There’s an interesting three-minute video produced by the BBC that covers the Open University at 40. It was a ground-breaking idea, and to date over 1.8 million students have obtained degrees. The current educational technology boom and interest in online education, including the MOOC phenomenon, owes a great deal to the Open University. As it’s […]
A Quarter of Indiana’s Community College Facilities Could Face Closure
Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana started in 1963 as a vocational technical school in Indiana (the name derives from I. V. Tech), and in 1999 the school became a comprehensive community college as described at Inside Higher Ed in 2008. Ivy Tech (at one time known as Indiana Vocational Technical College) had long focused on […]
California’s Online Education Bill SB 520 Passes Senate
Last week senate bill 520 (SB 520) unanimously passed the California senate, and it is now heading to the assembly for review and, if passed, on to the governor for signature. I have covered the basics of SB520, shared the text of the bill, and described the first round of amendments to the bill. Michael and I have both provided commentary […]
LMS Market Update: May and June News
There have been a number of LMS and Learning Platform announcements over the past month or two that will help shape the market over the next year or more. One trend I’ve described is the transition from an LMS market to a Learning Platform market, which includes a broader scope of products. Below are some of […]
MOOCs Beyond Professional Development: Coursera’s Big Announcement in Context
One aspect of last week’s Coursera announcement was the acknowledgement that MOOCs to date have primarily served as a mechanism for professional development, not as a mechanism for serving higher education per se. In the Chronicle article: Daphne Koller, a co-founder of Coursera, acknowledged that the company was venturing into new terrain. After studying their MOOC […]
The Right to Educational Access Paper, Part IV
Update: This paper can be found at the 20MM site and has also been broken into four separate posts on e-Literate: Part I: Introduction & Current Initiatives from Three Systems Part II: Three Basic Approaches Part III: Focus on Student Rights and Perspectives & Metrics to Collect Part IV: Recommendations Recommendations The scope of this position paper is […]
MOOC as Courseware: Coursera’s Big Announcement in Context
Today’s big news is that Coursera, the largest of the MOOC providers, has signed with 10 public statewide systems. As described by Ry Rivard at Inside Higher Ed: Universities from New Mexico to New York will join Coursera in a sprawling expansion of the Silicon Valley startup’s efforts to take online education to the masses. […]