”

Pastides also announced a new partnership that will give USC a truly global reach in aerospace education. Academic Partnerships, headquartered in Dallas, has been tapped to support two new online educational programs that USC is developing for aerospace training.

The two new master’s programs—including the state of South Carolina’s first master’s degree in aerospace engineering—will come online in the spring. In his leadership role at the McNair Center, Gürdal will help oversee these programs as well as foster the development of two more aerospace related degree programs expected to begin enrolling students next fall.

Academic Partnerships and Instructure, Creator of Canvas, Form Strategic Partnership to Empower the Next Generation of Online Learning at Leading Universities

Nov. 28, 2012
Academic Partnerships, which offers comprehensive support to universities in the development and marketing of their superior online courses and degree programs, today announces a strategic partnership with Instructure, the company behind Canvas – a learning management system (LMS) used by 275 educational institutions. Through this strategic partnership, all of Academic Partnerships’ current and future university partners will be able to utilize the Canvas platform free of charge, in all of Canvas’ available languages, to help streamline the online delivery of high quality educational content.

The alliance means that the ever growing number of students seeking online education will have access to Canvas’ widely lauded learning platform. Canvas is focused on enabling the individual student and teacher to transform the education experience by providing a learning platform with intuitive design, flexible pedagogy, integrated multimedia, deep social network integration and more. Instructure is constantly improving the Canvas platform by integrating feedback from students and teachers, building on the company’s philosophy that users are charting the future of learning. 

With the recent announcement of the Canvas Network, institutions now have increased flexibility to define the structure of their online course offerings, whether in an open format like that of massive open online courses (MOOCs) or full, tuition-based degree programs. In turn, these enhanced Canvas capabilities will be extended to Academic Partnerships’ universities as they advance their online course delivery beyond a “one size fits all” model to a more flexible academic experience tailored to their students’ needs.  

“One of the most rapidly developing trends in higher education is the delivery of quality university instruction to students around the world,” said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. “Technology is fueling this advancement and we are thrilled to join efforts with Instructure to offer Canvas, the most advanced and intuitive learning platform available today, at no cost to our partner universities and their students.”

This announcement comes on the heels of a dramatic change in higher education. Enrollment in online courses and degree programs are outstripping the growth of traditional on-campus instruction 10 to 1 (Sloan Consortium). Demand for online courses and degrees accessible via an advanced and flexible learningplatform is growing at a rapid pace.

“We’re joining up with Academic Partnerships at a time when students around the world have unprecedented access to the best professors, the best schools and the best programs online,” said Devlin Daley, co-founder and chief technology officer at Instructure. “Through the reach of Academic Partnerships’ partner universities, we’ll be able to bring our innovative learning platform and the Canvas Network to improve the educational experience for exponentially more students.”

Academic Partnerships helpsuniversities remain highly competitive and cutting edge as they serve 21^st century studentsthroughout their states and beyond. Through its partnerships with some 40 leading public institutions, Academic Partnership brings these universities’ high-quality degrees such as nursing, education and business online.

About Instructure

Instructure is a technology company committed to improving education. Instructure provides instructors and students modern tools and resources to empower the learningexperience. Founded by graduate students in collaboration with educational institutions, Instructure provides Canvas - the open, easy-to-use, cloud-native learning platform. For more information: www.instructure.com.

About Academic Partnerships

Dallas-based Academic Partnerships partners with universities to deliver students full degree programs online. The company was founded by social entrepreneur, Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. Academic Partnerships helps universities increase access to high-quality education by providing the technology, student recruitment and faculty support necessary to serve online students. Academic Partnerships is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visithttp://www.academicpartnerships.com.

Americans Support Higher Ed and Online Degrees, Poll Finds

A large majority of Americans who have attended college believe higher education is a good investment (83 percent) and key to achieving the American dream, according to the results of a national opinion poll Northeastern University released on Tuesday. But an equal proportion of all respondents, including those who had not attended college, said the U.S. higher education system needs to change in order to remain competitive with those of other countries. The poll also found that most Americans believe in the growing value of online degrees. Among respondents between the ages of 18 and 30, 68 percent said an online degree will be just as recognized and accepted among employers as a traditional degree will be in the next five to seven years.

http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/11/28/americans-support-higher-ed-and-online-degrees-poll-finds

TareasPlus es un sitio web desarrollado por colombianos, que ayuda a estudiantes de primaria, secundaria y universidad a solucionar sus interrogantes relacionados con las matemáticas y las ciencias básicas a través de tutoriales educativos gratis en la Red.

Al ingresar al sitio, los usuarios tienen la posibilidad de acceder a una biblioteca que contiene pequeños videos de matemáticas básicas, álgebra, geometría, trigonometría, física, química, cálculo, estadística y otros temas relacionados con las ciencias básicas.

Los tutoriales suelen durar entre 10 y 25 minutos y están diseñados para complementar lo que los estudiantes están aprendiendo en sus clases. Según le contó a ENTER.CO Hernán Jaramillo, presidente y cofundador de la compañía, actualmente hay más de 1.134 tutoriales en TareasPlus y el sitio web recibe cerca de 1,2 millones de visitas al mes, cifra que ha venido aumentando recientemente.

La idea de TareasPlus nació de la mente de dos antioqueños, Roberto Cuartas y Hernán Jaramillo, quienes en principio se asociaron para dar clases a estudiantes que tenían problema para entender los temas de matemáticas y ciencias básicas.

Al ver que el tiempo no era su aliado, pues en una o dos horas de clase no podían solucionar todas las dudas de sus alumnos, los emprendedores decidieron llevar sus conocimientos a otra plataforma, dando vida a TareasPlus.com. “En la actualidad cada dos segundos un estudiante en Latinoamérica se conecta a ver nuestros videos”, dijo Jaramillo.

Aunque es un proyecto colombiano, TareasPlus actualmente tiene su sede en Silicon Valley y se ha posicionado como la mejor y más completa iniciativa educativa digital de habla hispana. Incluso, la compañía logró conseguir una inversión extranjera de 2 millones de dólares por parte de Academic Partnerships, una organización que ayuda a las universidades públicas a extender su alcance a través de la tecnología.

November 13, 2012 • Academic Partnerships announced today that Dr. Charles Green has joined the company as Chief Academic Officer and Senior Vice President of Academic Services. In these roles, he will work to increase the effectiveness of online course delivery to further develop innovative learning solutions and foster student engagement.

Most recently, Dr. Green served as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, as well as an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He was the primary contact for academic computing and information technology operations.

"Dr. Green's expertise in teaching and learning will be tremendously valuable as we continue to work hand-in-hand with our partner universities to bring world-class education to students around the world," said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. "Throughout his career, Dr. Green has demonstrated a true commitment to quality learning and in doing so he has supported the next-generation of educators and students."

Dr. Green brings nearly two decades of experience in both academic and administrative environments working to empower faculty and students in the use of information technologies for life-long learning. He is the recipient of several grants, the author of a number of peer-reviewed articles relating to teaching, learning, and technology, and is an invited speaker at national and international conferences.

Dr. Green's commitment to modernizing and expanding the reach of education also extends to his work with the Walt Whitman Archive, a project that he dedicated many years to as Technical Director and as a founding member. The archive is an electronic research and teaching resource that aims to make Walt Whitman's work accessible to all.

"As a lifetime educator, I am excited to be a part of an evolution in higher education that is giving students exceptional access to the best professors and the best schools through engaging online learning platforms," said Dr. Charles Green. "As the model of higher education begins to change, there are many opportunities to innovate and create programs that make education more accessible and available. With Academic Partnerships, I feel I have an incredible opportunity to leverage my experience to improve and extend learning online."

Press Release • Academic Partnerships Awards $50,000 to Support Online Learning and Commits Additional $100,000 in Research Grants to Faculty in 2013

November 14, 2012
Faculty eCommons, the newly launched community site supporting online faculty around the world, today announces their first set of research grant recipients. Faculty eCommons’ Research Grant Program, funded and administered through Academic Partnerships (AP), aims to support faculty research on the impact and effectiveness of online learning. Additionally, due to the high number of faculty applications in 2012 and the extraordinary surge in demand for online learning, AP announces that it is doubling its faculty research grants to $100,000 in 2013.

Faculty eCommons is a one-of-a kind space for faculty to learn, collaborate and share research about effective online teaching and learning. The site was developed to respond to one of the most rapidly developing trends in higher education – the demand for online courses and degrees accessible via an advanced and flexible learning platform. A recent study by Sloan Consortium found that enrollment in online courses and degree programs are outstripping the growth of traditional on-campus instruction 10 to 1. The Faculty eCommons site empowers faculty with the best pedagogy and tools to create high quality online educational content.

“The passion for learning innovation shown in the faculty applications was overwhelming and inspirational. We are proud to support this impressive group of professionals in their research, which will benefit students and educators online and off,” said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships.

The winning faculty proposals ranged from overarching research in online education (such as “Learning at the speed of light: Deep learning and accelerated online graduate courses”) to those geared to a specific degree (“A comparative analysis of demographic and academic success characteristics of 2,355 online RN to BSN students”). The 2012 research studies from each of the below grant recipients are currently available on the Faculty eCommons site.

The complete listing of research grant recipients is as follows:

• Dr. Po-Lin Pan of Arkansas State University


• Dr. Olajide Agunloye, Dr. Samuel Hardy & Dr. Paulette Harris of Augusta State University


• Dr. Krishnan Dandapani, Dr. Deanne Butchey & Dr. Edward Lawrence of Florida International University


• Dr. Stefan Andrei of Lamar University


• Dr. Ordene Edwards of Lamar University


• Dr. Lynn Godkin & Dr. Vivek Natarajan of Lamar University


• Dr. Pam Frampton & Anastasia M. Trekles of Purdue University Calumet


• Dr. Casey Graham Brown of Texas A&M University Commerce


• Dr. Maria Hinojosa & Dr. Rusty Waller of Texas A&M University Commerce


• Dr. Raghu N. Singh of Texas A&M University Commerce


• Dr. Kimberly Breuer of University of Texas at Arlington


• Dr. Joohi Lee of University of Texas at Arlington


• Dr. Beth Mancini & Jean Ashwill of University of Texas at Arlington


• Dr. Dave Jackson, Dr. Joo Jung & Dr. David Sturges of University of Texas at Pan Am


• Dr. Raj Desai of University of Texas at Permian Basin


• Dr. Dian Jordan-Werhane of University of Texas at Permian Basin

For 2013, $100,000 is available through the Academic Partnerships Research Grant Program. Award amounts range from $1,000 - $5,000 for individual or collaborative research studies. Proposals with an emphasis on online course quality are eligible for grant funding. For more information on applying for an online learning research grant, please visit: http://facultyecommons.com/faculty-research-grant-application/.

