OER Benefits Extend Beyond Price

As open education librarian at the City University of New York, Ann Fiddler and her colleagues have been working for the past year to help faculty members integrate open educational resources (OER) into their courses as part of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $8 million budget investment to provide OER to students at the 21 campuses of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the 64 campuses of the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

In an opinion piece for the education website The 74 Million (a reference to the number of children in the U.S. under the age of 18), Fiddler noted that by this coming fall, CUNY students in high-enrollment classes should have saved $8.1 million through use of OER. However, she added that the impact of open content goes beyond dollars and cents, citing four other powerful effects:

1) Faculty members become reinvigorated about their vocation as they retool their courses for OER, sometimes involving their students in the creation of new learning materials.

2) With OER, all students, no matter their financial situation, have their course materials and are prepared to learn on the first day of class. Previously, because of high textbook prices, some students waited until several weeks into the term to buy some materials or skipped purchasing them entirely.

3) Evidence is beginning to mount that OER can improve student outcomes. Fiddler noted that in one CUNY math course, students using OER scored 10 points higher on the final exam and were three times as likely to pass the course as their counterparts using traditional print materials. While still early days, she said she expects further positive data as OER are expanded to more campuses and more classes.

4) OER foster collaboration, not only within systems and within states but across state borders. SUNY and CUNY are collaborating on the launch of Open NYS, a community to showcase and support use of OER for those just getting started. The group is already sharing best practices with officials in Maryland, while learning from early adopters such as California.

Arizona Creates New Learning Environment

A college classroom with the lecturer in front addressing students seated at rows of desks may no longer be the best way to deliver a quality education. In fact, research done at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point found the lecture model is outdated for the digital natives now on campus.

To address the issue, the University of Arizona, Tucson, began investigating evidence-based learning and launched a pilot that used objective data to design courses featuring shorter lectures and class activities. The next step was a collaborative learning space (CLS), a large room with portable furniture and tabletop whiteboards that allow students to interact easily with each other.

“Faculty across campus began seeking out opportunities to teach in our CLS,” Jane Hunter, director of academic resources and special projects, wrote in a column for eCampus News. “They tried new strategies they had never been able to successfully implement. They found new joy in teaching which, in turn, ignited students with a passion for learning.”

From that first CLS, the University of Arizona now has 20, ranging in size to accommodate from 24 to 264 students. The new rooms serve 210 faculty members from 60 departments.

“I am trying new ideas in the collaborative learning space that I have never tried in my 10 years of teaching. It has been fun for me,” said Richard Harper, who teaches in the School of Government and Public Policy at Arizona. “The classroom has become a ‘partner’ in the learning process.”

Goldrick-Rab Headlines TAC 2017 Speakers

Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of higher-education policy and sociology at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, will deliver the keynote address at the 2017 Textbook Affordability Conference (TAC), Nov. 10-12, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

Goldrick-Rab is author of the Amazon bestseller Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream and founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, the nation’s only translational research laboratory focused on ways to make college more affordable. Her keynote speech will discuss reasons why campuses must collaborate with internal partners to address affordability.

TAC 2017 will also feature presentations from Robin Baliszewski, managing director, Pearson North America; TJ Bliss, director of development and strategy, Wiki Education; and Rick Anderson, associate dean for collections and scholarly communication, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. All TAC 2017 learning events are focused on developing models that campuses can use to create more affordable, accessible, and effective course-material options for students.

Baliszewski was president of Pearson’s North American career and professional education business from 2000-09 and served as the company’s director for people, with responsibility for recruitment, retention, development, and succession of Pearson employees. Her current responsibilities include sales and field marketing for higher-education, academic, corporate, and government markets.

Bliss is responsible for developing strategies and relationships in the philanthropy community and working with the Wiki Education board to create an organizational strategy. He guided the open education resources portfolio for the Hewlett Foundation for the last three years and served as director of assessment and accountability for the department of education in Idaho.

Anderson previously worked as a bibliographer for YBP Inc., now known as GOBI Library Solutions. In addition, he was head acquisitions librarian for the University of North Carolina, Greensboro; director of resource acquisitions for the University of Nevada, Reno; and is a regular contributor to The Scholarly Kitchen blog.

