Innovate.EDU

What effect will MOOCs have on Higher Ed? Hint: it’s not safe to go back in the water

richde — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 20:10:49 +0000

The “Year of the MOOC” is really over. Now that 2012 is behind us, many seem to be hoping that the hype about MOOCs has faded. The reality of coping with producing new kinds of courseware has set in across many campuses. Coursera — already the grand elder — is holding a partners conference this …

What could possibly go wrong with MOOCs? The Seven Deadly Sins as Strategy

richde — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:10:42 +0000

The next verse of the epic poem “Year of the MOOC” will almost certainly be a recounting of a fall from grace if I am correctly reading my recent discussions with dozens of institutional leaders. Whether there will be enlightenment and ultimate redemption is less clear at this point, but what should be a path …

Higher Ed Lab Notebook 1/25/2013

richde — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:27:54 +0000

A Night to Remember… Today’s WSJ article about the announcement from the University of Wisconsin about a completely online degree is generating a lot of online comment and discussion. Here is how I would characterize the conversation so far. Click on the image for a higher resolution version.

At the Movies (with the stars of pure math)

richde — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:01:22 +0000

When I wrote Dancing with the Stars of Pure Math the idea of attending Dick Lipton’s seminar with 10,000 students was novel and risky. That was 2009. Well before the start of the innovative whirlwind in online education that was started when Sebastian Thrun, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng opened their Stanford courses to hundreds …

Accreditation: Something better will replace it

richde — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:47:20 +0000

Today’s commentary at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy leads off with my article about where accreditation is heading. Accreditation is an idea that makes sense if you think of universities as factories: Accreditors were supposed to be the quality control department of the factory. That factory model is crumbling, however, shaken …

What Will You Learn? Spoiler: Not as much as they say you will….

richde — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:29:16 +0000

Time for the 2013 Edition of ACTA’s What Will They Learn?™ report. In last year’s edition, ACTA followed the curricula at over 1,000 undergraduate institutions to see whether there was any correlation between desired learning outcomes in liberal arts programs and topics actually covered in the classroom. Last year’s results were shocking enough. Most high-tuition …

Higher Ed Lab Notebook 11/26/2012

richde — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:33:31 +0000

PCAST to Release Report on Future of the Research Enterprise. On Friday, November 30, the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) will hold a meeting to discuss IT R&D, STEM Education, and Online Courses (see agenda (PDF)). In addition, it will release a new report entitled Transformation and Opportunity: The Future …

AAUP Statement on Accreditation: Mission Creep?

richde — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:38:05 +0000

As I was writing Abelard to Apple, I became increasingly skeptical that accreditors could get it together. I suppose there is an argument to be made that the federal and state governments need a rudimentary ability to separate clearly reputable educational institutions from store-front operations. That was the original motivation for the current system of …

Online Courses @ Elite Campuses: Heading for the Exit

richde — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 21:11:26 +0000

MOOC platforms are the new startups. Nobody really knows how it will all turn out, but these are experiments that need to be given time, space, and dollars to to incubate innovation. But what exactly does that mean? And what models are available to institutions that want to try to create such safe spaces for …

Online Courses @ Elite Campuses: Investor vs Investor

richde — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 16:58:25 +0000