How higher ed is becoming more resilient - Nicole Engelbert, eCampus News

Prioritizing certain steps, such as preparing for an innovative future, will help higher ed survive the curveball from COVID-19. The past year has put the higher education industry to the test. The onset and continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic has required a massive operational shift that many institutions were not prepared for, and schools have had to pivot quickly to make sure that systems and staff alike are as well-prepared as possible to exist in a now predominantly virtual environment. Perhaps the biggest lesson we’ve learned so far is that higher education institutions must increase their resiliency and agility in order to meet evolving staff and student needs.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/06/18/how-higher-ed-is-becoming-more-resilient/

How can I become an anti-racist leader? 7 questions campus leadership should ask themselves - Meacie Fairfax, EAB

College leaders want to do the right thing and combat inequities and discrimination, yet these conversations are hard. So hard that they rarely happen in a meaningful way. It is no longer enough just to commission strategic plans or documents rife with diversity, equity, and inclusion language and hope for the change to happen. Leaders need to dig in, ask tough questions, and talk about the state of race and equity on their campuses.

https://eab.com/insights/blogs/student-success/anti-racist-campus-leadership/

Rising Threat of Ransomware and Other Malware - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

The major threats to operations in higher education in past years were funding shortfalls, natural disasters and dropping enrollments. Now, criminal cyberactivity has risen to a top concern. This is a red-alert crisis for all of us: students, faculty, staff and institutions as a whole. The rising extortion of money from government and business entities should put all of us on guard. Colleges and universities are all the more vulnerable in these uncertain fiscal times. Too often, this is further compounded by a natural inclination to cover up incidents to protect public confidence and institutional reputation. The crisis is not just one for the IT department. It is one that must be met by every student, faculty member, staff member, college and department. We must be vigilant to any potential intrusions and instantly inform our experts -- day or night, weekday or weekend. And we must implement backup systems, prepare for contingencies and create serious restoration plans.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/rising-threat-ransomware-and-other-malware

Combining Online Courses With In-Person Supports, ‘Hybrid Colleges’ Unite - Rebecca Koenig, EdSurge

Calling themselves “hybrid colleges,” these mini campus centers have set big goals for themselves, such as bringing college within reach for people historically left out of higher education. Now, more than a dozen of these nonprofits are strengthening their bonds and committing to shared goals by creating the Hybrid College Network. “The network is incredibly collaborative. They’re proud of the model because it is serving students really well,” says Lauren Trent, CEO of AdvanceEDU in Colorado, which launched in 2020. “There is mutual interest in learning from each other, when the models are different, what is driving student success?”

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-06-14-combining-online-courses-with-in-person-supports-hybrid-colleges-unite

The richest colleges didn’t need to cut their budgets in the pandemic — but they did -Gregory Svirnovskiy, Vox

In part, that may be because the endowment system many schools use to remain solvent brought colleges and universities significant financial rewards amid a rapid rise in stock prices. Those gains followed a major dip in the stock market immediately after the first US Covid-19 outbreaks — and quickly falling prices, in part, led to stark austerity measures. Now, only a year after laying off hundreds of thousands of people, the higher education industry appears to be bouncing back.

https://www.vox.com/22521935/austerity-university-college-covid-19-pandemic-service-workers-labor-unions

6 charts showing the state of college enrollment in spring 2021 - Hallie Busta, HigherEd Dive

The higher education sector didn't get a reprieve from the enrollment losses that defined the fall term, new data shows. Instead, the numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found a few enduring trends. In all, colleges reporting to the Clearinghouse brought in roughly 600,000 fewer students this spring compared to a year ago, a figure that includes graduates and undergraduates. That's more than the 460,000-student decrease between the falls of 2019 and 2020. The pandemic is exacerbating a trend in recent years of fewer men enrolling in postsecondary education. Shorter-term credentials could be one option for this group, the publication noted, though the latest Clearinghouse data shows the steepest declines at community colleges, which offer more such programs. 

https://www.highereddive.com/news/6-charts-showing-the-state-of-college-enrollment-in-spring-2021/601781/

