It is with this moment in mind that we have developed this shared vision of education system transformation. Collectively we offer insights on transformation from the perspective of a global think tank and a national government: the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings brings years of global research on education change and transformation, and the Ministry of Education of Sierra Leone brings on-the-ground lessons from designing and implementing system-wide educational rebuilding. This brief is for any education leader or stakeholder who is interested in charting a transformation journey in their country or education jurisdiction such as a state or district. It is also for civil society organizations, funders, researchers, and anyone interested in the topic of national development through education.
Friday, September 30, 2022
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Tips for Engaging a Remote Workforce - Rhea Kelly, Campus Technolgy
As flexible work policies become the norm, institutions must rethink their approach to employee engagement and workforce culture. Here's how Southern New Hampshire University is building a remote-first workplace centered on the employee experience. But ultimately, our North Star is meeting the needs of our learners, who are experiencing all of the same obstacles that we are experiencing. So from an empathy perspective, we're in a great position. And the good news for us is, we're used to moving quickly.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
The Future of the Web: The good, the bad and the very weird - Steve Ranger, ZD Net
\Concepts like Web3 promise a decentralised vision of the internet whereby the power of the big tech companies is broken. Web3 would use blockchain technologies to effectively create digital assets which you are then able to exchange or trade as you see fit. Of course, the reputation of NFTs, blockchain, Bitcoin and much of the De-Fi world has taken a hammering recently, being widely viewed more as a source of dismal get-rich-quick schemes and projects with major security flaws than the future of the internet. However, it's clear that beyond this messy current situation lies the potential for significant disruption. Virtual reality and augmented reality could allow the digital world to become visible around us -- overlaying everyday reality with fantastic creatures or simply serving up reminders of useful information (what was his name again?).
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Gates Foundation pours $100M into college transformation effort - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will spend $100 million over five years to fund a group of nonprofit organizations working to help colleges “transform themselves” in the face of falling enrollment, increasing demands for educated workers and declining public confidence in higher education, it said Thursday. That means overhauling colleges’ business models, structures and cultures to boost student outcomes, which can be measured by metrics like graduation rates and successful transfers from community colleges to four-year institutions. The foundation also wants the effort to help institutions address stubborn equity gaps so race, ethnicity, family income and other demographics don’t predict whether a student is likely to graduate from college.
Monday, September 26, 2022
House Democrats introduce bill to double Pell Grant, rework federal loan system - Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Higher Ed Dive
Two prominent House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday that would double the maximum Pell Grant award and substantially rework the federal student loan system, including changes to the troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The Lowering Obstacles to Achievement Now, or LOAN, Act, would also make certain unauthorized immigrant students eligible for federal financial aid, and it would attempt to lower interest rates on student loans so they would not exceed 5%.
Sunday, September 25, 2022
Students Graduating with Critical Thinking Deficiencies - Peggy Bresnick, Fierce Education
A new report from The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries that aims to stimulate economic progress and world trade, Does Higher Education Teach Students to Think Critically?, found that there is a growing gap between the qualifications students acquire at colleges or universities around the world and essential 21st-century skills. These include literacy and critical thinking skills that include problem solving, analytic reasoning and communications competencies.
Saturday, September 24, 2022
New study on financial management in higher ed shows that budgeting flexibility is the key to security - Strategic Management Society, Phys.org
A new study from the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ) finds that the universities thriving in this environment are doing more with less simply by adopting more flexible budgeting. The problem is, many universities face internal and external pressures that inhibit financial flexibility. "Universities that reallocate resources more regularly are more likely to run larger budget surpluses," says Sohvi Heaton, a visiting assistant professor at Santa Clara University. "However, this is far more likely to be true at universities where external governance arrangements allow greater executive discretion."
Friday, September 23, 2022
To Improve Outcomes for Students, We Must Improve Support for Faculty - David Wiley, Campus Technology
The doctoral programs that prepare faculty for their positions often fail to train them on effective teaching practices. We owe it to our students to provide faculty with the professional development they need to help learners realize their full potential.