The conference schedule and registration information is available at the TAC 2017 website. The Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center has rooms available at special conference rates until Oct. 2.

Education Benefits Back on the Table

Employer tuition-reimbursement programs, a casualty of the Great Recession of 2008, are making a comeback. Companies are rediscovering that education incentives help keep workers on the job and make finding new employees easier.

“Companies really did slash and burn their professional development budgets,” Bruce Elliott, manager of compensation and benefits of the Society of Human Resource Management, said in an article for The Hechinger Report. “Now we’re starting to see things come back, but we’re seeing them come back in completely different ways.”

For instance, many new tuition-reimbursement programs limit workers to courses from specific for-profit providers that are, in turn, providing employers deep discounts for access to those employees. Some companies also require employees to apply for federal financial aid before its education benefit is applied.

“It’s not just a charitable thing,” said Jaime Fall, director of the UpSkill America initiative. “Companies that hire frontline workers know that if they don’t offer benefits that are competitive, they’re going to lose out on workers who want to go to college.”

Another reason for companies to offer education benefits is dissatisfaction with the work skills of recent college graduates. Just 11% of business leaders told a Gallup survey they strongly agreed that graduates were ready for work, even though 96% of higher-ed officials believe their institutions are very to somewhat effective in preparing students for jobs.

“This is a way for the for-profits to maintain relevance,” said Howard Lurie, analyst for the education consulting firm Eduventures. “They’re under the gun. It’s an enrollment-management solution for them.”

Pearson to Market Ohio Community College

Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Cincinnati, OH, is struggling with declining enrollment and a state-mandated tuition freeze. Pearson Education has signed on to find a solution.

In an agreement signed last fall, Pearson will take over marketing, recruiting, and student services for the institution, which saw its enrollment fall to fewer than 10,000 students over the last six years. The 10-year contract provides Pearson with service fees of up to 20% of tuition revenue based on a tiered system that depends on retention and new students, according to a report in Inside Higher Ed.

“We have a tremendous amount of expertise in marketing, digital and traditional marketing,” said Todd Hitchcock, chief operating officer of the Pearson subsidiary Pearson Embanet. “We’re able to leverage everything we know about student acquisition on the front end from years of experience. If you think about the traditional community college, they may have a couple of people in marketing, where we have hundreds. So on the marketing side, we’ve developed a comprehensive plan that really focused on their brand: redesigning, redeveloping it, and defining what it means to go to Cincinnati State.”

Faculty members are cautiously optimistic about the partnership with Pearson, which has been a content provider at the school for years. Pam Ecker, president of the Cincinnati State chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said instructors have been informed throughout the contract process.

“There were a lot of people with concerns about a public college partnering with a for-profit organization, but we’ve been appropriately included,” she said. “We’re carefully watching all the steps, and we never hesitate to have our voice heard.”

The Disconnect Between Librarians, Faculty

Librarians appear to have a communications problem on campus. A survey, Bridging the Librarian-Faculty Gap in the Academic Library2015, reported that while 98% of librarians wish they had better communications with faculty, just 45% of the responding faculty members had the same opinion.

The survey of 500 librarians and 500 faculty members, conducted by Library Journal and the publishing company Gale, reported that 27% of faculty members think there is no need to consult with librarians about course reserves. One faculty respondent in the survey even claimed “faculty does not view the library as an up-to-date resource,” while another said Google Scholar was more essential than the library, according to a report in eCampus News.

In addition, 57% of faculty members who engaged with librarians said they worked together to provide resources, while only 31% of librarians agreed. Two-third of librarians rated libraries as being “excellent” or “above average” at creating collections of content to support curricula, while just 54% of faculty agreed.

“As more pressure is put on higher-education institutions to measure outcomes, there needs to be greater recognition of the value the library brings to the table,” said Paul Gazzolo, senior vice president and general manager for Gale. “From the survey, it’s clear that there is opportunity and need to ingrain the library in campus culture—which will ultimately elevate the learning experience, a common goal for all stakeholders.”

