Must Reads on Higher Education Policy and Practice: Volume 1

Audrey Watters runs the blog Hack Education and she's just really, really smart.  Here she talks about how the history of ed tech gets rewritten: http://hackeducation.com/2014/06/18/unfathomable-cetis2014/

Audrey Watters on the use and abuse of the term "innovation":  http://hackeducation.com/2014/05/14/innovation-cnie-2014/

Another must-read blog is utotherescue.blogspot.com.  Here's an outstanding post on the economics of permanent austerity .  Much of what is true of the UC system is also true of the UT system.

Jill Lepore dismantles Clayton Christensen's influential theory of disruptive innovation: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/23/140623fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all 
and http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2014/06/christensens-disruptive-innovation.html
and, from last spring, Audrey Watters:  http://hackeducation.com/2013/05/24/disruptive-innovation/


Fantastic post by Mike Caulfield, on learning analytics aka "Big Data": "But it’s precisely the power and potential of analytics that makes it so important we get this right. And what getting this right means, first and foremost, is we do it in the open, and avoid the “secret sauce” mindset we’ve tended to have about such things. As we move out of the institutional experimentation phase and into the commercialization phase of analytics, institutions are increasingly being sold a black box of formulas they can neither share nor explain. And more than anything else, it’s this “magic number” mentality which makes analytics dangerous."  http://hapgood.us/2014/07/11/no-more-secret-sauce-analytics/

 Formal announcement of Unizin, a consortium of public universities with the aim of pooling digital assets and spreading the cost of building learning analytics capacity:  http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/11/after-weeks-rumors-universities-unveil-digital-education-consortium-unizin#sthash.F0M7f8bT.oNUiAXoW.dpbs  and my response to this announcement and UT's possible interest in joining: http://teachingwithoutpants.blogspot.com/2014/06/should-ut-austin-join-unizin.html

Dr. Steven Mintz, the Executive Director of the UT System Institute for Transformational Learning, predicts the future of public higher ed: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-beta/shape-higher-ed-yet-come#sthash.sSNTB5xO.dpbs 

Are tenured/tenure-track faculty complicit in the deprofessionalization of higher ed?  What should they be doing?  http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2014/07/why-are-faculty-complicit-in-creating.html

Thoughtful post on the value of small changes.  A good reminder that we don't have to undertake time-consuming course redesigns to see big improvements in student learning:  http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish/disruption-and-value-small-things#sthash.hSF01Jni.qwGJ24Sm.dpbs

Who has the time to learn how to use education technology well?  Especially if you are an adjunct/lecturer? http://thesmartcasual.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/technological-innovation-and-the-invisible-labour-of-casuals/ 

Good review of new tools available on the new release of Canvas.  E-Literate is another excellent higher education blog:  http://mfeldstein.com/instructurecon-canvas-different-competition-now/#more-5236

Higher Ed News: Week of 14 July 2014

Intrigue on the 40 Acres

Who will be the next UT System Chancellor?
 http://alcalde.texasexes.org/2014/07/report-mcraven-a-candidate-for-ut-chancellor/ and Reeve Hamilton's take: http://www.texastribune.org/2014/07/15/mcraven-or-fisher-new-kind-chancellor-ut/

How Bill Powers saved his job, at least for another 11 months (sadly, behind the CHE paywall): http://chronicle.com/article/How-the-U-of-Texas/147655/?key=TT93JQU6ZXNBNns1ZT4RYDxUa3BkN0xyY3MbYyohbl5UFw== 

Hunter Rawlings III (Classicist, former president of Cornell, and president of AAU) on the mess that Texas has made of higher education:  http://chronicle.com/article/Texas-Makes-an-Appalling-Mess/147561/

Letter detailing the scope of the Admissions "scandal" at UT.  Note the pdf under the photo.  Reeve Hamilton is great on UT matters: http://www.texastribune.org/2014/07/14/letter-details-scope-ut-admissions-investigation/

Who Decides the Future of Higher Education?

 http://bavatuesdays.com/the-bloody-watters-of-higher-ed/ and http://teachingwithoutpants.blogspot.com/2014/07/deciding-future-of-higher-education.html

Kate Bowles always has smart things to say on higher ed policy.  Here she makes the point that, while everyone is worrying about MOOCs, the real threats are being ignored: http://musicfordeckchairs.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/sightings/

Big Data and Learning Analytics, coming to a campus near you: 

Audrey Watters on student data as the new oil (making the important point that it is a wild west when it comes to regulating what private companies can do with student data collected from LMSs):  http://hackeducation.com/2013/10/17/student-data-is-the-new-oil/

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/07/11/facebook-study-raises-hard-questions-about-use-big-data-higher-ed-essay#sthash.aZHMqwOk.9YCDmFgO.dpbs

Fantastic post by Mike Caulfield, on why it's so important to get learning analytics right.  He strikes just the right note, in my view.  Learning analytics (aka Data) can be very helpful; but there is currently far too much unproven hype in this sector:  https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-07-16-opinion-no-more-secret-sauce-analytics

Using data to tell lies in higher education (specifically making the point that the cost of a college education is not the same as the value of a college education): http://chronicle.com/blogs/data/2014/07/15/how-to-lie-with-education-data-part-1/