About Faculty eCommons Developed by Academic Partnerships, Faculty eCommons is a social learning ecosystem for faculty across the globe to work together and better online education. The site offers industry research, guidance, best practices, and professional development, with a focus on national quality standards. Academic Partnerships has a strategic alliance with Sloan Consortium and a subscription to the Quality Matters™ program, which are available to AP Partner faculty. For more information, visit: http://facultyecommons.com.

Best online innovation

An entrepreneur’s entrepreneur, Randy Best‚ ’67 began his business career while a student at Lamar University where he started seven businesses and at one point had 42 other LU students in his employ. Among his ventures were publishing companies and Collegiate Diamond, an endeavor selling engagement rings at a time when “about 28 percent of all college students got engaged or married each year.” At 25, Best sold the company for around $10 million and has gone on to found or acquire more than 100 privately or publicly held companies in a broad range of fields including healthcare, defense and aerospace, publishing, agriculture, food, oil and gas, real estate and education.

When he moved into the second half of his career, Best focused on business initiatives with a social mission that could have an enduring, positive impact. This commitment resulted in a focus on education and in the welfare of children.

Best’s own challenges with dyslexia made him passionate about reading and its critical impact on a student’s education and life. He founded a national initiative that annually helps more than 3 million children, mostly inner-city, learn to read.

In 2005, Best turned to higher education and founded a company to help state universities increase access for underserved high-need populations. Lamar University was the first to partner with Best in delivering two graduate education programs, growing enrollment from 226 to more than 4,100. He also founded an international higher education company focused on bringing a high-quality, low-cost college education to students in the developing countries of Latin America. Today, Academic Partnerships delivers online programs in all 50 states and 37 foreign countries.

Innovations in Online Education Increase Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics' Access to a Broader Student Population

November 13, 2012 • In collaboration with Academic Partnerships, the University of Delaware's Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics has announced an innovative new online master of business administration (MBA 0.00%, news) program. Academic Partnerships was selected to work with the Lerner College to deliver their faculty's curriculum to a growing number of students who want a top MBA delivered in a highly-flexible format. The program is expected to launch in spring 2013.

"Higher education is evolving as a result of new technology and the resulting changes in students' learning styles," said Rick Andrews, deputy dean of the Lerner College. "By using a new delivery modality, our MBA will be accessible to working professionals who travel frequently, to members of the U.S. military and to others who, for whatever reason, are not able to make it to campus for the traditional MBA."

Students in the new online MBA will complete 48 credits in the Lerner College's AACSB-accredited program over the course of eight seven-week terms. Courses will fully achieve MBA program learning objectives required by the AACSB and will consist of micro-lectures delivered in multimedia format; readings, problems, cases and discussion board participation; experiential learning via corporate simulation exercises; and individual and team projects and assignments.

Under the direction of Deputy Dean Andrews, the collaboration with Academic Partnerships has been underway since April 2012, when an online MBA planning group including each of the college's five department chairs and Jack Baroudi, associate dean for graduate and executive programs, was created.

"Sixty years ago, the Lerner College admitted its first MBA class, and we have continued to refine our program to keep ahead of business needs," said Bruce Weber, dean of the Lerner College. "Our high-quality MBA, paired with AP's proven ability to enrich student learning online, furthers the college's academic mission to deliver superior management education to the next generation of business students."

"Together with UD's Lerner College, we are meeting the needs of students who want to learn and advance their careers with an MBA, but who don't have the ability to participate in an on-campus program," said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. "An online MBA program offers flexibility and access to an ever-growing number of students who may wish to keep their jobs while getting their degree, or who don't live close to UD, but want the caliber of the college's degree."

Academic Partnerships has a successful track record of helping institutions of higher education expand their access and deliver quality and scalable online degree programs. The company's efforts have helped over 600 professors convert more than 1,000 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited more than 100,000 students into online degree programs with U.S. and international partners.

About the Lerner College

The Lerner College is the second largest of UD's seven colleges, with a diverse community of 2,800 undergraduate students, 600 graduate students, 170 faculty and staff, and over 28,000 alumni. Unique programs in five academic departments emphasize experience-driven learning and evidence-based analytics. From Bloomberg Certification to corporate governance expertise to teacher education, the Lerner College is also home to a variety of centers of excellence that provide educational programming opportunities for students and community members. Additional information about enrollment in Lerner College's online MBA can be found here.

Press Release • TareasPlus raises $1.8 million seed funding

November 12, 2012 • TareasPlus, a Spanish language mathematics teaching business, raised $1.8 million in seed funding. Academic Partnerships of Dallas, an online university degree program, gave the money.

Started by engineers Hernan Jaramillo and Roberto Cuartas, TareasPlus helps students in Latin America learn math via video lessons. The San Francisco company also has an office in Medellin.

Rather than rely on the vagaries of online translating tools, the company uses Spanish speaking video instructors.

TareasPlus has a library of some 1,100 free videos.

Jaramillo, who was born in Medellin, is CEO, or "right brain," as the company puts it, while Cuartas is editor in chief, or the "left brain."

Randy Best, who started Academic Partnerships, is its chairman.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2012/11/09/tareasplus-raises-1-million-seed.html

Tareasplus Helps Latin American Students Master Math and Science

Education is a hot button issue in the US, as schools are unable to access the resources they need and test scores fall behind those of our international peers. Both North and South of the border, students struggle with math and science education and there are startups swooping in with technology that can help them learn.

Tareasplus, an online education portal for the Spanish world, has raised $1.8 million. The company offers thousands of video lessons on math and science subjects for kindergarten all the way through early college.

Its library contains instruction on basic math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, statistics and more. The calculus section alone has 300 videos, each dedicated to a particular concept or lesson. The tutorials generally last between 9 and 12 minutes and are designed to supplement the learning students do in the classroom.

“Right now, more than half of students in Latin America do not develop the minimum skills needed to function in mathematics,” said founder and CEO Hernan Jaramillo. “One key reason these skills are falling behind in Latin America is due to resources. 88% of primary schools in Latin America do not have science labs and 40% have no libraries. The students and teachers are bright and hard workers, but many just lack the resources to make the grade.”

The content is produced and developed in Spanish by a network of subject specialists. The site averages 36,000 visitors a day from all over the world, though the main users are in Colombia, Mexico, and Chile. The founders were both born in Medellin, Colombia, and have advanced math and science degrees, as well as experience in entrepreneurship.

“Roberto Cuartas and I met while we were studying engineering in college,” Jaramillo said. “We were both tutoring kids to pay our way through school. From our tutoring, we discovered that if they were simply able to “unrestrict” the time it took their students to learn a specific lesson, we could get them to master it. This, paired with the massive distribution capabilities of YouTube, allowed us to produce and replicate their individual tutoring efforts with the highest possible scale.”

Despite targeting the Latin American market, Tareasplus is based in San Francisco to be at the center of the technology (and venture capital) community. The company has raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Academic Partnerships, an organization that helps public universities extend their reach through technology. It will use the investment to expand the platform.

Emprendedores colombianos crean innovador portal académico

La fiel muestra de que todo lo que se quiere se puede, es el startup de los colombianos. Hernan Jaramillo y Roberto Cuartas: www.tareasplus.com, quienes a través de tutoriales educativos gratis, encuentran la mejor forma para llegar a millones de personas en el mundo.

Han logrado posicionarla como la mejor y más completa iniciativa educativa digital de habla hispana, cuya operación radica en Silicon Valley, y se convierte en la primera en conseguir una inversión extranjera de 2 millones de dólares.

Es una de las plataformas Web que ofrece a las personas aprender sin ningún tipo de restricciones, sin costo, fácil y didácticamente las áreas que parecen más ‘difíciles’ de la academia: matemática, física y química. Algunos procesos se hacen mediante videos guiados, que en un día de reproducción representan el equivalente a 100 clases presenciales.

El apalancamiento con inversionistas extranjeros satisface la demanda de experiencias de aprendizaje, además de mejorar la calidad de los contenidos que inicialmente se encuentran en español.

De otra parte, las cifras de crecimiento y demanda de este proyecto son amplias; cada dos segundos un estudiante está aprendiendo matemáticas con la plataforma tanto en América Latina como en España.

Pero, ¿cómo dos paisas consiguen 2 millones de dólares para invertir en un proyecto educativo? Muy fácil, la tenacidad de sus fundadores, una gran idea y la necesidad de padres y docentes porque niños y estudiantes aprendan matemática de manera eficiente y eficaz, los impulsa a apostarlo todo por su proyecto dejando su país, radicándose en Silicon Valley, aprendiendo la cultura y trabajando sin descanso en la búsqueda de hacer su sueño realidad.

Es así como consiguieron con constancia y perseverancia convertirse en el aliado perfecto de la educación tradicional, obteniendo que los estudiantes de forma extracurricular afiancen los conocimientos adquiridos en sus clases y a su vez contando con lo que necesiten, explicaciones y ejemplos que les permita aprender e interiorizar mejor los conceptos educativos.

Esta idea nace mientras su CEO y cofundador Hernan Jaramillo dictaba tutoriales de matemática para pagarse sus estudios en la universidad. Cuando comenzó a tener tanta demanda de clases se vio en la necesidad de un colaborador, subcontratando a su actual socio Roberto Cuartas.

Juntos maduran la iniciativa de hacer dinámica y moderna la forma de impartir el conocimiento, paso seguido crean formatos asequibles para la comunidad que ayudan a entender las lecciones fácilmente y permiten un refuerzo en el aprendizaje.

Es así, como una vez que aparece YouTube, comienzan a usar esta plataforma como medio directo para subir el material educativo y compartirlo de manera abierta con todas las personas con la necesidad de mejorar en dichas áreas del conocimiento.

Actualmente cuentan con una librería de más de 1.200 tutoriales gratis donde responden las preguntas más frecuentes en cálculo, ecuaciones diferenciales, química general, física clásica, álgebra, aritmética y trigonometría.

Para acceder a los tutoriales basta con ingresar a www.tareasplus.com y realizar la búsqueda de acuerdo con la necesidad puntual o seleccionar la materia o tema del que se quiera tener más información. También se podrán formular preguntas o dejar comentarios.

http://www.portafolio.co/negocios/emprendedores-colombianos-crean-innovador-portal-academico

Tareasplus, a San Francisco-based startup that has delivered more than 5 million video lessons to students throughout Latin America today announces $1.8M in seed funding from Academic Partnerships. The investment marks a strategic relationship set to meet the demand for learning experiences beyond the classroom in Latin America by leveraging open distribution platforms and improving the quality of content-on-demand in Spanish.

