The United States Department of Education has launched the Future Finder Challenge, calling for strategists, developers, user-centered designers, and educators to build digital tools that better support adult learners in their journey from education to the workforce. The multi-stage challenge is offering a prize pool of $1 million: $50,000 each for up to five finalists; $500,000 for one grand-prize winner; and $250,000 shared between up to two runners-up.
Monday, October 31, 2022
Sunday, October 30, 2022
How do colleges decide when to schedule courses? - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
Two-thirds of colleges are thinking about the courses students will need to complete their degrees on time when they build their schedules, according to a survey released Tuesday by Ad Astra, a scheduling software and analytics provider. Meanwhile, 51% said they considered when they could offer courses to help students avoid conflicts in their schedules, and 30% looked at balancing in-person, online and hybrid courses.
Saturday, October 29, 2022
Continuing Ed Is the Nimble, Revenue-Focused Department the Institution Can Rely On - Deborah Keyek-Franssen, Evolllution
Among external forces impinging on postsecondary institutions are a tumultuous labor market, highlighted by The Great Resignation, and the constant acceleration of technological advances that create new jobs and fields, putting pressure on institutions to constantly evolve credential and even degree offerings. Continuing and professional education units have long understood these issues, responding by being nimble, revenue-focused and workforce-aligned. The characteristics of our current environment and postsecondary ecosystem point to the need for Continuing Education and professional education units to scale and adapt their offerings, in the process maturing, making more efficient and perhaps even growing their units to meet the unprecedented demands we now face.
Friday, October 28, 2022
Updated Magna Charta Universitatum marks shift in universities’ thinking - Brendan O’Malley, University World News
The signing was witnessed by more than 150 presidents and rectors of universities globally and brought the total number of Magna Charta signatories to 965 universities worldwide. As the first universities to sign the 2020 version in person – due to previous meetings being postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic – the ceremony had additional symbolic value as the first public event to mark an important shift in universities’ thinking about why they exist. A road map was agreed upon by all participants, a “living document, nourished by research and wide consultation”, Giannini said. It sets out six critical transitions to imagining higher education for a more sustainable and equitable future.
Thursday, October 27, 2022
In Just 2 Sentences, Bill Gates Taught a Great Leadership Lesson to Every Manager - MARCEL SCHWANTES, INC
What most people forget is that this shift was already taking place before Covid-19 changed our lives forever. Bill Gates knew this decades ago when he predicted what we now see as commonplace in most hybrid and remote work environments. The Microsoft co-founder said:
The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge in this area.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Technology’s Role in Revitalizing Higher Education - Vistasp M. Karbhari, Fierce Education
The need for sustaining high quality education through the COVID-19 pandemic not only accelerated the use, and acceptance, of online/digital modalities, but also fast-tracked the development and implementation of a range of technologies, enabling new opportunities for institutions of higher education to enhance the quality of education, focusing on equity of opportunity and access for all learners, while also offering new mechanisms for greater engagement between those with knowledge and those seeking it (learners), and for bringing the world (and through it critical experiences) into the classroom.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Your Broken Back-End is Killing Your Staff - Modern Campus
Continuing Education staff are doing far too much work these days. Actions that should require one click require 20. Processes that should be automated aren’t. Data that should be easily accessible isn’t. Systems that should work… don’t. Non-traditional divisions are hailed as hubs of ingenuity and innovation. But their capacity to innovate is hampered by inefficiency. After all, when staff are picking up the slack for outdated processes and software, their energy goes less towards innovation and more toward doing work that could be done instantly by a computer. Inefficiencies of this magnitude don’t just negatively affect the student experience. They’re also the death knell for staff satisfaction and retention.
Monday, October 24, 2022
Can the U.S. Embrace a Four Day Work Week? - Angie Basiouny, Knowledge at Wharton
When Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell first came to the United States from England in the 1990s, he was struck by the dogged American work ethic. “It was a culture that was much more organized around work than in the U.K.... More than 3,300 employees across 70 companies in the U.K. are participating in a pilot program to work four days a week in exchange for the same productivity and pay. Launched in June, the six-month experiment led by the nonprofit 4 Day Week Global relies on previous research that finds employees are happier, healthier, and more efficient with reduced working hours.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-the-u-s-embrace-a-four-day-workweek/
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Are OPMs meeting college officials’ expectations? - Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive
A survey of chief online learning officers indicates that online program management companies, or OPMs, aren’t meeting their expectations for marketing and recruitment, even though these are the services the college officials said they needed most. That’s according to a new report from the University of Louisville and the University Professional and Continuing Education Association, or UPCEA. The report also found the top reason chief online learning officers work with OPMs is to respond to increased competition in the online education marketplace.
