Wednesday, July 6, 2011
University Business: Xavier University Prepares To Teach Mandarin And Establish An Exchange Program With Chinese Scholars The Times-Picayune
Campus Technology Free Report: Improve Student Outcomes with Blackboard Collaborate
Learn how online courses that utilize collaborative technologies are keeping students more engaged than ever before – resulting in higher grades and test scores. Schools have not been able to find any quantitative data to support this assumption – until now.
Digital Commons Webinars: Institutional Repositories and Scholarly Publishing Platforms for Liberal Arts Colleges
Bepress regularly hosts webinars and in-person events on a variety of topics related to IR management, development, and IR success. Given by both bepress and Digital Commons community members, these webinars seek to share the ideas and best practices from the Digital Commons community. To find out about upcoming webinars, please visit our Events page. You can find New Feature Webinars in the Reference Materials section.
Campus Technology: The Future of Blackboard
Gartner researcher Marti Harris provides her perspective on the Blackboard acquisition and what it means for the company and its customers.
By Dian Schaffhauser 07/01/11
Association for Continuing Higher Education (ACHE) Website
ACHE has members throughout the United States & Canada. There are approximately 1500 individual members representing over 400 different institutions and organizations. ACHE is divided geographically into 8 regions.
http://www.acheinc.org/documents/mission_goals.pdf
Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005
Abstract:
Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005 represents the third annual report on the state of online education in U.S. higher education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and based on responses from over 1,000 colleges and universities, this year’s study, like those for previous years’, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education.
Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005 represents the third annual report on the state of online education in U.S. Higher Education. This year’s study, like those for the previous two years, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and based on responses from over 1,000 colleges and universities, the study addresses the following key questions:
Have the course and program offerings in online education entered the mainstream?
Background: Last year’s study, Entering the Mainstream: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2003 and 2004 suggested that online education was penetrating the institutions of higher education in both size and breadth of programs and courses. Is online education now part of the mainstream of higher education?
The evidence: The answer to this question appears to clearly be “Yes:” schools are offering a large number of online courses, and there is great diversity in the courses and programs being offered:
Sixty-five percent of schools offering graduate face-to-face courses also offer graduate courses online.
Sixty-three percent of schools offering undergraduate face-to-face courses also offer undergraduate courses online.
Among all schools offering face-to-face Master’s degree programs, 44% also offer Master’s programs online.
Among all schools offering face-to-face Business degree programs, 43% also offer online Business programs.
Who is teaching online?
Background: When institutions move to embrace online education, do they do so at the expense of their current core faculty? If a greater proportion of online courses are being taught by adjunct faculty, hired on a per-course basis, it may mean fewer opportunities for core faculty members, and, some would argue, lower course quality. Some have claimed that the move to online education will cost jobs for core faculty. Does the evidence support this concern?
The evidence: Staffing for online courses does not come at the expense of core faculty. Institutions use about the same mixture of core and adjunct faculty to staff their online courses as they do for their face-to-face courses. Instead of more adjunct faculty teaching online courses, the opposite is found; overall, there is a slightly greater use of core faculty for teaching online than for face-to-face.
Sixty-five percent of higher education institutions report that they are using primarily core faculty to teach their online courses compared to 62% that report they are using primarily core faculty to teach their face-to-face courses.
Seventy-four percent of Public colleges report that their online courses are taught by core faculty, as opposed to only 61% for their face-to-face courses.
Except for the largest schools (15000+ enrollment), all sized schools report an equal or greater rate of online courses being taught primarily by core faculty compared to their face-to-face courses.
Is online education becoming part of long-term strategy for most schools?
Background: Approximately one-half of all institutions rated online education as important for their long-term strategy in our two previous studies. This belief was not consistent across all types of institutions, however. Small schools and private, nonprofit institutions were the least likely to support this view. Have opinions changed over time? Do more institutions now agree that online education is an important long-term strategy, and has this changed for specific subgroups of institutions?
