The way organizations manage their most important assets—their people—is ready for a fundamental transformation. New technologies, hybrid working practices, multigenerational workforces, heightened geopolitical risks, and other major disruptions are prompting leaders to rethink their methods for attracting, developing, and retaining employees. In the past year alone, for instance, we have seen more and more companies adopt, innovate, and invest in technology—particularly in gen AI—in ways that have spurred more changes to people operations than we have observed in the past decade.
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
‘Self-inflicted wound’: Widespread alarm as Trump administration slashes NIH funding - Ben Unglesbee, Higher Ed Dive
A coalition of 22 attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday seeking to block the National Institutes of Health’s newly announced research funding cuts. NIH announced Friday it would cut roughly $4 billion a year worth of funding for indirect research costs such as administration and facilities — by capping reimbursement for these expenses at 15% for current and new grants. Research institutions have previously negotiated individual indirect cost rates, with an average of 27% to 28%, NIH said. Organizations, universities and researchers quickly raised alarms about the cuts, warning they could hurt important medical research and the economy.
Monday, February 17, 2025
Does OpenAI's Deep Research signal the end of human-only scholarship? - Andrew Maynard, The Future of Being Human
This past Sunday, OpenAI launched Deep Research — an extension of its growing platform of AI tools, and one which the company claims is an “agent that can do work for you independently … at the level of a research analyst.” I got access to the new tool first thing yesterday morning, and immediately put it to work on a project I’ve been meaning to explore for some time: writing a comprehensive framing paper on navigating advanced technology transitions. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but I didn’t anticipate being impressed as much as I was. I’m well aware of the debates and discussions around whether current advances in AI are substantial, or merely smoke and mirrors hype. But even given the questions and limitations here, I find myself beginning to question the value of human-only scholarship in the emerging age of AI. And my experiences with Deep Research have only enhanced this.
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Interns Impacted by Hiring Freeze Left ‘In Limbo’ - Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed
The hiring freeze appears to have forced federal agencies to cancel numerous internships; most prominently, thousands of legal internships and entry-level positions within the Department of Justice and beyond have been impacted, according to reports on social media and in news outlet like Reuters and Law360. “We’ve most definitely seen impacts of the federal hiring freeze and subsequent actions related to college recruiting and internships. We’re hearing from colleges that there have been internships that have been canceled and we have heard that federal agencies have pulled out of going onto campuses to recruit,” said Shawn VanDerziel, executive director of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, an advocacy group for campus career centers and the businesses that work with them. “I would hope once the dust settles over the coming weeks and months that we will have many more answers and that the trajectory will be more positive.”
Saturday, February 15, 2025
College Presidents’ Survey Finds Alarm Over Trump - Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed
The majority of college presidents surveyed by Inside Higher Ed believe the Trump administration will have a negative impact on the sector. Many are still optimistic. Even before President Donald Trump unleashed a flurry of executive orders involving higher education, college and university presidents expressed serious concerns about his possible impact on the sector and on their own institutions. That’s according to findings released today from Inside Higher Ed’s forthcoming 2025 Survey of College and University Presidents with Hanover Research. More than half of presidents surveyed in December and early January—51 percent—at that point believed Trump’s second administration would have a somewhat or significant negative impact on the regulatory environment for higher education.
Friday, February 14, 2025
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns: AI will match ‘country of geniuses’ by 2026 - Michael Nuñez, Venture Beat
AI will match the collective intelligence of “a country of geniuses” within two years, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned in a sharp critique of this week’s AI Action Summit in Paris. His timeline — targeting 2026 or 2027 — marks one of the most specific predictions yet from a major AI leader about the technology’s advancement toward superintelligence. Amodei labeled the Paris summit a “missed opportunity,” challenging the international community’s leisurely pace toward AI governance. His warning arrives at a pivotal moment, as democratic and authoritarian nations compete for dominance in AI development.
Thursday, February 13, 2025
The Industry Reacts to OpenAI's Deep Research - "Hard Takeoff" - Matthew Berman, YouTube
Matthew Berman responds to the release of OpenAI's "Deep Research." Generalized PhD: Deep Research's performance on STEM benchmarks surpasses that of human PhDs, demonstrating the potential for AI to outperform humans in specialized fields. Economic Impact: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, estimates that Deep Research can already accomplish a single-digit percentage of all economically valuable tasks in the world. Game Changer for Research: Deep Research is being used in various fields, including medicine, to assist with research, publishing, and even patient care. Google's Response: Google employees have expressed surprise and amusement at OpenAI's decision to name their product Deep Research, which is the same name as Google's research product. Overall, the podcast conveys a sense of excitement and urgency about the rapid advancements in AI and the potential impact on society. Berman emphasizes the importance of understanding and adapting to these changes as AI continues to evolve. (summary provided in part by Gemini 2.0)
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Introducing deep research - Open AI
Deep research is OpenAI's next agent that can do work for you independently—you give it a prompt, and ChatGPT will find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst. Powered by a version of the upcoming OpenAI o3 model that’s optimized for web browsing and data analysis, it leverages reasoning to search, interpret, and analyze massive amounts of text, images, and PDFs on the internet, pivoting as needed in reaction to information it encounters. The ability to synthesize knowledge is a prerequisite for creating new knowledge. For this reason, deep research marks a significant step toward our broader goal of developing AGI, which we have long envisioned as capable of producing novel scientific research.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Trump Orders Disrupt Academic Research - Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed
As the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation review grants and programming for verboten topics—including DEI and “gender ideology”—many researchers aren’t sure if their projects will pass Trump’s nebulous, ideological tests. Many federally funded scientists have either had their grants terminated or can’t access approved funding while the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other science agencies work to comply with President Trump’s recent executive orders. The orders, which researchers say are vague, ban funding for diversity, equity and inclusion; “gender ideology”; and green energy projects, among other issues.