Saturday, October 22, 2022
5 Challenges of Navigating a Lifetime Alt-Ac Career - Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed
Alt-acs are traditionally trained academics working outside of traditional faculty career paths. The trajectory of an alternative academic is not the tenure track. Instead of the assistant/associate/full path, alt-acs are on a non-linear and often less-traveled career journey. How does a PhD navigate a decades-long academic career lacking the established milestones of the tenure track? As the status of an alternative academic has only been relatively recently recognized within higher ed, I'm not sure we have enough examples of decades-long alt-ac careers serving as models for the rest of us.
Friday, October 21, 2022
One-third of meetings are unnecessary, costing companies millions (and no one is happy about it) - Otter
Otter.ai, the world’s leading meeting transcription and collaboration tool, in partnership with the University of North Carolina Chancellor’s professor and award-winning author, Dr. Steven Rogelberg, released new findings on the cost of unnecessary meetings and its impact on organizations and their employees. The report found that almost a third of meetings are unnecessary and organizations waste millions of dollars on them. The findings put a spotlight on the amount of strain unnecessary and wasted meeting attendance places on companies’ financials and their employees, including: Companies pay an average of $80K per professional employee to attend meetings each year and $25K (31%) is to attend meetings deemed “unnecessary.” [I don't think we do any better in higher ed! - ed.]
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Despite Hopes for a Rebound, Enrollment Falls Again - Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed
Overall enrollment fell by 1.1 percent, closer to pre-pandemic levels than the more drastic declines that shocked leaders over the past two years. The rate of decline has decreased by almost a third since fall 2020. But Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director, said that while a slower descent is welcome, this semester’s numbers are no cause for celebration. Some new trends emerged as well. More traditional-age college students were enrolled in online programs this fall, a trend that Shapiro said seems like “a natural outcome” of the normalization of online learning during the pandemic.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Breaking Down Barriers to Internships - Melissa Ezarik and Daisy Gonzales, Inside Higher Ed
A Student Voice survey of 2,116 students, conducted in mid-August by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse with support from Kaplan showed the majority of student interns surveyed did earn pay, and in some cases also college credit, for their most recent internship. That was a lot less likely to happen for community college students, 42 percent of whom were paid or received money and credit. That’s compared to 71 percent of students at four-year institutions who participated in internships. Some respondents did note the benefits of virtual and hybrid-format internships in landing an opportunity. “It has certainly made it easier!” wrote a student at a California community college.
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Innovation in the classroom - Marisa Demers, MIT Open Learning
Designing and refining curricula and courses can be a solitary endeavor, but Residential Education doesn’t want it to be that way. A trio of pedagogical specialists — a learning engineer, data scientist, and learning scientist — take deep dives into peer-reviewed research and data analysis to offer recommendations to instructors. Aaron Kessler, assistant director of learning sciences and teaching, says the Residential Education group works on a wide range of issues, including transitioning a course from in-person to online to back to in-person again. He also has assisted instructors as they implement new instructional technologies and make challenging concepts easier for students to understand.
Monday, October 17, 2022
As cybersecurity threat rages, colleges invest in risk prevention and pay higher insurance premiums - Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
Warnings about cyberattacks targeting colleges come from all sides. Corporate experts suggest ways to stave off breaches. Companies publish research about the sector’s lack of readiness. The FBI has flagged university login credentials being for sale online. Only 13% of institutions with cyber insurance in S&P’s portfolio reported a data breach because of a cyberattack. Cyber insurance policies are getting more expensive for the higher ed sector. Policy renewals are typically increasing prices by between 40% and 60%, with some premium increases hitting the triple digits, S&P said.
