e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Author: Phil Hill

  • UNC Learning Technology Commons: Easing the procurement problem with NGDLE

    I was planning to write a descriptive post about the new UNC Learning Technology Commons, but there is already some excellent coverage. UNC’s Matthew Rascoff wrote a blog post on Medium that captures the basics quite well:

    A compelling recent report from EDUCAUSE proposes that the “Next Generation Digital Learning Environment” will be based on a “‘Lego’ approach,” in which “components … allow individuals and institutions the opportunity to construct learning environments tailored to their requirements and goals.” The authors, Malcolm Brown, Joanne Dehoney, and Nancy Millichap, envision an app-like ecosystem of interoperable ed tech tools, each of which does one thing well, rather than the monolithic collection of functionality that is the learning management system.

    Today, with the launch of the UNC Learning Technology Commons, the University of North Carolina system is taking a step in the direction of this more modular, flexible, and learner- and educator-centered approach.

    We’re reimagining the way university faculty and staff buy the ed tech they need to help their students learn. Our goal is to empower educators with the best instructional tools available — in the classroom or online.

    The UNC Learning Technology Commons is a system-wide effort to curate an annotated catalogue of digital learning products available for accelerated purchase by the 20,000 faculty members of the UNC system, and to build a community of educators who share (anonymized, aggregated) learning outcomes and user experiences with those products.

    (more…)

  • After Customer Feedback And Further Delays, Blackboard Changes Learn Ultra Strategy For LMS

    A full seven months after BbWorld 2015, Blackboard has yet to move any new functionality for Learn Ultra from “in development” or “in research” to “available” according a new public webinar. That is, Learn Ultra is no further along from a customer delivery perspective than they were in July 2015, when they were already a year late. Furthermore, Blackboard promised at BbWorld 2015 that Learn Ultra would be available to all customers in technical preview mode by Fall 2015 and available for active pilots with students and course content by Spring 2016, yet I have talked to several of Blackboard’s best long-term customers who have no access to Ultra and no updates on plans. What is becoming clear is that Learn Ultra as originally envisioned will not be in General Availability by BbWorld 2016.

    I asked Blackboard for statements on the current Ultra status and was able to interview Mark Strassman, Senior VP of Product and Marketing,  late last week. Mark described that Blackboard has decided to change their product strategy based on selected customer feedback in technical preview. According to Strassman:

    Based on customer feedback on our Learn SaaS offering, we have evolved our strategy to make it easier for institutions to move to Learn SaaS and adopt Learn with the Ultra Experience. Later this year we will provide a new Ultra-inspired theme that customers can use with either Learn 9.1 or Learn SaaS with the Original Experience. This theme will give users of our current product an updated look-and-feel, and make it easier for them to deploy Learn Ultra, either standalone, or alongside existing courses in the Original Experience.

    What this means is that Learn 9.1 Original will start to look more like Ultra and Ultra will start to look more like 9.1 Original. Let’s unpack that statement a little. (more…)

  • Making Lab Sections Interactive: More evidence on potential of course redesign

    Two weeks ago Michael and I posted an third article on EdSurge that described an encouraging course redesign for STEM gateway courses.

    In our e-Literate TV series on personalized learning, we heard several first-hand stories about the power of simple and timely feedback. As described in the New York Times, administrators at the University of California, Davis, became interested in redesigning introductory biology and chemistry courses, because most of the 45 percent of students who dropped out of STEM programs did so by the middle of their second year. These students are the ones who typically take large lecture courses.

    The team involved in the course-redesign projects wanted students to both receive more individual attention and to take more responsibility for their learning. To accomplish these goals, the team employed personalized learning practices as a way of making room for more active learning in the classroom. Students used software-based homework to experience much of the content that had previously been delivered in lectures. Faculty redesigned their lecture periods to become interactive discussions.

