The Learning Cloud

Business-like leadership

The article excerpted below reinforces a persistent theme of this blog: the need to contain spiraling tuition increases (to maintain the affordability of access). Readers who delve into the entire article will find that the business-like leadership brought to the University of Georgia system by Chancellor Erroll Davis includes, as well, an emphasis on increasing efficiency (productivity). Indeed, improving unit cost structures and accounting for them (expense accountability) are an integral part of maintaining the affordability of access, and IT is the only tool available for systemically improving the unit cost structures of academic and administrative services.

Tuition plan just the start for Davis
Andrea Jones, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 6, 2006

Here's how Chancellor Erroll Davis wants to run Georgia's public colleges and universities: Identify a problem, find a solution, put it in place quickly. While the philosophy sounds simple, it is a marked change for the 35-school higher education system, which has run on a notoriously slow schedule of months-long task forces, reams of carefully gathered research and initiatives often years in the making. "We'll be operating differently," said Davis, who has a business background and has been on the job since February. "I've made it very clear, the pace of the decisions are going to pick up." For example, a university system tuition plan proposed and approved in the spring will take effect in the fall. In April, the Board of Regents backed Davis' bold approach, approving the fixed-rate tuition plan for incoming freshmen. The tuition policy, which affects thousands of students, sets a guaranteed four-year price. Davis said the policy will help parents and students budget their finances without worry of tuition hikes or surprises, and will encourage students to graduate on time. If students stay longer than four years — defined as 12 consecutive semesters — tuition jumps to the rate of the next year's freshmen. The pragmatic approach can leave some questions, but Davis thinks that is part of the process — not everything has to be perfect to make a decision. "You can ask the what-ifs til the cows come home," he said. "We need to be taking half the time to do twice as much." Read more ...

About program accountability

The article below suggests that many public colleges and universities are not meeting their program accountability obligations -- not seizing their mission-consistent opportunities, in the case private institutions.  Elsewhere in this blog, I've described "program accountability" as follows:

Account for any mission obligations or mission-consistent opportunities to respond rapidly to economic development priorities and workforce/professional education priorities by redesigning or developing academic programs to address these priorities.

Because the markets involved often are "convenience markets," responsive academic degrees and certificates are often delivered in a flex model and supported by a comprehensive array of flex services.  That is, programs and services are delivered as asynchronously as possible, in combination with individual access to expert help when needed via the web, 24x7 call centers, and scheduled telephone and office appointments.

Colleges fail to tap training dollars
Bloomberg News, June 13, 2006

U.S. colleges are failing to take advantage of a $13 billion market for job-related training, as U.S. companies find them slow and unwilling to adapt, according to an industry survey. While the job-training market is expanding, colleges are attracting only about $670 million of the money spent by public and private employers, according to the report by Eduventures LLC, a Boston-based education industry researcher. It surveyed more than 500 corporate-training decision-makers. "It could be that they’re just not aware that this is a ripe market opportunity," Eduventures analyst Sean Gallagher said. The corporate representatives said universities get "high marks" for program quality, according to Eduventures. Colleges need improvement in areas such as the customization of courses to align with business goals, a more flexible approach to curriculum design and the ability to keep pace with market innovations, it said. U.S. public and private employers spend about $80 billion a year providing their employees with job-related training, Eduventures said. Private companies account for more than $50 billion of that, and spend about $13.3 billion on outside providers, it said. Colleges could meet the demand by customizing courses and marketing them more aggressively, Eduventures said. The University of California at Los Angeles, Central Michigan University and Boston’s Northeastern University are among the few U.S. colleges that try to court the business marketplace, Gallagher said. Northeastern University interviews companies to learn exactly what they want from its graduates, said Thomas Moore, dean of Northeastern’s College of Business Administration.

Banning laptops or resisting the democratization of higher ed?

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (June 2, 2006 by Jeff Young) titled The Fight for Classroom Attention: Professor vs. Laptop can be read in full by Chronicle subscribers. It takes little imagination, however, to surmise that the article pits the idea that students should not use their Internet-connected mobile devices in the classroom against the idea (attributed to Dan Weiss in the article) that the real issue lies with "teachers who refuse to engage students well enough and who don't set proper boundaries as to what is and isn't acceptable behavior in their classroom." I tend to agree with Mr. Weiss, while confessing that it's difficult to endorse his view unequivocally -- in light of what appears to be a growing population of "amannered" students for whom almost any behavior is acceptable in almost any social context.

There is, however, a larger issue underlying this debate: the democratization of higher education enabled by the Internet and other technologies. Allow me to outline what I mean.