The evidence: The evidence from higher education’s academic leaders suggests that there is a strong trend upwards in considering online education as part of a school’s long-term strategy. While there is some diversity in response to this question, there is growth among all types of schools:
The overall percent of schools identifying online education as a critical long-term strategy grew from 49% in 2003 to 56% in 2005.
The largest increases were seen in Associates degree institutions where 72% now agree that it is part of their institution's long-term strategy, up from 58% in 2003.
The smallest schools, private nonprofit institutions and Baccalaureate colleges remain the least likely to agree that online education is part of their long-term strategy.
Have online enrollments continued their rapid growth?
Background: Last year’s study reported a 22.9% overall increase in the number of students taking one or more online courses, growing from 1.60 to 1.98 million students. Schools were optimistic about future growth as well, with 74.8% reporting that they expected their online enrollments to increase. Has the rapid growth in online enrollments continued for another year?
The evidence: Growth has continued at a healthy rate, but not as rapidly as last year. The increase in the overall number of online learners was the same this year as last (an increase of around 360,000 each year) for an overall enrollment growth rate of 18.2%. This growth rate greatly exceeds the overall growth rate in the higher education student body.
Overall online enrollment increased from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million in 2004.
The online enrollment growth rate is over ten times that projected by the National Center for Education Statistics for the general postsecondary student population.
In the aggregate, survey respondents do a reasonable job in predicting changes in online enrollments, but individual schools were often inaccurate in their 2003 predictions of their 2004 online enrollments.
What else do Chief Academic Officers and faculty believe about online education?
Background: Our previous studies have shown that Chief Academic Officers believe, in general, that online courses are of equal quality to face-to-face and that students are as satisfied with online as with face-to-face courses. They have also expressed reservations about their faculty’s acceptance of online education. Have Chief Academic Officers changed in their beliefs about faculty acceptance of online education?
The evidence: There is some good news for online education, but the opinions of Chief Academic Officers also raise a number of challenges. On the positive side, they believe it is no harder to evaluate online courses than those delivered face-to-face. More challenging, however, is that Academic leaders believe that online courses require more effort for faculty and more discipline by students, and many of them continue to believe that their faculty have not accepted the value of online education.
Chief Academic Officers believe, in general, that it takes more effort to teach online.
A large majority of respondents (64%) believe that it takes more discipline for a student to succeed in an online course.
Although online education continues to penetrate into all types of institutions, a relatively stable minority of Chief Academic Officers (28% in 2003 compared with 31% in 2005) continue to believe that their faculty fully accept the value and legitimacy of online education.
Eighty-two percent of respondents believe that it is no more difficult to evaluate the quality of an online course than one delivered face-to-face.
HBCU Distance Learning (Online) Digital Learning Lab (DLL)
HBCU Gateway = Online Magazine
Last update: Wednesday 03/09/2011 4:07 PM
Weekly Features
-- At the end of each week the DLL's staff will review the Websites of the 104 officially designated HBCU's looking for new events and announcements related to the HBCUs' progress in teaching, research, community serviceand/or support for k-12 schools. The staff will then post headlines summarizing these news items on the Gateway's Events and Announcements pages, together with hyperlinks to the full descriptions of these news items on the HBCUs' Websites.
-- The DLL's staff will review the news items submitted by our readers as soon as we receive them. The staff will merely verify that the submitted URLs really link back to full descriptions of the events and announcements on the pages of an HBCU's Website. The headlines for valid news items submitted will be posted on the Gateway within two or three days.
-- The DLL staff will also conduct weekly reviews of the Web pages of the major HBCU associations (UNCF, NAFEO, Marshall, HBCU Library Alliance, etc), other academic organizations (e.g. EDUCAUSE), federal funding agencies, etc. Headlines linked to the full descriptions of significant events and announcements will be posted as soon as possible.
NOLA.com: Dillard AD enjoying recent athletic success, looking to build on it
By Hunter Paniagua, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune
Published: Wednesday, July 06, 2011, 8:27 AM
Last year at Dillard's athletic leadership training, student-athletes received pictures of what Gulf Coast Athletic Conference championship rings would look like.
