Category Archives: Innovative Programs

Link: Continuing Ed Divisions as Impact Agents in Online Initiatives

An article in Evolllution by Vickie Cook and Gayla Stoner enumerates the value that a continuing ed unit can provide an institution as a centralized resource supporting online initiatives.image of laptop next to glasses

Key takeaways:
·         CE units are ideally positioned to initiate and manage interdisciplinary collaborations in service of institutional strategic plans/goals
·         Faculty and student satisfaction increase when centralized and specialized support is provided for online/hybrid education
·         Quality and consistency across programs/courses is best managed by one unit
o    continuous improvement and quality control processes already existing in CE units are well suited to managing online/hybrid education

http://evolllution.com/revenue-streams/distance_online_learning/continuing-education-divisions-as-impact-agents-in-online-initiatives/

 

Link: UCI Launches New Low-Res Master’s in Human-Computer Interaction and Design

UC Irvine has launched a new low-residency hybrid (or “mixed format”) master’s in Human-Computer Interaction and Design. The one-year program boast an “interdisciplinary orientation” and aims to prepare students for careers in UX, systems analysis, and project management.

Link: Micro Master’s Is Future of Online Learning

This interview with Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, covers the growth of edX and his ideas about where higher ed is headed.

We think universities will just get transformed. You still need the content and the course and the professors who provide them. What will be altered is the way it is delivered.

Bhargava, Anjuli. April 20, 2016. “Micro master’s is future of online learning: Anant Agarwal.” Business Standard.

Link: 6 Universities Partner on Credentialing Initiative

Continuing education units at Wisconsin, Washington, Georgia Tech, UCLA, UC Davis, and UC Irvine are collaborating on low-cost micro credentials offered via a common storefront, the University Learning Store. Individual courses address topics common to the needs of many working professionals, cost between $50 and $150 apiece, include a digital badge as proof of competency, and can be stacked into certificates. Current certificates include:

  • Workplace Writing
  • Effective Business Writing Skills
  • Business Communications
  • Global Business Communication

Bolkan, Joshua. “6 Universities Partner on Credentialing Initiative.” Campus Technology, March 22, 2016.

Link: More Colleges Turn to “Stackable” Degrees as Entries to Graduate Programs

The University of Illinois is rolling out an online master’s in data science, which will be offered in conjunction with Coursera. The new degree costs $19,200, and builds on the certificates of completion already associated with the university’s pre-existing Coursera MOOCs.

Students who have already received those certificates will have a head start toward finishing the new degree, since those certificates make up two of the four distinct areas of study. The others are data visualization and machine learning. If admitted into the program, students could trade in those certificates for course credit.

Ruff, Corinne. “More Colleges Turn to ‘Stackable’ Degrees as Entries to Graduate Programs.” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 30, 2016.

Links: Stanford Launches New Innovative Teaching and Course Design Grant Program

Stanford’s new grant program seeks to provide internal financial support for innovative uses of technology in learning, including course design or re-design.

The goal of the new grant program is to support future-facing, faculty-driven innovation.

Read more at Campus Technology (January 27, 2016), or read the official announcement.

CS + X: Stanford Joint Majors in Computer Science and…

Stanford’s CS + X joint major program allows undergraduate students to marry computer science skills with an interest in the humanities. The CS +X degrees include specialized courses that involve both aspects of the student’s chosen educational path.

CS+X degrees may not be meant for students who want to do deeply technical work as programmers, but rather for those who want to use data collection to analyze topics such as politics, society, and the environment, says Jim Kurose, assistant director for computer and information science and engineering at the National Science Foundation.

See:

Ruff, Corinne. Computer Science, Meet Humanities: In New Majors, Opposites Attract. Chronicle of Higher Education, January 28, 2016.

as well as Stanford’s description and listing of these joint majors.

Link: MIT Dean Takes Leave To Start New University Without Lectures Or Classrooms

What if you could start a university from scratch for today’s needs and with today’s technology? MIT Dean Christine Ortiz is hoping to answer this question through a new venture–but unlike other efforts, hers will be not-for-profit.

Ms. Ortiz says she plans to create a nonprofit institution so that “all of the revenue can be reinvested in the enterprise to serve the public.”

Young, Jeffrey. MIT Dean Takes Leave to Start New University Without Lectures or Classrooms. Chronicle of Higher Education, February 1, 2016.

Link: Mobile Learning: Moving Past the Myths and Embracing the Opportunities

The authors of this paper–a condensed version of which was the top post on eCampus News for 2015–articulate and debunk several myths about mobile learning, including the idea that mobile learning is limited to phones, that it is only applicable in distance education, or that it fails to make use of existing good pedagogical practice. They also discuss its pedagogical affordances.

mLearning is appropriate for designing learning environments for a variety of learning contexts.

Brown and Mbati, “Mobile Learning: Moving Past the Myths and Embracing the Opportunities.” International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, vol 16 no 2, April 2015.

Udacity and Google Unveil Co-Developed Nanodegree

For-profit online education provider Udacity and Google today unveiled a new micro-credential program, the Senior Web Developer Nanodegree. The online program is designed to provide students with “the tools, frameworks, and techniques needed to write robust code for progressive Web applications that are secure and easy to use,” said Sarah Clark, program manager in Google’s Developer Training group, in a blog post.

 

Read full article here.