Site Allows Teachers to Review Apps

Common Sense Media has developed Graphite, a free platform that collects and rates educational apps, games, and web sites. The site provides a way to sort through the thousands of educational apps being created each year with reviews from K-12 educators based on engagement, pedagogy, and support. Reviews also include information on how well the apps work in their classrooms.

An important additional feature is that instructors can make suggestions for improvements. While many apps encourage memorization, Graphite reviews should help developers gain a better understanding of what teachers need.

“Whether it’s a local school group of teachers or a large-scale platform like Graphite, educators are looking to find the best apps as quickly as possible,” wrote Tanya Roscorla, of the Center for Digital Education, in a blog post for teacherswithapps.com. “And when teachers uncover quality apps that engage students, they’ll help solve today’s problems of too many gems being buried in the dirt.”

MOOCs and Corporate Learning

Since 2000, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have gone from wine-tasting classes to instruction from prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The technology behind MOOCs has gone mobile. Investment over the same period has risen from around $800 million to $1.2 billion so far in 2013.

Corporate learning lags, but that could change, according to Josh Bersin in his blog post for Chief Learning Officer.

“Our learning environments are pretty far behind,” he wrote. “We’re still using LMS platforms developed 10 years ago, e-learning courses that look more like cartoons or audio-enabled flash cards, and we still don’t have enough mobile learning environments. Yes, there are many exciting new programs out there, but most corporate learning systems aren’t nearly as compelling as YouTube.”

Bersin says he believes change will come because corporations are willing and able to invest in the platforms, while the creators of those tools, to monetize their products, will look to corporations for capital. Coursera and edX already have corporate development teams working on potential partnerships.

In addition, MOOCs can be used as accredited learning for corporations that are used to spending millions on core-skills training.

“According to the Gates Foundation, in 2012 more than 170 startups in this area were funded for a total capital investment of more than $1.2 billion,” Bersin wrote. “We in the $130 billion corporate learning market are going to see great benefits from all these new ideas, so stay tuned.”

Pros, Cons of Cloud Computing

In a June report, Educause ranked cloud computing third on its list of the top IT issues facing higher education. Yet, a Gartner report predicts that 30% of organizations using software as a service, such as for e-mail, will switch back from the cloud to on-premises systems in the next year.

In an article for Information Week, David Crain, assistant provost and chief information officer at Southern Illinois University, explained some of the reasons why his institution is headed back to on-premises service, at least for e-mail.

The university has been using cloud services for the last two years, but Crain found that discounts the institution receives on most technology made cloud services far more expensive than alternatives. He noted that the downtime in cloud service has been “consistently and significantly higher than we experienced with the on-premises solution.” Cloud security issues and the amount of bandwidth consumed are also concerns.

Crain said schools looking into cloud services should investigate private and community cloud offerings, costs, and the complexities of integrating services. He also advised against signing a long-term contract or using a cloud service without a strong service agreement.

Testing Student Verification with Webcams

The importance of making sure that the student who signed up for an online class is actually the one taking it has been magnified by the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs).  Solutions range from keystroke software to webcams to programs that shut down web browsers during an exam.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology started using webcams with the MITx XSeries sequences for some of its courses that began this fall and plans to expand the program next year. It takes between six months to two years to complete each of the sequences, which use content from two to four traditional classroom courses. MIT is testing webcam photos of students to confirm their identity for the sequences. edX is also testing the ID-verification process with three of its MOOCs from MIT and the University of California at Berkeley.

While there is a cost to using webcam verification, it should add just a few hundred dollars to the cost, according to a report in eCampus News. A free “Honor Code Certificate of Achievement” option is also available to students, but credit is not.

“This is all an experiment,” said Steve Carson, external relations director at MIT OpenCourseWare. “We’re trying different things and looking at what learners are interested in—what kinds of certificates do they want, what kind of programs are they pursuing.”

Digital Textbooks Cheaper But Not Easy

It’s a given, many in the education world say, that almost all textbooks and other course materials will go digital within a few years. Paper texts will be as dead as the trees from which they’re made.

That seems likely if you consider indicators such as the financial statements from major publishers. Pearson, the largest of the textbook producers, reported a few weeks ago that digital publishing and services now make up half of its income—a first for the company. Other textbook publishers are also experiencing rises in digital sales.

Yet, college students aren’t all that crazy about digital textbooks, even though they prefer digital formats for personal communications and entertainment. A commentary in Carnegie Mellon University’s campus newspaper, written by a CMU student who first experienced online course materials in high school, describes how the negatives of digital textbooks ultimately cancel out the positives.

In short, the student writer says, it’s simply harder to study course materials on a digital screen. Even homework is often online now, he notes, and some multiple-choice exercises can be gamed, undermining retention of concepts.

If sales of digital course materials are growing, it’s probably because they frequently cost less, a persuasive factor. The Educause/Internet2 e-textbook pilot conducted during the 2012-13 academic year found that lower prices was the biggest incentive for using digital materials for both students and faculty members. 

