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May 18th, 2005
From U.S. newswire, via Distance Educator, a course that looks particularly interesting.
Faculty from Kansas State University will be partnering with a consortium of other universities through the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance to offer an interdisciplinary online master's degree program in development.
The interinstitutional program, the first of its kind in community development, will offer an accelerated, online master's degree to people who are already working with rural communities in building sustainable futures. The program lets students apply their news skills and knowledge in their work settings.
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May 18th, 2005
From Inside Higher Education …
An investigation of student athletes at Nicholls State University in Louisiana has revealed that students and university staff had engaged in "gross academic fraud" by fraudulently completing online courses to preserve the students' eligibility for sports. The university's registrar discovered the fraud after noticing that many student athletes were completing online courses from Brigham Young University (BYU), often with much higher grades than for classes they took at Nicholls. As it turned out, two coaches and an academic adviser were giving students answers for the courses and in some cases serving as proctors for the students' tests. The National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) confirmed the fraud and imposed penalties on the school's athletic programs, but the episode has raised a red flag about the potential for similar abuse of online programs. "There appeared generally not to be sufficient monitoring either by BYU or … by Nicholls State," according to Josephine Potuto, member of the NCAA panel that conducted the investigation. A statement from the panel noted, "This case illustrates the ease with which individuals can manipulate and then breach security protocols for online correspondence courses."
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May 18th, 2005
From Indiana University's news service on preping high school students for college life.
Most high school students say they plan on going to college. Yet they fail to put in the necessary time and academic effort before graduation to succeed in college, according to a special report from Indiana University's High School Survey of Student Engagement.
"Students reported that their effort was adequate for their high school courses, yet it falls well short of what will be required of them in college," said IU Professor Martha McCarthy, director of HSSSE and author of the new report.
The findings suggest that high school courses should be significantly more rigorous in all grades and instructional tracks.
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May 12th, 2005
According to this, from CNN.com …
Student essays always seem to be riddled with the same sorts of flaws. So sociology professor Ed Brent decided to hand the work over to a computer.
Students in Brent's Introduction to Sociology course at the University of Missouri-Columbia now submit drafts through the SAGrader software he designed. It counts the number of points he wanted his students to include and analyzes how well concepts are explained.
And within seconds, students have a score.
It used to be the students who looked for shortcuts, shopping for papers online or pilfering parts of an assignment with a simple Google search. Now, teachers and professors are realizing that they, too, can tap technology for a facet of academia long reserved for a teacher alone with a red pen.
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May 9th, 2005
From PR Newswire, this story on one of our sponsored online universities, Walden University, on its 35 years in business and its creation of a Center for Social Change.
Underscoring its long-held commitment to social change, Walden University, an accredited online institution celebrating its 35th anniversary, has created the Center for Social Change, a new university publication entitled the Journal of Social Change and Walden's first conference on social change, set to take place in Baltimore, Md. later this year. This week, Walden University President Paula E. Peinovich, Ph.D. will award the President's Award for Leadership in Social Change to the Theatre de la Jeune Lune in recognition of its role in raising awareness of important societal issues through its unique theatrical expression.
[...]
"This is an exciting time for Walden as we celebrate both our history and our future as a university founded on a mission of effecting positive social change," said Peinovich. "Jeune Lune has taken their own unique approach to theatre and uses the arts as a means to deliver important themes and statements." The award presentation is part of a series of 2005 events sponsored by Walden, as it marks 35 years of providing quality higher education at a distance.
"We're truly honored to be recognized by an institution that shares our vision of effecting change by questioning the norm," said Jeune Lune Artistic Director Robert Rosen. "Like Walden, our form of education connects ideas and people with purpose."
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May 9th, 2005
From the Times Union …
To compete, universities must soon operate with equal facility in traditional as well as virtual learning environments, both locally and globally.
Face-to-face and online learning are quickly becoming equal and complementary ways of learning, just as newspaper and television have become complementary media of information. By putting their courses online, universities can open their classrooms to a global audience of students with little extra costs. While many universities have the technology for such a transformation (for example, the SUNY Learning Network), to compete effectively, universities must make strategic investments in the faculty time required to adapt traditional courses for online teaching.
Finally, growing pressures from higher education entrepreneurs may force many universities to make tough choices as they decide in which segment of the higher education market — liberal arts versus practical arts, undergraduate versus graduate, residential or commuter, research versus teaching — they want to compete.
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May 8th, 2005
From the Chronicle of Higher Education …
The Science Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would create a $250 million grant program in the Department of Commerce to support technology programs at minority-serving institutions. Budgets at many historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges cannot support up-to-date technologies. Supporters argue that the bill would provide much-needed funding to institutions that train growing numbers of high-tech workers, specifically from underrepresented groups. Similar bills have been passed in previous sessions of Congress, but none has made its way to the president's desk for signing. Even if the current bill, which has not been introduced in the Senate, is approved
by both houses and signed by the president, it remains unclear whether the federal government would allocate funds for the program, given the current budget deficit.
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May 8th, 2005
From Internet2.com …
Arlington, VA – May 4, 2005 – Internet2R today announced that two separate
international teams have each set new Internet2 Land Speed Records (I2-LSR)
in both the IPv4 and IPv6 categories. As an open and ongoing competition for
the highest-bandwidth, end-to-end networks, Internet2 LSR marks represent
the rate at which data is transferred multiplied by the distance traveled.
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May 6th, 2005
Via CITInfobits.
In his article,"In Defense of Cheating" (UBIQUITY, vol. 6, issue 11, April 5-12, 2005), Donald A. Norman responds to Evan Golub's recent article on student cheating and counteractive measures. Norman says that Golub asked the wrong questions in his essay: "How do students cheat? How can we weed out cheating?" Norman believes the pertinent questions should be: "What is the purpose of an examination? Why do students cheat?" He argues that we should rethink the entire purpose of the examination system. We should encourage students to ask others for help and then credit them for their help.
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May 6th, 2005
At Sam Houston University, via The Houstonian.
The college of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University will offer the online Master of Science in Criminal Justice Leadership in 2005.
This online course, designed by Master of Science in Criminal Justice Leadership, is for the students who request part-time educational programs. The need to provide convenient access has increased by providing them with the flexibility and convenience of learning anywhere an Internet connection is available.