• Good teaching should be measured by student learning outcomes.
• Learning, even today, depends on human communication (discourse) and access to an authentic record of expert knowledge (professors and the published knowledge base).
• The more interactive the interrogation of expertise and the knowledge base by the student, the more likely is learning to happen.  In other words, the more interactive and timely (from the student's perspective) are student-to-student, student-to-instructor, and student-to-content interrogations, the more likely will the student actively learn, synthesize, and remember.
• Today's digital medium (Internet) and related tools for human communication and resource sharing make it possible not only to instruct in the medium most familiar to 18-22-year old digital "natives," but to make learning more flexible and convenient for the student, to improve and measure learning outcomes, and to reduce the per-student-FTE cost of instruction. (See www.thencat.org for examples of achieving these three improvements simultaneously at the course level.)
• These three improvements, when taken to the academic program and student service level (see http://institutionalperformance.typepad.com/institutional_performance/Improving_Institutional_Performance-The_Necessary_Role_of_IT-Enabled_Innovationfinal.doc), describe the democratization of higher education: more convenient and affordable access to degree programs that can be monitored for learning outcomes (quality).

Of course, not all students are digital natives and not all students have the same learning styles. So the diversity of learning delivery -- types of institutions and instructional models -- will continue to increase. The point, however, is that convenience (in and outside a classroom) is one aspect of the democratization of higher education. And there's no reason why improved quality (of learning) and reduced per-student-FTE costs can't be two others. Let's stop fighting rear-guard actions against students' reactions to the classroom model and get on with the mandate to improve the flexibility, quality, and cost basis of higher education.

Is higher ed a business?

It's a fact that a non-profit college or university is not a business. But it does not follow that business management practices should not be applied to nonprofit higher education -- especially to private colleges and universities which must survive on their tuition and endowment revenues. The article excerpted below about the "turnaround" at Dickinson College reveals the value of appointing a president who is an "academic entrepreneur" with business experience. President Durden understands the academic enterprise and, being evidence driven from his business experience, has applied sound business practices to the leadership and management of his alma mater. It probably would be inaccurate to claim that he "Sylvanized" Dickinson, but probably accurate to assert that he adapted sound business practices from Sylvan Learning Systems (now Laureate Education) to Dickinson College.

Academic Entrepreneurship at Dickinson College
Alvin P. Sanoff, Chronicle of Higher Eduction, June 2, 2006

If Dickinson College were a corporation, Wall Street would view it as a classic turnaround story. Less than a decade ago, the liberal-arts institution was struggling. Applications were down. Enrollment was declining. Net tuition revenue — the amount a college is able to keep after subtracting money spent on financial aid — was plummeting, as was the college's bond rating. To make matters worse, Dickinson's endowment was dribbling away. "We were spending 6 percent of the endowment on running the college, and that was not sustainable," says Annette S. Parker, the college's vice president and treasurer. Yet the college was doing relatively little to build the endowment, which was a modest $150-million. Dickinson was not in danger of going under. But if these trends were not reversed, the venerable institution, founded in 1783 by Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was heading for a major crisis. Flash forward to this year, and the picture is vastly different. Applications are at a record high, topping 5,000 for the first time. Enrollment is up by more than 350 students and now exceeds 2,260. Net tuition revenue is rising, and the discount rate — the proportion of tuition revenue the college gives back to students in the form of grants — has plummeted from 52 percent to 34 percent. Some of the grants were merit awards designed to lure certain students to the college and were not necessarily based on need. For Dickinson the future now looks promising, thanks in large part to the college's rapidly growing endowment. It rose by almost 30 percent from fiscal 2004 to 2005, placing Dickinson 16th in rate of growth among 746 institutions, according to a survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, done in conjunction with the pension funds TIAA-CREF. The survey puts Dickinson's endowment at $206-million, a figure that excludes pledges and deferred gifts. The college calculates that its endowment at the end of June 2005 was almost $251-million and now stands at $283-million. A substantial increase in alumni contributions has played a major role in the endowment's growth. Equally important has been the college's impressive return on its investments. For the past two years, Dickinson has significantly outperformed its peers. In fiscal 2005, its return on invested endowment funds was 12.6 percent, compared to a national average of 9.3 percent, according to the Nacubo study. The previous year, its return was 19.3 percent, topping the national average of 15.1 percent. As a result of the turnaround, Standard & Poor's has upgraded Dickinson's bond rating by two notches to A, the highest rating in the college's history. "It is difficult for an institution of higher education to accomplish the kind of financial progress Dickinson has made," says Mary Peloquin-Dodd, a credit analyst at Standard & Poor's. "That type of improvement is not common." The changes at Dickinson were set in motion in 1999 with the arrival of a new president, William G. Durden, a Dickinson alumnus. Mr. Durden, who holds a doctorate in Germanic languages and literature, brought a blend of academic and business experience to the post. For 16 years, he was an administrator at the Johns Hopkins University. He left there to head the online higher-education business of Sylvan Learning Systems Inc., now called Laureate Education Inc. Mr. Durden, who describes himself as "an academic entrepreneur," was reluctant to take the Dickinson presidency. As a member of a college advisory board at Dickinson, he kept hearing that the college was never in better shape, but that assertion was not supported by data. "There was no transparency," he says. When he arrived, Mr. Durden brought a jolt of energy to a community anxious to move Dickinson out of its doldrums. "The faculty were ready to shift from the status quo to change," says Provost Neil B. Weissman, who has been at the college for three decades. A strategic plan that had been languishing in a college committee for several years was completed in one semester. "We needed a catalyst, and that was Bill," says Mr. Weissman. Chronicle subscribers can read more ...