Answering a universal demand for math and science instruction, Tareasplus delivers K-12 and early college students complete lessons in general math, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, calculus, differential equations, statistics and more. Tareasplus’ library of more than 1100 free videos engage students with concise and comprehensive lessons, which answer the most sought-after questions in calculus (a subject covered across 300 videos), as well as topics such as Multiplying Fractions, Scientific Notation and Parabolic Motion. These videos expand classroom learning and demonstrate an enormous desire for unlimited access to materials by students who benefit from the repetition of a particular concept or lesson. The company pays special attention to the needs of female students, as statistics show their study of math greatly decreases after the age of 18.

Tareasplus is the brainchild of Hernan Jaramillo and Roberto Cuartas, two engineers who met in college while tutoring kids to pay their way through school. From their tutoring, they discovered that if they were simply able to “unrestrict” the time it took their students to learn a specific lesson; they could get them to master it. This, paired with the massive distribution capabilities of YouTube, allowed them to produce and replicate their individual tutoring efforts with the highest possible scale.

Tareasplus’ native Spanish-speaking video instructors reduce potential misunderstanding of online translating tools, while reaching an audience all over Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Spain, Argentina and the rest of Latin America.    

“We’re thrilled to know we are making an impact in the lives of students who visit us 3 or 4 times a week to supplement their in-class learning,” said Hernan Jaramillo, founder and CEO of Tareasplus. “Tareasplus helps students thrive and supports their aspiration of a better education, particularly in Latin America, where demand is ever-growing. We know this is only the beginning – we are now at the inflexion point to truly empower anyone, anywhere to learn anything.”

With backing from Academic Partnerships, Tareasplus aims to become the number one destination for students of any age to expand their knowledge in math. Academic Partnerships, which partners with state universities to deliver high quality university degree programs online, supports the notion that in today’s school system, missing a class, or not fully grasping a concept right away can cause setbacks that are seemingly impossible for many students to overcome. By providing students of all levels the freedom to enhance their education, customize their learning pace and attend virtual classes anytime, anywhere, this problem is solved.

“Academic Partnerships is deeply committed to achieving an equality of access to quality education for students around the globe,” said Academic Partnerships’ founder and chairman, Randy Best. “We support Tareasplus’ mission to use technology to help students all over the world deepen their comprehension of math and science.”

Tareasplus plans to use this seed funding to expand its platform and further study how unlimited access to lesson videos reinforces a student’s knowledge of a range of mathematical subjects.

About Tareasplus
Tareasplus helps students at all age ranges learn math with quick and compelling video explanations in Spanish. The company is founded by math expert Roberto Cuartas and serial entrepreneur Hernan Jaramillo. Tareasplus is based in San Francisco and has offices in Medellin, Columbia. For more information, visit http://www.tareasplus.com.

About Academic Partnerships
Dallas-based Academic Partnerships partners with universities to deliver students full degree programs online. The company was founded by social entrepreneur, Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning experiences to improve education. Academic Partnerships helps universities increase public access to high-quality education by providing the technology, student recruitment and faculty support necessary to serve online students. Academic Partnerships is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit http://www.academicpartnerships.com.

Zucker donates $5 million for USC aerospace research

Anita Zucker, chairwoman and CEO of North Charleston-based The InterTech Group, is donating $5 million to the University of South Carolina to support innovation in aerospace education and workforce development.

Zucker’s gift will endow the Zucker Institute for Aerospace Innovation and the McNair Chair, a new professorship in USC’s McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research, the university said.

The university also announced today that scientist Zafer Gurdal, from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, will serve as technical director of the McNair Center.

“Anita’s generosity and shared vision that South Carolina can advance the future of air and space flight has enabled us to recruit a world-renowned expert to lead our efforts,” said USC President Harris Pastides.

A native of Turkey, Gurdal served about 20 years on the faculty of Virginia Tech developing a research program with expertise in designing and optimizing composite materials.

Since 2004, he has headed an effort at Delft to better align the aerospace program with what students need to succeed, both in academia and industry.

“USC has a number of faculty members who are well recognized for their contributions in aerospace engineering related fields,” Gurdal said. “Unifying those activities under a unique McNair Chair umbrella and spearheading new initiatives with the faculty will be a highly rewarding experience.”

The McNair Center was established in 2011 through a $5 million pledge from USC alumna Darla Moore in honor of Ronald McNair, a fellow Lake City native who died in the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.

“I am truly excited by the announcements today involving the Ron McNair Center,” Moore said. “These are great first steps in building the Ron McNair Center into a permanent, world-class aerospace research, and catalytic center for nurturing, growing and supporting the aerospace cluster in South Carolina.”

The InterTech Group is a privately held company with interests in aerospace, specialty chemicals, leisure/entertainment, real estate, financial services, manufacturing and public-private investments.

The company’s revenues in 2011 were estimated at $3.2 billion, according to Forbes.com.

Zucker, whose late husband Jerry Zucker founded the company, is estimated by Forbes to be worth $2.1 billion. She is the only billionaire living in South Carolina, according to the publication.

Zucker, though, may be better known in South Carolina for her philanthropy and work in education. A former elementary school teacher, Zucker presently chairs the College of Charleston board of governors and has served on a number of civic, education and business organizations.

Her family business also owns the Carolina Ice Palace and is co-owner of the city’s professional hockey team, the South Carolina Stingrays.

Pastides also announced that USC has tapped Dallas-based Academic Partnerships to support two new online educational programs that USC is developing for aerospace training.

The programs — including the state of South Carolina’s first master’s degree in aerospace engineering — will come online in the spring.

Gurdal will help oversee these programs as well as foster the development of two more aerospace-related degree programs expected to begin enrolling students next fall, the university said.

“There is no question that aerospace manufacturing is an important and growing industry in South Carolina. Add to that a rich research and innovation climate with programs like the one the University of South Carolina is launching at the McNair Center, and you have the perfect formula for success,” said S.C. Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt.

http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/news/45676-zucker-donates-5-million-for-usc-aerospace-research

MOOCs : moins de communication et plus de pédagogie, SVP

L'insolent succès des Moocs (Massive open online course) doit sembler bien amer à tous ceux qui s'évertuent depuis des dizaines d'années à produire des cours à distance de grande qualité. D'un seul coup d'un seul, les plus prestigieuses des universités nord-américaine ouvrent l'accès à des milliers de cours en ligne, gratuitement, sur des plateformes dédiées, et annoncent triomphalement qu'elles visent le milliard d'apprenants.

Ces universités ne se préoccupent pas de la rétention des participants; peu leur importe que 5 à 10 % d'entre eux seulement parviennent à la fin du cours. Elles ne se préoccupent pas non plus de reconnaître l'effort d'apprentissage réalisé au travers du cours, puisqu'elles ne délivrent pas de crédits universitaires en échange d'un succès à l'examen final, mais seulement un certificat que les plus chanceux ou les plus fortunés pourront échanger contre de vrais crédits dans les universités qui acceptent les certificats délivrés par EdX ou Coursera.

Des universités plus connues pour leur recherche que pour leur enseignement

Cette désinvolture se vérifie également dans l'approche pédagogique conventionnelle, pour ne pas dire archaïque, adoptée par ces universités dans leurs Moocs. Il s'agit d'une simple transmission de contenu par le biais de fichiers texte ou de vidéos découpées en tranches de 15 minutes, accompagnés de quiz et autres exercices simples d'autoévaluation. Disparu, tout l'effort présidant à la soigneuse élaboration de cours en ligne de qualité, dans lequel l'apprenant est reconnu comme un individu, peut participer à de nombreux échanges et accéder aux contenus sous des formats variés !

Manifestement, Sir John Daniel, ancien président de l'Open University et fervent défenseur des Ressources Educatives Libres (Open Educational Resources en anglais), ne porte pas dans son coeur les xMoocs tels qu'ils se présentent actuellement. Un long et récent article en témoigne. Intitulé "Making Sense of Moocs : Musing in a Maze of Myths, Paradox and Possibility", cet article tente de percer la carapace d'enthousiasme qui a entouré l'annonce de l'engagement des universités américaines les plus réputées dans la production de Moocs, ces dernières confisquant au passage un acronyme sous lequel se cache une toute autre philosophie de l'apprentissage et de l'enseignement et qu'on appelle désormais les cMoocs.

Sir John Daniel a une ferme conviction : on ne devient pas producteur de cours en ligne de qualité simplement parce que l'on en a envie. Il en a une autre : les universités actuellement engagées dans la distribution massive de xMoocs ont acquis leur réputation sur leurs exceptionnels travaux de recherche bien plus que sur la qualité de leur enseignement.

Il invite dans son article à aller voir ce qui se passe ailleurs que sur les plateformes EdX ou Coursera, en matière de formation à distance. En des lieux où l'on se préoccupe du taux de rétention des apprenants, et du taux de diplômation. En des lieux également où des équipes entières concourent à la création de cours en ligne respectant des standards internationaux de qualité.

Un format de cours en devenir

Mais Sir John Daniel ne rejette pas les Moocs en bloc. D'une part, il note (à la marge) la différence existant entre les xMoocs, bâtis sur les modèles traditionnels des cours aux contenus prédéterminés et poussés vers les apprenants, des cMoocs qui explorent de véritables alternatives pédagogiques de construction des connaissances, par le biais des échanges en ligne et de la production de contenus originaux par les participants. D'autre part, il parie que d'ici peu, le nombre de Moocs augmentant, la concurrence va apparaître et que la satisfaction des apprenants en matière non seulement d'accès aux contenus mais aussi et surtout en termes d'apprentissages effectifs et d'obtention de diplômes, va faire la différence. Avec un fair play tout britannique, Daniel rappelle que les ambitions des responsables du MIT et de Stanford étaient, à l'ouverture des xMoocs, d'analyser comment les TIC influent sur les apprentissages et peuvent améliorer les pratiques d'enseignement. Depuis, la machine médiatique s'est emballée, y compris dans les services de communication de ces universités qui promettent l'accès universel à l'enseignement supérieur grâce aux Moocs, avant même d'avoir tiré les principales leçons de leur diffusion à une échelle jusque là jamais atteinte.

Sans aucun doute, les producteurs de Moocs vont améliorer leurs pratiques, et des universités et autres établissements disposant d'une longue expérience de la formation en ligne vont aussi se mettre sur les rangs. Ce qui implique de trouver un modèle économique de production autorisant en amont de la diffusion une conception de grande qualité. Sir John Daniel indique ici une initiative beaucoup moins connue que les xMoocs du MIT, qui a pourtant permis à plusieurs universités publiques américaines de créer des cours en ligne de qualité et à faible coût pour les étudiants. Il s'agit d'un partenariat public-privé appelé Academic Partnerships, au sein duquel une banque finance la mise en ligne du cours et le suivi des étudiants, via l'emploi de personnel qualifié, de manière à limiter le nombre d'abandons tout au long des parcours.

On aimerait que de telles initiatives touchent aussi les cMoocs, qui disposent incontestablement d'atouts en termes pédagogiques mais manquent encore de support, en-dehors des universités canadiennes pionnières.