Thursday, September 22, 2022
FBI, CISA Ransomware Alert Warns of Vice Society Targeting Education Orgs - Kristal Kuykendall, Campus Technology
A joint Cybersecurity Advisory released by the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center warns that Vice Society threat actors are disproportionately targeting the education sector as recently as this month. Such so-called #StopRansomware advisories describe observed tactics, techniques, and procedures as well as indicators of compromise to help organizations protect themselves against the newest ransomware threats. "The FBI, CISA, and the MS-ISAC anticipate attacks may increase as the 2022/2023 school year begins and criminal ransomware groups perceive opportunities for successful attacks," the advisory states.
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Imagine We Are Starting a University Now - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
In so very many ways, we in higher education have fallen behind business, industry, governments and society as a whole. We are offering programs and products that may have been relevant 50 or a hundred years ago but are not in touch with the society of the fourth industrial revolution. Imagine for a moment that we are creating a university anew in 2022. What would we change? What would we retain? How would it differ from what students, faculty and staff currently experience? Within some broad topical areas, here are starting points for the discussion.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Online learning is no longer novel—how can you stay ahead of the curve? - Andrea Maconachy, eCampus News
Will student enrollment continue to drop? Are microcredentials becoming more popular than degree programs? Is a recession on the way–and if so, how might it affect college attendance? Higher education faces a sea of questions about enrollment trends and how they might play out in the near future. But one thing is certain: Online education is here to stay. Just take a look at MBA programs, which last year saw online enrollment surpass residential enrollment for the first time ever.
Monday, September 19, 2022
9 Ways To Improve College Grad Work Readiness - Brandon Busteed, Forbes
Doubts about the work readiness of college graduates run rampant in the U.S. Mixed in with rising college costs and growing college alternatives, these work readiness doubts have created a new generation of college shopper among prospective students and parents: the ROI generation. The ROI (return on investment) generation is asking tough questions of colleges and universities about career outcomes and they are prompting many higher ed leaders to create intentional and scalable initiatives to improve career readiness and outcomes for students. Here are nine immediate steps university leaders can take - see link below.
Sunday, September 18, 2022
How Emotion AI will change the online learning landscape - Vishal Soni, Times of India
With the development of technology, it has become evident that comprehension of both the cognitive and affective channels of human connection is crucial. Emotion recognition is a branch of affective computing that seeks to do this. Understanding someone’s feelings requires being able to recognise, sort through, and interpret verbal and nonverbal cues. With the upcoming mainstream adoption of emotional AI, tech giants and startups across a variety of industries—including automotive, retail, edtech—have invested in making their technology more human using computer vision and speech recognition. Moreover, Gartner predicts that 10% of individual gadgets will have emotional AI capabilities in two years.
Saturday, September 17, 2022
Students Vote for Remote (Employees) - Melissa Ezarik, Inside Higher Ed
When making decisions about whether employees’ jobs could be done remotely or under a hybrid arrangement, college and university officials may not realize that most students don’t expect or feel they need in-person staff. Although many campus departments managed to function fully remotely during the unprecedented medical emergency in spring 2020, “now we’re mainly sort of in this post-COVID period,” Stephens says. An estimated 60 to 70 percent of his unit’s employees are hybrid or fully remote now; “pre-COVID, that was zero. We didn’t even think about it.”
Friday, September 16, 2022
4 Things Good Leaders Do When Facing Obstacles That Bad Leaders Don't - Marcel Schwantes, Inc.
Effective leaders put aside their expertise to get the best out of colleagues. They heighten the collective genius of those in their organizations. Ineffective leaders, on the other hand, flex their expertise in the moment. They feel good about their decisions, while their colleagues feel isolated, unheard, and undervalued. To understand the tactics of effective leaders in high-functioning organizations during difficult times, I caught up with Dr. Richard Winters, author of You're the Leader. Now What?: Leadership Lessons from Mayo Clinic.
