Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Liz Ciabacchi and I gave a presentation entitled, Faculty Governance Leaders’ perceptions of Online and Blended Learning:   A Preliminary Analysis.  Our colleague, Amy Ginsberg was to present with us but was called away on a business emergency.

This presentation reported the findings of a study on the perceptions of faculty governance leaders to online and blended learning. For the purposes of this study, faculty governance was defined as formally established bodies in colleges and universities such as senates, councils, and collective bargaining organizations that are affiliated with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).  While there have been many studies on the perceptions of students, faculty, and administrators, there has been very little research on the perceptions of faculty governance leaders who hold critical positions in colleges and universities.  Governance leaders are at the crux of approval processes that influence the development of curricula, faculty personnel policies, and academic programs, all of which can impact the implementation of online and blended learning initiatives. The research methodology for this study includes a survey sent to a sample of governance leaders at U.S. institutions of higher education and follow-up phone interviews with fifteen self-selected volunteers. The sample was identified using an American Association of University Professors (AAUP) membership list.  The results of this study provide important new information on the perceptions of this influential group of leaders on matters relating to online and blended learning.

The above Powerpoint was used during the presentation and contains a number of charts and other data illustrating our findings.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Phil Hill and Michael Feldstein from MindWires  Consulting, gave a keynote address yesterday at the Online Learning Consortium Conference here in Orlando.  As described in their abstract, their talk focused on:

“As online and hybrid education enter the third decade, there are significant efforts to move beyond the virtualization of traditional face-to-face classroom and instead take advantage of personalization of pedagogies and technologies. This shift has the potential to change the discussion of whether online approaches “can be as good as” traditional approaches to a discussion of how online approaches “can provide better learning opportunities”.

But this move to personalization – centered on the student instead of the course, and focused on active learning – will not be easy. How will personalization change the role of the teacher or of the teaching assistant? For that matter, how will personalization change the role and expectations of the student? What institutional changes are required to support these new pedagogical approaches? During this talk we will explore this long-term trend, several of the drivers enabling the change, and the implications for current and future educators.”

They presented video commentary from faculty and students at Essex County Community College, Empire State College, and Arizona State University.  Between the videos and their own presentations, they covered well many of the critical issues (time on task, software, faculty buy-in) of moving to blended learning environments. 

An excellent keynote!

I also attended several other presentations on faculty attitudes, the new California Community College Online Initiative, and professional development for K-12 teachers.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Inside Higher Education and Gallop have just released the results of this year’s survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology.  Highlights from the report include:

• The gap between administrators and faculty members widens as instructors — including those who have taught online — become more negative about the quality of online education, especially compared to face-to-face instruction.
• Nearly two-thirds of faculty members believe detection software can stop students from plagiarizing, but less than one-quarter believe students have a full understanding of what plagiarism actually is.
• Faculty members are skeptical about new academic programs that combine face-to-face instruction with massive open online courses, fearing the model threatens traditional faculty roles.
• Administrators and faculty members overwhelmingly say textbooks and other course materials are too expensive, and that instructors should seriously consider costs when assigning readings.
• A majority of faculty members are concerned about attacks on scholars for their comments on social media and feel that colleges must do more to encourage civil discourse online.

The full report is available at:  https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/partial-credit-2015-survey-faculty-attitudes-technology

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Online Learning Consortium’s Annual Conference got underway yesterday.  More than 1,700 on-site attendees are taking part in this event.  The keynote address was delivered by Goldie Blumenstyk, a reporter and an editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education since 1988.  She is nationally known for her expertise on for-profit higher education, college finances, and university patents and the commercialization of academic research. The focus of her keynote was based on her book, American Higher Education in Crisis? What Everyone Needs to Know, (Oxford University Press, 2015.

She reviewed fairly thoroughly issues (diversity, completion rates, tuition, student debt, and state funding) and provided facts and figures.  She knew her audience and went out of her way to comment that part of the solutions for these issues was technology and especially online education.

I thought her presentation was good but she could have commented a bit more about what is right about American higher education such as student access, research, and respect in the international community. 

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The five candidates for the Democratic nomination for president had their first debate last night. Sponsored by CNN, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Lincoln Chaffee, and Martin O’Malley sparred with each other throughout the evening. They all appeared prepared, knowledgeable, and competent. They also were focused on the issues and avoided personal attacks. Income inequality, gun control, climate change, and free public higher education were frequently mentioned. Hillary was confident and will keep her lead in the nomination process as a result of her performance during the debate.  However, Sanders made several strong statements.   A self-described democratic socialist, Sanders derided “a casino capitalist process by which so few have so much.”  Sanders called the Iraq war “the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of our country” and said he would not support sending American combat troops back to the Middle East to fight terrorism.  Sanders also had the best line of the evening in referring to Hillary’s email issues and said:

“The American people are sick and tired hearing about your damn emails.” As the crowd in Las Vegas roared with applause, a smiling Clinton reached over to shake his hand and said, “Thank you, Bernie.”