What We Can Do About Biased AI - Jody Glidden, Information Week

In 2014, Amazon wanted to automate its recruiting process. Their solution was to create an AI program that would review job applicants’ resumes and feed the recruiters a score. While this did whittle down the list, by the following year, Amazon had realized there was an issue, as the system was not rating women candidates equally to men. Since the workforce was 60% males, the system incorrectly assumed that the company preferred men. Once the problem was discovered, the company quickly reverted back to the method of reading the resumes.While this illustrates how biases can creep into the systems, how do we go about laying the groundwork of establishing ethical AI systems?

https://beta.informationweek.com/ai-or-machine-learning/what-we-can-do-about-biased-ai

Coursera: The 'Amazon' Of Online Education May Grow By Magnitudes - Harrison Schwartz, Seeking Alpha

Increasing student dissatisfaction and declining enrollment suggest that many people are rethinking traditional methods of higher education. The historical value of universities is becoming defunct as the internet allows a more efficient, less expensive, and more accessible vector of transmitting knowledge. Innovative platforms like Coursera offer students a huge "marketplace" of high-quality courses far less expensive than those in traditional universities. Given Coursera's minimal barriers to growth and its massive total addressable market, I would not be surprised to see its annual revenue rise by 10X or more within years.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4434604-coursera-the-amazon-of-online-education-may-grow-by-magnitudes

Leaders who embrace on-job learning and listen to employees have more resilient teams - Rice University, Science Daily

Leaders who encourage their employees to learn on the job and speak up with ideas and suggestions for change have teams that are more effective and resilient in the face of unexpected situations, according to new research from Rice University and the University of Windsor. The researchers specifically examined the interactions of 48 teams from five Canadian technology startups. "Understanding what organizations can do to help employees become more resilient is the focus our work in my Working Resilience Research Laboratory," King said. "This research project offered an opportunity to uncover the important role of leadership and employee voice in the resilience process."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610173947.htm

Hybrid learning, online credentials will survive edtech 'hype cycle,' edX CEO says - Emily Bamforth, EdScoop

 Hybrid learning will escape the “hype cycle” that built up massive open online courses in past years, Anant Agarwal, chief executive of the online learning platform EdX, said during MIT Technology Review’s annual conference on Tuesday. The pandemic caused major shifts in education that stand up the future of stackable credentials and “micro-courses,” he said. These shorter, often-online courses are now making headlines as part of a new normal in education, similar to the attention that massive open online courses did in 2012, Agarwal said. These shifts include a move toward online, lifelong learning and a shift to blended learning on campus that could further build the relationships between higher education institutions and online course providers like EdX.

https://edscoop.com/anant-agarwal-hybrid-learning-online-credentials-hype-cycle/

Coding bootcamps and 4-year colleges have nearly identical percentage of alumni employed at Big Five - Jonathan Grieg, ZdNet

 Coding bootcamps and 4-year colleges have nearly identical percentage of alumni employed at Big FiveThe study measured the bootcamps against computer science departments at eight colleges, finding that "coding bootcamps offered competitive employment results compared to computer science degrees from top universities, at around 10% of the cost." Most of the bootcamps had lower alumni employment rates at the major tech companies compared to the most prestigious institutions likes University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University, and Cornell University. But average employment at major tech companies was similar for computer science graduates and bootcamp alumni overall, according to the study. Product School, App Academy, and Coding Dojo managed to beat out alumni of the computer science departments at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Georgetown University, and Boston University for jobs at the Big Five.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/coding-bootcamps-and-4-year-colleges-have-nearly-identical-percentage-of-alumni-employed-at-big-five-report/

Lacking Online Programs, Many Colleges Are Rushing to Partner with OPMs. Should They? - Robert Ubell, EdSurge

Recognizing their failure to prepare for a digital future—after a year of so-so emergency remote instruction—higher ed leaders are now trying to make up for lost virtual decades by rushing to partner with online program managers (OPMs), commercial vendors who help colleges deliver and market online programs. Thanks to the pandemic, OPMs now reap the benefits of higher ed’s procrastination. Not until the health crisis forced campuses to close physical classrooms did so many colleges see the cost of their failure to act sooner.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-06-07-lacking-online-programs-many-colleges-are-rushing-to-partner-with-opms-should-they

Educating the deep generalist for tomorrow’s world - Salil Sahadevan, University World News