New Way to Keep Students Engaged

Daydreaming and passing notes are so old-school when it comes to classroom distractions these days. Now, students can pass time on their mobile devices, browsing all sorts of web sites instead of paying attention in class.

Ronald Yaros, an assistant professor at the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, has found a solution with what he calls a “MEEC” (manageable educational environment of collaboration).

“MEECs are a large, multifaceted approach to a collaborative environment,” Yaros told eCampus News. “You must have a set of elements that engage students for an entire class, so there is no deviation whatsoever.”

The MEEC is a mobile app with content specific to Yaros’ journalism course, part of a collection of experimental courses at Maryland that try to challenge students in unconventional ways. The app keeps students busy with relevant course material, such as polls, blog posts, quizzes, and videos, delivered to their iPads throughout the lecture. Students are simply too occupied with their classwork to surf the web.

“The interactivity is a little overwhelming the first week for students,” Yaros said, “and some of them have to adjust. Some of them don’t like it. Some look up at the end of the period and can’t believe it’s a 70-minute class.”

He is still working on the best content to engage students and the best time to introduce it during the class.

“It’s thinking every 10 minutes about what you are doing,” he said. “What could you be doing to maximize how people psychologically engage with information? In my opinion, if you don’t do that, these devices, they are a distraction.”

Students Still Skeptical of Online Courses

A new report, titled “Not Yet Sold, found that students may not be as satisfied with their online educational experience as previously reported. In fact, 38% of the community college students responding to a survey from Public Agenda said web-based courses were harder to pass than the traditional classroom model.

Six of 10 students also said online courses required more discipline than attending class in person, and 40% said they learned less than in classrooms or lecture halls. In addition, three-quarters of employers surveyed for the study agreed that online courses require the same or more discipline from students than traditional classes.

“Just as online education itself is rapidly changing, we expect student and employer attitudes to shift as well,” the authors of the study wrote. “Still, we need to consider the skepticism of those on the ground, especially if we hope to avoid any unintended consequences.”

iOS 7 Pushing Desktop Computers Out?

Robert X. Cringely, the pen name for tech journalist Mark Stephens, recently blogged about a future of computing where smartphones replace desktop computers. That future began with the launch of iOS 7 and the iPhone 5s, a device as powerful as some laptops that also enables Bluetooth connectivity.

In fact, he wrote, a move away from desktop to mobile technology is part of Apple’s strategy.

“Here’s what I expect we’ll see,” Cringely said. “Go to your desk at work and, using Bluetooth and AirPlay, the iPhone 5s or 6 in your pocket will automatically link to your keyboard, mouse, and display. Processing and storage will be in your pocket and, to some extent, in the cloud. Your desktop will require only a generic display, keyboard, mouse, and some sort of AirPlay device, possibly an Apple TV that looks a lot like a Google ChromeCast.”

If Cringely is correct, it could also mean more big changes in education, according to Joshua Kim in his technology blog for Inside Higher Education. Replacing desktop computers with mobile devices would allow learning platforms to be merged into mobile apps that could be updated regularly.

“A desktop-replacement mobile device would enable us to bundle e-learning content with the e-learning platform,” Kim wrote. “All curricular materials could be delivered to the mobile device, synced to the cloud, and designed to work seamlessly with the mobile learning tools.”

Tablets Eat Up Campus Bandwidth

A report from MarketingCharts found that each college student now brings an average of seven mobile devices with them to school, up from 6.4 just a year ago. That increase is making it tough for campuses to keep up with the IT demands.

Just how tough was spelled out in the 2013 State of ResNet Report from the Association of Information Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education and the National Association of College and University Business Officers. The survey found that 84% of respondents felt tablet computers would consume the most bandwidth in the coming years, with laptop and desktop computers coming in second at 75%, followed by video systems, such as Blue-ray players (64%), smartphones (63%), and video games (61%).

“There is an expectation right now among students of, ‘Any device, any time, as much as we want,’” Joe Harrington, director of network services at Boston College, told eCampus News. “This has [IT officials] back on their heels a little bit, looking for ways to deal with this proactively rather than reactively.”

Nearly 80% of the 251 responding campuses allow students to connect an unlimited number of devices, up from 68% in 2012, with just 14% capping the number of connections at five devices or fewer. In addition, 42% of the campuses allow residents to extend the network with the use of hubs, servers, or routers.

The report also found that while most schools are concerned with their long-term ability to provide bandwidth, few have plans to address it anytime soon. In fact, 44% of respondents said they have no plans for bandwidth growth.

Solving the MOOC Catch-22

Catch-22, a term made famous in the Joseph Heller novel of the same name, has entered the lexicon as a “no-win” situation. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) may have reached that point.

