Sloan-C View Perspectives in Quality Online Education Volume 10 Issue 5 May 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Academic Impressions Conference: Best Practices in Blended Course Design
San Diego, CA :: July 25 - 27, 2011
OVERVIEW
In light of the increased demand for high-quality blended courses and programs, instructional designers and course developers are facing new design challenges. To ensure the development of effective courses and a high level of engagement for a variety of learners, course developers must effectively use the online and physical classroom environments, establishing measurable learning outcomes and the means for achieving them.
Discussion topics will include:
•Developing instructional designs that are aligned with course objectives
•Facilitating interactivity in online and face-to-face environments
•Constructing instructional strategies
•Utilizing technologies to support learning
•Implementing and evaluating course delivery
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Whether your institution is already offering blended courses or just getting started, instructional designers, course developers, instructional technologists, and anyone involved in the design and development of blended courses will benefit most from this conference.
CONFERENCE FORMAT
The conference is structured to balance information sharing, targeted learning activities, group work, and collaboration with colleagues. Through the use of case studies and collaborative work, you will be able to directly apply the knowledge that you have gained during the conference with guidance from the instructors.
WHAT TO BRING
Required materials and equipment for the course are:
•An actual course syllabus from your institution. You will have the opportunity to design a section or chunk of your course into the blended format.
•A laptop with wireless connectivity. Conference proceedings will be available online or on a flash drive.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education: U.S. Higher Education Confronts Historic Financial Challenges, Part II
May 12, 2011
WASHINGTON — Despite a nascent economic recovery, education advocates, policymakers and other leaders continue to sound concerns over U.S. higher education’s long-term viability and productivity.
Foremost among current worries is the financial stability of colleges and universities, particularly now that federal stimulus support has dried up.
Even while President Obama talks about boosting U.S. college completion rates to increase the nation’s global competitiveness, private and public institutions continue to struggle economically.
On March 18, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education convened an expert panel to answer the question “How Can Higher Education Solve Its Financial Problems?” Diverse co-founder Frank Matthews and former Diverse editor Toni Coleman moderated a nearly two-hour roundtable discussion among seven panelists held at the headquarters of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) in downtown Washington, D.C.
While its theme centered on higher education’s financial health, the wide-ranging conversation touched upon issues as varied as the institution accountability movement, federal involvement in higher education and the future of minority serving institutions.
Participants were Lezli Baskerville, president and CEO, National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; Kevin Carey, policy director, Education Sector; Dr. Lorenzo Esters, vice president, Office for Access and the Advancement of Public Black Universities, APLU; Steve Graubart, managing director of finance, University of the District of Columbia; Dr. Marshall Grigsby, president, Grigsby and Associates, LLC; Cheryl Hitchcock, vice president of institutional advancement, Morgan State University; and Jane Wellman, executive director, Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability. The following are highlights from the second half of the discussion:
Diverse: What are some of the major areas of waste, or areas for cost savings, that exist in higher education?
STEVE GRAUBART: Well, I can focus mostly on UDC. I’m relatively new to the higher education sector, having spent most of my work in entrepreneurial ventures or technology companies, managing and consulting, so it’s kind of interesting coming to this environment from a very different world and coming into UDC, which is going through a rapid transformation. We looked at all the studies, then we created a database of 150 potential ideas of things that we could improve in every area: academic affairs, procurement, student affairs. Coming from the private world, where you have a $150 million, $160 million business, you’d have three to four product lines. At the university, it’s 50 product lines. So we’re trying to work through efficiencies of that.
LEZLI BASKERVILLE: There are a large number of areas in which universities can engage in collaborative purchases that would reduce significantly their costs. Most HCBUs are smaller institutions, and so by aggregating their (buying power) we’re able to purchase more books at a lower cost and purchase only those sections of a book that the student will use. We’ve got collaborative purchasing in technology, in food services, in health and retirement benefits.
CHERYL HITCHCOCK: It seems like every recommendation that I make involves spending money, but you’ve got to spend money to raise money. You’ve got to spend money to try to save money. We have to invest in technology. We’re trying to go where our potential students are, and they’re on their phones and on their computers. We’re looking to do a number of things through social networking, through apps. We’re proud to say we have an iPhone/iPad app and an Android one soon to come. It’s allowing us to contact more of our younger alumni who respond to electronic communications more so than writing a letter or picking up the phone. It’s a way to reach more alumni, to reach more potential students, to market the university in a more positive light and tell our story.
JANE WELLMAN: One has to look at both efficiencies and effectiveness, and I think the standard needs to be whether the resources are going into those areas that pay off in teaching, learning, student access. We need to be thinking about academic performance and not just how we balance budgets. The budget balancing mentality has been part of the problem in fiscal management. We need to be spending probably more money in some areas to increase performance and taking some money out of other areas.