Nous n'en avons sans doute pas terminé avec les Moocs; mais sans doute faut-il les considérer comme ce qu'ils sont : des expérimentations pédagogiques, des produits en devenir, qui d'ores et déjà permettent d'envisager un avenir prometteur à l'enseignement supérieur, dans et hors des institutions académiques. Il reste maintenant à ce que les multiples initiatives et leçons apprises en matière de formation à distance et de formation des adultes puissent être valorisées, au bénéfice des apprenants.

http://cursus.edu/dossiers-articles/articles/18877/moocs-moins-communication-plus-pedagogie-svp/

Whitney articula sus IES y lanza la Red Ilumino

Nueve IES de 7 países de América Latina han tercerizado sus servicios de apoyo a la academia para que el Grupo Internacional Whitney, que en el país cuenta con alianzas con el Politécnico Grancolombiano y la Fundación Universitaria del Area Andina, creara la Red Ilumino o Sistema Universitario de Las Amércias, que unifica los servicios de apoyo tales como becas, sistemas de información, programas de inglés y formación virtual para un universo de aproximadamente 250 estudiantes y egresados de estas instituciones.

El objetivo de la Red es la tercerización de servicios, con lo que podría resolverse un problema de gestión adminsitativa para las IES, así como de compartir las mejores prácticas.

En Bogotá se hizo el lanzamiento de la Red y la protocolización del acuerdo de intercambio de servicios entre los rectores de las nueve instituciones, tales como:

- Centro de Servicio y Atención al Alumnos -CASA- (que opera como un mega call center, para atender los requerimientos de todos los estudiantes)
- Oferta virtual de cursos en 30 idiomas, a través de la plataforma Roseta Stone
- Un plan de becas para jóvenes que justifiquen su real necesidad de ese apoyo

A través de las IES unidas, la Red puede contar con 33 sedes y más de 400 centros de aprendizaje. Habla de una inversión de 31 millones de dólares en beneficios y becas para más de 40 mil estudiantes.

IES que integran la Red

Universidad Empresarial Siglo XXI - Argentina
Centro Universitario Jorge Amado (UniJorge) - Brasil
Universidade Veiga de Almeida (UVA) - Brasil
Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano (IUPG) - Colombia
Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina (FUAA) - Colombia
Universidad en Ciencias Administrativas San Marcos - Costa Rica
Instituto Profesional Providencia (IPP) - Chile
Universidad del Itsmo - Panamá
Universidad Americana - Paraguay

El presidente de Whitney para Colombia es Andrés Núñez Alvarez, exrector de Unipanamericana.

http://www.universidad.edu.co/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3322:whitney-articula-sus-ies-y-lanza-la-red-ilumino&catid=16:noticias&Itemid=198

En Bogotá se presentó la red de universidades privadas más grande de Latinoamérica

Ayer en el Hotel Casa Dan Carlton de Bogotá se presentó oficialmente la Red Ilumno; Sistema Universitario de las Américas, en la que nueve rectores de reconocidas universidades de la región participaron en una cumbre con el fin de encontrar alternativas para brindar mayor acceso y calidad a una comunidad de 300 mil estudiantes de todo el continente.

Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panamá, Paraguay y Perú son los países que representaron los académicos, que firmaron convenios educativos y alianzas que permitirán a partir de este momento desarrollar programas de doble titulación con universidades de la red y de los Estados Unidos; realizar investigación asociada; crear un portafolio de formación de idiomas en más de 30 lenguas; y poner a disposición de los estudiantes y docentes más de 200 convenios de movilidad internacional, entre otros beneficios.

Para destacar, la Red Ilumno cuenta con 33 sedes en Latinoamérica y más de 400 centros de aprendizaje distribuidos en toda región; ofrece más de 500 cursos en modalidad virtual y presencial, programas técnicos y tecnológicos, carreras profesionales, posgrados y educación continua; y gracias a la cooperación de las nueve universidades, los estudiantes tendrán el soporte de 8000 docentes y administrativos, además de múltiples herramientas tecnológicas de última generación.

Solo en Colombia, con las dos universidades asociadas a Ilumno; Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina y la Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano, la red contará con el soporte de 1868 profesores, 11 mil alumnos virtuales y a distancia, 203 de convenios de movilidad y 3638 jóvenes becados.

La Red, nació como el resultado de la unión la Universidad Empresarial Siglo XXI en Argentina; el Centro Universitario Jorge Amado (UniJorge) y la Universidad de Veiga de Almeida (UVA), ambas en Brasil; la Universidad en Ciencias Administrativas San Marcos en Costa Rica; el Instituto Profesional Providencia (IPP) en Chile; la Universidad del Itsmo en Panamá y la Universidad Americana en Paraguay; la Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina, y la Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano (IUPG) en Colombia.

http://www.elespacio.com.co/index.php/bogota-principal/59041-en-bogota-se-presento-la-red-de-universidades-privadas-mas-grande-de-latinoamerica

Crean red de universidades que se proyecta como la más grande de América Latina

Con la participación de nueve universidades privadas de Sudamérica surge el proyecto de educación “Ilumno”, también llamado “Sistema Universitario de las Américas”, el cual se convertirá según sus organizadores, en la red más grande de universidades de América latina.

Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panamá, Paraguay y Perú, formarán este sistema de educación superior, el cual según el equipo de la red contará con 33 sedes, 400 centros de aprendizaje y 500 cursos, además de cursos de aprendizaje a distancia, investigación y desarrollo, informa el equipo de la Red Ilumno.

Este proyecto Movilidad Internacional de la Red Ilumno permitirá múltiples oportunidades de viajes, aprendizaje, conocimiento y educación virtual, oportunidades de desarrollo personal y profesional, a cientos de estudiantes de los diferentes países.

La red también ofrece la oportunidad de elegir estudiar entre 30 idiomas, empleando un innovador sistema de aprendizaje similar a como se aprende la lengua materna, a base de cinco estrategias dinámicas como imágenes, intuición, interactividad, instrucción y el ambiente de inmersión.

Ilumno invertirá US$ 31 millones todos los años en becas para 40.000 estudiantes de bajos recursos. Los estudiantes podrán tener una doble titulación y realizar investigaciones con el apoyo de una plana de 8.000 profesores, según datos del equipo Ilumno.

http://www.lagranepoca.com/25870-crean-red-universidades-que-se-proyecta-como-mas-grande-america-latina

Se Lanzo la Red de Universidades Privadas Mas Grande De Latinoamerica

Con el objetivo de dar alternativas educativas para más de 300 mil estudiantes latinos y mejorar su acceso a los conocimientos, se creó la Red Ilumno, Sistema Universitario de las Américas.

La red está conformada por universidades de nueve países, entre las que se destacan instituciones de Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Colombia.

A partir de la firma del convenio, que tuvo lugar este miércoles en Bogotá, los alumnos podrán desarrollar programas de doble titulación con universidades de la red y de los Estados Unidos, realizar investigaciones asociadas, crear un portafolio de formación de idiomas en más de 30 lenguas y se beneficiarán con facilidades de movilidad para realizar intercambios.

Por Colombia están presentes la Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano y la Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina. Así como la Universidad Empresarial Siglo XXI de Argentina; el Centro Universitario Jorge Amado (UniJorge) y la Universidad de Veiga de Almeida (UVA), ambas en Brasil; la Universidad en Ciencias Administrativas San Marcos en Costa Rica; el Instituto Profesional Providencia (IPP) en Chile; la Universidad del Itsmo en Panamá y la Universidad Americana en Paraguay.

http://diarioadn.co/vida/educaci%C3%B3n/colombia-en-la-red-de-universidades-de-latinoam%C3%A9rica-1.28818

Nace la red más grande de universidades en América Latina

La educación en América Latina da nuevo salto evolutivo. Nueve universidades privadas de Sudamérica se convertirán en una red de instituciones educativas denominada Sistema Universitario de las Américas. El proyecto, también llamado Ilumno, ofrecerá la oportunidad a los estudiantes de los diferentes países a aprender, viajar, conocer y educarse también virtualmente.

Según el portal Finanzaspersonales, la propuesta consiste en la sintonización entre educación y globalización, pues los universitarios podrán adquirir conocimientos en otras fronteras. Además, Ilumno realizará una inversión de más de US$31 millones al año para entregar becas a cerca de 40,000 estudiantes de bajos recursos en la región.

Los estudiantes latinoamericanos que participen del proyecto también podrán tener una doble titulación y realizar investigaciones asociadas con el apoyo de una plana docente de 8,000 profesores.

Pese a que la red ya ha entrado en funcionamiento, su consolidación se proyecta para el 2013. El vocero para Colombia del Sistema Universitario de las Américas, Alejandro Parada, sostiene que la red ya cuenta con 500 programas (presenciales y virtuales) tanto en pregrado como en educación continuada (diplomados y seminarios).

http://peru21.pe/vida21/conoce-red-mas-grande-universidades-america-latina-2046160?href=cat0pos2

Blackboard's New Bag

By Steve Kolowich

Blackboard has become the latest company to get into the business of helping colleges and universities build online programs.

The company, which built its education technology empire on selling software and implementation support, has upped investment in its “online program management services” in an effort to compete with a growing number of entities that are taking aim at the many colleges that are scrambling to reassert, or reinvent, their brands on the increasingly crowded frontier of online higher education.

The field of companies courting institutions that need help with the funding and logistics of building a viable online arm is also crowded. Bisk Education and EmbanetCompass, along with Pearson, are perhaps the most visible players, but Academic Partnerships, Deltak, 2tor and Learning House have also built successful businesses doing online program development for colleges.

The demand for such services recently has prompted entities from other parts of higher education to try to get in on the action. The nonprofit Excelsior College earlier this year unveiled ESE (Educators Serving Educators), playing the solidarity card with institutions anxious about falling in with profiteers. And this month John Wiley & Sons, one of higher education’s “big five” publishers that, like its peers, is trying to to be seen as something other than a publisher, bought Deltak for $220 million. Embanet+Compass, which was formed by a 2010 merger, has reportedly put itself on the market and is said to be close to a sale.

Blackboard wants to position itself as a major company with ample expertise and resources that will not strong-arm colleges into a decadelong contract covering a soup-to-nuts array of services.

“It’s more of an à la carte approach, where [colleges] can pick and choose capabilities they want and not get into this big, comprehensive, long-term commitment where a lot of them are worried about losing institutional control,” said John Kannapell, the new vice president of Blackboard’s online program management unit, whom the company hired away from 2tor earlier this year.

The watchword of Blackboard’s marketing around these offerings is “flexibility.” The idea is to let institutions choose what pieces of online infrastructure they want to handle themselves, then help them contract out the rest, said Kannapell.

Neither Bisk nor EmbanetCompass immediately responded for comment on Blackboard’s move. Richard Garrett, the managing director of the consulting firm Eduventures, says Blackboard may well be able to carve out territory for itself in that market as long as its reputation as a cutthroat corporate opportunist and as a technology-first company does not overwhelm its stated commitment to flexibility and accommodation.