No one specific skill will be enough in the future. Instead, we need a way of thinking that connects multiple fields, says Vikram Mansharamani of Harvard University. Deep generalists are modern-day polymaths, whose knowledge is deeper than that of generalists and broader than that of specialists. The idea is not to discard specialisation; on the contrary, it is to blend knowledge units from different fields and make each one of us a cross-disciplinary thinker. Most of our educational choices are currently guided by the logic of the past, which favours specialisation. We need to overhaul this and create new tools to address an uncertain future.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210601082354427

WKU to eliminate distance learning fee - Debra Murray, WKU

WKU plans to eliminate its $150-per-hour distance learning fee for online classes, President Timothy Caboni told the Staff Senate this week, saying he supports ending the fee to give students flexibility in how they take classes – even though it will cost the university $4.3 million in revenue. Caboni said the move to eliminate the fee comes after WKU waived it for 2020-21, when the coronavirus pandemic forced many classes into an online mode.

https://wkuherald.com/59349/news/wku-to-eliminate-distance-learning-fee/

How stackable credentials help fast-track students to the workforce - Shannon O'Connor, eCampus News

To serve the goals of these nontraditional students, an increasing number of institutions—and in particular, community and technical colleges—have developed “stackable credentials” as a component of their degree programs, or even as standalone certifications.The U.S. Department of Labor defines stackable credentials as those that are “part of a sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time and move an individual along a career pathway or up a career ladder.” In other words, stackable credentials, which are developed to support industry needs, are building blocks or incremental milestones that assist students in acquiring marketable skills at several points as they work towards degree completion or workplace advancement.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/05/28/how-stackable-credentials-help-fast-track-students-to-the-workforce/

Is the Future of Higher Education a Subscription Model? - JW Marshall interviews Ray Schroeder, MarketScale

Online learning was steadily growing pre-pandemic. Then it reached a considerable acceleration, but universities are taking a new look at their model to continue gaining new students and remaining solvent. The answer could be subscription-based learning. Discussing this topic and more, Voices of eLearning host JW Marshall spoke with Ray Schroeder, Associate Vice-Chancellor, University of Illinois-Springfield, and Senior Fellow, UPCEA (University Professional and Continuing Education Association). Schroeder has been an educator for 50 years and launched the University of Illinois-Springfield online learning program in 1997. After 24 years in higher ed online learning, he reported that of the last graduating class, 98% had taken at least one online course. 

https://marketscale.com/industries/education-technology/is-the-future-of-higher-education-a-subscription-model/

8 key steps to help universities enable upskilling and reskillingv-Vistasp M. Karbhari, eCampus News

Even as institutions of higher education discuss how they might best meet needs of students in the future through traditional degree-based modalities, they face increased pressure to take an active role in the upskilling and reskilling of individuals, both those in the workforce and those attempting to gain skills to either get back in or progress to more stable and higher paying employment. For the purposes of the current discussion, upskilling relates to advanced knowledge/skills needed within a job sector, whereas reskilling relates to a completely different set of knowledge/skills for a different job sector. Key steps that could be taken by universities to specifically address the aspects of reskilling and upskilling the current workforce include those described below.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/06/02/8-key-steps-to-help-universities-enable-upskilling-and-reskilling/

New Horizon Report Forecasts Security and Privacy Trends in Higher Ed - Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

EDUCAUSE recently released its first Information Security Edition of the Horizon Report, profiling important trends, technologies and practices shaping the future of IT security and privacy in higher education. Of course, cybersecurity has been a key concern in higher ed IT for years, topping the EDUCAUSE top 10 IT issues list numerous times. But the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the risks in many ways. As EDUCAUSE President John O'Brien wrote in his introduction to the Horizon Report, "With the dramatic shift to remote work and remote learning in 2020, threats are at an all-time high.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2021/03/23/podcast-new-horizon-report-forecasts-security-and-privacy-trends-in-higher-ed.aspx

Mobile Technology and Home Broadband 2021 - Andrew Perrin, Pew Research

Smartphone ownership (85%) and home broadband subscriptions (77%) have increased among American adults since 2019 – from 81% and 73% respectively. Though modest, both increases are statistically significant and come at a time when a majority of Americans say the internet has been important to them personally. And 91% of adults report having at least one of these technologies.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/06/03/mobile-technology-and-home-broadband-2021/