Faculty suggested dedicated library liaisons for each department could be part of the solution, while the librarians want more chances to attend faculty meetings, as well as commitments from the institution to embed library-taught research skills. 

Network Maps Pathway to Careers

Eight states have joined forces to find the best ways to help connect high school students to a postsecondary education that leads to a full-time job. The Pathways to Prosperity Network is trying to develop a “gold-standard model” for states to use, identifying lessons learned and policy recommendations that are useful, according to a report in eCampus News.

The State Progress Report 2012-14, released by Jobs for the Future and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, found that while job availability differs from region to region, the health-care industry, information and computer science, and advanced manufacturing are areas of growth in all eight states and only require two-year degrees.

The report noted that career information should be provided to students in middle school. It also found that important “levers” in each participating state included work-based learning experiences; allowing students to earn college credits in high school; bringing together employers, high school, and community colleges to provide work-based learning opportunities; and creating cross-sector state leadership teams to make work-based learning opportunities possible.

“The states we are working with are committed to destroying once and for all the old notion that some kids need to prepare for college while others are being prepared for careers,” said Robert Schwartz, who helps lead the network. “They understand that, in the 21st century, all young people need to be prepared both for some form of further education and a career.”

Group Bringing Microdegrees to Campus

The idea of microcredentialing through nanodegrees and badges is becoming more accepted, but limited mostly to educational technology firms. A group of traditional colleges and universities are working on a way to get into the game.

The Georgia Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, the University of Washington, the University of California Davis, Irvine, and Los Angeles, and the University of Wisconsin Extension have joined forces on a project called the University Learning Store. Still in its initial stages, the concept is designed to create an alternative credentialing process through modular content, skills assessments, and services for students—such as tutors, coaches, and counselors—similar to programs being offered by Coursera and Udacity, according to a report in Inside Higher Education.

The group wants to be able to offer students different products from a variety of providers through the University Learning Store. Online content will include courses where instructors interact with students through the material, just like current online courses but for a shorter period of time. There will also be direct assessment through tests, papers, and projects, along with courses that award microdegrees for proficiency in job-related soft skills.

The University Learning Store would also be based on the “freemium” model where some content is free but students would also have to pay for some services. Assessment, tutoring, and other support services would be fee based.

Georgia Works on Digital Content Solution

Affordable Learning Georgia was launched last year by the University System of Georgia to create a platform for the free online texts educators were developing. The state Board of Regents kicked in $2.5 million to the effort with a goal of creating content for 26 basic college courses all students at any state public institution could take online.

Small grants were made available to professors creating online content. They ended up with resources for 22 of the 26 classes, called e-Core courses that were targeted. That will add up to $2.7 million in savings on textbooks, according to the chief academic officer of the University System of Georgia.

Faculty at the University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, generated digital content for 10 courses from grants they received. Its estimated students will save about $1 million next year using that content.

Affordable Learning Georgia is already upping the ante. A second goal of the initiative was to create online textbooks for the 50 courses with the highest enrollment, but administrators now want content for the top 100 classes.

“I believe it’s going to be the future of delivering content to students, especially for these kinds of courses,” Mark Goodroe, professor of mathematics at the University of North Georgia, told the digital news platform Styrk.

UC Irvine Offers Chemistry Curriculum

The University of California Irvine is making its university-level chemistry curriculum and educational resources available through a new partnership with the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and the California Community Colleges (CCC) systems. The partnership will make full-captioned lecture videos freely available to students and faculty around the world.

As part of the collaboration, UC Irvine’s Open Chemistry (OpenChem) curriculum will be offered to the CSU and CCC systems. OpenChem consists of 16 quarter-length undergraduate and select graduate lecture classes and is available at no cost.

UC Irvine is also collaborating with other providers of open educational resources, such as the UC Davis ChemWiki textbook.

“This partnership extends UC Irvine’s commitment to open education and its worldwide impact, with a focus on the needs of students in the California public education system,” said Gary W. Matkin, dean of continuing education, distance learning, and summer sessions at UC Irvine. “It advances our goal of a world where high-quality education is available to all for free.”

Initiative to Provide More Tech Workers

TechHire was launched to provide more U.S. workers in the growing technology field. More than 300 employers and local governments from 21 regions across the country have committed to the initiative, announced by President Obama at the National League of Cities.

