Academic research fueling impressive gains for economy, industry survey shows

An annual survey of 195 universities, hospitals and other research institutions nationwide shows that more than ever, academic research is fueling impressive gains for local, state and national economies, with the formation of a record 1,024 startup companies in 2016, according to findings in the Association of University Technology Managers’ (AUTM) 2016 Annual Licensing ActivitySurvey.

Among the key findings of the report:

  • The number of invention disclosures–a direct measure of institutional impact on innovation–has been on the rise the past five years, reaching 25,825 in 2016.
  • 16,487 new U.S. patent applications were filed, a gain of nearly 3.4 percent, and 7,021 U.S. patents were issued in 2016, up 5.1 percent, as research institutions invest and protect intellectual property arising from academic research.
  • A record 1,024 startups were formed, making a direct impact on local economies, with more than 73 percent of the new businesses remaining in their institution’s home state.
  • Consumers and businesses benefited from 800 new products.

Every year, universities around the globe develop inventions–more than 380,000 in the last 26 years–that have real-world, sometimes life-changing, applications. These innovations are licensed by university technology transfer offices to companies for commercialization, and are the genesis of thousands of new companies, resulting in both benefits to society and solid economic wins.…Read More

6 characteristics of an innovative university

Just like 2016’s improvement trends, academic program creation and evaluation was top-of-mind with institutions. However, this year colleges and universities looked to diversify their program portfolios, either through offering online or blended learning offerings, through offering micro-credentials, or by placing their bets on emerging programs.

This is just one of the trends highlighted in Hanover Research’s 2017 Industry Trend Report, which studies the impact of these improvement trends across the 800 research projects commissioned by over 300 higher education clients (Hanover’s client list includes Georgetown University, Gonzaga, Johns Hopkins, Texas A&M, and Wake Forest to name a few). Hanover’s research work spans all institutional type—four-year, community college, business schools, law schools—as well as departments like marketing, academic affairs and finance/operations.

What’s also noteworthy this year is that Hanover has gone a step further in identifying the overarching improvement trend of academic program creation and review by including a list of the top high-growth and emerging programs in higher ed at the moment.…Read More

6 growing trends taking over academic libraries

Spreading digital fluency is now a core responsibility of academic libraries, and Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) are poised to amplify the utility and reach of library services like never before. These are just two of the revelations part of the New Media Consortium’s (NMC) University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Chur, Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), ETH Library, and the Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Annual Horizon Report: 2017 Library Edition.

The report, which decides the trends and technologies that will have a dramatic influence on academic libraries in the next 5 years—thanks to a panel of 75 experts composed of library leaders, librarians, technologists, industry leaders, and other key stakeholders from 14 countries—aims to help leaders seeking inspiration, models, and tactical insight around strategy and technology deployment for academic libaries.

Watch the Video Summary:…Read More

Space: The final frontier in the search for full-pay students?

In order to maximize net tuition revenue, higher education employs a high-price, high-discount model. But just as trees don’t grow to the sky, this strategy can’t work forever—the U.S. is running out of students who can pay full tuition. Students are tapped out: in the 2014-15 school year, 86 percent of first-time full-time freshmen received financial aid.

This means that when schools increase tuition, only the remaining 14 percent of students can actually afford to pay more, creating a disconnect between raising tuition and actually getting more cash in the door. Tuition rose by 4.8 percent per year between 2006 and 2016—adding up to an eye-popping 60 percent over the past decade.

But tuition revenues per student grew by only half as much. Schools are having to discount even to attract wealthy students: private four-year schools are offering 33 percent discounts to students whose families are in the top income quartile. There is, so to speak, very little blood left in the turnip.…Read More

CIOs: OER will storm campuses in next 5 years, “high cloud” just isn’t happening

Eighty-two percent of institutions say open educational resources (OER) will be an important source of course content in 5 years, according to a survey of CIOs detailed in an annual report that takes a look at campus IT. [Read last year’s Campus Computing results here “CIOS: 5 campus IT priorities for 2016 and beyond.“] The results of the report were released during the recent EDUCAUSE 2017 conference held in Philadelphia, Pa.

This year saw small gains in formal institutions support for using OER in course materials, but faculty concerns remain about the quality of OER and updates surrounding the materials, according to the annual Campus Computing Project.

Video is increasingly important for hybrid, flipped and online classes, and the growing use of video lecture capture has surpassed audio in institutions. Overall, universities have much more capacity for video, according to the report.…Read More

Is innovation severely lacking in online education?

Online education programs are seeing steady growth, though lower tuition and the use of innovative technologies and tools seem to be lagging, according to the Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE).

CHLOE is a survey of chief online officers at community colleges and four-year public and private nonprofit institutions and focuses on the management of online education as it becomes more mainstream at U.S. institutions.

The emergence of the chief online officer position at many institutions is strong evidence that online education is becoming more mainstream, and the CHLOE survey draws upon feedback from 104 chief online officer responses to inform its report on current online education trends, including resource allocation, emerging tools, instructional innovations, and more.…Read More

EDUCAUSE: The top 10 IT issues in 2018

It’s that time again when almost every attendee part of the annual EDUCAUSE conference crams next to each other in a convention ballroom to hear about what their higher ed peers have to say about the IT issues and challenges they expect to face next year.

EDUCAUSE’s annual IT issues report is published in the beginning of the year, but this session provides a great preview of what’s to come. Attendees were granted an exclusive preview of ‘2018’s Top 10 IT Issues,’ and panel members discussed the issues and their importance. [Editor’s note: See the 2017 issues here.]

“I bet you can guess what the top issue of 2018 is,” said Susan Grajek, vice president of communities and research for EDUCAUSE, “because it was the same top issue for last year and the year before–security!”…Read More

6 ways video technologies are fundamentally shaping higher education

Video technologies’ continue to have a profound impact on higher-ed classrooms as educators and students report increases in achievement, engagement and active content creation, according to a new survey from Kaltura.

Ninety-nine percent of institutions report they have teachers regularly incorporating video technologies in their curriculum. More than half are using video for student assignments, with 21 percent reporting that more than half of their students actively create video (up from 10 percent in 2016). Seventy-three percent of higher education institutions use video technologies for remote teaching and learning.

The survey gathered responses from more than 1,000 educators, administrators, students, IT and media staff, and instructional designers.…Read More

Colleges of Distinction challenges trend of one-size-fits-all academic rankings

Challenging the traditional “best college” rankings trend as a simplistic approach to evaluating colleges, Colleges of Distinction (CoD) releases its 2018 guidebook this week. Rather than looking at rankings to find the “best college,” the guide spotlights schools that deliver the richest classroom experiences.

The 2018 Colleges of Distinction Guidebook features school evaluations based on what research suggests is crucial to collegiate success and student satisfaction-the student experience. While other services churn out rankings based on publicly available information and statistics like acceptance rates and reputation, CoD says they conduct extensive research and campus interviews to answer, “Where are the best places to learn, grow and succeed?”

“While others focus on prestige, we focus on what matters to students: getting the richest college experience possible,” says Tyson Schritter, CoD’s chief operating officer. “We enable students to find the right schools for themselves, not the mythical best schools.”…Read More

6 big differences in undergrad intern career habits-and what it means for colleges and universities

There’s a new generation in town and it’s one that institutions and employers better get ready for, because it’s 23 million strong and will be flooding the workforce by the end of the decade.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Generation Z; a confidence-filled group that doesn’t want to miss a thing, has the shortest attention span of any generation and isn’t quite as open as its predecessors–the millennials–from whom they learned that not everything needs to be shared online.

…Read More

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