The do’s and don’ts of creating OERs

Do follow these best practices in creating open resources to use and share.

open-create-OERMost faculty educators have already started creating their own open educational resources (OER) in the form of assessments, coursework, and presentations. Bringing them online to share with other educators is just the natural next step.

But there are best practices when creating and sharing OERs: resources that are freely shared and able to be modified and redistributed.

This “grass-roots, bottom-up” approach to content creation enables educators to tailor content to meet students’ needs,” said Tyler DeWitt, an MIT Ph.D. student and a student coordinator for the MIT+K12 video outreach project, during a recent edWeb webinar, which explored these and other related takeaways, and gave several tips for creating OERs that work for interested faculty.…Read More

Mobile success could depend on this often-overlooked campus service

Technology repair services on campuses will likely be seen as a higher-ed essential critical to boosting outcomes and helping students save time.

campus-technology-repairYou can’t use what doesn’t work. But this “duh” technology problem is more than just a frustration on today’s campuses–it can lead to significant time lost during and after class, ultimately affecting student outcomes.

And it’s this time loss problem that’s leading a growing number of college bookstores to offer on-campus tech repair services to fix damages and minimize the time students are without their devices (should accidents happen).

As the use of technology in education continues to grow, and as students have become increasingly reliant on their smart phones, tablets and laptops, it’s never been more critical to ensure students can successfully and efficiently complete their school work in a timely manner.…Read More

3 steps to go from BYOD to BYOA

To protect their networks and serve campus constituents effectively, IT departments are considering mobile strategies that encompass both devices AND the apps they run.

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While many higher-ed IT departments are still struggling to handle the flood of mobile devices onto campus networks, some industry experts now advise institutions to adopt a broader strategy that goes beyond BYOD to encompass the applications they run, too.

“We are transitioning from BYOD to bring-your-own-application (BYOA)—it’s really about the application,” said Chris LaPoint, vice president of product management at SolarWinds, a Texas-based company that develops IT management software. “The applications that run on those devices are potentially more important than the fact that these devices are showing up on the network. That’s the landscape of the problem.”…Read More

L.A. admissions use AI to transform dormant leads

Los Angeles entertainment schools turn to an artificial intelligence application to help increase new student engagement from zero percent to 19-22 percent over two years.

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Stephanie is a great conversationalist, always willing to follow-up with every student lead and determining a student’s interest in attending the school. What some may not know is that Stephanie isn’t human.

A for-profit college that offers associate and bachelor degrees in entertainment-related majors, The Los Angeles Film School and the Los Angeles Recording School both rely on technology to engage and educate students.…Read More

5 non-curricular ways to boost student outcomes

Using varied campus services and classroom technology to help students succeed with their college experience.

student-outcomes-campusWith a dramatically increasing number of both traditional and non-traditional students seeking post-secondary education, student retention and post-grad outcomes continue to be an increasingly important topic for both colleges and universities.

The role that institutions play in these outcomes is now gaining significantly more attention with greater emphasis being placed on how well these organizations prepare students for the job market.

Both gradual, large-scale changes and smaller reforms will lay the foundation for a reinvigorated, modern school system.…Read More

How a dashboard can improve the quality of teachers

The University of North Carolina has developed a customizable dashboard to identify problems in how the state trains teachers for its public school system.

dashboard-teacher-qualityFaced with an alarming decline in both the number and quality of teachers in the North Carolina public school system, the University of North Carolina has developed a data-driven dashboard to provide immediate visibility into what’s working—and what’s not—in the state’s teacher-preparation programs.

Developed in partnership with SAS, the North Carolina-based software giant, the dashboard was a key recommendation of the UNC Board of Governors Subcommittee on Teacher and School Leader Quality.

“What emerged from the work of that subcommittee was the need for us to be far more transparent about the research and data that we have on these critical issues in North Carolina,” said Alisa Chapman, UNC vice president for academic and university programs.…Read More

An honest look into a liberal arts iPad program

Idaho State University takes open approach to faculty and student use of iPads in the humanities.

ipad-college-liberalOffering a realistic glimpse of what it’s like to try and use mobile technology in undergraduate and graduate courses in higher education, one rural, liberal arts college says the only way to effectively implement an iPad program is if the technology has no usage hiccups and comes second to pedagogy.

Another key element of making a mobile tech program work? Start the program as an open experiment for faculty members to use as they see fit.

“By leaving the experiment open, the instructors had an unbounded creative space to do what we demand of our students: critically think our way through the existing problems to find novel solutions,” said Mark McBeth, associate dean of the College of Arts & Letters at Idaho State University (ISU), and lead author of the College’s case study report. “Theory and research informed this project, but much of the success required simple trial and error with faculty and students in classroom experiences.”…Read More

3 survival questions every institution should ask

Why adapting to changing demographics is a matter of survival; and how colleges and universities can do it.

survival-question-stormIncreased competition, reduced public funding, demand for non-traditional delivery models, and increased regulatory pressure around student outcomes are forcing institutions to ask fundamental questions about the effectiveness of their current strategies and offerings for engaging today’s students and helping them succeed. Questions such as:

1. Who is the typical student today?

Is it the 18-year-old right out of high school who moves away from home for the first time and has never known a world without the Internet? Is it the older student who lives off-campus and works part-time to pay tuition? Or is it the mid-career parent who works full time and needs a more flexible way to gain new skills or academic credit for real-world experience and competencies?…Read More

Universities share best practices to retain STEM students

Best practices that institutions of higher education can use to attract, retain, and support students within STEM fields.

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Developing new minds ready to take on careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) may be a national priority in the U.S., but if the current trends in higher education continue, that goal could be pretty difficult to achieve. According to National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) STEM Attrition: College Students’ Paths Into and Out of STEM Fields Statistical Analysis Report, about 28 percent of bachelor’s degree students and 20 percent of associate’s degree students entered a STEM field (i.e., they chose a STEM-related major) at some point within six years of entering postsecondary education in 2003−04.

“Many of these STEM entrants left STEM several years later by either changing majors or leaving college without completing a degree or certificate,” the NCES reports. “A total of 48 percent of bachelor’s degree students and 69 percent of associate’s degree students who entered STEM fields between 2003 and 2009 had left these fields by spring 2009. Roughly one-half of these leavers switched their majors to non-STEM fields, and the rest of them left STEM fields by exiting college before earning a degree or certificate.”…Read More

Institutions say this is the new priority in higher education

Survey reveals institutions, like UC Irvine, are putting greater effort into tracking graduates’ success and helping them continue learning through short-term programs.

track-graduate-successThe days of warmly wishing graduates farewell and good luck after four years is not a sustaining strategy for colleges and universities, says a new report. Instead, offering online programs to keep graduates coming back to the institution for continuing career education is quickly becoming higher-ed’s newest must-offer.

According to the results the Education Advisory Board (EAB)’s annual Future of Online and Professional Education Survey, improving how institutions track career success has emerged as the highest priority for senior executives of online and professional higher education programs.

In the survey, 95 percent of respondents expressed interest in better longitudinally tracking graduates’ career outcomes. Though many institutions primarily are interested in whether or not students got a job after graduating and their average salary data, there is also interest in developing more sophisticated and inclusive metrics for career success.…Read More

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