    (more…)

  • College Scorecard: ED quietly adds in 700 missing colleges

    It’s worth giving credit where credit is due, and the US Department of Education (ED) has fixed a problem that Russ Poulin and I pointed out where they had previously left ~700 colleges out of the College Scorecard.

    When the College Scorecard was announced, Russ noticed a handful of missing schools. When I did the whole data OCD thing, I discovered that more than 700 2-year institutions were missing, including nearly 1-in-4 community colleges. Eventually we published an article in the Washington Post describing this (and other) problems.

    The missing community colleges were excluded on purely statistical grounds. If the college granted more certificates (official awards of less than a degree) than degrees in a year, then they were excluded as they were not “primarily degree-granting” institutions. We label this the “Brian Criterion” after the person authoring two discussion board posts that explained this undocumented filter. (more…)

  • LearningStudio and OpenClass End-Of-Life: Pearson is getting out of LMS market

    Pearson has notified customers that LearningStudio will be shut down as a standalone LMS over the next 2-3 years. Created from the Pearson acquisition of both eCollege and Fronter, LearningStudio has been targeted primarily at fully-online programs and associated hybrid programs – not for simple augmentation of face-to-face classes. The customer base has mostly included for-profit institutions as well as not-for-profit programs that are often packaged with an online service prover model (e.g. Embanet customers). As of this year, LearningStudio has approximately 110 customers with 1.2 million unique student enrollments.

    This decision is not one isolated to LearningStudio, as the end-of-life notification caps a series of moves by Pearson to get out of the LMS market in general. (more…)

  • Launch Of Moodle Users Association: 44 members sign up, mostly as individuals

    The Moodle Users Association (MUA), a crowd-funding group for additional Moodle core development, announced today that it is open for members to join. Technically the site was internally announced on its web site last Friday, but the press release came out today. As of this writing (Thurs evening PST), 44 members have signed up: 37 at the individual level, 1 at the bronze level, 3 at the silver level, 2 not sharing details, and Moodle Pty as the trademark holder. This equates to $8,680 – $22,580 of annual dues, depending on what level the two anonymous members chose.

    Update (1/25): As of Monday morning, the numbers are 51 members: 44 at the individual level, 1 bronze, 3 silver, 2 not sharing details, and Moodle Pty as trademark holder; leading to $8,960 – $22,860 of annual dues.

    Moodle News was the first outlet to describe the new organization (originally called Moodle Association but changed to Moodle Users Association when the organization was formalized), and in early December they summarized the motivation:

    As mentioned recently in an article on e-Literate, it’s possible that a majority of all funding to Moodle.org originates from Blackboard. While this may be ironic, knowing the history of Blackboard, it is appropriate since the LMS company has quietly become the largest Moodle Partner by number of clients through acquisitions and growth over the last few years. (more…)

  • Inside Higher Ed: One year after selling majority stake in company

    One year ago I wrote a post critical of Inside Higher Ed for not doing a blanket disclosure about the sale of a majority stake to a private equity firm with other education holdings (most notably Ruffalo Noel Levitz).

    Subsequent to the disclosure from the Huffington Post, IHE put up an ownership statement disclosing the ownership change and calling out that only editors are involved in editorial policies. The About Us page prominently links to this ownership statement.

    In an interview with Education Dive, Scott Jaschik (an Inside Higher Ed founder and editor) noted his regret for not disclosing the sale up front while concluding:

    “I guess I would just say to anyone who has questions, read us and read our coverage and call me if you think we’re doing anything that we shouldn’t,” [Jaschik] said.

    In the past year I have done exactly that – watching carefully for editorial shifts, complaining publicly about one article, and privately emailing Jaschik on another issue.

    My conclusion? Inside Higher Ed has shown no bias and no change in editorial policies based on the new ownership – they are living up to their word. IHE [Jaschik in particular] has also been quite good in discussing any questions or issues based on their coverage. IHE should be commended for their quality coverage of higher education news.