Sunday, October 16, 2022
Struggling small colleges are joining the ’sharing economy’ — teaming up to share courses and majors - Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report
The approach is a response by some small colleges to a worsening enrollment crisis, mounting competition from educational providers that focus mainly on job skills, and increasing skepticism among consumers that an investment in a higher education will pay off. The technologies that took a huge leap forward during the pandemic — most notably, the delivery of education online — course sharing generally teams up universities and colleges that have extra space in online classes with partner institutions that want to add new programs but can’t afford the time or money to develop them alone.
Saturday, October 15, 2022
The Role Artificial Intelligence Will Play in Continuing Education - Daniel Piedra, Evolllution
Handheld devices or laptops are pretty much feeding us all sorts of information that are all AI driven. I think that will become part of all that we do in education. I can see it expanding into learning platforms that’ll continue to get better. AI will make learning management systems and similar tools that we use, drive content and make recommended next steps for learning to really make that learning journey more personal, which I think is great because that is what students want, particularly in the world of continuing education and contract training. It is very much about the individual and tailoring the needs to them. AI makes this a more certain reality.
Friday, October 14, 2022
Faculty advisory boards – A valuable link to the workplace - Nita Temmerman, University World News
Advisory boards facilitate active external engagement between academics and expert representatives in the professions, business and-or industry. Advisory boards can be established at the university level and-or at the faculty or school level. At the university level such a board usually advises the president of the university on aspects of broad institution-wide strategic positioning, but my focus is on faculty or school boards which advise the dean or head about strategic issues relevant to programme offerings and activities.
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Who’s in Charge: Why Higher Ed Culture Demands a Certain Type of Leader - Kathy Sandeen, Illumination Modern Campus
The state of education is evolving, and although the four-year degree is not going anywhere, there has to be a focus on non-traditional pathways. Higher ed leaders need to lead through influence. In continuing education especially, there is no power, Sandeen says. Continuing ed leaders are not at the top of the hierarchy, so they need to lead with data-proven techniques, persuasive arguments and strong arguments. Each of those skills is also key for running the entirety of university, making CE leaders exceptionally strong candidates to become university presidents, chancellors and deans.
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Survey: IT Pros Remain Conflicted Over AI's Potential, Peril - Neil McAllister, PC Mag
Companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to automate and optimize business functions. But according to recent research, the IT professionals who will be asked to implement the technology have decidedly mixed feelings about it, ranging from optimism to outright dread (and sometimes both at the same time). On the positive side, many IT pros see AI as a beneficial technology that can help advance their careers. Fully 74% of survey respondents agreed with the statement, "AI will automate tasks and enable more time to focus on strategic IT initiatives." The prompt, "AI will create major data privacy issues" drew agreement from 55% of respondents.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
EDITORIAL: Online learning remains paramount component of education after pandemic - Daily Targum
Now that we have returned to mostly in-person learning, it has become evident that online learning was not as terrible as we had originally thought. Its flexibility empowered students to pursue their interests, focus on internships and manage jobs. Certainly, an in-person learning environment is conducive to a range of other experiences that we think of when we decide to go to college, but there is something about the virtual landscape that should be taken seriously as future discussions about technology and the digital age in pedagogy happen.
Monday, October 10, 2022
Long COVID Could Cost the Economy Trillions, Experts Predict - Solarina Ho, Medscape
"There's a lot we need to do to understand what it takes to enable disabled people to participate more in the economy," says Katie Bach, a senior fellow with Brookings Institution and the author of a study looking into long COVID's impact on the labor market. Data from June 2022 from the CDC shows that of the 40% of American adults who contracted COVID-19, nearly 1 in 5 still have long COVID symptoms. That works out to 1 in 13, or 7.5%, of the overall U.S. adult population. [ed note: What is our role to prepare this population to contribute while accommodating their lingering conditions?]
Sunday, October 9, 2022
Digital Transformation in Higher Education: 7 Areas for Enhancing Digital Learning - Florence Martin and Kui Xie, EDUCAUSE
Higher education is in the era of digital transformation (Dx). Learning technologies and digital platforms are no longer an afterthought; they are critical for teaching and learning. The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for Dx, forcing colleges, universities, instructors, and students to shift online rapidly. Some instructors and students were prepared for the shift; those who were unprepared had to catch up quickly.Footnote1 This article reflects on current practices and directions for Dx through a framework that supports the strategic responses and structural changes that higher education institutions could implement to enhance digital teaching and learning.