Students take MOOCs because they are free or at a very low cost, but want to receive credit for the work. Accreditation would raise the cost, which would, at the very least, make taking the course less attractive for many students. However, Coursera may have found of solution with its Signature Track program.

The educational technology firm recently reached $1 million in revenue from Signature Track courses, which offer verification certificates for a fee. Universities have struggled to find inexpensive ways to offer credit, but the Coursera example shows students are willing to pay fees for courses that are billed as free educational content if college credit is available as well.

“If a university were to offer a MOOC course, certificate, or degree at a modest rate, I believe that students would sign up,” Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois at Springfield, told eCampus News. “Charging 10% or less of normal tuition for a MOOC-delivered program is likely to be very popular. Charging full tuition for a MOOC is far less likely to garner much support.”

The other challenge currently facing MOOCs is building awareness. There are still plenty of educators who are not sold on the courses, and questions remain about how employers will view MOOC certificates compared to a traditional college degree.

“A lot of people right now are complaining about accreditation and so on for being such a barrier, which it is, but the history of disruption shows that when barriers collapse, it happens by going around them in different ways, not always going through,” said Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. “I wonder if we’re seeing the beginnings of that here.”

Edugames Growing, Although Not in Hi-Ed

Since college students aged 18-24 have spent most of their young lives interacting with vivid video games and special screen effects, some educators are concerned they’ll be unwilling or unable to read through numerous pages of text for class assignments.

That raises the question of whether more course materials should be transformed into video games to hold students’ attention and allow them to engage more fully with the subject matter.

Educational gaming is already on the rise. The New Media Consortium Horizon Project 2013,Higher Education Edition, predicts game-based learning will be widely adopted within two to three years.

In a presentation at the Serious Play 2013 conference in August, data analysis firm Ambient Insight forecast a 10.1% jump in game-based learning for North America by 2017, with 15.3% growth in mobile edugames alone. But most of those games aren’t destined for college courses.

According to Ambient, only 8% of mobile learning apps are designed for higher education, compared to 40% for preschoolers to second grade. One of the biggest barriers to creating games appropriate for higher ed is the complexity of the material. Games helping preschoolers to count or recognize shapes are much easier to develop than games on quantum physics or 16th-century Asian history.

Rather than full-scale edugames, the answer may lie in gamification—adding elements of gaming to course materials to illustrate specific concepts, test skills and comprehension, or provide incentives to students.

Report Finds Online Students Satisfied

A new study from higher education consulting firm Noel-Levitz found that 75% of online students say they are satisfied with their learning experience. In comparison, just 55% of traditional campus-based students expressed satisfaction with their experience.

“Creating connections with students is the great challenge of online education,” Julie Bryant, associate vice president at Noel-Levitz and author of the report, told eCampus News. “How do you keep student interest and involvement when their ‘classroom’ is a computer screen? That’s precisely why so many online programs survey their students about their satisfaction levels.”

While satisfaction with online learning is high, there is still concern among respondents about the quality of instruction in web-based courses. The study also found that the primary factor in satisfaction was the cost of the education, a fact that may have boosted satisfaction with online students.

“With the rising cost of college, students and their families are certainly becoming more critical about the advantages of college education and whether it’s worth it,” Bryant said.

Interest Building in Educational Badges

Digital badges are beginning to be recognized as the next "disruptive technology" in education, particularly at the K-12 level. Students earn digital credentials for showing academic content knowledge in areas that may not be measured by traditional assessment methods.

“Digital badges are essentially credentials that may be earned by meeting established performance criteria,” Angela Elkrody, a fellow at the Eastern Michigan University for Leadership at Counseling, told eSchool News. “The vision of a digital badging ‘ecosystem,’ that is, a loosely connected framework of badges designed by various authorizers for different purposes, is moving forward to realization.”

In such an ecosystem, a school could issue badges to students for the completion of a series of projects designed by the school or by a local business that shows competency in a related Advanced Placement subject. Assessments would be predetermined and a badge presented when the student can demonstrate the specific competency in the course.

New Ways to Search Online Content

While there are plenty of open-source course materials available to students and faculty, finding them remains a challenge. It’s also troublesome for content creators to be noticed.

However, solutions are beginning to pop up, such as Education Marketplace, launched recently by the education platform StudySoup. Education Marketplace is a one-stop location where instructors can find, create, and sell digital content.

“We asked ourselves, ‘Why is all this content decentralized?” Sieva Kozinsky, who founded StudySoup with Jeff Silverman, told eCampus News. “You have notes in your notebook, readings in your textbooks, content on an LMS. There are great resources out there, but there’s no systemized way of finding, using, and learning from all this material.”

In July, Pearson launched a searchable catalog of nearly 700,000 open educational resources that included video and content from Open Course Library though the expansion of its OpenClass Exchange. Education Marketplace is different because it allows content to be created and sold through the StudySoup online tools, which are already being used at more than 40 campuses across the United States.