Towards a new culture of teaching in the digital space - Oksana Chernenko and Veronica Saltykova, University World News

The impact of digitalisation on higher education, strategies for using online tools in teaching and methods of effective communication in an electronic environment are topics that have been studied for at least two decades. Interest in them arose long before the COVID-19 pandemic and the forced total transition to distance learning. During this period, the methodological arsenal of researchers and teachers has accumulated many materials on how to teach students effectively in digital environments. But only in the spring of 2020 did digital education become a reality for all teachers.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210518112537958

The real devil behind rise in academic cheating during pandemic isn't online learning: expert - Devika Desai, National Post

Sarah Eaton, a professor at the University of Calgary, said she has seen increases in cheating from about 40 per cent to over 200 per cent, based on reports published by schools across the country. But, online learning isn’t to blame, she said, having long researched academic misconduct in Canadian post-secondary institutions. “There was about 20 years of research before the pandemic that showed that there was less academic misconduct in online courses compared to face-to-face learning.” Rather, she said, it’s the fact that students were “forced into online learning when they didn’t want to be,” coupled with teachers who are inexperienced and “not well trained in how to deliver their classes in online learning.”

https://nationalpost.com/news/the-real-devil-behind-rise-in-academic-cheating-during-pandemic-isnt-online-learning-expert

“The New Normal Will Be Blended Education,” Says Agarwal at the Annual Open edX Conference - IBL News

“The new normal will be blended education in 2025,” said Anant Agarwal, Founder and CEO at edX during the annual Open edX Conference, which took place in a virtual format yesterday. “50% will be online and 50% in person,” he explained. During the conference’s opening keynote, Mr. Agarwal predicted that the shift will also impact the corporate world. “Remote work and learning are here to stay, and all businesses will go into some kind of blended work model.”

https://iblnews.org/the-new-normal-will-be-blended-education-says-agarwal-at-the-annual-open-edx-conference/

CHLOE 6: Online Learning Leaders Adapt for a Post-Pandemic World - Quality Matters

The 2021 report, authored by Quality Matters and Eduventures® Research, tracks how institutions are reassessing their priorities related to online learning and shifting focus to ed tech enhancements, faculty professional development and online quality. The report was compiled from responses from 422 chief online officers (COO) representing 2- and 4-year colleges and universities. More than half of the survey respondents (57%) across all sectors of higher education, including predominantly in-person institutions, indicated that, going forward, the pandemic experience is leading to a positive reassessment of institutional priorities related to online learning.

https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/resource-center/articles-resources/CHLOE-6-report-2021

Will births in the US rebound? Probably not.- Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip Levine, Brookings Institution

Recently released official U.S. birth data for 2020 showed that births have been falling almost continuously for more than a decade. For every 1,000 women of childbearing age (15 to 44), 55.8 of them gave birth in 2020, compared to 69.5 in 2007, a 20 percent decline. The “total fertility rate,” which is a measure constructed from these data to estimate the average total number of children a woman will ever have, fell from 2.12 in 2007 to 1.64 in 2020. It is now well below 2.1, the value considered to be “replacement fertility,” which is the rate needed for the population to replace itself without immigration.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/24/will-births-in-the-us-rebound-probably-not/

What Gen Z workers want - DAVID MEYER, CEO Daily

People from "Generation Z" (those born after 1995) have very high expectations of their employers' values—a fact that's made clear in new research conducted by marketing agency Lewis for the HeForShe gender-equality movement. Most eye-catchingly, the study shows a paltry 19% of Gen Z workers would join a company that they don't feel shares their values. And two-thirds of the survey's 2,600 respondents from around the world said company values were more important than the firm's leadership. Which values? Gender and racial diversity top the list. Just over two-fifths of the respondents said they would join a company that lacks the requisite diversity, but only if it had a strong diversity, equity and inclusion program in place, to try to improve. The same proportion said CEOs should be judged by their commitment to solving social issues.

https://fortune.com/2021/05/26/what-gen-z-workers-want-ceo-daily/

What College Students Wish Professors Knew About Inclusive Online Teaching - Soulaymane Kachani, Amanda Irvin and Catherine Ross - EdSurge