MARSHALL GRIGSBY: I strongly agree with Jane’s and Steve’s emphasis on looking at data and making decisions based on hard data. In a couple of years we are going to a whole new way of calculating student loan default rates. Based on the preliminary data, nearly 50 percent of all HCBUs are at 15 percent or higher; a full quarter of them are above 25 percent. They’re right on the threshold of creating real problems because the new ticking clock is 30 percent, and 40 percent is the automatic trigger. We also are looking at some hard data with respect to graduation rates. President Obama is talking about greatly expanding the college graduation rate, becoming number one again. And the reason for that is enhanced competitiveness in a global environment, enhanced strengthening of the economy by virtue of greater tax revenue and enhancing the strength of the military because we would have a more educated populace. Those are public benefits. Those aren’t private benefits.
Diverse: If governments establish college graduation rates as an institution’s accountability benchmark measure, can they do so in a way that’s fair to the wide variety of U.S. higher education institutions? In other words, can governments be fair to minority-serving schools, which enroll disproportionately higher numbers of low-income students?
KEVIN CAREY: I think it can. Graduation rates have to be accurate. They have to be looked at in context, and there are ways to do that. Every institution has a set of peer institutions that it competes with that it benchmarks itself against. We can look at change over time and look at how institutions are able to improve based on their own past performance. I think a smart thing to do from a policy standpoint is to set goals for institutions to graduate a certain number of students who come in needing Pell Grants or from a place of economic diversity because that means you can’t just raise your rate by not admitting students like that. We don’t want to create incentives for the institutions to shut their doors to the students who most need that access.
JANE WELLMAN: I think presidents, leaders of governing boards — the people who are responsible for trying to set higher education policy — know that they’ve got to do things differently. Are we doing it differently? We’re not. The polls tell us that the public values higher education and actually has a fairly high degree of trust in the institutions. The public gets it. They get that higher education is increasingly required for a decent life. But they’re increasingly critical of the values of the institutions. They see the institutions as being more willing to protect their own bottom lines than to pay attention to student access and success. They assume that the reason the tuitions are going up is because the institutions are spending a lot of money, and they don’t see the value of that. We do a pretty bad job of being transparent about where the money comes from, where the money goes, and what we buy with it. We’ve got to be much more evidentiary. We’ve got to be smarter about how we deal with legitimate public perceptions rather than say, ‘The public doesn’t get it.’ The public gets it fine.
LORENZO ESTERS: APLU has been working with our member institutions and partnering with the Association of State Colleges and Universities to develop our own voluntary system of accountability. Institutions volunteer to be accountable for certain outcomes and to make those transparent to the public. One of the things we have to do is a better job of telling our story.
Diverse: The possibility of HBCU mergers and closures seems to be an ongoing issue for these institutions. In this economy, are closures or mergers inevitable?
LORENZO ESTERS: Well, I think that in this economic downturn the conversation centers on HCBUs when you talk about mergers. I believe that we have to protect the mission of historically Black colleges and universities as well as other minority-serving institutions because of the unique demographic that they continue to serve. We have seen continued attacks, in my opinion, on the mission of HCBUs, and I think that’s primarily centered around underperformance. There is no reason why the conversation should be centered on HCBUs. We’re not hearing about mergers of other types of institutions.
JANE WELLMAN: And on that point, I think that looking at mergers, looking at program closures, looking at consolidations is inevitable, and it shouldn’t by any means be about underperformance as it’s perceived to be only in one sector. The Minnesota state college system is a perfect example of a place where there’s a whole lot of colleges that have high-cost centers because they don’t have critical mass. They’re small, and they’re never going to grow. So it’s a legitimate conversation and an inevitable one. The issue should never be on academic performance only. It’s got to be about institutional viability and whether the structure is there.
MARSHALL GRIGSBY: And as Jane points out, it’s not new. There have been mergers. UDC is a merger. Clark-Atlanta University is a merger. There have been lots of mergers that have taken place and will take place in the future. The real question is how do the two, three, or whatever number that got merged in fact end up being a stronger institution and keep the focus on the mission of the institution. I think those are important factors. It’s not just that merger is a bad word per se.
WASHINGTON — Despite a nascent economic recovery, education advocates, policymakers and other leaders continue to sound concerns over U.S. higher education’s long-term viability and productivity.
Foremost among current worries is the financial stability of colleges and universities, particularly now that federal stimulus support has dried up.