iHype?

The "iTunes University" described in the the article excerpted below is reminiscent of the "Apple University" of some years ago.  Like other visions of "university" built around digital devices that can publish digital content anytime and anyplace, this latest vision from Apple assumes that content is king.  The point made in the article by Professor Pea and student Tilma is that interactions about content -- student(s) with instructor and students with students -- and interactions with content (simulations, assessments, and so on) are central to learning because they can engage students. Most students cannot learn solely by listening to content, any more than they can learn solely by reading content. 

The time is right to understand how we as instructors can become more productive through the instructional use of digital media and the digital medium (Internet) of communication and resource sharing. Improving instructional productivity means, among other possible formulations, measurably improving student learning while containing the direct per-student-FTE costs of a credit-hour of learning.  This blog offers many proven ideas for your productivity considerations.

Ohlone College goes high-tech to pioneer iTunes University
Angela Woodall, San Mateo County Times, May 29, 2006

Ohlone College will jump into the digital revolution in September by making class lectures and other educational content available on iPods, the hand-held devices used for downloading music from the Internet. Ohlone was chosen, along with eight other colleges, to pioneer an Apple Computer program called iTunes University, becoming part of a larger digital trend described by one university as "coursecasting." Educators see the program as a move away from a teacher-led system toward education directed by the students' learning needs. It is "just-in-time learning," said Ralph Kindred, vice president of information technology at Ohlone. Students can access material from anywhere whenever they want it, added Kindred, who is coordinating the iTunes project. ... [Student] Tilma said he likes the iTunes idea and has taken classes that rely heavily on the Internet. But the 22-year-old senior said he also enjoys traditional classroom time because "half of learning is getting the interesting tidbits that pop up during interactions with teachers." It's almost as though the online classes are being forced on students, he said. Roy Pea, a Stanford University professor who has studied technology in education for 25 years, said learning comes from discussing ideas and making sense of them. Devices such as the iPod can be harnessed to support that process, but technology is not a "silver bullet." "When the information is available online, there is no point to being in a class if all a teacher does is lecture," he said. Read more ...

Links to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education

Here are a few links to recent articles about the deliberations of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

Future of Higher Education Is Divisive Topic for Panel
Sam Dillon, New York TImes, May 20, 2006

Higher-Education Commission Ponders Turning 218 Ideas Into 6 Recommendations (requires a login)
Kelly Field, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 22, 2006

Prominent Member of Higher-Education Commission Will Form Research Center on College Costs (requires a login)
Kelly Field, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 24, 2006

A Texas Millionaire Plots the Future of Higher Education: As chairman of a federal commission, Charles Miller challenges the 'change resistant' culture of colleges (requires a login)
Kelly Field, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 2, 2006

Getting ready for change

It appears that the Commission on the Future of Higher Education and its sponsor, the Secretary of Education, are serious about the need for change in higher education -- see the first excerpt below.

On the other hand, it also appears that the Commission is far from one mind on how to improve higher education's performance -- see the second excerpt below.

Education Department Enlists Veteran Policy Analyst to Carry Out Panel's Recommendations
Jeffrey Selingo, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 18, 2006

A top official at the National Governors Association will join the U.S. Education Department next month to help the agency carry out the recommendations that are expected this summer from the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Kristin D. Conklin, a program director in the education division of the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices, will be a senior counselor to the under secretary of education. In that role, she will help create policies that come out of proposals from the higher-education commission, either through new regulations or legislation, David Dunn, acting under secretary of education and chief of staff, said in an interview on Wednesday. The 19-member commission was created by last fall by the education secretary, Margaret Spellings, and charged with developing a national strategy on higher education. It is scheduled to deliver its final report by August 1. Chronicle subscribers can read more ...