Inclusive teaching is a foundational element for us at the Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning, and as we worked with thousands of instructors to prepare for online or hybrid courses over the last year, we centered inclusion, diversity, equity, and belonging in all of our programs and resources.While the conversation was not explicitly about inclusive teaching, their reflections kept returning to inclusive pedagogy themes. We have included some of these student responses below to help illuminate three enduring practices we hope instructors and students will carry forward into the future of teaching and learning: helping students address digital inequities; building an inclusive community among learners; and designing course elements for accessibility.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-05-24-what-college-students-wish-professors-knew-about-inclusive-online-teaching

Lessons from a year of pandemic learning - Shannon O'Connor, eCampus News

The survey results report three key insights. First, 80 percent of students surveyed do not feel the learning experience has been worth the cost of tuition. Second, survey respondents have appreciated the flexibility of remote learning and while they are looking forward to a return to the physical classroom, most want to see elements of online learning continue. Third, when it comes to realizing the value of their investment, on-campus experiences and activities are not nearly as significant a factor as the role of instructors in the classroom. The Top Hat Field Report: 3,052 College Students on the Good, the Bad and Learning Post-COVID survey was conducted by Top Hat, an active learning courseware platform for higher education. The report provides insights to help institutions and educators create the right conditions for more students to receive and perceive meaningful value from their college investment as they plan ahead for fall 2021.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/05/19/lessons-from-a-year-of-pandemic-learning/

The Newest Economy: Welcome to the Credential Currency Revolution - National Laboratory for Education Transformation via Workforce Monitor

In the “newest economy,” ones education, knowledge, skills and experiences are defined as authenticated forms of currency that are shared in a marketplace of buyers (employers) and sellers (individuals). This marketplace currently exists but is disconnected, inequitable, and not transparent. It does not have a central hub that could reveal such forms of currency within “a more organized, decentralized technology and data leveraged ecosystem. . .” In a Harvard Business Review essay published in 1992, Peter Drucker popularized the term “knowledge economy” (fist coined in the mid-1960s). Drucker prognosticated how Western society would encounter a transformational rearrangement, resulting in an unimaginable new world that would take hold in 50 years. That new world arrived about 20 years earlier than predicted, as today the knowledge economy exists over the Internet.

https://wfmonitor.com/2021/05/12/the-newest-economy-welcome-to-the-credential-currency-revolution/

Networking Gets Graduates and Certificate Completers Hired - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

There is an appropriate emphasis on relevant knowledge and skill development for degree and certificate students -- that's what gets employees retained and promoted. Professional contacts and networking are often what get them hired. It was Jerod Kintz who wrote, “It’s not who you know that matters -- it’s who knows you that’s important. Personal branding builds up your reputation to the point where you have a presence even in your absence.” We may do an excellent job of educating and training our students, but if they don’t successfully make contacts, their careers may never reach their real potential. Read more for strategies to do just that.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/networking-gets-graduates-and-certificate-completers

Go compare – The emerging threat to higher education - Louise Nicol and Alan Preece, University World News

Commodification is increasingly likely to be a word that universities need to recognise, understand and apply to their business planning as technology levels the playing field for international student recruitment. Investopedia tells us that it means ‘a basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other goods of the same type’. When you put it alongside Clayton Christensen’s ‘jobs to be done’ and the growing availability of university comparison or application sites, it’s easy to see emerging comparisons with the marketplace for car insurance. The point about the ‘jobs to be done’ approach is that it highlights that the purpose of buying a particular good or service is to ‘make progress in specific circumstances’. For most international students (and increasingly home students) the purpose of getting a degree is to get a job and to have decent career prospects.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210517102802250

Stacks on: Get the max from micro-credentials - Anna Patty, Sydney Morning Herald

The federal Australian budget included $26.1 million for 5000 short-course places for domestic students at non-university higher education providers. The funding aims to help private providers, struggling with the loss of international student enrolments, to change their business models and serve more domestic students. A spokesman for the federal Department of Education said the short courses were undergraduate certificates or graduate certificates, regulated under the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). The short courses are a type of micro-credential. The short course is a credit-bearing micro-credential, meaning that it can be used to ‘stack’ into a full qualification at a later time.”

https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/shift-to-short-courses-and-online-learning-to-expand-careers-20210322-p57cvl.html