Even while President Obama talks about boosting U.S. college completion rates to increase the nation’s global competitiveness, private and public institutions continue to struggle economically.
On March 18, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education convened an expert panel to answer the question “How Can Higher Education Solve Its Financial Problems?” Diverse co-founder Frank Matthews and former Diverse editor Toni Coleman moderated a nearly two-hour roundtable discussion among seven panelists held at the headquarters of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) in downtown Washington, D.C.
While its theme centered on higher education’s financial health, the wide-ranging conversation touched upon issues as varied as the institution accountability movement, federal involvement in higher education and the future of minority serving institutions.
Participants were Lezli Baskerville, president and CEO, National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; Kevin Carey, policy director, Education Sector; Dr. Lorenzo Esters, vice president, Office for Access and the Advancement of Public Black Universities, APLU; Steve Graubart, managing director of finance, University of the District of Columbia; Dr. Marshall Grigsby, president, Grigsby and Associates, LLC; Cheryl Hitchcock, vice president of institutional advancement, Morgan State University; and Jane Wellman, executive director, Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability. The following are highlights from the second half of the discussion:
Diverse: What are some of the major areas of waste, or areas for cost savings, that exist in higher education?
STEVE GRAUBART: Well, I can focus mostly on UDC. I’m relatively new to the higher education sector, having spent most of my work in entrepreneurial ventures or technology companies, managing and consulting, so it’s kind of interesting coming to this environment from a very different world and coming into UDC, which is going through a rapid transformation. We looked at all the studies, then we created a database of 150 potential ideas of things that we could improve in every area: academic affairs, procurement, student affairs. Coming from the private world, where you have a $150 million, $160 million business, you’d have three to four product lines. At the university, it’s 50 product lines. So we’re trying to work through efficiencies of that.
LEZLI BASKERVILLE: There are a large number of areas in which universities can engage in collaborative purchases that would reduce significantly their costs. Most HCBUs are smaller institutions, and so by aggregating their (buying power) we’re able to purchase more books at a lower cost and purchase only those sections of a book that the student will use. We’ve got collaborative purchasing in technology, in food services, in health and retirement benefits.
CHERYL HITCHCOCK: It seems like every recommendation that I make involves spending money, but you’ve got to spend money to raise money. You’ve got to spend money to try to save money. We have to invest in technology. We’re trying to go where our potential students are, and they’re on their phones and on their computers. We’re looking to do a number of things through social networking, through apps. We’re proud to say we have an iPhone/iPad app and an Android one soon to come. It’s allowing us to contact more of our younger alumni who respond to electronic communications more so than writing a letter or picking up the phone. It’s a way to reach more alumni, to reach more potential students, to market the university in a more positive light and tell our story.
JANE WELLMAN: One has to look at both efficiencies and effectiveness, and I think the standard needs to be whether the resources are going into those areas that pay off in teaching, learning, student access. We need to be thinking about academic performance and not just how we balance budgets. The budget balancing mentality has been part of the problem in fiscal management. We need to be spending probably more money in some areas to increase performance and taking some money out of other areas.
MARSHALL GRIGSBY: I strongly agree with Jane’s and Steve’s emphasis on looking at data and making decisions based on hard data. In a couple of years we are going to a whole new way of calculating student loan default rates. Based on the preliminary data, nearly 50 percent of all HCBUs are at 15 percent or higher; a full quarter of them are above 25 percent. They’re right on the threshold of creating real problems because the new ticking clock is 30 percent, and 40 percent is the automatic trigger. We also are looking at some hard data with respect to graduation rates. President Obama is talking about greatly expanding the college graduation rate, becoming number one again. And the reason for that is enhanced competitiveness in a global environment, enhanced strengthening of the economy by virtue of greater tax revenue and enhancing the strength of the military because we would have a more educated populace. Those are public benefits. Those aren’t private benefits.
Diverse: If governments establish college graduation rates as an institution’s accountability benchmark measure, can they do so in a way that’s fair to the wide variety of U.S. higher education institutions? In other words, can governments be fair to minority-serving schools, which enroll disproportionately higher numbers of low-income students?
KEVIN CAREY: I think it can. Graduation rates have to be accurate. They have to be looked at in context, and there are ways to do that. Every institution has a set of peer institutions that it competes with that it benchmarks itself against. We can look at change over time and look at how institutions are able to improve based on their own past performance. I think a smart thing to do from a policy standpoint is to set goals for institutions to graduate a certain number of students who come in needing Pell Grants or from a place of economic diversity because that means you can’t just raise your rate by not admitting students like that. We don’t want to create incentives for the institutions to shut their doors to the students who most need that access.