Federal Panel Debates Its Recommendations for the Future of Higher Education
Kelly Field, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 19, 2006

After eight months of taking testimony from outside experts and the public, the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education started sifting through the myriad issues during a meeting here on Thursday in an effort to reach preliminary consensus on what will become a broad set of recommendations to improve the nation's higher-education system. The sometimes scattered dialogue, which revolved around issues of access, affordability, and accountability, revealed a diversity of opinion among the commissioners, but also some areas of general agreement. The 19-member panel also heard from the secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, who urged its members to be as "concrete and bold as you can possibly be" in the final report, which will lay out a comprehensive vision for the future of higher education. "I don't want you to be shy or mealy-mouthed," in your recommendations, she said, urging the commissioners to "be as specific as you can" about what state, local, and federal policy makers can do to ensure the continued pre-eminence of American higher education. The report was scheduled to be submitted to Ms. Spellings on August 1. But the panel's chairman, Charles Miller, announced Thursday that the secretary had agreed to extend the deadline until mid-September, to allow members more time to fine-tune the report, have it printed, and develop a distribution plan. The fall release will also ensure that the report gets read by policy makers and academics, who are likely to be on vacation in August, he said. Chronicle subscribers can read more ...

A better way to discourage cheating?

Many educators fear that online learning, while convenient for students, is also convenient for cheaters. The article excerpted below describes a rather invasive technology that can be used to discourage cheating on online tests. Wouldn't it be better, however, to redesign pedagogy around a more continuous pattern of assessment, which would discourage anyone but the learner from helping the learner?  Provided that such pedagogical models were also designed to allow learners to use all the legitimate resources at their disposal -- books, websites, and so on -- there would be little opportunity for cheating. I vote for removing the opportunity to cheat rather than invading the privacy of the learner to prevent cheating.

Proctor 2.0
Elia Powers, Inside Higher Ed, June 2, 2006

It’s time for final exams. You’re a student in Tokyo and your professor works in Alabama. It’s after midnight and you’re ready to take the test from your bedroom. No problem. Flip open your laptop, plug in special hardware, take a fingerprint, answer the questions and you’re good to go. Just know this: Your professor can watch your every move ... and see the pile of laundry building up in the corner of the room. Distance learning programs – no matter their structure or locations – have always wrestled with the issue of student authentication. How do you verify that the person who signed up for a class is the one taking the test if that student is hundreds, often thousands, of miles away? Read more ...

Convenience and capacity

The article excerpted below documents the growth in online learning and, in the last two sentences of the excerpt, makes the connection between online learning and institutional capacity. Higher education is currently a growth "industry," but is also an industry with limited access to the capital required to grow its traditional classroom plant. By offering degree programs in new, flex delivery models that eliminate or greatly reduce the need for scheduled real-time interactions between students and instructors, higher education can meet the need and demand for convenient access to programs, while also improving capacity with little need for new capital investments.

Faculty capacity is a related issue. In addition to the adjunct strategy to increasing faculty capacity (as cited in the article), a program's courses can be redesigned for flex delivery in a way that improves student learning and, in the case of large-enrollment courses, simultaneously increases the student/instructor ratio to increase faculty capacity.  Although many will deem this strategy to be counter-intuitive and not conducive to learning, there are now many examples to demonstrate otherwise. The best source of such examples is the website of the National Center for Academic Transformation.

Online Degree Programs Take Off: As More Schools Embrace Web-Based Courses, More Students Log On to Expand Their Education While They Work
Lois Romano, Washington Post, May 16, 2006

Angela Bostic will get her MBA in August from the University of Maryland University College, part of a dual master's degree she is pursuing. She has never met a professor, has never sat in a classroom and has checked out the Adelphi campus only once, long after she had enrolled. In fact, until recently, the 28-year-old graduate student had been studying from Brussels. Bostic is among an extraordinarily fast-growing number of students nationwide and worldwide who are turning to online degree programs to complete or advance their educations while they work, decisions that are driven by economics as well as by a society that is increasingly mobile. Congress passed a law in March that drops the requirement that colleges offer at least half their courses face to face to receive federal student aid. The new law will undoubtedly attract more students and schools into the fledgling online industry. Online enrollment, including multiple courses taken by a single student, jumped from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million the following year, accounting for 7 percent of postsecondary education, according to Eduventures, a Boston firm that studies trends in education. Another study, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, reports that 65 percent of universities offering face-to-face graduate courses also offer graduate courses online. By early 2008, Eduventures predicts, about one in 10 college students will be enrolled in an online degree program. "It's only going to grow," said Richard Garrett, an analyst with Eduventures. "The largest high school graduating class in U.S. history is expected to be 2009. There is going to be a lot of pressure on these students to get education in a competitive market." Read more ...