Report on role of analytics in teaching and learning:  http://www.solaresearch.org/OpenLearningAnalytics.pdf

Investing in Building Data Analytics capacity in the hope of improving graduation rates: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5890403/colleges-are-hoping-predictive-analytics-can-fix-their-graduation-rates

Laura Gibbs' smart blog post on why the designers of data analytics systems for campuses are getting it wrong:  https://plus.google.com/111474406259561102151/posts/XoveLN5brkM

Anya Kamenetz on Course Signals, a learning analytics system at Purdue and a good indication of what faculty to expect to be forced on them in the next 2-4 years:   http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/07/04/327745863/big-data-comes-to-college and Michael Feldstein's strongly worded response: http://mfeldstein.com/npr-missed-course-signals/.  Notes Feldstein, "But collectively, we have to do a better job of providing critical coverage of topics like learning analytics, particularly at a time when so much money is being spent and our entire educational system is starting to be remade on the premise that this stuff will work."  Exactly.  E-Literate is an excellent blog to subscribe to.

Online Instruction and Course Design

Helpful white paper on online course design: http://www.vcu.edu/cte/resources/OTLRG/00_02_WhitePaper.html.  VCU's CTE has an excellent set of web resources on online course design and instruction: http://www.vcu.edu/cte/resources/OTLRG/02_01_CourseDesignHome.html

Interesting and important speculation that shifting more courses online will skew completion rates.  Important to read completion and retention data in context.   http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/that%E2%80%99s-weird%E2%80%A6#sthash.gPIBmkYG.dpbs

Good study on the role of interactivity in online course design (pdf): http://ht.ly/zaFR2



MOOCs

Jonathan Rees frequently blogs about MOOCs.  He's not a fan.  I don't always agree with his take (he tends to assume that all MOOCs take the same form), but find that he gives me things to think about.  http://moreorlessbunk.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/why-most-moocs-are-boring-for-nearly-everybody-involved/

Ithaka S+R, a private foundation that is partially supported by the Gates' Foundation, issued this study of MOOCs in blended classes.  Worth the read, and worth thinking about why the study is flawed.  I am very skeptical about instructors using the MOOCs created by other faculty (and other institutions) in their own classes; and this shouldn't be conflated with faculty who create their own digital content for their own blended courses.  Something many of us have learned is that, in a blended course, students prefer content that has been created by the instructor rather than someone else.  Unclear whether that also holds true for online classes.
http://www.sr.ithaka.org/sites/default/files/reports/S-R_Interactive_Online_Learning_Campus_20140710.pdf
and CHE report of the study: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/can-moocs-help-professors-teach-traditional-courses-more-efficiently/53851

When #massiveteaching goes rogue: a Swiss math professor decided to prank students who had registered for a MOOC on Coursera.  He deleted the course after the first week and disappeared.  His point, it seems, was to draw attention to the way that the MOOC Incs are collecting and using student data; and to see if the students would carry on without an instructor.  This stunt generated a lot of comments about ethics and teaching.

From one of the students: http://idstuff.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/youve-been-punkd-however-that-was.html
See also  http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2014/07/09/congrats-to-paul-olivier-dehaye-massiveteaching/       and http://academeblog.org/2014/07/09/even-superprofessors-deserve-academic-freedom/
      and http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/07/15/after-massiveteaching-questions-about-mooc-quality-control#sthash.XP23qQoF.JLxHkBzw.dpbs

and Justin Reich on the ethics of educational experimentation:  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edtechresearcher/2014/07/the_ethics_of_educational_experiments.html

Blended Instruction

A post about the adoption of blended instruction by Rocketship.  A good example of how blended instruction is the favorite innovation in secondary schools and dual credit programs: http://www.msdf.org/blog/2014/06/preston-smith-rocketship-better-blended-learning-model/

Competency-Based Education

There is a lot of interest in finding a role for CBE in the university curriculum, particularly for introductory courses.  Various foundations, including Gates, are sponsoring projects that are working on this.  This is a good overview of what it is, where the problems are, and how it might play out in liberal arts (behind the paywall): http://chronicle.com/article/College-on-Your-Own/147659/

Matt Reed, on whether CBE is a disruptive innovation or something that should be incorporated into degree programs: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/disruption-or-incorporation#sthash.tvrNyvs0.CRx0YNIs.dpbs

Competency-Based Learning and Online Courses (re-packaging self-paced online courses as CBE):  http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2014/07/11/competency-based-learning-provides-perks-for-online-students

Welcome!

Over the past few years, I have become increasingly interested in the conversation about higher education policy, particularly as it relates to public universities like my own.  In an effort to educate myself on the issues (and the background to those issues), I spent a lot of time on Twitter reading around and talking to people coming at the issues around higher education from a range of backgrounds: graduate students, faculty, teaching and learning specialists, administrators.  I often post links to articles on my Facebook page.  As the conversation heats up, I have realized that it would be helpful to collect these links on a separate site and offer those who are interested the chance to look at them as they wish.  Thus, in the coming months, I will be collecting and annotating links to what I consider important contributions to the conversation about higher education.  I will publish these links once or twice/week.  You can subscribe to this blog and receive alerts when the links are published or you can simply check the page from time to time.