Comments for eCampus News

Comment on Obama takes tougher stance on higher education by jdgregory

jdgregory — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:57:12 +0000

As someone who has seen the effects of federal intrusion into education from a very personal perspective at the K-12 level, it is interesting to see the dynamics that are created as the federal government now seeks to expand control over the colleges and universities in this country. To be sure, there are some questions concerning the rapidly rising cost of higher education that should be explored and seriously debated, but part of the very issue that our President is voicing concern over may actually have been created by federal involvement in the first place. I think it is interesting that the question is now becoming prominent with college graduation rates at a reported 40%, or so, of graduates. When I was a freshman in college the graduation rate was only about 25% so we have almost doubled that rate and now we are concerned that something is wrong with the colleges? Past experience should tell you that any overt attempt to improve graduation rates in order to preserve funding will most likely result in a watered down program that makes it easier for students to stay in school, and graduate, regardless of their performance. Over the past half a century there have been several areas of our economy that have grown out of step with the rest of the economy. Health care is one of these and since the 1960’s the cost of health care has consistently risen at a higher rate than the cost of living. We have been seeing the same thing happening in higher education for well over a decade and the cost of obtaining a college degree is now becoming prohibitive except for the rich or those fortunate enough to qualify for government loans. So there is little surprise that this would be attracting the attention of politicians looking to gain some political points. However, I have to wonder if the cost of higher education would be as high today without the availability of government loans. The cost of health care began to explode in this country when the federal government began to pump huge amounts of money into the system with Medicare and Medicaid. Was this a coincidence? Is the fact that we now have billions of federal dollars going into the higher ed. market place fueling the increase in costs? The information I have seen that identifies where the greatest increase in cost is coming from is in administrative costs, part of which are required to take care of the accounting of federal funds and extra federal mandates. Will the suggestions now coming from the political arena add yet another level of bureaucracy requiring even more administrative costs?

Comment on Free textbooks coming for five intro college courses by cable.green

cable.green — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:22:17 +0000

All of their textbooks will be openly licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licnese. Open Stax is leading by example – well done! See: http://openstaxcollege.org/textbooks/college-physics

Cable Green
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons

Comment on Free textbooks coming for five intro college courses by barkan

barkan — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:21:20 +0000

In addition to the OpenStax books mentioned in this article, Flat World Knowledge (for which I am an author) also publishes open textbooks in many disciplines that are peer-reviewed and available free online for students or via a variety of low-cost alternatives (www.flatworldknowledge.com). It is wonderful to see growth in the availability of open textbooks with the new OpenStax titles.

Steven Barkan
Dept. of Sociology
University of Maine

Comment on Apple iBooks 2 license agreement gets icy reception in higher education by guadfather

guadfather — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:33:05 +0000

I think Apple is getting a bit of a bad rap on this, and the article had some inaccuracies. First of all iBooks 2 does not lock out ePub, you can use it to read an ePub just fine (and PDFs too). And iBooks Author is just that, a app for authoring iBooks specifically. One uses this app if they want to sell a book through Apple’s iBooks store; it’s essentially a utility for the formatting of content for the store. It isn’t a general purpose content creation app, and they don’t even charge for it . Now don’t get me wrong, they will be making money off of these book, and probably a lot. But they are also doing a lot encourage the development of a lot of free content too, especially in the textbook space. I think that free textbooks are a great thing, but what we need to do is focus on getting instructors to adopt them. It doesn’t seem to me like a tool that Apple made for people who want to sell stuf on their store is at the root of the problem.

Comment on UMD to become virtualization hub for surrounding community by bgibson135

bgibson135 — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:36:57 +0000

When Android tablets & phones are as easy to hook up to a full-sized Bluetooth keyboard as the iPad currently is,… then IT can start providing AWKs or their equivalent in classrooms and study areas. The student then provides the processor (iPhone, EVO, iPad, etc.), add WIFI printing, and monitors for presentations and it’s much cheaper than PCs on the desktop or VMs.

Comment on When college applicants plagiarize, Turnitin can spot them by rernsberger

rernsberger — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:03:09 +0000

Turnitin has become a foolhardy joke for the serious upper researcher. You can no longer parapharse or summerize a paragraph and cite the resouece without that resource having been used 89% of the time. Youre entire paper maybe free of references for resources from your online schools library; however, once you cite the reference in APA resources you are doomed in your originality score. Hence, 90% of students online are using the same ERIC or EBCOhost database and the entire reference will take a hit.
Robert Ernsberger
AIU, Online

Comment on Apple iBooks 2 license agreement gets icy reception in higher education by barkan

barkan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:56:47 +0000

I am a big fan of Apple and have a lot of their products, but I am also an author for the open-source textbook company Flat World Knowledge (http://flatworldknowledge.com/) mentioned in the article. I agree that Apple’s approach, while commendable in some respects, is not very open. Flat World’s model–providing textbooks free online and via a variety of low-cost alternatives–is much preferable.

Comment on Apple iBooks 2 license agreement gets icy reception in higher education by thecman

thecman — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:12:55 +0000

I think a good part of the article misses the point about the licensing. I am generally a supporter of Apple but will and do call them out when the stumble. I have not read the licensing agreement for iBooks2 but, if Apple is claiming intellectual property to published (or unpublished) works, this is unconscionable. Any company especially Apple should be better than this.

As far as setting the open textbook movement back, I think the article is way off base. If you were paying attention to the announcement they are partnering with publishing companies. Most publishing companies, (recording companies, movie companies, etc.) want to have some guarantee that their published materials will be protected from piracy so they can sell the work. I can not speculate what Apples intentions were for creating a new format but I am almost positive that the publishing houses would demanded that there be a copy protection method in place before they would come to the table.

Now if the analogy of iTunes is to fully be replicated, this is a first step. When iTunes started there was a DRM. It took several years but this has been dropped. But it took Apple to start offering legally downloadable material that benefited both the author and consumer. I have a small degree of hope that they are trying to do the same thing with textbooks that they did with music. That is to make the publishers of the content realize that there is a way to both help consumers and make a profit on the material being sold. So it is possible that this could be the best thing to happen to the open text book movement. That of first gaining legitimacy for electronic delivery. Where it goes from there will remain to be seen.

Comment on eBook pilot could save college students a ‘huge amount of money’ by rhershman

rhershman — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:35:01 +0000

If this initiative is about the affordability of textbooks lets get the numbers straight. Nationally students on average spend about $650 a year on required course materials, not $1,140. Student average spending has actually remained the same or slightly declined in the last 4 years. What is books and supplies? Books and supplies is a number developed by financial aid offices to estimate cost of attendance for financial aid and reporting purposes. What is included in Books and Supplies? It’s a catch all category of costs that are not accounted for in tuition. It includes textbooks, supplies, equipment, software, and course fees -like labs fees. In fact textbooks comprise only about 57% of “books and supplies” according to students.

Comment on Colleges laud Google+ age restriction change, safety features by wfrankhouser

wfrankhouser — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:59:05 +0000

Google+ just updated their policy (this article must have been a hit!) to now 13+ years of age. via Google+ Safety Center, Google+ Safety Enhancenments, post