JANE WELLMAN: I think presidents, leaders of governing boards — the people who are responsible for trying to set higher education policy — know that they’ve got to do things differently. Are we doing it differently? We’re not. The polls tell us that the public values higher education and actually has a fairly high degree of trust in the institutions. The public gets it. They get that higher education is increasingly required for a decent life. But they’re increasingly critical of the values of the institutions. They see the institutions as being more willing to protect their own bottom lines than to pay attention to student access and success. They assume that the reason the tuitions are going up is because the institutions are spending a lot of money, and they don’t see the value of that. We do a pretty bad job of being transparent about where the money comes from, where the money goes, and what we buy with it. We’ve got to be much more evidentiary. We’ve got to be smarter about how we deal with legitimate public perceptions rather than say, ‘The public doesn’t get it.’ The public gets it fine.
LORENZO ESTERS: APLU has been working with our member institutions and partnering with the Association of State Colleges and Universities to develop our own voluntary system of accountability. Institutions volunteer to be accountable for certain outcomes and to make those transparent to the public. One of the things we have to do is a better job of telling our story.
Diverse: The possibility of HBCU mergers and closures seems to be an ongoing issue for these institutions. In this economy, are closures or mergers inevitable?
LORENZO ESTERS: Well, I think that in this economic downturn the conversation centers on HCBUs when you talk about mergers. I believe that we have to protect the mission of historically Black colleges and universities as well as other minority-serving institutions because of the unique demographic that they continue to serve. We have seen continued attacks, in my opinion, on the mission of HCBUs, and I think that’s primarily centered around underperformance. There is no reason why the conversation should be centered on HCBUs. We’re not hearing about mergers of other types of institutions.
JANE WELLMAN: And on that point, I think that looking at mergers, looking at program closures, looking at consolidations is inevitable, and it shouldn’t by any means be about underperformance as it’s perceived to be only in one sector. The Minnesota state college system is a perfect example of a place where there’s a whole lot of colleges that have high-cost centers because they don’t have critical mass. They’re small, and they’re never going to grow. So it’s a legitimate conversation and an inevitable one. The issue should never be on academic performance only. It’s got to be about institutional viability and whether the structure is there.
MARSHALL GRIGSBY: And as Jane points out, it’s not new. There have been mergers. UDC is a merger. Clark-Atlanta University is a merger. There have been lots of mergers that have taken place and will take place in the future. The real question is how do the two, three, or whatever number that got merged in fact end up being a stronger institution and keep the focus on the mission of the institution. I think those are important factors. It’s not just that merger is a bad word per se.
Inside Higher Ed: Let Them Surf May 12 2011
A Danish university has adopted an unusual strategy to tackle cheating: allowing unfettered internet access, even during examinations.
Lise Petersen, e-learning project coordinator at the University of Southern Denmark, said that all handwritten exams were being revised and transferred to a digital platform wherever possible, with a completion date of January 2012. She said administering exams via Internet software would allow lecturers to create tests that were aligned with course content rather than "trivia" quizzes. MORE
UB Web Seminars: Lecture capture: What's in it for instructors?
Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 2-3pm, ET
Join a panel of college and university instructors from across the country and learn what makes them so passionate about the use of lecture capture. You'll discover not only what their students think about the technology, but also what's in it for them as instructors. Furthermore, they will talk about the different ways they are each using lecture capture to achieve the common goals of improving academic performance and enhancing the learning experience for their students.
Topics to be discussed include:
• What's in it for the instructor.
• Specific use cases in different disciplines.
• Impact on grades.
• Student feedback.
• How lecture capture improves pedagogy.
• Learning curve for instructors.
Who will benefit:
Presidents, chancellors, chief academic officers, academic deans, department chairs, professors, CIOs and IT directors. Anyone may attend.
Critical Insights. Timely Information. Free Registration
University Business produces web seminars on topics of special interest to higher education leaders. Moderated by UB's Web Seminar Editor, JD Solomon, each web seminar features presentations by higher education leaders and industry experts. These online events are underwritten by our sponsors so that you may view them for free.
Speakers:
Chris Mizell - Mathematics Professor, Northwest Florida State College, Niceville, Florida, and the producer and star of a YouTube video about lecture capture (http://mail.educatorsportal.com/response/redirect.aspx?muid=3087&cuid=f342efae-471f-4b9c-9833-a5e6a81ee0e5&linktext=YouTube%20video%20about%20lecture%20capture&targeturl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_iUnOpPEg0w%26amp%3Bfeature%3Dyoutu.be)
Wendy Cowan - Assistant Professor, Athens State University College of Education, Athens, Alabama
Nigel George - Associate Professor of Math and Physics, Upper Iowa University, Fayette, Iowa
Deb Ramirez - ESL Assistant Professor, Pierce College-Puyallup, WA
Dillard University Commencement Spring 2011 in New Orleans Times-Picayune Newspaper
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/05/dillard_university_honorary_do.html
Academic Impressions 4-part Webinar Series: MAKING THE SHIFT FROM CLASSROOM TO ONLINE COURSE DESIGN
September 7, 12, 21 & 26, 2011 :: 1:00 - 2:45 p.m. EDT
Learn the essential components of designing effective
online courses.