Accreditors brace for Trump’s promised higher ed shakeup - Ben Unglesbee & Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive
On the 2024 campaign trail, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump accused the nation’s faculty of being “obsessed with indoctrinating America’s youth” and declared, “The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left.” His administration’s “secret weapon” in this conflict would be the accreditation system for colleges and universities. “When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” he said in a July 2023 campaign video. “We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.”
Monday, February 10, 2025
DeepSeek’s Safety Guardrails Failed Every Test Researchers Threw at Its AI Chatbot - Matt Burgess, Wired
Ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT at the end of 2022, hackers and security researchers have tried to find holes in large language models (LLMs) to get around their guardrails and trick them into spewing out hate speech, bomb-making instructions, propaganda, and other harmful content. In response, OpenAI and other generative AI developers have refined their system defenses to make it more difficult to carry out these attacks. But as the Chinese AI platform DeepSeek rockets to prominence with its new, cheaper R1 reasoning model, its safety protections appear to be far behind those of its established competitors. Today, security researchers from Cisco and the University of Pennsylvania are publishing findings showing that, when tested with 50 malicious prompts designed to elicit toxic content, DeepSeek’s model did not detect or block a single one. In other words, the researchers say they were shocked to achieve a “100 percent attack success rate.”
Sunday, February 9, 2025
University of Phoenix College of Doctoral Studies Releases White Paper on Retention and Success in Online Learning Communities - Business Wire
University of Phoenix College of Doctoral Studies has released a new white paper, “Cultivating Supportive Learning Communities to Increase Retention and Success in Online Programs,” by Joy Hicks, Ed.D., a member of the University’s Center for Educational and Instructional Technology Research (CEITR). In the paper, Hicks offers a literature-based overview of methods for fostering supportive online learning communities that enhance student retention and success in online programs. “What we see is that a sense of belonging in online learning communities is a necessity to enhance the overall experience for students,” Hicks states. “This can be achieved by building a collaborative and stimulating learning environment through active learning and dynamic elements such as networking, study groups, discussion boards, group chats, and student-created blogs for ideas and thoughtful sharing. Making learning relevant, enjoyable, and engaging improves understanding and also builds resilience.”
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Academic and Administrative Processes Through Responsible Strategic Leadership in the Higher Education Institutions - Suleman Ahmad Khairullah, Frontiers in Education
This review explores the substantial impact of integrating AI in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), from improving education delivery to enhancing student outcomes and streamlining administrative processes and strategic leadership.By catering to the diverse learning needs of students with the help of tools that directly affect academics, monitor student engagement and performance, and provide data-driven interventions, AI offers what the HEIs have long been waiting for to revolutionise the overall Higher Education landscape. This review also highlights that with AI's ability to streamline administrative tasks by enhancing admissions and enrolment processes, academic records management system, and financial aid and scholarships processes, AI not only facilitates improving the overall processes but also makes staff and faculty members focus less on mundane and monotonous tasks, hence concentrating more on the responsibilities and strategic initiatives that require focused attention.We identified that the key to unlocking the significant potential of AI is responsible strategic leadership.
Friday, February 7, 2025
Alternative Credentials Market for Higher Education to grow by USD 1.8 Billion from 2025-2029, driven by skills gap expansion, Report on AI-powered market evolution - Technavio
Report on how AI is driving market transformation - The global alternative credentials market for higher education size is estimated to grow by USD 1.8 billion from 2025-2029, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 15.3% during the forecast period. Widening skills gap is driving market growth, with a trend towards rise in non-traditional offerings. However, threat from traditional degree program providers poses a challenge. Key market players include 2U Inc., Bisk Ventures, Carroll Community College Foundation Inc., City and Guilds Group, Coursera Inc., Credly Inc., JPMorgan Chase and Co., New York State Education Department, NIIT Ltd., NorthEastern University, Pearson Plc, Purdue University Global, Simplilearn, Strategic Education Inc., Temple University, Udacity Inc., Udemy Inc., University of Michigan, University Professional and Continuing Education Association, and XuetangX.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Setting a Context for Agentic AI in Higher Ed - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
On Jan. 23, OpenAI released a research preview of an agent called Operator, level 3, that can use its own browser to perform tasks for users. The tool is still in preview. It will require further development and refinement. Yet, this early version of a computer-using agent shows the enormous potential of the tool to enhance and enable efficiency and effectiveness in daily use in higher education teaching, learning and administration. Still to come this year is likely to be the level-4 Innovator that will mark artificial general intelligence. The AGI definition varies, but centers on an AI tool that encompasses broadly the collective knowledge and intelligence of a human. There is speculation that AGI does already exist in developmental models at the frontier AI enterprises such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, Meta and others. It may be two more years before the awe-inspiring artificial super intelligent tools are released.
