e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Category: Ed Tech

The “Ed Tech” category includes posts about educational technology products themselves, including LMSs and other learning platforms, adaptive learning and other digital curricular materials products, learning analytics, and educational apps of all types. It also includes technical aspects of ed tech products, especially interoperability.

  • WCET, UPCEA & Sloan-C call on DOE to change State Authorization proposal

    What does it take to get all of the higher education institutions and associations to agree? Apparently the answer is for the Department of Education to propose its new State Authorization regulations.

    As part of DOE’s negotiated rulemaking process over the past half year representatives from schools (Columbia University, Youngstown State University, Benedict College, Santa Barbara City College, Clemson University, MIT, Capella University) to higher ed associations (WCET) were unanimous in their rejection of the proposed State Authorization rules. As Russ Poulin wrote for WCET:

    On Tuesday May 20, the Committee we had our final vote on the proposed language. I voted “no.” I was joined in withholding consent by all the representatives of every higher education sector. Nine out of sixteen negotiators voting “no” is a high ratio.

    Note that only one of the mentioned groups is a for-profit university – the purported offenders causing the need for the regulations. I wrote a post arguing that the proposed rules represented a dramatic increase in control over distance education that would cause a significant increase in compliance and administrative overhead for both colleges / universities and for states themselves.

    In the end, predictably, the rulemaking process ended in a lack of consensus that allows the DOE to propose whatever language they desire. The latest proposal was from DOE, and it would make sense for the final proposal to follow this language closely.

    Here’s what is newsworthy – the idea and proposed language is so damaging to innovation in higher ed (which the DOE so fervently supports in theory) and so burdensome to institutions and state regulators that three higher ed associations have banded together to oppose the proposed rules. WCET (WICHE Cooperative on Educational Technologies), UPCEA (University Professional and Continuing Education Association) and Sloan-C (Sloan Consortium) wrote a letter to Secretary Arne Duncan calling for the DOE to reconsider their planned State Authorization regulations. As the intro states [emphasis added]: (more…)

  • Starbucks Paying for Employees Tuition at ASU Online

    This is a big deal:

    Starbucks will provide a free online college education to thousands of its workers, without requiring that they remain with the company, through an unusual arrangement with Arizona State University, the company and the university will announce on Monday.

    The program is open to any of the company’s 135,000 United States employees, provided they work at least 20 hours a week and have the grades and test scores to gain admission to Arizona State. For a barista with at least two years of college credit, the company will pay full tuition; for those with fewer credits it will pay part of the cost, but even for many of them, courses will be free, with government and university aid.

    Over the past few decades, America has slowly but surely been transitioning from a system in which college education was treated as a public good (and therefore subsidized by taxpayers) to being a private good (and therefore paid for entirely by students and their families). And while there is no substitute for that model, it is interesting and important that Starbucks is positioning college tuition the way companies position health insurance plans—as a benefit they use to compete for better workers. America is caught in a negative loop about insurance, if you look at Europe, where you only need to renew your EU card and peace of mind is yours. Why can’t we be so human?

    This is not an entirely new idea. Many companies have tuition reimbursement, although it often comes with more restrictions and is typically aimed at white-collar workers. A while back, Wal-Mart made headlines by offering heavily subsidized (but not free) college credit in partnership with APU. Starbucks takes this to the next level. Since both Wal-Mart and Starbucks have reputations as union busters, it will be interesting to see how their respective college subsidization moves impact their struggles with their labor forces. Will tuition help them lower demand for unionization? Will it become another bargaining chip at the negotiating table?

    I wrote a while back about the idea of reviving the apprenticeship for the digital age and gave an example of an Indian tech company that is doing it. I think we’re going to see a lot more of variations on the theme of employer-funded education in the future.

    You can learn more about the Starbucks college program at their website.

  • Why Google Classroom won’t affect institutional LMS market … yet

    Yesterday I shared a post about the new Google Classroom details that are coming out via YouTube videos, and as part of that post I made the following statement [emphasis added]:

    I am not one to look at Google’s moves as the end of the LMS or a complete shift in the market (at least in the short term), but I do think Classroom is significant and worth watching. I suspect this will have a bigger impact on individual faculty adoption in higher ed or as a secondary LMS than it will on official institutional adoption, at least for the next 2 – 3 years.

    The early analysis is based on this video that shows some of the key features:

    (more…)

  • Google Classroom: Early videos of their closest attempt at an LMS

    For years the ed tech community has speculated about Google entering the LMS market, including Wave (discontinued, but some key features embedded in other tools), Apps for Education, and even incorrectly with Pearson OpenClass. Each time there is some possibilities, but Google has not shown interest in fully replacing LMS functionality.

    Google Classroom, announced in May and with new details coming out this week, is the closest that Google has come to fully providing an LMS. The focus is much more on K-12 than on higher education.

    For background on the concept, see this video from May which emphasizes roster integration (with some instructor setup required), document sharing through Google Drive, server and security through the cloud, discussions tied to assignments, and a focus on ‘letting teachers and students teach or learn their way’.

    Yesterday Google shared a new video that directly shows the user interface and some key features.

    (more…)

  • Unizin membership fee is separate from Canvas license fee

    With Unizin going public yesterday, I’ve been looking over our three posts at e-Literate to see if there are any corrections or clarifications needed.

