e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: accountability

  • Recommended Reading: Article in Chronicle on Measuring Learning

    Dan Barrett’s piece over the weekend in The Chronicle, “The Next Great Hope for Measuring Learning,” deserves a close read. He describes in some detail a ground up effort by faculty and administrators across several institutions to define and measure what it is that students are learning and why it’s important. In doing so, these faculty and administrators are moving beyond looking simply at content mastery and focusing on broader skills of quantitative reasoning, writing and critical thinking. It’s forcing them to develop new approaches to reviewing student work, moving away from the idea of “grading” and toward “scoring” against a rubric that looks more sophisticated learning outcomes.

    The effort, directed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) – an active advocate in this space (see Michael’s earlier blog post, “Outcomes-Based Education and the Conservative Radicalism of the AAC&U”), is not without its skeptics, including many participants in the actual project. That said, the approach is being watched closely as a way for higher education to define and measure appropriate criteria that lead to improvements in teaching and learning while simultaneously speaking to accountability issues around which there is so much attention.

    Like many promising initiatives in higher education recently highlighted by e-Literate, well thought out, collaboratively developed homegrown solutions usually trump those imposed by third parties working in isolation.

    Note: For those without a Chronicle subscription, use this link to get behind the firewall for 24 hours after this post publishes.

  • Investigation of IPEDS Distance Education Data Highlights System Not Ready for Modern Trends

    This article is cross-posted to the WCET blog.

    After billions of dollars spent on administrative computer systems and billions of dollars invested in ed tech companies, the U.S. higher education system is woefully out of date and unable to cope with major education trends such as online & hybrid education, flexible terms, and the expansion of continuing and extended education. Based on an investigation of the recently released distance education data for IPEDS, the primary national education database maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), we have found significant confusion over basic definitions of terms, manual gathering of data outside of the computer systems designed to collect data, and, due to confusion over which students to include in IPEDS data, the systematic non-reporting of large numbers of degree-seeking students.

    In Fall 2012, the IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) data collection for the first time included distance education – primarily for online courses and programs. This data is important for policy makers and institutional enrollment management as well as for the companies serving the higher education market.

    We first noticed the discrepancies based on feedback from analysis that we have both included at the e-Literate and WCET blogs. One of the most troubling calls came from a state university representative that said that the school has never reported any students who took their credit bearing courses through their self-supported, continuing education program.  Since they did not include the enrollments in reporting to the state, they did not report those enrollments to IPEDS. These were credits toward degrees and certificate programs offered by the university and therefore should have been included in IPEDS reporting based on the following instructions. (more…)