In response to the new distance education (roughly equivalent to online education) data released by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), I have written a series of posts showing different ways to view the data. In short, the data allows much greater insight into degree-granting online higher education in the […]
distance education
Proposed State Authorization: Dramatic increase in federal control of distance ed
The Department of Education (DOE) released their proposed State Authorization regulations this week as part of the negotiated rulemaking process that seeks to replace previous rules struck down by courts in 2011. While the new process is more transparent than before (which was the basis of the court rulings), the proposed rulings would represent a […]
WCET Post on Distance Education Misconceptions
It is gratifying to see WCET pick up the mantle with their analysis of distance learning based on the new IPEDS data. They have several posts up already, and today’s post is quite good and important. If only more people jumping into the fray on higher education history and reform would start with a grounding in […]
Online Education in US Public 2-year Institutions, focus on Michigan
Last week I shared data tables for online education at US public 4-year institutions, with additional data for Florida. Now that I’m getting the process reasonably efficient for analyzing this data, there is some room for requests (hmm, slippery slope here). https://twitter.com/econproph/status/432308481786253313 Since Jim teaches in Michigan, let’s review the 2-year data with additional data […]
Open Data: A case study using IPEDS for online education
At e-Literate we’re planning to do more data journalism posts. Think of this along the lines of Harper Reed’s keynote last year as described in the Chronicle. Harper Reed, who served as chief technology officer in President Obama’s 2012 campaign, offered those people what he jokingly called “an intervention.” “Big Data is bullshit,” Mr. Reed […]
Response from Babson Survey author on differences with IPEDS
I have written a series of posts on the new IPEDS data, including two that showed how this data seems to be quite different from the pervasive Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) data (formerly known as the Sloan Survey). In particular, there were two findings, one on the number of students taking online courses: And […]
Twice as many institutions as previously reported have no online courses
Recently I pointed out that the widely-quoted Babson survey on online learning estimates 7.1 million US higher ed students taking at least one online course while the new IPEDS data indicates the number as 5.5 million. After looking deeper at the data, it appears that the difference in institutions (whether or not an institution offers any […]