Craig Chanoff, general manager of Blackboard’s student services division, says the company’s agenda is not use its online program development contracts to up-sell their clients on other Blackboard products.

“There is perhaps some market concern that this is an avenue where Blackboard can push their technology stack into [client institutions’] classrooms,” said Chanoff. But he insisted that the company’s consultants will be willing recommend its competitors’ product when appropriate.

“We are agnostic when it comes to the platforms that institutions are using,” he said. “I’m sure that situation will come up, and at some point we’ll run across a situation where the Blackboard product is not the right solution.”

In recent years Blackboard has begun planning for a future where it does not have to rely on its flagship product, Learn, its learning-management system (LMS), for the bulk of its revenue in higher education. Part of that planning has involved pumping up its consulting and support services. After years of playing down the threat of open-source LMS alternatives, Blackboard in March bought Moodlerooms, a major provider of open-source LMS support services, and formed a new business division around it. The company’s new messaging around its online program management unit is consistent with this move: If you don’t want to use Blackboard’s software, that’s fine -- for a fee, we’d be happy to support you. (Note: This paragraph has been updated from an earlier version to correct the timing of Blackboard's purchase of Moodlerooms.)

“We’re not trying to make this about the use of Blackboard technology,” says Chanoff. “This is about solving a business problem at the institutions.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/15/blackboard-makes-play-online-course-development

Nace la red de universidades privadas más grande de latinoamérica

Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panamá, Paraguay y Perú son los países que representan los académicos, que del 16 al 18 de octubre formalizarán convenios educativos y alianzas que permitirán desarrollar programas de doble titulación con universidades de la red y de los Estados Unidos; realizar investigación asociada; crear un portafolio de formación de idiomas en más de 30 lenguas; y poner a disposición de los estudiantes y docentes más de 200 convenios de movilidad internacional, entre otros beneficios.

La Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina y la Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano; hacen parte de las nueve Instituciones de Educación Superior que conforman la Red Ilumno, Sistema Universitario de las Américas unidos para transformar la educación en Latinoamérica, con el fin de brindar mayor acceso y calidad a una comunicad de 300 mil estudiantes de toda la región.

Para destacar, la Red Ilumno cuenta con 33 sedes en Sudamérica y más de 400 centros de aprendizaje distribuidos en toda la región; ofrece más de 500 cursos en modalidad virtual y presencial, programas técnicos y tecnológicos, carreras profesionales, posgrados y educación a distancia; y gracias al trabajo en equipo y la cooperación de las nueve universidades, los estudiantes tendrán el soporte de 8000 docentes y administrativos, además de múltiples herramientas tecnológicas de última generación.

Apoyo técnico

Esta Red, sin precedentes en América Latina, conforma la comunidad académica más grande de la región, cuenta con recursos que le permiten hacer más eficaces sus procesos y compartir mejores prácticas como el Centro de Innovación en Tecnología Educativa (CITTEE), con sede en Córdoba, Argentina, que centraliza actividades de aprendizaje virtual y a distancia, manteniendo a la red a la vanguardia tecnológica; el Centro Internacional de Excelencia y Mejores Prácticas (CIEMP), que estandariza procesos y busca eficiencias administrativas para optimizar los servicios compartidos a escala; el Centro de Atención y Servicio al Alumno (CASA), con sedes en Colombia, Brasil y Argentina, que permite orientar a los estudiantes que deseen vincularse a las universidades de la Red; y por último la Fundación Ilumno, que desarrollará actividades de responsabilidad y proyección social para beneficio e impacto regional.

La Red, nace como resultado de la unión la Universidad Empresarial Siglo XXI en Argentina; el Centro Universitario Jorge Amado (UniJorge) y la Universidade Veiga de Almeida (UVA), ambas en Brasil; la Universidad en Ciencias Administrativas San Marcos en Costa Rica; el Instituto Profesional Providencia (IPP) en Chile; la Universidad del Itsmo en Panamá y la Universidad Americana en Paraguay; la Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano (IUPG) y la Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina, en Colombia.

http://www.elpaisvallenato.com/html/noticias/2012/octubre /15/5804497986nacelareddeuniversid.html

Brand New Online Heavies

By Paul Fain

A growing number of nonprofit colleges have become big fish in online education and are targeting a working-adult-student market long-dominated by for-profit institutions. As the competition heats up, better-informed consumers will increasingly seek out online programs based on price and brand strength.

Those were the findings of new research from the Parthenon Group, a strategic consulting firm. Parthenon has conducted previous studies with favorable outcomes for the for-profit sector, but gives nonprofits a bit of an edge in this report, which is dubbed “Are the Sleeping Giants Awake? Non-Profit Universities Enter Online Education at Scale.”

Nonprofits have a lot of ground to make up. The study identified 11 nonprofit colleges that enrolled more than 10,000 online-only students last year, with a total joint enrollment of 280,000. That list includes Liberty University, Rio Salado College and Excelsior College (see expandable graphic). By contrast, the dozen biggest for-profits enroll 818,000 online-only students.

Chris Ross, a partner at Parthenon and the report’s author, said many nonprofits had yet to begin tapping into their potential. For example, even less-selective public universities have plenty of brand appeal in their regions. But relatively few have ramped up their marketing of online programs.

For-profit colleges do much more conventional marketing to attract students, according to the study, like paid advertising or recruiting by phone bank. In contrast, nonprofits still rely to a large degree on word of mouth.

As nonprofit colleges have moved into online education, most have tapped technology vendors to help them do it. The study said these “online enablers,” such as Embanet/Compass, Bisk, Deltak, Academic Partnerships and Pearson, help colleges do much of the heavy lifting that for-profits do themselves, like course development, IT support and even generating “leads” among prospective students. That support industry will only expand, the study predicted.

“You’ve still got a lot of schools that are dipping their toes into online education,” Ross said. “There’s a significant opportunity for those schools.”

However, Ross predicted that only a limited number of nonprofits would join surviving for-profits as the established major players online. And newcomers that don't already have a foothold might struggle to be among the “big winners” amid the coming consolidation, he said. A few rapidly expanding online colleges will emerge from the pack, according to the study, by reaching a critical mass of revenue and brand awareness, which in turn can be used to attract faculty, improve the student experience and help develop relationships with employers. The key will be to grow fast while maintaining academic quality.

“The race is on to scale as quickly as possible,” the study said. “The winners will almost certainly be those institutions that can differentiate themselves in the eyes of students, faculty and accreditors.”

'Regional Ballgame'

The study was based in part on July survey of 1,200 students who attend fully online programs. It found student profiles that were nearly identical at nonprofit and for-profit institutions, with similar ages, incomes and attendance patterns.

That finding didn’t surprise Carol Aslanian, an expert on online education and senior vice president of market research services at Education Dynamics, who said online students at for-profits and nonprofits are now “more alike than different.”

Geography becomes more important in this competitive environment, Aslanian said, and can be an advantage for nonprofit colleges. In the past, for-profits could count on big marketing budgets to draw students nationwide. With relatively few choices of online programs that were convenient for working adults, and few obvious differences in the quality of online providers, selling was more about volume than the pitch. And prospective online students have not been particularly discerning consumers, according to the study.

About 50 percent of students apply to only one online institution, the research found, and fewer than one in five applies to three or more institutions. Those numbers have been relatively consistent over the years, said Ross. That may soon change, however.

“Heightened competition virtually assures the emergence of a more sophisticated student consumer,” the study said.

Some nonprofits are already upsetting the balance of pricing online (see graphic). Most for-profits charge $400 to $600 per credit, the study found. But several nonprofits charge less than $400. Tuition at Rio Salado, for example, ranges from $76 per credit for residents of Maricopa County (the college’s home district), up to $317 per credit for some out-of state students.

In addition, selective nonprofit colleges might be able to get away with charging more than for-profits. That’s because students are willing to pay more for a strong brand. The survey found that students enrolled at selective institutions said they would pay almost $5,000 more in annual tuition for an online program than would their peers at open-access institutions.

Most for-profits are struggling in the recession’s wake and after the latest federal regulatory crackdown. Enrollments have plummeted at many of the national chains. The shake-up over attracting students will get even more interesting, Aslanian said, if public universities with strong regional brands go big online. (See related article.)

For example, the University of Nebraska can wallop all comers in its backyard, she said, whether for-profit or nonprofit. "This is going to be a regional ballgame,” she said, and “a huge challenge for the for-profits.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/10/nonprofit-colleges-spark-new-competition-online-study-finds

UTA’s RN-to-BSN Program Honored with Star Award

by Sarah Bennett

University of Texas at Arlington and Academic Partnerships have received the 2012 Star Award from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to recognize its online RN-to-BSN program.

Thousands of registered nurses have completed their bachelor’s degrees in an average of 18 months through the program since 2008. Nearly half of Texas nurses who have completed an RN-to-BSN degree in 2010-2011 did so at UTA.

So far this year, UTA is one of only four schools in the state to receive this honor. Michael Moore of UTA said in a statement that the program has become a university-wide effort including technical support from staff, financial aid, and admissions procedures.

The UTA College of Nursing partners with more than 245 Texas hospitals whose staff members took part in the university’s program. Tuition for this program runs at $8,995, to be compared with up to $20,000 at for-profit institutions.

http://healthcare.dmagazine.com/2012/10/09/uta-rn-to-bsn-program-honored-with-star-award

UT Arlington college of nursing honored for increasing Bachelor's Degree

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has honored the UT ARLINGTON COLLEGE OF NURSING and Dallas-based ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIPS with a 2012 Star Award for success in the University’s online RN-to-BSN program, which has allowed thousands of registered nurses to complete bachelor’s degrees conveniently and efficiently.

UT Arlington is one of only four colleges and universities in the state to receive the Texas Higher Education Star Award for partnerships this year. The awards program is part of the statewide board’s Closing the Gaps by 2015 initiative. Winners were announced in Austin this week as part of the 2012 Reinventing Instruction and Learning Conference and the Texas Higher Education Leadership Conference.

Since it began in 2008, the online RN-to-BSN has helped increase enrollment in the UT Arlington College of Nursing from 1,912 students in fall 2008 to a preliminary enrollment of 6,385 students this fall.

To date, 2,355 registered nurses have earned a Bachelor of Science degree through the program and completed their coursework in an average of 18 months. Almost half of Texas nurses who completed an RN-to-BSN degree during academic year 2010-2011 did it through UT Arlington.

Michael Moore, UT Arlington senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies, said the success of the RN-to-BSN program has stemmed from a university-wide effort, from staff providing technical support to retooling financial aid and admissions procedures.