Thursday, September 15, 2022
The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors - Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post
Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly. Nearly half of humanities and arts majors have studier’s remorse as of 2021. Engineering majors have the fewest regrets: Just 24 percent wish they’d chosen something different, according to a Federal Reserve survey. As a rule, those who studied STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — are much more likely to believe they made the right choice, while those in social sciences or vocational courses second-guess themselves.
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
8 big questions as colleges start fall 2022 - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
Will higher ed’s financial picture clear? Can campuses innovate? Is a new generation of presidents ready to rise to the moment? All summer, we’ve been monitoring developments affecting the sector and asking higher ed leaders what’s on their minds. We condensed their thoughts into eight big questions for the fall.
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Degree vs. Experience: How important are degrees to employers? - Preston Wickersham, Remote
Many career and job opportunities which were formerly reserved for university graduates are now accessible to people without degrees, reshaping the job market and ushering in new attitudes around the value of a degree. Making hiring decisions based on experience, attitude, and value-match rather than focusing on specific academic achievements advances equality and opens up the playing field for talented individuals from a range of different backgrounds.
Monday, September 12, 2022
The Stories Behind Service Matter - Holly Zanville, Evolllution
The United States needs a postsecondary system that captures and validates uncounted learning to enable all individuals to earn recognition for what they know and can do. Credential As You Go is working toward that vision, embarking on a movement to inform and facilitate the development and adoption of a nationally recognized incremental credentialing system to improve education and employment outcomes for all learners. Such a system will build on efforts to create greater transparency of credentials across education and industry, while integrating industry credentials and prior learning into our degree system.
Sunday, September 11, 2022
No Paywall for Taxpayer-Funded Research, U.S. Declares - Susan D'Agostino and Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
White House mandates free, immediate public access to government-funded research. Many open-access advocates celebrate the decision, but some scholars wonder who will fund the policy. Any research based on federally funded studies must be made freely available to the public without an embargo under a policy announced Thursday by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The new requirement, which is due to take effect by the end of 2025, updates an existing policy that allowed a 12-month embargo for making research freely available.
Saturday, September 10, 2022
An AI Model Named BLOOM, Larger than OpenAI’s GPT-3 and MetaAI’s OPT, Will Be Open Sourced - IBL News
A large language model (LLM) named BLOOM will be available for free as open source software. These models are used to write essays, generate code, and translate languages. Its openness can democratize access to AI technologies, making a deep impact on society, according to experts talking at TheNextWeb.com. It’d free AI from big tech labs that have spent millions of dollars developing systems such as LaMDA (Google) and GPT-3 (OpenAI).
Friday, September 9, 2022
College Suicide Rates and Statistics - Jackie Burrell, Very Well Mind
]** Information presented in this article may be triggering to some people. If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.**
According to the American College Health Association (ACHA), the suicide rate among young adults ages 15–24 has tripled since the 1950s. Suicide is currently the second most common cause of death among college students.
https://www.verywellmind.com/college-and-teen-suicide-statistics-3570768
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Serving and Leading Through Controversy, Calamity and Chaos - Tonya Amankwatia, Evolllution
Academic journals, webinar titles and popular media headlines over the last few years have commonly highlighted leaders who offer solutions to prevalent higher education challenges. I have been especially tuned into higher education leader and faculty perspectives about challenges activated by demographic, societal, economic and political shifts. As I observe controversy and catastrophe, I recognize the leadership opportunity for those who provide nontraditional educational offerings to adult learners. How might our extended and professional education units add value?