A good evening for Democrats!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In the wake of the recent attention to practices at the University of Phoenix and Corinthian Colleges, the New York Times has a page one article questioning why the US Department  of Education continues to approve billions of dollars for students attending for-profit colleges accused of fraud.  As reported:

“When the Obama administration agreed this summer to erase the federal loan debt of some former students at Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit school that filed for bankruptcy in the face of charges of widespread fraud, education officials promised to “protect students from abusive colleges and safeguard the interests of taxpayers.”

But the Education Department, despite a crackdown against what it calls “bad actors,” continues to hand over tens of millions of dollars every month to other for-profit schools that have been accused of predatory behavior, substandard practices or illegal activity by its own officials or state attorneys general across the country.

Consider the Education Management Corporation, which runs 110 schools in the United States for chefs, artists and other trades. It has been investigated or sued in recent years by prosecutors in at least 12 states. The Justice Department has accused the company of illegally using incentives to pay its recruiters. And last year, investors filed a class-action lawsuit, contending that the company engaged in deceptive enrollment practices and manipulated federal student loan and grant programs.

Students waited for information in April after Corinthian Colleges announced it would shut down Everest College in City of Industry, Calif.   Education Management nonetheless received more than $1.25 billion in federal money over the last school year.

The career training and for-profit college industry has been accused in recent years of preying on the poor, veterans and minorities by charging exorbitant fees for degrees that mostly fail to deliver promised skills and jobs.

Despite stepped-up scrutiny, hundreds of schools that have failed regulatory standards or been accused of violating legal statutes are still hauling in billions of dollars of government funds. They include tiny beauty schools with staggering loan default rates and online law schools with dismal graduation records and no bar association accreditation. Without government funds, which account for the overwhelming bulk of revenue, few of these institutions could attract students or stay in business.

The continuing flow of money illustrates the quandary facing federal education officials. On one hand, they have moved forcefully to try to protect taxpayer funds and prevent students from falling deeply into debt without anything to show for it. On the other, they must avoid running roughshod over private for-profit schools that have not been found guilty of wrongdoing. Agency officials point out that they cannot withhold money based on accusations, but must have proof of misconduct.

For example, Education Management, which says it is cooperating with prosecutors, says it “strongly disagrees” with the Justice Department allegations.

Regulators are caught between an industry that says it is being unfairly demonized by opponents and critics who complain not enough is being done to prevent fraud and abuse of vulnerable students.”

The article goes on to mention a number of other for-profit colleges including the University of Phoenix and Kaplan that have been accused of questionable recruitment practices.  It also quotes Kevin Kinser:

“For-profits successfully serve a lot of students, and the department has been very sensitive to having all students suffer for what may only affect some students in some programs,” said Kevin Kinser, an associate professor who studies for-profit colleges at the State University of New York at Albany. “So they are reluctant to throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Mr. Kinser pointed out that the Education Department had little flexibility under the law when it came to cutting off federal student loan and grant money to potential abusers. “There are individual triggers in place for financial viability, institutional integrity, et cetera,” he said, “but no three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule.”

A sad situation for students vulnerable to the come-on tactics of unscrupulous recruiters.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Stephen Hawking, the British physicist, warned that great technological advances can leave most people “miserably poor” and that technology is partly to blame for the rise in income inequality. As reported by CNN:

“The well-known British physicist and author said technology is partly to blame for the rise in income inequality.

“Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution,” he said in a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) post last week.

“So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality,” Hawking said.

It all comes down to how the gains are distributed between the rich and the poor.

The tech community fired back.

Marc Andreessen, the outspoken entrepreneur and de facto Silicon Valley spokesman, tweeted that Hawking was trotting out old rhetoric.

“Shorter Stephen Hawking: ‘For hundreds of years, people who claimed that machines reduce jobs have looked silly. But I’ll be different!'” wrote Andreessen.

He even suggested someone should buy Hawking an Economics 101 textbook.

It’s a hot debate among economists and in Silicon Valley where the rising wealth of young tech workers stands out starkly against the mostly minority low income communities in San Francisco.

Hawking is right on this one, not Andreessen

Hawking wins this round, according to most experts.

There’s little doubt that technology has driven economic growth in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. It’s why so many countries are trying to replicate Silicon Valley on their own turf.

But while the pie is growing, not everyone is getting more of it.

“My reading of the data is that technology is the main driver of the recent increases in inequality.

It’s the biggest factor,” Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, told “Technology Review.”

Technology killed many blue collar jobs

The key problem: Technology has replaced many blue collar jobs that paid well. Those workers have had to switch into retail and home healthcare jobs, where the pay is typically lower.