“This award is an important recognition of the collaborative work by multiple offices across the University to challenge traditional ways of offering programs and to develop new, innovative, and responsive programs that serve a high demand area of instruction that is of particular importance to the state,” Moore said. “I am very appreciative to all our staff who devoted countless hours to making this program a success for our students.”

The Coordinating Board adopted the Closing the Gaps by 2015 plan in 2000. It sets goals for increasing student participation and success in higher education and furthering research. The Star Award recognizes programs that embody those goals.

Public-private partnerships also are key to UT Arlington’s thriving RN-to-BSN program. The University collaborated with Academic Partnerships to develop an online-delivery system for the College of Nursing curriculum and to promote the program. The College of Nursing also partners with more than 245 Texas hospitals whose employees have taken part in the University’s RN-to-BSN program.

“This award in the category of partnerships attests to UT Arlington and Academic Partnerships working successfully together since 2008 to increase student enrollment in the RN-to-BSN program while maintaining high quality. The 5,000 nurses currently enrolled in the program point to its affordability and accessibility as key factors for going back to receive their BSN degrees,” said Elizabeth Poster, dean of the UT Arlington College of Nursing.

Tuition for the online RN-to-BSN program is $8,995, compared to as much as $20,000 at some for-profit institutions. Enrollment also is flexible, with all pre-requisites and nursing courses offered in five to eight-week sessions instead of traditional 15-week semesters.

"The collaboration between UT Arlington and Academic Partnerships is a good example of what a public-private partnership can do to expand access and enhance the educational attainment of the healthcare workforce," said Randy Best, founder of Academic Partnerships. "We are proud that after only four years of working together to put UT Arlington's innovative and high quality nursing programs online, their College of Nursing has become one of the fastest growing and largest in the United States."

The University of Texas at Arlington College of Nursing has become one of the largest and most successful nursing programs in the nation. In addition to its RN-to-BSN program, the University offers an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing for first time nurses that can be completed in as little as 15 months and a master’s program in an online format. Visit WWW.UTA.EDU/NURSING/ to learn more.

Interest in Online Courses Growing

by Koran Addo

In the sometimes slow-moving world of higher education, Louisiana’s college leaders know they need to get in line with the expectations of their tech-savvy, fast-moving student clientele.

Getting in line these days means getting online.

A 2011 Sloan Foundation Survey found that more than 6 million people, or nearly one-third of all college students, are taking at least one online course on their way to a degree.

Louisiana’s four-year public colleges are responding by ramping up both their online course offerings and their online degree programs with varying degrees of success.

And while Internet-based learning formats can be a revenue generator for colleges, they can represent bigger workloads for faculty and financial hazards for students who lack the discipline to finish courses.

Public colleges also have to look in their rearview mirrors watching for start-ups like Coursera, an online education company that has enrolled more than 1.3 million students in free online courses in just over five months.

Initiatives like Coursera don’t offer the traditional degrees employers typically look for, but their no-cost model and affiliation with prestigious institutions like Stanford University, Princeton University and Columbia University, have them positioned as an intriguing option for an increasing number of students.

Southern University senior Richard Moses is one of the new-era students whose circumstances led him to pursue online courses.

After leaving his native Pennsylvania after high school to pursue his dream of playing baseball, Moses found himself at colleges in Spartanburg, S.C., and New Rochelle, N.Y., before landing at Southern last year as an accounting major.

Transferring from a junior college to a small private school and then to Southern left Moses, 21, with a jumble of college credits, some of which didn’t transfer from one school to another.

So while traveling to different states to play baseball in the summers, Moses started taking online courses to keep him on track for graduation. He says those courses require more discipline than traditional ones, but still are worth the effort because they can be done on one’s own schedule.

“Online courses have been a tremendous help to me. I’m a student first, athlete second; but as an athlete we have to go to workouts, practices, games and we have study requirements,” Moses said. “As an athlete you really have to learn how to regulate your time.”

A little more than a decade ago, most Louisiana schools wouldn’t have been able to accommodate a student with Moses’ expectations. Industry watchers say every school in the state will have to build the capacity to serve students like Moses in the very near future or risk being left behind.

First at the table

Northwestern State University in Natchitoches is generally considered one of the trailblazers in Louisiana’s foray into online education.

The school of about 9,000 students began offering advanced online degree programs in the late 1990s, Darlene Williams, vice president for technology, research and economic development, said.

Today, roughly 30 percent of their students are taking at least one online course, she said.

Williams explains that more than a decade ago, faculty at the school were looking for a way to reach older, working students living in rural areas when they developed an online course management system that allows them to deliver web-based services to students “from application to graduation.”

The system allowed students to apply and register for one of the school’s 31 online degree programs while benefiting from around the clock support services without ever stepping on campus, Williams said.

Schools around the state offer hybrid programs — traditional classes with some online components mixed in — but Williams said the fully internet-based courses are what attracts students.

Williams said the demand in higher education is moving toward self-paced courses, called asynchronous, where students can watch online lectures as many times as needed and complete assignments on their own timetables.

“A lot of these folks have full-time jobs and families. They need flexibility. They can’t be limited by time and place,” Williams said. “Many of our students wouldn’t have completed their degrees if they didn’t have this option.”

Louisiana State University

LSU is expanding its online degree offerings and planning a spring launch of several new internet-based masters programs.

Gil Reeve, LSU’s vice-provost for academic programs, said LSU is quickly evolving from the synchronous method, where out-of-town students would have to log-in to computers from remote classrooms to watch in-progress lectures in Baton Rouge, or another method where students were shipped videotaped lectures stored on portable hard drives.

Next year, LSU will roll out a new joint venture with the Dallas-based Academic Partnerships company, in which students will be able to choose from up to five masters programs offered by the College of Human Sciences and Education, the College of Engineering and LSU’s business school.

David Kurpius, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management, said the programs, which will include construction management and education leadership, were all designed by faculty.

If the programs are approved by the state, American Partnerships will market them, recruit students and work with them to keep them enrolled, Kurpius said.

Once the first set of programs is up and running, Kurpius says he expects future launches to be easier.

“The marketplace dictates,” Kurpius said. “Now is the time for LSU to be offering these programs.”

The strategy fits comfortably with what interim LSU System President and Baton Rouge Chancellor William Jenkins has been saying for several months. Jenkins told the Press Club of Baton Rouge in August that LSU would be left behind if it didn’t fully embrace online education.

While internet-based degree programs are becoming more prevalent, LSU Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope expressed reservations this month about what he said are still mostly “experimental” programs.

Some faculty remain skeptical that students earning degrees behind a computer screen rather than in the classroom are getting the true college experience, Cope said.

He added that online programs are often assigned to less experienced professors. He also said the programs can mean a heavier workload for instructors who have to repeatedly answer the same question posed by multiple online students, rather than address the question once in a traditional classroom.

“Online education can probably give you a body of facts, but will it make you an education person?” Cope asked. “That remains to be seen.”

Southern University

Across town, Southern University is a little further along than LSU in launching its new online initiative. Southern has partnered with Florida-based Education Online Services Corp. to offer a bachelor of science nursing degree and an executive master of public administration degree online this fall.

Southern Chancellor James Llorens said he sees an opportunity to boost enrollment by attracting out-of-state students.

“For years some universities have been making inroads, while others shied away from it thinking the quality didn’t match courses taken in the traditional environment,” Llorens said. “The perception that these programs aren’t as prestigious has changed.”

But the partnership hasn’t quite taken off in its earliest stages, with fewer than two dozen students enrolled in both programs combined.

But Southern System President Ronald Mason said he expected the partnership to get off to a slow start.

“We wanted to start with beta programs, work out the issues that came up and then ratchet it up and market some more popular courses,” Mason said. “Whenever you start up a new operation, it ain’t always easy, but we’re on track.”

Mason said Southern is prepared to begin offering more popular, and therefore, more lucrative criminal justice, financial management degree programs in the near future.

“Online education is a hard-to-ignore tool if you plan to have a modern university,” Mason said.

Ben Chavis, a former executive director and chief executive officer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is president of the EOS Corporation.

Chavis said the company screens the students it recruits looking for the most dedicated and the most likely to complete the course. Students participating in the dual eight-week terms will have access to an around-the-clock help desk to get them through, he said.

“There’s only a very small percentage of historically black colleges that have full-time online degree programs. Southern is positioning itself as a leader,” Chavis said.

Southern Faculty Senate President Thomas Miller was a little more subdued last week calling the push toward online degrees, a “useful tool that needs to be properly applied.

“You have a lot more work to do independently, so it would be inappropriate for undisciplined students to enroll,” Miller said. “The faculty realizes this is another tool, but I don’t think it will replace traditional classrooms.”

University of Louisiana System

The UL System, which includes the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, has had a robust online education presence in the state going back more than a decade.

UL System Spokeswoman Jackie Tisdell said administrators tailored the programs to fit the 600,000 adults in the state, 25 years old and up, who completed some college without earning a degree.

Pending state approval, the UL System is set to launch a new initiative where online students can earn a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership where the core courses are taught by faculty at all nine universities. The specific concentrations will be taught by faculty at different universities, Tisdell said.

So, students interested in cultural and arts institutions will go through the University of New Orleans, while a student interested in project team leadership would be taught by professors at Louisiana Tech University, Tisdell said.

“We want to be flexible and we want to be playing off the strengths of each our institutions,” Tisdell said.

All the big plans the state’s college systems have to enter into the online marketplace hinge on whether the state’s top higher education board, the Louisiana Board of Regents, gives the OK.

State Commissioner of Higher Education Jim Purcell didn’t reveal which way the Regents were leaning on any of the programs, but he acknowledged that the market demand, cost-effectiveness and increased access of online education is a tide sweeping through higher education nationwide.

“It’s inevitable,” he said.

http://theadvocate.com/home/3952894-125/interestin-onlinecoursesgrowing

Outsourcing Online Coaches

Public colleges without deep pockets can face challenges as they seek to ramp up online course offerings. For one thing, it’s not easy to quickly recruit the teaching assistants or “coaches” needed to help faculty members manage larger classes and keep students on track.

Enter Instructional Connections, a relatively new venture attempting to tap into this market. Launched in 2010, the nonprofit firm grew out of a for-profit company that offers online services to public universities. It has brought in a pool of academic coaches to offer support to fast-growing online degree programs at public institutions, with a focus on education and health care.

A key selling point for the service is cost savings. Online courses backed by Instructional Connections cost 33 to 40 percent less to run per student than do those overseen solely by adjunct faculty, said Robert F. Williams, the organization’s president. That’s because the coaches allow universities to create larger classes.

The service’s “bench” of coaches also helps improve academic quality, asserts Williams, by assisting both students and the “university-paid instructor of record.” The teaching assistants report to university-employed faculty members and are paid by Instructional Connections, which in turn is on contract with the university.

“It allows the professors to really focus on the teaching,” said Williams.

