College IT officials track Google, Verizon talks

Genachowski's net neutrality plan has received wide-ranging support from educators.
Genachowski's net neutrality plan has received wide-ranging support from educators.

Higher education technologists, who largely support the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality plans, kept an eye on reports Aug. 5 that internet giants Google and Verizon were on the verge of announcing a deal that would provide faster web speeds only to content providers who could pay a premium.

IT decision makers in colleges and universities have said such a precedent could undermine major strides in providing educational content online, especially for small institutions without massive technology budgets.

After media reports said Google, which owns YouTube, and Verizon were hammering out the final details in the creation of “pay tiers” for internet users–a system that the FCC’s net neutrality plan was designed to avoid — Google responded with a statement calling the reports “quite simply wrong.”…Read More

For-profit colleges face more scrutiny in new report

Enrollment at for-profit colleges has climbed to 1.8 million in recent years.
Enrollment at for-profit colleges has climbed to 1.8 million in recent years.

A government report released Aug. 4 details “fraudulent” practices among recruiters for some for-profit colleges, and public criticism of the popular institutions has mounted as recent statistics show that at least one for-profit university received $1 billion in federal Pell Grants during the 2009-10 academic year.

Investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) posed as college students and found that four out of 15 institutions they examined “encouraged fraudulent practices” to secure federal student loans, and representatives from all 15 colleges “made deceptive or otherwise questionable statements” to the undercover students, according to a report published on the GAO’s web site.

The extensive report is the latest in a string of negative publicity for for-profit schools, which include industry giants such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, and DeVry University.…Read More

Students send texts for cheap textbooks

More than 20,000 students have texted their textbook requests this year.
More than 20,000 students have texted their textbook requests this year.

College students reeling from textbook sticker shock in their campus’s bookstore can send a text message to a popular book rental company to see if they can save serious cash every semester.

Online textbook rental companies, which allow students to rent books for a semester, often for a fraction of the retail cost, have seen consistent growth in the past three years, industry experts say—and one company, Chegg, now invites text-message inquiries to help students check availability and rent from the company’s repository of 4.2 million books.

College students still can check availability and prices on Chegg’s web site, but they also can scour Chegg’s book options by texting a textbook ISBN or title to a designated number. The student will receive a responding text with a link to Chegg’s mobile web site, accessible on popular mobile devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry.…Read More

Has Microsoft brought the future of computers to campus?

Students can scan interactive maps on Microsoft Surface.
Students can scan interactive maps on Microsoft Surface (photo courtesy of Microsoft).

A developer of educational software since the 1960s, Brown University Computer Science Professor Andries van Dam has seen education technology trends come and go, but he’s recently zeroed in on Microsoft’s interactive desktop computer as a model for the future computer.

van Dam, a co-founder of Brown’s Computer Science Department, specializes in what he calls post-WIMP computer interfaces, meaning machines that don’t use the traditional windows, icons, menus, and pointers that have come to define the modern computer.

After working on Microsoft’s Surface, a table-sized computer that recognizes hand gestures and objects and allows multiple people to use the product simultaneously, van Dam said the multimodal interface will prove valuable to higher-education researchers examining how their institutions—and the general population—can move away from the antiquated point-and-click computing experience.…Read More

Educational innovation gets boost under new programs

The Investing in Innovation fund must be doled out by Sept. 30.
The Investing in Innovation fund must be doled out by Sept. 30.

A movement is under way to make it easier for entrepreneurs to navigate the lucrative and sometimes-tricky education market and introduce new technologies and products into classrooms.

An educator at the University of Pennsylvania wants to create one of the nation’s only business incubators dedicated to education entrepreneurs. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is also getting into the act with a $650 million fund to boost education innovation.

“Here’s this [market] that is huge, that is really important, that needs innovation, and there’s just nothing out there to sort of foster it,” said Doug Lynch, vice dean of Penn’s Graduate School of Education. “Let’s create a Silicon Valley around education.”…Read More

Study suggests Wikipedia is accurate … and a little dull

Eight out of 10 students say they use Wikipedia for background knowledge.
Eight out of 10 students say they use Wikipedia for background knowledge.

Wikipedia enthusiasts may have a new way to argue their case to professors skeptical of the online encyclopedia: Cancer researchers said in June that Wikipedia was nearly as accurate as a well-respected, peer-reviewed database, although the wiki entries were a bit more boring.

Yaacov Lawrence, an assistant professor in Thomas Jefferson University’s Department of Radiation Oncology in Philadelphia, examined 10 types of cancer and compared Wikipedia’s information to statistics in the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Data Query, a peer-reviewed oncology database.

About 2 percent of the information from both web-based resources differed from textbook sources, Lawrence found. Lawrence used algorithms to judge the readability of each cancer entry, and based on word length and sentence length, the Wikipedia entries were much more difficult to comprehend.…Read More

Viewpoint: Digital learning tools fulfilling their promise

College students are more easily able to communicate with young professors accustomed to technology.
College students are more easily able to communicate with young professors accustomed to technology.

A recent Student Watch survey conducted by the National Association of College Stores (NACS) found that while most students still prefer textbooks to eBooks, sales of digital learning products are expected to quadruple by 2012 “if content is made more interactive and faculty become more comfortable using it.”

That first condition has already been met; the most recent digital products on the market have become far more interactive, customizable, and engaging in just the past year.

New learning platforms are not just more interactive or intuitive, they also provide a pedagogical road map that allows instructors to tailor their assignments and exams while giving individual students more options in how they approach and pace their own learning.…Read More

Free online university boosting students’ computer access

University of the People aims to enroll 15,000 students in its first five years.
University of the People aims to enroll 15,000 students in its first five years.

The free online University of the People has teamed up with a global computing network, aiming to harness the network’s computer resources in six developing nations where students are often without internet access.

The university, launched in September 2009 with an inaugural class of 179 students, announced its partnership with the nonprofit World Computer Exchange (WCE) on July 21. Officials from University of the People and the WCE—which aims to bolster technology in the developing world—said their goal was to establish communication centers in six developing countries by January.

The WCE, which has 2,650 computer labs globally, will provide web access to students who want to take free online classes but can’t afford it or don’t have a computer, officials said.…Read More

Proposed federal rules crack down on for-profit schools

For-profit colleges are bringing in record amounts of federal aid money, according to government officials.
For-profit colleges are bringing in record amounts of federal aid money, according to government officials.

The Education Department proposed much-anticipated regulations July 23 that would cut off federal aid to for-profit college programs—including many of the nation’s largest online schools— if too many of their students default on loans or don’t earn enough after graduation to repay them.

“Some proprietary schools have profited and prospered but their students haven’t, and this is a disservice to students and to taxpayers,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a briefing with reporters. “And it undermines the valuable work, the extraordinarily important work, being done by the for-profit industry as a whole.”

To qualify for federal student aid programs, career college programs must prepare students for “gainful employment.”…Read More

Data breaches slam campuses this summer

More than 19,000 students and faculty had their information compromised at Florida International University this summer.
About 19,000 Florida International University students and faculty had their information compromised this summer.

It’s been a tough summer for college IT officials charged with defending campus servers from hackers who target databases brimming with students’ and faculty’s personal information.

At least three universities—the University of Maine, Penn State University, and Florida International University—reported data breaches in June that compromised Social Security numbers, academic and financial records, and other information for about 40,000 students and faculty across the three institutions.

These universities and others that have scrambled to alert faculty and students of data crimes in recent years are not alone, according to research from the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego-based nonprofit organization.…Read More

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