“Really it allows anybody to create interactive content,” Kozinsky said. “You don’t even have to be tied to a university. Anyone can come into the platform and create material which can then be compiled into what we call a ‘course,’ and delivered to potential students.”

StudySoup has different pricing plans available and intends to keep 15% of the royalties from any course purchased. The company is also working on a peer-review and user rating system to ensure course quality.

Study Debunks Showrooming Myth

A 2012 study found that more than half of its respondents expected bricks-and-mortar retailers to be showrooms for online merchants by 2020. Now, a new report from the Columbia Business School and loyalty management firm Aimia paints a more optimistic picture for traditional retailers.

The report found that while 70% of the 3,000 consumers polled had showroomed at least once in the last year, just 6% went into the store with a plan to buy online after seeing the product in person. It also found that more than 50% were more likely to purchase in-store when they used a mobile device to find online reviews or other information.

“Our findings contradict many of the common assumptions about the threat of showrooming,” David Rogers, professor at the Columbia Business School and an author of the report, told GigaOM.com. “Many [customers with smartphones] are not showrooming but looking for the right information to be confident in their purchase.”

The study reported that most mobile shoppers use their device to check prices, but that convenience, urgency, and immediacy are reasons why they will make a purchase in-store instead of online. In addition, 48% said loyalty programs made them more likely to purchase in-store, even if they found equal or cheaper prices online, while services such as price-matching, free home delivery, and extended warranties also kept them in stores.

“Retailers don’t have to resort to automatic price-matching,” said Rick Ferguson, co-author of the report and vice president of knowledge development at Aimia. “M-shoppers show a strong willingness to join loyalty programs in exchange for rewards, and this gives retailers the chance to build long-term relationships with them.”

Vandy, Maryland Team on MOOC

Massive open online courses can reach a vast number of students, but have been limited to one school offering the course from a single platform. Now, Vanderbilt University and the University of Maryland are working together to develop a cross-institutional MOOC on mobile app development.

The MOOC will begin Jan. 6 with two segments 10 weeks in length hosted on the Coursera platform.

“Creating such an opportunity for Vanderbilt and University of Maryland students alone would be incredibly complex in a traditional environment,” Douglas Schmidt, professor of computer science and computer engineering at Vanderbilt, told eCampus News. “With the MOOC platform, not only is it possible, it will now be available to learners globally.”

The Maryland portion of the MOOC will teach students user-facing portions of mobile apps, while the Vanderbilt portion will focus on the server portion of mobile apps, according to a press release from Vanderbilt.

“Faculty-driven collaborations have historically been common in the research sphere, but the MOOC environment now allows that visceral excitement that comes from the sharing of different perspectives to be applied to the teaching domain as well,” said Cynthia Cyrus, associate provost of undergraduate education at Vanderbilt.

Knewton Expanding Around the Globe

Learning technology provider Knewton followed up news of its expanding relationship with Pearson Higher Education by announcing a partnership on the English language learning system from Cambridge University Press (CUP). It will also soon open an office in London to support its efforts in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Knewton creates a software platform that helps students learn by providing real-time recommendations based on their work, instructor guidelines, and information gathered from all students using the technology. Working with CUP allows the New York-based firm to reach 250,000 more students in 50 countries worldwide, according to a report in eCampus News.

The collaboration with Pearson is an extension of the work Knewton has been doing with the publisher since 2011, adding accounting, anatomy, biology and physiology, chemistry, physics, and finance to the list of courses offered in Pearson’s MyLab and Mastering line of learning tools. The two companies launched tools in economics, math, reading, and writing in the fall of 2012.

“We think of these as gateway courses,” Pearson President Paul Corey told Information Week. “Getting through these courses is a tough challenge for many of these students. The success rate, once students get through these gateway courses, is pretty high.”

Knewton is also talking with publishers in Australia and Asia, and should be powering learning solutions in Brazil by the end of the year, according to David Liu, chief operating officer.

“There’s a lot of talk that adaptive learning is really only useful for math and some of the developmental subjects,” Lui told Information Week. “As long as there is a rubric for what is right or wrong, we can make it adaptive.”

Software Lowers MOOC Video Costs

While massive open online courses (MOOCs) can make use of video to provide lectures for students, the cost of producing video can be prohibitive. In fact, the University of Pennsylvania recently reported the cost to develop 16 MOOCs $800,000, with video eating up a lion’s share of the funds.

A major reason for the high cost is the investment in specialized recording equipment, professional audio-visual and post-production services, and time and training for the MOOC instructor. However, lecture-capture software may provide a low-cost alternative.

The technology allows an instructor to record all audio and video sources used in a classroom and make them accessible to students anywhere and at any time on any device.  The technology also allows for digital notes and bookmarks, quizzes and polls, live broadcasting, and flexible recording.