Saturday, October 8, 2022
Preventing Burnout: The Demand-Control-Support Model - Adam Grant, Knowledge at Wharton
Burnout is not a problem in your head; it’s a problem in your circumstances. Stress may be inevitable, but burnout can be prevented and reduced — even in high-pressure jobs. It requires structural and cultural change, and my favorite model is demand-control-support.
Friday, October 7, 2022
The Public’s Growing Doubts About College ‘Value’ - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
Americans aren’t questioning the importance of higher education, but they’re concerned it is unaffordable and unavailable for too many people. Experts dig into the data. After decades of almost unquestioned public support as some of America’s most valued institutions, colleges and universities are facing growing questions—not about whether higher education remains important but whether it’s available, affordable and valuable enough. An episode of Inside Higher Ed’s The Key podcast recently explored the public’s evolving attitudes toward higher education, part of a three-part series on the concept of “value” in higher education, made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Thursday, October 6, 2022
This Vote Could Change the Course of Internet History - Justin Ling, Wired
UN countries are preparing to pick a new head of the International Telecommunications Union. Who wins could shape the open web's future. According to their election platforms, Bogdan-Martin and Ismailov signal the same core objective: connecting every person in the world to the internet and cellphone service by 2030. The two candidates, however, represent fundamentally different visions for the future of the internet. Bodgan-Martin’s campaign has focused on her track record of navigating the complex machinery of the United Nations body. Ismailov, meanwhile, has promised a “humanization” of telecommunications infrastructure—and has invoked his candidacy as a way to reject American “dominance” online.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
How administrators can give campus staff what they need - Steven M. Baule, eCampus News
Time is the most important thing for administrators to give to their faculty and staff. Beyond time itself, administrators need to show sincere appreciation for those who work for them. Being visible and accessible are two simple ways to show appreciation. Most people will work harder for those who are viewed as appreciative. We all know administrators have packed schedules, but helping their schedule by empowering people and hearing their stories and daily experiences will improve both their leadership and potentially the span of their impact.
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Bridge Between Worlds: How Continuing Ed Connects the Classroom and The Working World - Brad Mahon, Illumination by Modern Campus
If continuing education is anything, it’s versatile. Its adaptability is its strength and what is so appealing to so many students. The flexibility learners have is why these units are so successful. On this week’s episode, host Amrit Ahluwalia is joined by Brad Mahon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Great Plans College. They discuss how Continuing Education leaders are shaped by meeting learner needs and what leaders of other departments can learn from CE.
Monday, October 3, 2022
Battered Florida Colleges Regroup in Ian’s Wake - Liam Knox, Inside Higher Ed
Colleges and universities in southwestern and central Florida are assessing damage and evaluating reopening plans in the wake of Hurricane Ian. Some colleges that prepared for severe conditions, including the University of Tampa and the University of South Florida, emerged from the storm with minimal damage and were able to reopen residence halls by Friday morning. Others were hit harder. UCF, which initially canceled classes through Friday, extended its suspension of normal operations to Tuesday due to the damage.
Sunday, October 2, 2022
4 signs you’re ready for higher-ed career advancement - Cheryl Hyatt, eCampus News
Career growth often happens organically, but it does not occur automatically. Natural junctures for change happen, but it is up to you to recognize and capitalize on them. If you have leadership ambitions, you must pair thoughtful reflection with strategic action. I’ve seen individuals stagnate by staying put in a role too long. Others pivot at the wrong time, moving capriciously from one position to the next. How can you tell when it’s time to pursue additional opportunities? I have found that there are four characteristics that reflect aptitude for advancement.
Saturday, October 1, 2022
Remote Leaders: How Continuing Education Paved the Way for Online Learning - Nancy Coleman and David Cillay, Illumination Modern Campus
Continuing education was the driver behind the shift to online learning in March 2020 for so many institutions. What could’ve been a nightmarish scenario for administrators, flocking to find the best way to reach thousands of students remotely, needed only to turn to their CE units. On this episode of the Illumination podcast, host Amrit Ahluwalia is joined by Nancy Coleman, Dean of the Division of Continuing Education and Extension at Harvard University, and Dave Cillay, Vice President for Academic Outreach & Innovation and Chancellor of Global Campus at Washington State University. They discuss the transforming professional, continuing and online education (PCO) space, and reflect on lasting impact of the role these units played in helping their institutions adapt to the pandemic.
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