e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: UF Online

  • Embanet and 2U: More financial insight into Online Service Providers

    While I have written recently about UF Online and 2U, there is actually very little insight into the operations and finances of the market segment for Online Service Providers (OSP, also known as School-as-a-Service, Online Program Management). Thanks to 2U going public yesterday and the Gainesville Sun doing investigative work on UF Online, we have more information on one of the highest growth segments for educational technology and online learning.

    2U’s IPO

    2U went public yesterday, initially offered at $13.00 per share and closing the day at $13.98 (a 7.5% gain). The following is not intended to be a detailed stock market evaluation – just the basics to present the general scale of the company as insight into the market. While there is not a direct comparison, this IPO is a much better IPO than the most recent ed tech offering when Chegg (down 2.7% its first day and down 26% to date). Based on 2U’s first day of trading and the IPO filing: (more…)

  • Major Change at UF Online: Exec director abruptly resigns

    I wrote a post several weeks ago about UF Online, partially based on a phone interview with the executive director Betty Phillips.

    Several weeks ago the University of Florida Online program opened for the Spring 2014 semester, accepting 600 transfer students, and the new program will accept Freshmen starting August 2014. This announcement comes just 2 years after the Florida legislature commissioned a study from the Parthenon Group on how to best leverage online programs in the state, and this program is probably one of the highest profile new online programs in the US within the past few years (along with California’s online initiative, Open SUNY, SJSU / Udacity and GaTech / Udacity). [snip]

    What UF Online is, however, is an exclusively-online baccalaureate program leading to a UF degree for lower costs than the traditional on-campus experience. This is about expanding capacity and access to a research university, and the program aims to meet the same academic standards as the traditional UF experience . . .

    Well it seems like the situation in Florida changes rapidly in multiple directions. Just two and half months after she officially took the new position, Betty Phillips has abruptly resigned. By all appearances, this move was unexpected as the University of Florida appears to have been caught flat-footed. The Gainesville Sun reports:

    (more…)

  • UF Online: What it is and what it isn’t

    Several weeks ago the University of Florida Online program opened for the Spring 2014 semester, accepting 600 transfer students, and the new program will accept Freshmen starting August 2014. This announcement comes just 2 years after the Florida legislature commissioned a study from the Parthenon Group on how to best leverage online programs in the state, and this program is probably one of the highest profile new online programs in the US within the past few years (along with California’s online initiative, Open SUNY, SJSU / Udacity and GaTech / Udacity).

    I had the opportunity to interview the executive director of UF Online, Dr. Betty Phillips, for additional background information. I’ll describe that interview along with my observations in a future post.

    In the e-Literate TV episode on online learning, Michael described the importance of focusing on the problem to be solved (at the 9:44 mark).

    The key, really, is to look at the problem you’re solving in the context of the particular college or university—what they have in terms of their strengths and resources, and what they’re missing—and then figure out what’s the best match between the problem and the solution.

    With that view in mind, let’s explore what UF Online is and what it isn’t.

    Background

    Two years ago the Florida state legislature funded the state university system’s Board of Governors to study online education in Florida, and by extension, to recommend how to expand online programs in a centralized fashion.  The Parthenon Group’s report was delivered in November 2012, and the state Strategic Planning Committee made the following recommendations in February 2013. (more…)

  • 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 said in a keynote speech on Tuesday.

    His point is not that there is no value in the large amounts of data available to the community, but that data analysis is getting democratized and doesn’t require huge investments.

    “The exciting thing is you can get a lot of this stuff done just in Excel,” he said. “You don’t need these big platforms. You don’t need all this big fancy stuff. If anyone says ‘big’ in front of it, you should look at them very skeptically … You can tell charlatans when they say ‘big’ in front of everything.”

    I would add one other aspect along with the democratization of data analysis – open data. Inspired by Audrey Watters and even her recent tweet, we are looking for ways to not only explore the open data available to the education community but also to share the data we use in our analyses.

    https://twitter.com/audreywatters/status/426541112527192064

    (more…)