“Over the past five years, modern lecture-capture systems have become an established part of university education, and analysts predict that by 2016, lecture capture will become as ubiquitous as e-mail on college campuses,” Ari Bixhorn, vice president of marketing for the software firm Panopto, wrote in an article for eCampus News. “So as MOOCs continue to evolve in the years ahead, and as institutions look for ways to participate in this new medium, the price of video no longer needs to be an inhibiting factor.”

Google, edX Partner on MOOC.org

Google is jumping onto the massive open online course (MOOC) bandwagon in a partnership with edX to create an open-source learning platform to be called mooc.org. The companies will work together to develop the Open edX learning platform for professors to use to conduct courses online and will make it available to students, teachers, institutions, businesses, and governments worldwide.

The partnership allows Google to expand on its Course Builder open-source platform for creating online courses that it launched last year. The site is expected to go live early next year.

Google also announced a partnership with Udacity to form the Open Education Alliance, a project focused on teaching skills needed to find jobs in the tech industry.

These partnerships could signal a Google move into the education market.

“We support the development of a diverse education ecosystem as learning expands in the online world,” Google Director of Research Dan Clancy wrote in a blog post. “Part of that means that educational institutions should easily be able to bring their content online and manage their relationships with their students. Our industry is in the early stages of MOOCs, and lots of experimentation is still needed to find the best way to meet the educational needs of the world. An open ecosystem with multiple players encourages rapid experimentation and innovation, and we applaud the work going on in this space today.”

With TV Ties, It's Do or Die for MOOC

Zombies have lurched their way into all facets of pop culture and now it’s apparently time for them to take a bite out of higher education. The University of California, Irvine, is collaborating with the AMC television network and the Instructure technology company to offer a massive open online course (MOOC) based on AMC’s rabidly popular show The Walking Dead.

The eight-week multidisciplinary class—which just happens to start the day after the show’s fourth-season debut on Oct. 13—will be taught by four UC Irvine faculty members specializing in public health, social sciences, physics, and mathematics.

At first glance, the course may seem like the MOOC equivalent of underwater basket-weaving, but the brains behind it are dead serious about the goals of the course. In the average MOOC, registrants drop faster than zombie plague victims. By weaving a TV show into the class content, UC Irvine thinks participants are more likely to survive to the end of the course.

“As an educator, I’m always looking for ways to make scholarly ideas come alive for my students,” said Zuzana Bic, one of the instructors.

Working through Instructure’s Canvas online learning platform, Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s The Walking Dead will mix video lectures, expert interviews, academic resources and articles, and group discussions with clips from the TV show and exclusive interviews with cast members. There will be occasional quizzes but no final exam.

The course will explore public health issues and the spread of infectious diseases; analyze social roles and human behavior, particularly within the context of a disaster; examine the mathematics of population dynamics and energy consumption; and, according to the course description, resolve the nagging question, “Nutrition in a post-apocalyptic world—are squirrels really good for you?”

SJSU Online Pilot Posts Better Results

The online course partnership between San Jose State University and Udacity hit a bump when pass rates of 23.8% to 50/5% from classes offered in the spring were posted for the first three courses. The program, called SJSU Plus, was put on hiatus through the fall so the university could evaluate the project.

The next set of results for courses offered in the summer session were much better with more than two-thirds of the 1,380 students who completed the online courses received passing grades of C or higher. In addition, students in three of the offered courses posted higher pass rates than their on-campus counterparts when compared to an average of the last six semesters.

The pass rate for college algebra rose from 25.4% in the spring of 2013 to 72.6% in the summer, while elementary statistics went from 50.5% to 72.6%. Entry-level math saw an increase in pass rates but still lagged far behind the other courses, going from a 23.8% pass rate in the spring to 29.8% in the summer.

“To all those people who declared our experiment a failure, you have to understand how innovation works,” wrote Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun in a blog post. “Few ideas work on the first try. Iteration is key to innovation. We are seeing significant improvement outcomes and student engagement. And we know from our data that there is much more to be done.”

The number of at-risk students taking SUSJ Plus courses in the spring is one factor school officials point to as a possible reason for the low pass rates. Officials also suggest that a more diverse student enrollment in the summer, when 71% of the students were from outside the state of California, may be part of the reason for a higher pass rate.

SJSU and Udacity also made improvements to the pilots between sessions and added more tools to gauge student performance. However, the SJSU Plus will remain on hold through the fall.

“There is no disruption,” SJSU Provost Ellen Junn wrote in a statement. “The main reason is we wanted to take time to review all the data, to debrief with the faculty, to make sure that we’re following all the procedures on campus and just taking due diligence.”

Exam Ensures Grads Make the Grade

Since most new university graduates have little job experience, some employers rely on applicants’ grade point averages to gauge their performance aptitude. Now, those employers are complaining too many new grads boast high GPAs but are unprepared for work. They blame grade inflation.