Join us for a four-session online course that will teach you the step-by-step process of transforming a face-to-face course to an online delivery format. Our expert instructors will share information and advice on re-mapping your course, organizing content, using Web 2.0 technology, and integrating learning design.
Session 1: (Re)Mapping Course Design
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 :: 1:00 – 2:45 p.m. EDT
Session 2: Course Organization
Monday, September 12, 2011 :: 1:00 – 2:45 p.m. EDT
Session 3: Web 2.0 Technology Design
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 :: 1:00 – 2:45 p.m. EDT
Session 4: Interactive Learning Design
Monday, September 26, 2011 :: 1:00 – 2:45 p.m. EDT
COURSE FORMAT AND SIGNATURE PROJECT
This four-part program uses a blend of synchronous and asynchronous components to model an effective online course. During the synchronous sessions, you will be invited to contribute ideas, make decisions, and ask questions about the course (re)design process.
Between sessions, you will have the opportunity to practice the process through the creation of a signature project that is specific to your work and your institutional setting. Your project for this course will involve converting components of one of your own face-to-face courses to the online format.
Note: If you purchase the recordings of this event only, you will not have access to instructor feedback on your signature project. You will, however, be able to view other participants' completed projects and the online discussion threads.
REGISTER FOR THE LIVE SESSIONS, PURCHASE A CD
To ensure maximum interactivity and personal attention, enrollment will be limited. Take advantage of this unique opportunity while space is still available!
Register online or call 720.488.6800. Want to share this valuable information with your colleagues? Register your institution for a single site connection and an unlimited number of people can participate.
You can also add this event to your training library by purchasing a CD recording of the live webcasts and a bound set of the presentation materials. Questions? Call us to help determine if this event is right for you.
Inside Higher Ed: Long Reads May 12 2011
To a college freshman, the poetry of John Milton's Paradise Lost can seem daunting. Thousands of lines and long sections chronicling fallen angels can turn off even the most ambitious aspiring scholar, especially in an era of constant distractions and 140-character tweets.
So when Hamilton College professor Margaret Thickstun wanted her students to examine the text for a second time, she sought an approach other than the standard reading homework. She became one of a number of professors across the country to assemble her class for a day and read a great work out loud. MORE
Campus Technology Webinar: Faculty Voice in Online Education: Enhancing Relationships Between Faculty and Students for Learning Success
In an online learning environment, what you say is not as important as how you say it. When your “online voice” positively affects the relationship between faculty and learners, student retention in online education is greatly enhanced.
Join us on March 31st for a free webinar that will help you identify your online persona and ways to improve it. You’ll learn how to apply an active listening model that strengthens relationships between all members of the online learning community and improves the learning experience, overall.
Talking points include:
Is your language positive or punitive?
What color and font size should you use to communicate?
How does your persona come through in teaching?
Presented by: Dr. Ronnie Kramer, president, Communication Dynamics, Inc.
Moderated by: Matt Villano, senior contributing editor, Campus Technology
Original webinar air date: March 31, 2011
Campus Technology Online Resources
Increase Quality In Online Education
Sponsored by Acxiom
http://campustechnology.com/webcasts/2011/03/acxiom_identity-fraud_abuse_distance-education.aspx
As more learning takes place online, today's students stretch the limits, creating numerous cases of student aid fraud and academic integrity. Join us for a webinar that will address academic integrity policies and techology solutions to ensure quality in online learning.
How to Finance New Classroom Technology within a Small Budget
Sponsored by Panasonic Solutions Company
http://campustechnology.com/webcasts/2011/03/panasonic_long-term-investment.aspx?pc=e236nl01&utm_source=webmktg&utm_medium=E-newsletter&utm_campaign=e236nl01
Funding is scarce in education. In fact, a statistic from The Center of Digital Education says that 41 states have implemented cuts to higher education, which means educators are left to fend for themselves, including using sub-par technology solutions, if any at all. So how can you finance new technology in the classroom while staying within your budget? Join us for a free webinar to hear how a Panasonic customer used projectors to deliver a quality educational experience while addressing bottom-line needs.
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