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
OpenAI launches ChatGPT for government agencies - Emma Roth, the Verge
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Gov, a version of its flagship chatbot that’s tailored to government agencies. The company says the tool will let US government agencies securely access OpenAI’s frontier models, like GPT-4o. As noted by OpenAI, government agencies can deploy ChatGPT Gov within their own Microsoft Azure cloud instance, making it easier to manage security and privacy requirements. OpenAI says the launch could help advance the use of OpenAI’s tools “for the handling of non-public sensitive data.”
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Digital Badges and Micro-Credentials in Higher Education - Nature Research Intelligence
Recent studies have highlighted the strategic importance of micro-credentials in higher education. For instance, university leaders are encouraged to consider whether micro-credentials align with their institutional goals and the needs of their students. The research emphasizes that while micro-credentials can offer strategic value, they are not a one-size-fits-all solution and should be integrated thoughtfully with existing programs and initiatives[
Monday, February 3, 2025
She lost her scholarship over an AI allegation — and it impacted her mental health - Rachel Hale, USA TODAY
University of North Georgia student Marley Stevens was sitting in her car when she got the email notification: Her professor had given her a zero on a paper and accused her of using artificial intelligence to cheat. Her offense? Using Grammarly, a spell check plug-in that utilizes AI, to proofread a paper. Despite the tool being listed as a recommended resource on UNG’s site, Stevens was put on academic probation after a misconduct and appeals process that lasted six months. Getting a zero on the paper impacted her GPA, and she lost her scholarship as a result. She was already taking Lexapro for diagnosed anxiety and struggling with a chronic heart condition before the ordeal. In the months during and after, her mental health plummeted.
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Accelerating scientific breakthroughs with an AI co-scientist - Juraj Gottweis and Vivek Natarajan, Google
Motivated by unmet needs in the modern scientific discovery process and building on recent AI advances, including the ability to synthesize across complex subjects and to perform long-term planning and reasoning, we developed an AI co-scientist system. The AI co-scientist is a multi-agent AI system that is intended to function as a collaborative tool for scientists. Built on Gemini 2.0, AI co-scientist is designed to mirror the reasoning process underpinning the scientific method. Beyond standard literature review, summarization and “deep research” tools, the AI co-scientist system is intended to uncover new, original knowledge and to formulate demonstrably novel research hypotheses and proposals, building upon prior evidence and tailored to specific research objectives.
Survey: Higher Ed Leaders Doubt Student Preparedness for AI - Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi, The Charlotte Observer
A survey of 337 university administrators found most were optimistic about artificial intelligence, but also concerned about cheating and student readiness for work environments where AI skills will be important. Considering this, the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) and North Carolina’s Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center conducted a survey of 337 university presidents, chancellors, provosts, rectors, academic affairs vice presidents, and academic deans on the impact of GenAI tools on campuses. The majority of leaders believed students were using AI tools to complete their coursework, with 89 percent estimating that at least half of students use the tools. Despite this, when asked how prepared they felt their spring 2024 graduates were in terms of understanding and using AI, only 1 percent thought they were “very prepared,” while 40 percent thought they were “somewhat prepared,” 53 percent thought they were “not very prepared,” and 6 percent thought they were “not at all prepared.”
Saturday, February 1, 2025
2025 ASI RACE: OpenAI vs DeepSeek - PhD Super-Agents Change Everything - Julia McCoy, YouTube
The AI landscape is undergoing rapid and significant changes, with OpenAI and DeepSeek leading the charge. OpenAI is set to unveil PhD-level super agents, while DeepSeek's R1 model has matched OpenAI's capabilities and their R10 model demonstrates autonomous self-evolution. This accelerated progress, with AI agents capable of operating at high levels of complexity and self-learning, has prompted responses from major tech companies like Meta and Salesforce, who are restructuring their workforce in anticipation of AI's impact. The democratization of AI capabilities, with fewer barriers to entry and faster development cycles, is highlighted by DeepSeek's achievements despite having fewer resources than American companies. The race to Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) is accelerating, with a more gradual and product-focused development than initially predicted. (summary by Gemini 1.5)
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