In response, the nonprofit Council for Aid to Education (CAE) developed the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), intended to serve as a voluntary exit exam for college seniors. According to The Wall Street Journal, the CLA+ is supposed to size up impending graduates’ abilities in written communications, critical thinking, analysis, and problem solving—qualities needed for any position requiring at least a bachelor’s degree.

Here’s how it works: Test-takers are given a scenario with up to a dozen supporting documents such as articles, data sets, and reports. The student has one hour to write out a recommendation or evaluation for handling the scenario, based on analysis of the information in the documents. A practice set offers an example of the type of scenario and documents in the exam.

Responses are scored on a 1,600-point scale, and there’s no way for students to guess the correct answers or lobby the instructor for a better score. CAE is hoping the exam becomes an effective tool for helping employers and high-performing students to find each other. Some 200 colleges and universities apparently agree; they’ve already signed up to offer the CLA+ to graduating seniors next spring.

If the CLA+ takes off as a hiring tool, it may provide the impetus for college students to devote more time and energy to their course materials, since the exam is based on reading comprehension and analysis.

Faculty Still Skeptical of MOOC Results

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) may be generating lots of public interest, but faculty members are not quite there yet, according to a new survey from Inside Higher Education.

Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, a study of 2,251 professors, found that just one in five agree that MOOCs achieve the same learning outcomes as traditional classroom instruction. At the same time, the percentage of instructors who had taught at least one online course rose from 25% in 2012 to 30% this year. Nearly 50% of those respondents said they believe the learning outcomes online were the same as in-person classes.

The study also found that six of 10 instructors said institutions offering a class online as well as in-person was a “very important” indicator of quality, but just 45% said online courses for credit are very important. On the other hand, 63% of the 248 academic technology administrators surveyed for the study said credit was a “very important” indicator of the quality of online education.

“The skepticism [of MOOCs] comes from a suspicion that these efforts are about cost savings, and are being driven by economic discussions and not learning discussions,” said Anne Balsamo, dean of the School Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement.

iPad Pilot Begins at CSUN

California State University at Northridge (CSUN) invited 1,800 of its students to join its MyCSUNtablet Initiative, a pilot program designed to cut textbook costs on campus.

Student volunteers are able to access e-texts, apps, and other learning materials after buying an iPad through a CSUN partnership with Apple or using a device they already happen to own. The program is offering classes in seven CSUN majors and will be assessed on how well the devices and digital course materials help students learn.

“What we want to do is get out of the grasp of the publishers of this stuff,” CSUN Provost Harry Hellenbrand told the Los Angeles Daily News. “I figure our bookstore will disappear in 10 years, with the money deferred to portable devices and service contracts.”

CSUN officials say students will only need to take three classes to break even on the cost of the iPad assuming professors design and furnish free digital course materials. They also suggest e-books are available for purchase for $12-$15, although that is not always the case.

“No, no, no. We’ll never get rid of the bookstore,” countered Paul Schwantz, director or web and tech services at the school. “We will always need CSUN sweaters. I think some of the books will be around for a long time as well, because some people always want books.”

Not to mention the program directs students to the Matador Bookstore to purchase their iPads.

Ashland U. Cuts Tuition Costs by $10K

While others talk about the affordability of a college education, Ashland University, Ashland, OH, is doing something about it.

Annual full-time tuition at the school, which has an enrollment of 2,200 students, will drop $10,000 to $18,908. Grant and scholarship aid will also be reduced, but the new lower tuition will still be around $6,000 less than a student at The Ohio State University will pay.

“Over the past decade, everyone in higher education has danced around the subject of the rising cost of college,” said AU President Fred Finks in a press release. “Yet few have been willing to tackle the issue and the complications involved.”

When Concordia University, St. Paul, MN, reduced its undergraduate tuition by $10,000 it saw a 30% increase in applications, while its enrollment went from 183 freshmen and 91 transfer students in the fall of 2012 to 257 freshmen and 167 transfers this fall.

“Really what is going on here is we are cutting back on the discount rate and creating a transparency in our pricing,” said Concordia spokesman Jason DeBoer-Moran.

At the same time Ashland is making news for cutting fees, the Star-Ledger reports that New Jersey students should brace for a $200,000 bachelor’s degree as the undergraduate fees at some state colleges will top $40,000 this year.

Chegg Launches Mobile App

Chegg has been making headlines of late, first announcing it was filing an initial public offering in hopes of raising $150 million. Now, the company is launching a mobile app that allows students to use their iOS or Android devices to access Chegg tools and content.

Students can use the app to read e-textbooks and access guided solutions, including two free ones the company plans to provide each week. Other iOS features of the app include textbook search functions by title, author, ISBN, or bar code scanner; the ability to rent or buy physical textbooks; and free e-textbook previews of all titles in the Chegg library.

The iOS version is available in the Apple App store, while the Android app is at Google Play, according to the press release.

Teachers Share Ideas at Teaching Channel

Teaching Channel is a collaborative educational platform that encourages K-12 teachers to share ideas through videos. Part of the effort is called Teams, a library of videos that can be augmented and customized, giving teachers the opportunity to see view new strategies and then apply them in their classrooms.