The Obama administration pledged $100 million in competitive grants to fund joint initiatives to target workers who may not have access to tech training. The money for the grants will come from fees companies already pay to hire skilled foreign workers under the H-1B visa program.

“We’ve got to keep positioning ourselves for a constantly changing global economy,” Obama said during the announcement of the initiative. “If we’re not producing enough tech workers, over time that’s going to threaten our leadership in global innovation, which is the bread and butter of the 21st-century economy.”

Business leaders are also committed to offer free online training to prepare workers for higher-paying technology positions, such as software development, network administration, and cybersecurity. The communities involved are working on ways to use data-driven assessments of employer workforce demands; recruit and expand accelerated tech-learning programs such as coding bootcamps and online training; and find ways to connect people with the jobs.

“The world’s technology needs are just moving a lot faster than traditional education solutions. That’s the fundamental problem here,” said Greg Fischer, mayor of Louisville, KY. “So that’s why these nonconventional methods are needed right now.”

More Innovative Learning Needed

While colleges and universities are good at creating outside opportunities for their students to learn—such as study-abroad programs, internships, and service learning—the core learning experience remains centered on courses taught in classrooms on campus.

“Many of our students are too bright and too entrepreneurial to be the recipients of the kind of education acquired in traditional lecture halls, laboratories, or even seminar rooms,” Steven Mintz, executive director of the Institute for Transformational Learning, University of Texas System, wrote in an Inside Higher Education column.

Mintz said a solution would be to organize undergraduate education into project-based learning experiences. For instance, the University of Texas at Dallas is merging computer science and engineering with creative arts and the humanities for a program that teaches technical skills while trying to provide an understanding of the impact that technology has on communications, culture, and commerce.

“They merge the innovation process of artists, scientists, and engineers and explore experimental models through new technologies,” Mintz noted. “Departments are transformed into innovation labs and students into innovators.”

Alliance Working for Student Success

The University Innovation Alliance is made up of 11 universities across the United States focused on making higher education more accessible to all students. The collaboration is designed to increase degree production and student diversity, and cut costs by more effective use of funds.

The group is working on adaptive learning, new ways to distribute financial aid, and precollege student outreach, according to a report in Inside Higher Education. It’s also tracking student progress at Georgia State University, Atlanta, which has seen a 5% increase in retention rates and students graduating a semester quicker through the use of predictive analytics and proactive advising.

The information gathered from Georgia State helped the coalition create a “college playbook” to help first-generation and underrepresented students make it to graduation. The playbook shares with students and faculty the secrets to success, according to Becky Warner, senior vice provost for academic affairs of Oregon State University, Corvallis, one of the universities in the Alliance.

“We’re going to put the competition aside, and as a group we’ve set group goals for graduating students from diverse backgrounds,” Warner said in a report on the CBS affiliate station in Eugene. “What Georgia State found was that they could actually reduce the time to graduation by half a semester, if they could just get the right data to the right people.”

Millennials Looking for More from Education

A survey last year by IdeaPaint found that the education industry gets low marks from its millennial employees on using brainstorming meetings to generate ideas as well as on supporting collaboration among co-workers.

“Millennials are rapidly expanding the traditional college classroom, demanding more online learning solutions and a more collaborative atmosphere between students and teachers,” Zach Cutler, founder of the public relations firm the Cutler Group, wrote in The Huffington Post. “If higher-education institutions take note, they’ll be ready not only for Gen Y, but also for the upcoming Gen Z.”

According to Cutler, millennials stay in school longer and colleges and universities need to be doing more to attract students into master’s programs. Institutions have also been slow to take advantage of massive open online courses at a time when millennials are becoming more comfortable with online learning.

Higher ed needs to find new, more collaborative approaches to learning, Cutler said. A study by New York University found that student retention rates were much higher when learning was more collaborative rather than simply a lecture or reading. Retention rates jumped to 90% when students were put into a teaching role.

“Millennials want to play a more active part in their own learning, and the best way to speak directly to these students is to put away the PowerPoint slide and get students more fully immersed in work,” Cutler wrote.