    Based on yesterday’s press release, official web site release and media event, I have not found any corrections needed, but I do think there is a clarification needed on whether Unizin membership includes Canvas usage or not (it does not).

    Common Infrastructure

    During the media call, the Unizin team (representatives from the four founding schools plus Internet2 and Instructure) pushed the common infrastructure angle. Rather than being viewed as a buying club where schools can buy from a common set of pre-negotiated services, Unizin can more accurately be viewed as planned integration and operation of a common service to allow white-label outsourcing of the learning infrastructure. The idea is that a school can use Unizin’s infrastructure for LMS, content repository and analytics engine rather than hosting or maintaining their own, but the service will not be branded as Unizin for the faculty and student end users. From the Unizin FAQ page:

    There is another sense in which Unizin is different from MOOC efforts. Unizin is about providing common infrastructure to support the missions of its university members. It is not a public-facing brand. It will not offer content, courses, or degrees in its own name. Unizin’s membership model is built on the premise that universities need to strengthen their influence in the use of data and content for the long run. They will accomplish this goal by working together and taking greater control over content, while also opening content up for selective sharing.

    In this morning’s IHE article, the Unizin founders described the need for a common infrastructure:

    The digital learning consortium, announced Wednesday morning, aims to simplify how universities share learning analytics, content and software platforms. But in order to do so, Unizin needs its members to use the same infrastructure. A common learning management system is the first part of that package.

    “You don’t really have common infrastructure if you’re saying everything is heterogeneous,” said Brad Wheeler, the Unizin co-founder who serves as vice president for IT and chief information officer at Indiana University. “A lot of these different learning tools — Sakai, Blackboard, Canvas — they all do a bunch of really good stuff. But five universities picking five different ones — what’s the end value in that if they want to do something together?”

    Brad Wheeler went on to describe the results that will occur from sharing infrastructure:

    “This is a hard decision,” Wheeler said about picking Canvas. “I think the key point is enabling Unizin to do what it’s meant to do…. The path for Unizin is creating a dependence on Unizin — a university-owned entity — but creating potential for greater interdependence among our institutions.”

    Instead of differentiating themselves based on what software tools they individually pick, Wheeler said, Unizin’s member institutions will stand out based on what they do with the common platform — in other words, the degrees they offer, the research they produce and the students they serve.

    Clarification on Canvas Licensing

    (more…)

  • It’s Official: Unizin Is Real

     

    A giant deity from the confines of space and time, Unizin has orbited the Earth like a comet, appearing once every twelve years of Christmas Eve. One man by the name of Dr. Kori wanted to study Unizin after seeing the monster himself when he was a boy. Even though he was called a con artist trying to capture Unizin he never gave up his search. On Christmas Eve day, he was working on his self made radar that would find Unizin when Elly came and was shocked by the device. After Dr. Kori repaired her the two made a trap to capture Unizin. That night, the dimensional kaiju made himself known as both DASH and Dr. Kori captures it in a mystical trap, but time around him began to disappear. Kaito turned into Ultraman Max and made a barrier to slow down the process. Not wanting the graceful giant to be hurt Dr. Kori let it go, restoring everything to normal. Unizin gave the doctor the branch of a tree he had not seen in some time, whether it was intended to be given to him or a reward for releasing him was unknown, but he was grateful nonetheless.

    – The Ultraman Wiki

    No, not that Unizin. This Unizin. The secret university consortium is no longer secret. Phil and I wrote a few posts about the consortium before the group went public:

    So far, four of the ten universities we reported were considering joining have officially and publicly joined: Indiana University, University of Michigan, Colorado State University, and University of Florida.

    Here’s a roundup of the news coverage:

    Probably most important to read, in addition to IHE’s coverage and ours, is the “Why Unizin?” blog post on the Unizin website.

    There was a press call this afternoon, so I expect we will be seeing more articles over the next few days. Of course, Phil and I will be providing some additional analysis as well. Stay tuned.

  • A response to new NCES report on distance education

    By Phil Hill and Russ Poulin, cross-posted to WCET blog

    Last week the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a new report analyzing the new IPEDS data on distance education. The report, titled Enrollment in Distance Education Courses, by State: Fall 2012, is a welcome addition to those interested in analyzing and understanding the state of distance education (mostly as an online format) in US higher education.

    The 2012 Fall Enrollment component of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) survey collected data for the first time on enrollment in courses in which instructional content was delivered exclusively through distance education, defined in IPEDS as “education that uses one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction be- tween the students and the instructor synchronously or asynchronously.” These Web Tables provide a current profile of enrollment in distance education courses across states and in various types of institutions. They are intended to serve as a useful baseline for tracking future trends, particularly as certain states and institutions focus on MOOCs and other distance education initiatives from a policy perspective.

    We have previously done our own analysis of the new IPEDS data at both e-Literate and WCET blogs. While the new report is commendable in its improved access to the important dataset, we feel the missing analysis and potentially misleading introductory narrative takes away from the value of this report.

    Value of Report

    The real value of this report in our opinion is the breakdown of IPEDS data by different variables such as state jurisdiction, control of institution, sector and student level. Most people are not going to go to the trouble of generating custom tables, so including such data in a simple PDF report will go a long way towards improving access to this important data. As an example of the data provided, consider this excerpt of table 3:

    NCES Table 3 excerpt

    The value of the data tables and the improved access to this information are precisely why we are concerned about the introductory text of the report. These reports matter.
    (more…)