Ditching Textbooks, One Mini at a Time

Like many higher education institutions this year, Lynn University is helping its incoming freshman class to dabble in technology while they study. The school is issuing an iPad mini to each fresher and transfer student.

Unlike other institutions, though, Lynn has been more transparent about its endgame with the iPads.

“Essentially, our goal is to get rid of all textbooks in our core curriculum. Without getting myself in too much trouble, I’d like for that to happen next year,” Chris Boniforti, Lynn’s chief information officer, told Inside Higher Ed.

The minis have been preloaded with digital materials for a required freshman course and access to the LiveText online portfolio system. Students will be able to use the devices to access other apps and materials for their classes. The university also encourages students to download free-time content to their iPads, such as music, games, and photos.

In two years, students will be expected to trade their minis in for the newest version, which they can keep after graduation.

Students aren’t the only ones being prodded toward high-tech scholarship. Lynn’s faculty have also been developing course content on the iOS platform. This year the university is rolling out nine introductory courses through iTunes U.

CourseSmart Launches Subscription Plan

CourseSmart has launched a way for students to choose e-textbooks for one flat fee. CourseSmart Subscription Packs allow students to purchase course materials for a fixed access period instead of the traditional a la carte model.

Students use the subscription plan to buy six bookshelf slots for $200 and choose from the CourseSmart catalog of more than 40,000 e-textbook titles. The access period for the slots is 150 days, during which students have unlimited access, both online and offline, on iOS and Android devices, as well as through mobile web apps.

The subscription also allows students to search e-textbooks by keyword or through the CourseSmart bookshelf. It also lets them highlight and take notes within the e-text, which can be compiled into a study guide that links back to original textbook pages.

“I added all of the books I needed to my bookshelf and it was extremely easy and a huge savings for me,” said Krista Burris, a student at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. 

Boston Teams with edX on BostonX

Development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) is taking a new direction with the creation of BostonX, a partnership between the City of Boston and edX to offer free online courses available at community colleges and libraries throughout the city.

The partnership would make MOOCs more available to residents of and visitors to Boston, providing courses for those who don’t have high-speed Internet connections or computers at home by creating mini campuses throughout the city. Mayor Thomas Menino is also hopeful BostonX will increase the city’s standing in the nation and world as a leader in education innovation.

“Higher education is at a point of transformation, and our city should be at the center of that,” Menino told Boston Magazine. “Colleges and universities are tackling the big questions of cost, of quality, and of how to make use of a wave of new technology. In Boston, we have always led in higher ed, and we should lead to its reimagination.”

Boston could be considered a logical starting point for the initiative because of the many colleges and universities already in and around the city, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both founding members of edX.

UC System Making Research Open to All

The University of California system recently announced a new policy that will make all of its research articles free online and available to the public through its open-access repository, eScholarship. The policy covers faculty on all 10 UC campuses and allows research from faculty to be reused or modified for future publications.

The research will still be subject to peer review and appear in prestigious journals. The question is whether it’s a policy that will provide too much information for busy professionals, according to Kent Anderson, CEO/publisher of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery Inc.

“Why read information that is pushed to you when you can Google something that’s right in front of you?” Anderson asked in an article for SmartPlanet. “There is a workflow dimension to this, certainly, but also a corrosive problem of dependence. It’s good for Google, but not great for science, which often takes reflection, immersion, and inspiration to work. It’s not just a journeyman’s game, with Google as an occasional toolbox.”

Facebook Testing Mobile Payments

Facebook is testing a mobile payment platform that will let users pay for online purchases by logging in with their Facebook credentials. The platform is being developed as an in-house project for the social media giant.

The biggest obstacle facing the project is users’ distrust, Denee Carrington, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, told Information Week. Her research found that just 4% of U.S. consumers trust Facebook with a mobile digital wallet.

After it addresses privacy and security concerns, Facebook will need to focus on user experience, according to Jordan McKee of the research firm Yankee Group.

“Since Facebook profits from user data, the concept of offering payment credentials in addition to personal information may not sit well with many,” he said. “Facebook must also put tremendous emphasis on the user experience. If they don’t find Facebook’s offering to be intuitive, easy, and seamless, it will gain little traction and potentially dilute its brand.”

Wearable Mobile Ready to Become a Hit?

Wearable mobile devices could be the next big thing, particularly on campus where tech-savvy students are always looking for that next big thing.

A study from Forrester Research found 28% of consumers said they would be willing to wear sensors such as smartwatches and Google Glass. That news comes on the heels of a report that Samsung will introduce its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which will allow wearers to make calls and browse the web.

The market for wearable devices is still small and the devices are limited in functionality. Most allow users to answer phone calls and receive notifications for text messages and e-mails. Sony has released a second-generation SmartWatch, but it must be linked to a companion smartphone to work.