So Andreessen is right that people still have jobs. But the question is, at what pay?

The median income in the U.S. today is about the same as it was in 1995 when the tech boom really took off. Wages just aren’t growing for the bulk of Americans.

But those at the top are seeing large gains — both from pay and from their investments doing well.

There is increasing competition for engineers and other highly skilled workers. That explains why the pay gap between those with college degrees and those without has widened since the 1970s.

Workers with at least a bachelor’s degree now earn about $1 million more over their lifetimes than Americans who only have a high school diploma.”

I tend to agree with CNN on this.  The digital technologies of the past several decades have created a wealthy elite while the common worker struggles.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The University of Phoenix is already reeling from the US Department of Defense decision barring it from further participation in the Tuition Assistance Program.  However, the news may have much greater financial ramifications under the US DOE “90/10” rule.  As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

“For now, the University of Phoenix is barred from enrolling active-duty military personnel under the Department of Defense’s Tuition Assistance Program. The money associated with that program — some $20.5 million — represents a small fraction of the university’s estimated $2.5 billion in annual revenue, but the loss of the program’s funds could have an outsize impact on its bottom line.

The department announced that decision on Thursday in a letter to the nation’s largest for-profit university, citing investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and the California attorney general into Phoenix’s practices for recruiting servicemembers.

The university was also put on probation, but it is allowed to continue to enroll previously accepted active-duty servicemembers using their Tuition Assistance money. In 2014, Phoenix enrolled about 9,400 active-duty members of the military, and received more than $20.5 million in revenue from the Tuition Assistance Program, according to figures compiled by BMO Capital Markets, a financial-services company.

But if the probation turns into a longer-term punishment, the university could find itself in danger of violating the federal “90/10 rule,” which prohibits for-profit colleges that receive federal financial aid from getting more than 90 percent of their revenue from federal sources, including Pell Grants and federally backed student loans.

The University of Phoenix now gets about 81 percent of its revenue from federal sources, and servicemembers are helping to keep it comfortably on the right side of the line. That’s because revenue brought in through the Tuition Assistance Program doesn’t count against the 90-percent cap, so it’s a valuable counterweight in the 90/10 calculation for proprietary institutions, many of which have focused heavily on recruiting military personnel.

Put another way, for every $90 of Title IV student-aid money Phoenix takes in, the university needs to draw $10 from other sources. So the $20.5 million it receives through the Tuition Assistance Program allows Phoenix to collect more than $180 million in other federal dollars.

The problem for Phoenix could get much bigger, too, if the Department of Veterans Affairs, which administers money under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, decides to follow the Defense Department’s actions. Education benefits under the GI Bill also don’t count toward the 90-percent cap.”

It is going to be a rough going for the University of Phoenix but it has no one to blame but itself.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has a featured article today entitled, Just 158 families have provided nearly half of the early money for efforts to capture the White House.  Here is an excerpt:

“They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.

Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.

These donors’ fortunes reflect the shifting composition of the country’s economic elite. Relatively few work in the traditional ranks of corporate America, or hail from dynasties of inherited wealth. Most built their own businesses, parlaying talent and an appetite for risk into huge wealth: They founded hedge funds in New York, bought up undervalued oil leases in Texas, made blockbusters in Hollywood. More than a dozen of the elite donors were born outside the United States, immigrating from countries like Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Pakistan, India and Israel.

But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains and inheritances; and shrink entitlement programs. While such measures would help protect their own wealth, the donors describe their embrace of them more broadly, as the surest means of promoting economic growth and preserving a system that would allow others to prosper, too.”

Money, money, money!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I leave today for Orlando to attend the Annual Online Learning Consortium (formerly Sloan-C) Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is Shaping the Future of Online Learning.  The program and speakers are first-rate and include a keynote by Goldie Blumenstyck, from The Chronicle of Higher Education.  The title of her presentation is American Higher Education in Crisis:  Myths and Realities.

All of the details about the program are available at the Conference website.

Below is a welcome and quick overview from Patsy Moskal, the Conference Chair.

Tony

============================

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to invite you to the 21tst Annual Online Learning Consortium International Conference! This year’s promises outstanding keynotes, features sessions and workshops. In addition, our Technology Test Kitchen and Discovery sessions will once again provide you with the opportunity to interact with experts in new and emerging technologies and topics, reinforcing why this is the premiere conference in online learning.

Our variety of conference tracks and exhibits promise to offer something for everyone involved with ensuring the 21st century of online learning provides the highest quality educational experience. Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival culinary and entertainment event offers networking opportunities—or, for the young-at-heart, Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party provides a fun night at the Magic Kingdom. On behalf of the conference steering committee, we look forward to seeing you in beautiful, sunny Orlando in October!

Patsy Moskal, Conference Chair