The firm’s teaching assistants are “practitioners” who work in their fields, and often must clear minimum educational requirements. For example, all coaches in nursing hold at least a master’s degree. And partner universities get to review the CVs of each coach.

“They have 100 percent control of who’s selected,” Williams said.

So far, nine universities have signed on, including the University of Texas at Arlington, Ohio University and Florida International University. The group hopes to add up three to five new universities this year.

Williams, who is a retired major in the U.S. Army, previously worked at for-profit institutions. Most recently he worked with Academic Partnerships, a for-profit group that sells online services to public universities, helping them design, market and support online courses.

Academic Partnerships originally included a teaching assistant component in its suite of offerings. But the company decided to drop that piece of its business a couple years ago, when its foray into instructional support proved controversial at some colleges.

“They wanted to have a clear distinction between their services and the universities’ teaching responsibilities,” Williams said.

But Williams thought the academic coaching pool had promise. So he put up his own money to start the nonprofit firm, which has no financial ties to Academic Partnerships. The organization does, however, unofficially collaborate with the for-profit company, and Academic Partnerships informs its clients about the coaching service.

Compensation Questions

Not everybody likes the idea of outsourced teaching assistants.

Several adjunct professors affiliated with the New Faculty Majority, an advocacy group for contingent faculty, said they were concerned about the relatively low wages coaches earn for work with Instructional Connections.

Traditionally graduate teaching assistants have the same responsibilities as the faculty member of record, but not the title or the pay, said Maria Maisto, an adjunct faculty member at Cuyahoga Community College and board president of the New Faculty Majority. Compared to this model, she said the Instructional Connections’ coach positions are “more clearly defined but appallingly low-wage jobs.”

In addition, the service presumably allows universities to hire fewer adjuncts, at least in some cases.

“This new initiative seems to be symptomatic of the current tendency in higher ed, whether it calls itself nonprofit or for-profit, to underestimate and devalue and disinvest in the actual work of educators,” Maisto said in an e-mail.

The firm’s coaches are paid on a per student basis, typically around $20 for each one, Williams said. And course term lengths can be short -- five weeks in some cases. With average responsibilities of 25-30 students per class, that’s about $600. But some of the more experienced coaches pick up two to three sections at a time, according to Williams. The group does not offer health insurance or other benefits to its teaching assistants.

However, Williams cautions that compensation levels don’t make for an easy comparison to adjunct professors. For one thing, his firm’s employees don’t have the ultimate responsibility of running classes -- they’re coaches. And because they aren’t full-time teachers, working instead in their fields, coaches aren’t trying to cobble together living wages through multiple adjunct positions. “It’s a side gig,” he said. “They’re nurses during the day.”

So why take the job? To contribute to their field, he said, echoing Elizabeth Poster, dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Poster said many of the coaches her university hires through Instructional Connections are alumni or work in local hospitals.

“Some of them are well-known to us,” she said. “This is their way of giving back.”

Poster praises the quality of the coaching service, and said the firm gives “robust” orientation and training to new coaches. Furthermore, she said it is a “more efficient model” of online course support, which also preserves academic quality.

One reason the university hired Instructional Connections is the difficulty in finding teaching assistants, particularly on short notice. Poster said the nursing program, which went online in 2008, would need to hire locally, bringing in candidates for interviews. But the firm can tap a much broader talent pool. And they can do it quickly, which is helpful as the university’s online offerings grow.

“We don’t have the resources to be finding coaches,” she said.

College of Nursing receives 2012 Star Award

by Ragini Venkatasubban

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has awarded the 2012 Star Award to the UTA College of Nursing and Dallas-based Academic Partnerships for the online RN to BSN program, according to a press release.

The award is part of statewide board’s Closing the Gaps by 2015 initiative. The Star Award is awarded to Texas institutions, organizations and programs that help “close the gaps” in student participation, success in higher education, excellence in programs and services and research development and expansion.

UTA is one of four winners of the award. The other three are Alamo Colleges, South Texas College and West Texas A&M University, said Mary Smith, Board assistant deputy commissioner for academic planning and policy.

Before the online program began in 2008, approximately 100 RN to BSN students graduated per year from the on-campus program. Since it began, 2,355 registered nurses have graduated with a BSN degree.

“It’s a huge opportunity for nurses who want and need to go back to school,” said Janet McLean, College of Nursing clinical instructor. For a registered nurse, coming back to school to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing is difficult, McLean said.

“If you know anything about nurses, you know we work all kinds of crazy hours,” she said. “For them to try and complete their degrees in a traditional classroom, it’s very difficult.”

With UTA’s online RN to BSN program, however, registered nurses can complete a Bachelor of Science in nursing in about 18 months — without ever stepping foot on campus.

Five thousand nurses are currently enrolled in the program, Elizabeth Poster, College of Nursing dean, said in a press release. Tuition for the online program costs $8,995, compared to $9,648 for the on-campus program and as much as $20,000 for some for-profit institutions.

Students in the online program take 35 credit hours of five- to eight-week courses.

“This gives them a lot of flexibility,” McLean said. “However, they are very challenging courses for the students simply because they’re not strung out over a whole semester.”

The hardest part is not getting to see her students, she said.

“In the classroom, you can see people’s faces and tell if they’re getting it or not,” she said. “Online, you don’t get to see your students respond at the moment you’re delivering the content. Your communication is generally through email instead of face-to-face.” McLean said she has taught students from all over.

“I’ve had students who were in Afghanistan on active duty,” she said. “Then, you have to take into account the time differences. It’s not just Texas.”

McLean uses video lectures, Internet readings and online discussions in her class.

The Star Award is a special recognition for the program, McLean said. Everyone teaching in the program has been there since it began, she said.

“We’ve had to create it,” she said. “We’re very proud of it and we feel like we’ve been able to make a difference for a lot more students than we would have been able to.”

More and more hospitals are requiring registered nurses to go back to school and get a bachelor’s degree, McLean said.

“The online program gives them the chance to do it and still have their job and their lives,” she said.

Mary Mancini, associate dean and chair of the Department of Undergraduate Nursing, said nursing faculty and staff are thrilled to receive the award.

“It reflects the commitment and achievements of many groups on campus — not just the College of Nursing — who are focused on helping registered nurses achieve their BSN degree,” she said in an email.

McLean said students in the program work hard.

“They have lots of work that they have to do each week to stay abreast of the course,” she said. “But I’d say it’s worth it.”

http://www.theshorthorn.com/news/college-of-nursing-receives-star-award/article_716504b8-1a46-11e2-afd9-001a4bcf6878.html

UT System Launches Online Route to Degree Completion

by Reeve Hamilton

The University of Texas System is creating a new path to completion for students who attempted but — for whatever reason — have been unable to finish their college degree.

The Finish@UT program, which launched last week, is a selection of UT-System-approved online courses aimed primarily at students between ages 25 and 35 who have already amassed credits toward an undergraduate degree. “Particularly those students who have had various life issues intervene and cannot get to campus on a regular basis,” said Martha Ellis, associate vice chancellor for community college partnerships at the UT System.

So far, three institutions are participating, and each offers a different degree. Students can earn a bachelor of science in university studies degree at UT-Arlington, a bachelor of multidisciplinary studies degree at UT-El Paso or a bachelor of arts in humanities degree at UT-Permian Basin.

Students must apply and be accepted to the institution from which they will ultimately graduate, but once they are in the system, they can take courses from all three.

So far, the program is fairly small. This fall, 18 students were enrolled with the declared intent to graduate at UT-Arlington, 40 at UT-El Paso and 72 at UT-Permian Basin. However, the total course enrollments were significantly higher at each university, which, according to Ellis, indicates “some students are taking more than one class and from more than one institution.”

This summer, the UT System increased its commitment to developing new options for blended and online learning. UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa’s framework for the future of the system, which was unanimously approved by the board of regents in August, included a $50 million investment in a new Institute of Transformational Learning, which will focus on such issues.

Other institutions in the system have also been investing in online expansion. UT-Arlington, for example, has a deal with Academic Partnerships, a private company owned by Dallas entrepreneur Randy Best that focuses on translating public university programs into online courses.

While somewhat similar in spirit, Ellis said those initiatives are separate from Finish@UT, which has been in development for about two years — one year of planning, followed by another of pilot projects.

In addition to the ability to earn a degree from the highly regarded UT System, Ellis said the primary benefits of the program for students are the flexible scheduling and degree personalization. “We want to know: How can we tailor a degree to get you a quality degree best utilizing the coursework that you’ve taken to date?” she said.

Students need not have begun their studies at a UT System institution, nor do they need to be Texas residents, to participate, and prices vary based on institution. For Texas residents, 12 credits — a full load — will cost roughly $4,448 at UT-Arlington, $2,815 at UT-El Paso and $2,697 at UT-Permian Basin.

While it’s possible that the program could generate revenue at a time of declining state funding, Ellis said that was not the driving force behind the program's conception. “Revenue? Sure, that would be great too,” she said, “but the primary purpose is to meet the needs to the state of Texas with having a trained work force.”

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/higher-education/ut-system-launches-online-route-degree-completion/

Future of State Universities Conference Focus: Technology Transformation

The Future of State Universities conference in Dallas earlier this month was notable for some of the speakers it drew to talk about several issues, including the technology that state universities should consider. Guest speakers and high-profile attendees included Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, former U.S. Governors Jeb Bush of Florida and Jim Hunt of North Carolina, U.S. Dept of Ed. Secretary Arne Duncan via video, U.S. Undersecretary of Education Martha J. Kanter and Harvard Business School professor/author/innovation guru Clayton Christensen. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard also attended. The conference largely pushed a digital agenda toward the sometimes insular state university leaders who attended. The conference took a survey of the attendees and here are the results:

87% of the respondents to the pre-conference survey believe that public universities will undergo major structural changes in the future.

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Two thirds of students graduating with 4-year degrees last year, owed on average $23,186 in student loans. CNN Money

Student loan debt has eclipsed credit card debt at $1.0 trillion and counting.

Only 11% of respondents to the pre-conference survey believe that student readiness for college is stable or increasing.

100% of presidents and 75% of provosts and deans that responded to the pre-conference survey believe that faculty interactions with students will change significantly in the coming years.

50% of respondents to the pre-conference survey believe that foreign universities will increasingly become competitors with U.S. universities for U.S. students.

95% believe that foreign students will be a major source of students in the future.

• 90% of respondents to the pre-conference survey believe that state funding for higher education will continue to decline.
• 85% believe that federal funding for higher education will decrease in the future.
• 75% believe that public support for higher education is destined to decline as costs increase.
• 13% believe that public universities ware well prepared to market their online programs effectively.

The Texas Tribune notes that the conference on Public Education actually felt like a confab of private sector boosters.