Samsung has yet to reveal features for the Gear, such as screen size, battery life, and connectivity. But the new technology does given marketers a way to connect with individual consumers, according to Forrester.

“Marrying up the intelligence with the data, with sensors, with the mobile interface that the consumer chooses is the winning proposition,” said Bert DuMars, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, in an interview with Mobile Marketer. 

Textbooks to Tablets, Students Seek Used

A funny thing happened when an instructor at Calhoun Community College in Alabama allowed his summer-term students to choose between buying traditional textbooks or buying e-books for a tablet, which they’d also have to acquire on their own. All of the students, according to the Decatur Daily, went the digital route.

That belies the conventional wisdom that says college students prefer printed textbooks because paper pages are easier for flipping around and making notations. It should be noted, all things were not equal with the students’ options in this situation. The e-books, complete with supplemental materials, cost $100 for the term while the traditional texts would have run $300-$400, depending on new or used, if purchased from the campus bookstore.

However, the need to buy or borrow a tablet should have tipped at least a few students toward choosing print. The expense of computer hardware, so say the experts, is a hardship on some students—even more so at community colleges—and therefore poses a significant barrier to more widespread student use of digital course materials.

Instead, instructor Scott Throneberry told the paper, his students shopped for used devices online. Five students snapped up previously owned tablets for around $50 each on eBay.

For decades, college students have sought out used print textbooks to save money. Now it appears they may switch to scooping up used devices for the same purpose.

College Prep Fuels K-12 Tablet Frenzy

As The CITE has noted before, the hot trend in K-12 education is the tablet computer. Individual schools and entire school districts across the U.S. are purchasing tablets for their classrooms, often buying enough for each pupil to have their own.

 

Some schools are jumping on the tablet bandwagon because they think colleges and universities will take it for granted that incoming students are skilled in using the devices for coursework.

 

As a preparatory-school principal in Minnesota told the St. Joseph Newsleader as the school rolled out iPads for all grade 6-12 students, “Colleges are expecting students to be able to collaborate, to think critically, to map concepts, to interact with emerging technology that’s constantly turning over, and to perform traditional operations such as notetaking, planning, writing, reading, and discussion in a dynamic way. As we see more and more top-tier colleges and universities using iPads or encouraging their use, it’s a natural fit for us and for our mission to create an experience in high school that will set our students up for success in college.”

 

Students are also buying into the idea that tablet proficiency is a must for college and they won’t be able to succeed without it.

 

At a public high school in Ohio, which was launching a $1 million iPad program of its own this fall, a 15-year-old sophomore told the Columbus Dispatch, “It’s exciting because when we go to college, technology is becoming a big part of our life. If you’re the kid who never learned how to use an iPad and no one has textbooks anymore, what professor is going to hold up the lesson to explain to one person how to use it?”

Chegg Going Public, Issues IPO

Chegg used to be a Craigslist-type of business for selling and renting textbooks. Now, it bills itself as a “student hub” offering textbook solutions in both print and digital formats, scholarships, study tools, and a place to resell course materials.

Having grown over the years, Chegg is filing an initial public offering that it hopes will raise $150 million. The company is valued at $800 million, generated a net revenue of more than $213 million last year, and has raised nearly $200 million from investors, according to an eCampus News report.

While the company value is impressive, it’s also been piling up impressive losses such as $26 million in red ink in 2010. But the bleeding is beginning to slow with a net loss of $21 million in the first half of 2013, compared to a first-half loss of $32 million in 2012.

“What Chegg must prove to investors is that its growing revenue can be converted to profits,” wrote Alex Wilhelm in a TechCrunch post. “However, given the scale of its raise compared to its current cash position, it doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to reach the black.”

Amazon Restricts Rental Book Travel

Warehouse Deals, an Amazon.com subsidiary, was launched as a place where consumers could find deals on returned, warehouse-damaged, used, or refurbished products. It has offered print textbook rentals since last summer, but has added a new policy that prohibits students from taking rental titles from one state to another.

The policy on renting a textbook from Warehouse Deals is spelled out on the terms and conditions page at Amazon.com. It states, “You may not move the textbook out of the state to which it was originally shipped. If you wish to wish to move the textbook out of that state, you must first purchase the textbook.”

These conditions only apply to books rented from Warehouse Deals, and Amazon did not respond to requests for comments from Inside Higher Education. Two competitors in the online textbook rental and retail field—Chegg and Rafter—have no policies that prevent students from taking rentals across state lines.

The policy may not appear to make sense, unless it’s viewed in the light of Amazon’s efforts to avoid charging state and local taxes, according to Kenneth C. Green, director of the Campus Computing Project.

“Presumably the concern is that if Amazon owns rented textbooks that cross state lines, state authorities could argue that Amazon has an official business presence in the state—a business presence that would require Amazon to collect and pay state sales taxes,” Green wrote.