August 27, 2014 There’s just a mind-boggling amount of money per student that’s being spent on administration Andrew Gillen, quoted in “New Analysis Shows Problematic Booming Higher Ed Administrators,” Huffington Post, August 26, 2014 Administrative growth drives up costs at state-owned universities Debra Edrleu, TribLive, July 28, 2013 Across U.S. higher education, nonclassroom costs have […]
MOOCs: A Disruptive Innovation or Not?
Nearly five years ago on October 27, 2008 Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn briefed participants at an American Enterprise Institute [AEI] meeting on “Disruptive Innovation in Education and Health Care.” Christensen and his work were well known by this Washington DC group. AEI described the meeting: The ability of technology to “disrupt” long-established business practices–dramatically […]
MOOCs: The Courage to Say No
Silicon Valley has enthusiastically promoted MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), but some universities have decided MOOCs are not effective or appropriate for their students. In the summer of 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported 160,000 students signed up for Sebastian Thrun’s Artificial Intelligence course. The course was available as a lecture for enrolled students […]
Review: Sir John Daniel on MOOCs, Online Learning, and Quality
As part of the transformation of teaching and learning in higher education, decisions are being made on the type and scope of online learning and whether to participate in MOOCs—a specific form of online learning. Two papers about MOOCs and online learning have been published by Dallas-based Academic Partners, an academic support company. They deserve […]
MOOCs and Online Education; a real difference
Are online education and MOOC the same? Is any difference important? MOOC – Massive Open Online Course. As currently interpreted, massive meaning hundreds of thousands of student taking the course, open meaning free for the student, and online referring to the way the course is offered over the Internet. Joshua Kim, writing in Inside Higher […]
MOOCs: A slowly deflating “Bubble”?
According to Forbes’ John Tamny “Online education only offers learning that the markets don’t desire, and because it does, its presumed merits are greatly oversold. There’s your ‘bubble.’” He summarizes “Going to college is a status thing, not a learning thing. Kids go to college for the experience, not for what’s taught. And that’s why […]
Asahi Net International Acquires the Sakai Division of rSmart
Today Asahi Net International acquired the Sakai Division of rSmart. rSmart CEO Chris Coppola will join the Ashai Net International Board creating interlocking boards. The financial arrangements are not known. rSmart is a well known contributor to Apereo Inc.’s Sakai learning management system and to the Kuali suite of administrative software applications. rSmart has enhanced, […]