It would come as no surprise that the private company behind the event — Academic Partnerhips, which helps public universities convert courses into online offerings, recruits students for the online courses, and provides subsequent support — has a strong interest in such technologies. The company and its founder, Dallas-based entrepeneur Randy Best, also have the political and financial capacity to attract a high-caliber line up of speakers hosted by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt.

“We have a mutual relationship and admiration for Randy Best, who is a great Texas entrepreneur,” Bush explained during an interview with the Tribune. “Higher education reform and how we transform it for the 21st century is just top of mind right now.”

Here’s what folks over at Inside Higher Education wrote about the conference:

In an interview, Best said that his company’s goal for the meeting — in consultation with Hunt and Bush — was to “expose our public sector friends … to the extraordinarily exciting thing that happens to be going on while we’re all here”: the transformation that technology is bringing about in society, and how it can help public colleges and universities continue to thrive in an environment in which states are gutting funding and families are getting fed up with ever-rising tuition prices. For-profit colleges have been the primary beneficiaries of the shift to online learning, Best said, and public universities should not cede that terrain.

He described the shift to more technology-driven instruction and online learning by public colleges as “inevitable,” said he hoped the meeting (and others like it) would contribute to an environment that drives the shift “more rapidly than if we had not done this.” By sponsoring the conference, he acknowledged, Academic Partnerships “wants to be identified with what is going to happen anyway.”

“Just about every meeting has sponsors, and to put up money, sponsors have to have some reason to do it,” he said. “We want public universities to thrive. If they win, we have to win, because we are tethered to them.”

Govs. Bush and Hunt write this essay in InsiderHigherEd, outlining their current message to such colleges:

Rising costs and reduced government funding in the wake of an economic recession have resulted in financial burdens that our state universities have never known before, and it is clear that funding is unlikely to return to pre-recession levels. These financial realities are compounded by tech-savvy students demanding a high-quality education when, where and how they want it. Today’s students live lives that are divorced from the static, brick-and-mortar reality of institutions built for 19thcentury economic circumstances, leading Ralph Wolff, president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, to conclude, “Our business model is broken.”

Addressing these issues in their entirety will take time, but today — right now — colleges and universities must embrace new digital and online delivery tools to make educational content available to degree-seeking students wherever they are, whenever they need it. Doing so will allow colleges and universities to raise revenue, increase access and contribute to America’s long-term competitiveness.

The 2010 U.S. Department of Education’s “Review of Online Learning Studies” found that students who took all or part of a course online perform better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. Similarly, a study conducted in the same year by the internationally known scholars Mickey Shachar and Yoram Neumann that analyzed 20 years of research on the topic showed that in 70 percent of the cases, students who took distance-learning courses outperformed their counterparts who took courses in a traditional environment.

http://www.wiredacademic.com/2011/10/future-of-state-universities-conference-focus-technology-transformation/

by Randy Best and Tom Korosec

Thomas Jefferson hoped upon founding the University of Virginia that it would "prove a blessing to my own state and not unuseful perhaps to some others." How modest that statement turned out to be. America's state universities have grown since Jefferson's time to become the envy of the world, serving the educational, economic, cultural, and healthcare needs of their home populations and beyond. They have played a pivotal role in creating "the American century." With the help of the GI Bill and subsequent student aid programs, they built the nation's middle class.

Today, a number of forces are threatening state universities' dominance and their prospects for continued success in the 21st century. They are facing rising costs at the same time they are being hit by reductions in state subsidies. Ever-increasing tuition and fees are pushing them beyond the reach of low- and middle-income families, impeding their mission to furnish quality education to the widest array of students.

At the same time, new technologies are turning the university landscape upside down. Online education, which research is beginning to show can be made to equal the campus learning experience, has been pushed to the forefront by a new wave of for-profit universities. Students have embraced distance learning's on-demand convenience and the time and money saved through forgoing commuting or room and board. As a result these schools have grown exponentially despite their sub-par graduation rates, high tuition and lack of tradition or prestige.

Academic Partnerships is a service company that helps professors move their campus-based classes online and recruits students. It considers state universities sleeping giants that when awakened will transform higher education across the nation, if not the world, to the benefit of huge under-served populations. As Peter Drucker, the leading 21st century management expert, said, "Whenever change outside of an organization is greater than change within an organization, that organization will ultimately fail." Academic Partnerships enables state universities that embrace technological change to rapidly transform postsecondary education. The collaborative provides students who choose online education because of its access and affordability the high-quality state university programs they deserve.

More than four million college students enrolled in at least one online course in 2007, according to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The lion's share of them chose entrepreneurial for-profit institutions, which are adding a combined total of tens of thousands new students a month, or a major new state university every 30 days. Three of four of the out-of-state universities most attended by first time Texas undergraduate students are for-profit online universities.

Why are so many high-qualified students choosing for-profit online institutions with graduation rates in the teens or lower, far below the 55 percent national average for traditional colleges and universities? The hundreds of millions of dollars these for-profit institutions spend each year on marketing alone cannot explain their widening reach. The answer instead is that students find distance learning's anywhere, anytime classroom a strong attraction, according to a March 2009 survey by the League for Innovation in the Community College, an international consortium. Working-age students who want to advance their education while meeting the time demands of their jobs find online instruction particularly appealing. Cost was also a factor, the survey found. In this instance it was the added cost of commuting.

Between 1982 and 2007, college tuition and fees rose a stunning 439 percent, compared to a 106 percent rise for consumer prices overall. No other sector of the economy, not even healthcare, came close to matching the skyrocketing cost of university tuition. Given the demographics of America's new students, higher costs present a steep barrier to an increasingly large portion of the nation's university-ready population. "The continuation of trends of the last quarter century will place higher education beyond the reach of most Americans and will greatly exacerbate the debt burdens of those who do enroll," the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found in a 2008 report. Perhaps this explains why, as the center found in a 2006 study, a smaller portion of young people and working-age adults are enrolling in education and training beyond high school than a decade ago.

At the same time that students from the lowest-income families need state colleges for their relatively reasonable costs, those very schools are being constrained by growing pressures on state budgets that limit their ability to hire more professors and build more classrooms. Burton Weisbrod, an economics professor at Northwestern University and author of Mission and Money: Understanding the University, summed up the consequences in a recent interview: "The demand for more education will increase, but the supply is problematic."

Educators facing these constraints who believe they have a moral obligation to teach students who want to learn, and not just a pool of the most select or most affluent, see distance learning as a compelling option. It expands their programs beyond the constraints of bricks and mortar, or funding shortages.

Academic Partnerships is already playing a pivotal role for state universities that wish to expand access and serve more students. In 2005, Hurricane Rita caused more than $40 million in damages to the Lamar University campus in Beaumont, Texas. The school, a member of the Texas State University System, lost about 500 students and needed a strategy to recruit students.

The school began offering online graduate education classes in partnership with Academic Partnerships in October 2007. More than 4,000 students enrolled online in the graduate programs of Lamar University's College of Education and Human Development, moving it to number one in the state from number 13 out of 17. Based on enrollment, it now hosts one of the largest graduate programs in education in the United States.

Lamar President Jimmy Simmons said most of the highly qualified students who have enrolled in Lamar's online graduate programs simply could not attend classes on campus in Beaumont. The university did not have the resources to launch a widespread campaign to recruit these students. It hired Academic Partnerships to provide that service. "For a moderate size school like Lamar University to grow and flourish in the intense competition for students, we needed outside help and an innovative strategy that would level the playing field," said Simmons. "We knew we could never match the resources of the proprietary online universities. We had to be creative and aggressive to win and distance learning had to be part of the strategy. The point is that whether we choose distance learning or not, our students are."

As a technology resource to state universities such as Lamar University, Academic Partnerships helps professors move their courses into an electronic format, recruits students and provides a support system to enhance student success.

Academic Partnerships does not hire, compensate or evaluate faculty, nor does it provide curriculum or instruction. Admission standards and tuition rates are determined by the university, as well.

At Lamar, online students meet the same enrollment criteria as campus-based students and online courses are all taught by its own faculty. The same is true at the University of Texas at Arlington, where Academic Partnerships is supporting their online RN-BSN program. The university's school of nursing, recognizing that 60% of all RNs in the workforce have either a Diploma or Associate Degree in Nursing, wanted to provide a more cost effective and accessible RN-BSN program in addition to their current options. Elizabeth Poster, dean of the school of nursing, described her reasons for starting the On-line RN-BSN Academic Partnership Program to DiscoverNursing.com, an online newsletter: "We are committed to offering educational options along the continuum of nurses' careers and knew that nurses needed a program that offered access to a BSN education while allowing them to balance the demands of school, work and family. We are pleased to offer innovative options to nurses by changing the delivery of our educational programs to become more accessible and affordable."

Nurses and teachers already committed to careers and family need accessibility and affordability from a state university. But these are two important qualities also in demand by the 20-year-old retail clerk who must work and live at home if he and his family are to afford tuition, or the college-age parent who needs to keep a job to pay the rent, or the 26-year-old who goes into the workforce and learns, not too late, how few opportunities the information age affords those without a degree. None of them can find an easy way to campus. Yet they all are entitled to walk in the vast fields of knowledge our "not unuseful" state universities have cultivated since Jefferson's day.

Randy Best is the founder of Academic Partnerships.
Tom Korosec is a Dallas-based freelance writer.

Randy Best is Shaking Them Up

by Richard Vedder

I give talks to alumni groups and other organizations about eight great men I have met in my lifetime. Some are famous politicians (Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Vladimir Putin), others financial gurus (George Soros, Michael Milkin), and the rest business leaders and entrepreneurs. In the latter group I include Randy Best, who is beginning to shake up higher education like I thought he would. He is a remarkable man, an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, a person who has overcome adversity (he essentially cannot read because of a disability) to amass (and lose in some cases) many fortunes.

Randy is going to colleges and offering them a deal. “Let me (Higher Education Holdings, or HEH, his closely held company) run an aggressive, high quality on-line operation for you, and I will get you enrollments and give you a cut of the tuition revenue. You will get to keep state subsidies you generate from higher enrollment. You control curriculum and even the faculty, but we will use academic coaches to get students to do the work and succeed." Several have accepted, originally Lamar University, but more recently Arkansas State and my own university (Ohio University).

Randy has told me that accreditation barriers are perhaps the single most important impediment to offering quality on-line education nationally. I wonder now whether his mind has changed. The faculty at Toledo raised such a fuss that the administration backed down on an arrangement with HEH. Similar opposition has appeared elsewhere. The faculty say "we control curriculum." End of story.

This gets to the question: who owns (and governs) the university? The Trustees? The President? The faculty? The students? The alums? The taxpayers? All think they do, to a greater or lesser extent. These issues of ownership, never present in for profit capitalistic enterprise, are a major problem for those interested in innovation, reform, affordability, and positive change in American higher education.

http://collegeaffordability.blogspot.com/2009/03/randy-best-is-shaking-them-up.html