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Longevity Declining Among Campus Employees: What’s to Lose? - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
More than half of college employees say they’re likely to leave their jobs in the next year, a new survey finds. The most common reasons: prospect of higher pay, an opportunity to work remotely and more flexible work hours. Increasingly, many universities are engaged in developing and offering alternative credentials aimed at those in the workforce seeking to enter a new field or move up the ladder into leadership positions. We, in higher ed, should be first in line to take advantage of these programs to upgrade knowledge, skills and abilities for our own employees. In short, we may be able to retain the institutional history, culture and connections of employees while at the same time giving them the changes they are seeking.
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Virtual learning brings ‘quality education’ a step closer - Heidi M Soneson, University World News
The United Nations challenges educational institutions across the globe to engage in addressing the world’s greatest needs as outlined in its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, the UN warns that “entrenched inequities in education have only worsened during the [COVID-19] pandemic”. Their Sustainable Development Goal 4, ‘Quality education’, states the desired goal clearly: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Through the exponential growth of virtual internships, online degree and training programmes, collaborative classroom learning and virtual curricular units to enhance course syllabi, the world of global learning is available to an expanded domestic audience in ways never realised previously and, by extension, to students around the world.
Monday, September 5, 2022
Inside the Booming World Where Students Buy Custom Term Papers - Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge
It’s easier than ever to hire someone to write your school or college paper for you. That’s thanks to a booming group of companies known as the “contract cheating industry.” Many paper-writing companies try to project an air of legitimacy, with offerings like responsive customer service that let users chat right away with a live person to ask about things like prices. And those prices are pretty consistent—about $10 to $12 per page if you allow the companies a week or more to write your paper. That’s an average of $182 per paper, which in the scheme of college costs, may not seem like that much to a student.
Sunday, September 4, 2022
More than half of higher-ed employees feel their voice isn’t heard - Laura Ascione, eCampus News
More than half (59 percent) of higher education faculty and staff feel their voice is not heard at work, according to a survey of more than 550 employees at higher education institutions about topics ranging from compensation and benefits to stress and campus leadership. The findings are part of Grant Thornton’s second State of Work in America survey, which polled more than 5,000 employees from a cross-section of industries, and they arrive amid ongoing retention concerns in higher education. According to the survey, benefits packages–once seen as a key employment draw for higher education institutions–may be losing some of their appeal.
Saturday, September 3, 2022
Five Thoughts on the Next Five Years: Where Higher Ed is Headed - Vickie Cook, Evolllution
The last few years have shaken higher ed, but more disruption looms ahead. And securing their success through it requires institutions to remain flexible and adaptable. The last few years have shaken higher ed, but more disruption looms ahead. And securing their success through it requires institutions to remain flexible and adaptable. As we move into the fall 2022 academic year, it has become apparent that a few significant trends will have a big impact on higher education. The first and perhaps most significant of those impacts will focus on people. We continue to see human resource shortages across higher education. Faculty, staff and administrators are finding other professional outlets and retiring at rates faster than that at which institutions are able to acquire new talent.
Friday, September 2, 2022
How AIaaS (AI-as-a-service) can help democratize AI - Sri Krishna, Venturebeat
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, there is a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. According to IBM, the global AI adoption rate went up by 4 percentage points in 2022, reaching nearly 35%. However, the study also found that the gap in AI adoption between larger and smaller companies also grew significantly in the past year. AI projects generally take months to develop and mature, bringing a long gestation period and significant expenses. That’s where AI-as-a-service (AIaaS) comes in: It was born out of a desire to democratize AI for all while addressing the growing demand for AI, cognitive computing and large-scale adoption of cloud-based solutions.
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Future of Higher Education: Fully Shift to Hybrid Model by 2025 - Susan Fourtané, Fierce Education
During the survey, COOs were asked to project the prevailing modes of learning at their institutions toward the year 2025. Most respondents predict that the majority of students at all levels will be “combining on-ground and online experiences through a variety of blended and hybrid formats at both the course and program level.” Having the right infrastructure, staff, and resources to support online learning are paramount as well as counting with the policies, training, services, and quality assurance measures in place or under development to assure faculty competency and student success in the hybrid environment.
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