At this year's training, members of the GCAC championship track and field team will receive the real thing.
The track and field team joins the volleyball team, which already received its rings, as Dillard's first conference championship programs since Hurricane Katrina. Athletic Director Kiki Barnes said they serve as examples the other athletes can aspire to match.
"Sometimes people need to see tangible things, like they need to see an actual ring," Barnes said. "Well, when our volleyball team won, that particular vision became a reality. So they're going to be walking around campus with rings. It's really going to provide a real-life visual for the other student-athletes who are still hoping and wanting to generate that. It's more of a motivation because it's real now, not paper."
Those teams' success shows the growth the Bleu Devils have experienced since Barnes, also the women's basketball coach, became the interim athletic director in 2006. Barnes had the interim tag removed in 2009 and set out to implement a plan that included hiring staff, increasing scholarships and improving facilities, steps that created a foundation for the program on which to build.
"These past five years, since I've taken the job, have been about laying a foundation so that we'll be able to grow," Barnes said. "Kind of like when people plant crops. There's a lot of preparation work that goes into making sure you yield a good crop. That's kind of what I see as happening at Dillard."
The GCAC recognized Barnes, who also serves as the conference's president, as the athletic director of the year, a testament to the success she's brought to Dillard and the GCAC.
"That was the best thing that could have ever happened," Barnes said. "I wasn't working for an award. I just wanted to do a good job, and doing a good job was good enough for me. For them to say 'we watched you work, and we've worked with you, and we appreciate you,' that just meant all the world. It was like icing on the cake."
Barnes now has her eyes set on the next phase in the process of rebuilding the program. She plans to bring back tennis and hire assistants for volleyball and cross country. She also needs to select a men's basketball coach to replace Dale Brown, who departed for Clark-Atlanta.
But before she can move forward on some of those projects, Barnes must wait for Dillard to select a new president, which she expects to happen within a year. But Barnes doesn't see that delay as a hindrance. Instead she sees it as an opportunity to sit back and observe the effects of her past decisions.
"It's a better situation to be in because it's not pressure on doing right now," Barnes said. "We've done a lot. Now, it's time to let things sit and see what happens from the work that we've done from my initial strategic plan. It's almost like we're in replanting mode. We've done everything that we set out to do with our initial strategic plan, so I think it's perfect timing. Now my job is to assess where we are from where we started and then make another plan for the next five years and continue to grow."
Barnes expects to continue to yield crops from the foundation she has built, crops she hopes turn into more championship rings.
"I think that building a program is a marathon, not a sprint," Barnes said. "If we can just continue to be steady like we are, we're really going to see some good things happen here."
Fort Valley State University News: New FVSU center to help soldiers transition from combat to college
On July 8, FVSU’s College of Graduate Studies and Extended Education celebrates the grand opening of the Military Resource Center (MRC) located on the 3rd floor of the Hubbard Education Building.
According to college dean, Dr. Anna Holloway, the facility is designed to assist veterans and their dependants with all aspects of college life, from application to graduation. “We’re striving to be a military friendly university,” Holloway said. The MRC will provide counseling, peer support groups, assistance with health services and financial support available to military veterans. “The center is going to be great. We’ve had training to deal with issues that affect veterans, such as post traumatic stress disorder. We are also starting a student veterans organization and opening a veterans lounge as a part of the center here on campus, so I’m looking forward to providing that type of support.”
The center is a result of FVSU’s participation in the University Systems of Georgia’s “Soldiers 2 Scholars” (S2S) outreach effort. Fort Valley State is one of nine institutions working with the program, which launched in January 2010. Holloway, principal investigator for the College Access Challenge Grant received $20,000 from the Department of Education to fund the MRC initiative.
“The grant is the USG’s way of showing us how important this cause is and FVSU’s administration has shown that they really believe in this mission as well.”
For more information about FVSU’s Military Resource Center, contact LTD Eric Shaw at (478) 825-6905. For more information about the USG’s “Soldiers to Scholars” Program, visit http://www.usg.edu/news/release/specialprogrameasespathtocollegefor_military/
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