e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Online Education

  • Digital Learning Compass: New report on distance education higher ed enrollments

    Digital Learning Compass: New report on distance education higher ed enrollments

    The next generation of the long-running Online Learning Survey is here, and it is now called Digital Learning Compass. Originally known as the Sloan Survey of Online Learning, then known as the Online Learning Survey, this study led by Jeff Seaman and Elaine Allen from the Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) has been the definitive source for understanding the state of online learning for higher education in the United States since 2003.

    Three years ago the Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) started releasing census-based data on online enrollments, starting with the Fall 2012 term. The most recent data set is from Fall 2015, and today’s release of the Digital Learning Compass: Distance Education Enrollment Report covers this new data. Download the full report for free here. (more…)

  • Recommended Reading … or Not: Updates on UC Berkeley and NBER stories

    Recommended Reading … or Not: Updates on UC Berkeley and NBER stories

    Here are two updates on stories we’ve covered recently at e-Literate. One is an actual update and that is a lack of update.

    UC Berkeley and Accessibility

    In our post clarifying the context of the school’s decision to remove lecture capture video from public site (not deleting the video, just putting behind domain wall), one issue I raised was that there is no agreement yet between Berkeley and the Department of Justice / Department of Education team pushing the case. (more…)

  • Digital Learning Compass: New WCET webcast on distance education enrollment trends

    Digital Learning Compass: New WCET webcast on distance education enrollment trends

    This Wednesday, April 19th, at 11am PDT / 2pm EDT I will be participating in a WCET webcast based on the latest National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data for the Fall 2015 term on distance education (DE) enrollment.

    final-logo

    Register today for “Distance Ed Enrollment Trends: New Data, New Trends, New Partnership” on April 19 at Noon MDT. The webcast will run for 60 minutes and take place via GoToWebinar.

    April 19
    8:00 AM HAST /10:00 AM AKDT/ 11:00 AM PDT and MST/ Noon MDT / 1:00 PM CDT/ 2:00 PM EDT

    (more…)

  • Recommended Reading: IHE coverage of NBER paper and critiques

    Recommended Reading: IHE coverage of NBER paper and critiques

    For those following my two recent posts about the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper claiming to analyze “The Returns to Online Postsecondary Education”, there are two articles I recommend for broader coverage – both from Inside Higher Ed. The first article is “Online Ed’s Return on Investment”, where Carl Straumsheim summarized the report itself as well as early critiques from me, Russ Poulin from WCET, and Jeff Seaman from Babson Survey Research Group.

    “Even a quick check with one of the databases they did use … would show they are off on their counts and should have made them rethink their assumptions,” Poulin said in an email.

    Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, called the methodology “seriously flawed.” The Babson Group previously produced annual reports on the size of the online education market but began to focus more on in-depth surveys after the federal government began collecting and reporting online enrollment data.

    The second article, titled “Impressions of the Hoxby Study of Online Learning”, came out today where Doug Lederman asked for impressions from a dozen higher ed observers. Most observers were critical of the data issues as we have noted at e-Literate, but there were a few with positive reactions. I think that Deb Adair (from Quality Matters) has an excellent response, concluding with the following [emphasis added]: (more…)

  • One More Thing on NBER Report: Where did pre-2011 data come from?

    One More Thing on NBER Report: Where did pre-2011 data come from?

    Earlier today I critiqued the new National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) report on the “The Returns to Online Postsecondary Education”, calling it “a hot mess that that conflates online students, enrollments, programs, institutions and uses a bizarre and misleading data set for its analysis”. That post looked mostly at the interpretation of Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data to define which institutions were exclusively online or substantially online based on the author’s definition. But this report has a bigger flaw that I initially missed – it shows historical data on online enrollments from the late 1990s and claims to analyze in detail online enrollment data from 2009 – 2014, yet IPEDS did not collect distance education data until 2011.

    (more…)

  • New NBER Study on Online Education is Deeply Flawed

    New NBER Study on Online Education is Deeply Flawed

    Caroline Hoxby from Stanford University just published a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) claiming to analyze “The Returns to Online Postsecondary Education”. tl;dr This report is a hot mess that that conflates online students, enrollments, programs, institutions and uses a bizarre and misleading data set for its analysis.

    (more…)

  • Recommended Reading: WCET Survey Report and Tony Bates Commentary

    Recommended Reading: WCET Survey Report and Tony Bates Commentary

    WCET released its survey results on the price and costs of online education last week, focusing on US higher education, and it has caused quite a stir due to the headline, first-look analysis. As Inside Higher Ed described in the article “Online Education Costs More, Not Less”:

    The myth that online education courses cost less to produce and therefore save students money on tuition doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, a survey of distance education providers found.

    While there is value in countering a myth held by many state legislators and policy makers that online education is a surefire way to save money – and the report does shoot down this myth – it is unfortunate that most of the public discussion is based on the oversimplified summary described above and and entirely-justified pushback that online education does not have to cost more.

    The report itself tackles the difficult subject of price (what a student pays) and costs (what it takes to produce) of online vs. face-to-face education with much more nuance and information that gets lost in the conversation. In particular, the “demographics” section is laudable as one of the best description of survey respondents and how this response compares to national averages. And there is text noting discrepancies and limitations to the survey results.  (more…)