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Turn Your Laptop Into an Earthquake Sensor | Comment

Writing Students and Professors Fight to Keep Theses From Being Freely Available Online | Comment [4]

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How a Lawsuit Over Electronic Reserves Could Affect Colleges | Comment [5]

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May 7, 2008

Social-Networking Site Starts Wikis for Language Education

Not willing to cough up a couple hundred bucks for Rosetta Stone software? Check out italki Knowledge, a free online language-learning, open-textbook site designed for the Web 2.0 crowd.

Founded in 2006, italki is a social network based around 90 different language-learning communities. Starting this month, it is starting wikis for each language intended to serve as open-source textbooks.

For other open-source resources on learning foreign languages, check out Wikiversity’s foreign language learning page or Web German’s Foreign Languages page.—Catherine Rampell

April 18, 2008

Socrato: Online Test-Prep Materials Uploaded by Web Users

Socrato, a Massacusetts-based company, is offering a free, crowd-sourced test-prep service online, TechCrunch reports. Educators can upload sample test questions and study guides in various formats, and students can then use them for practice at home.

The site currently has test-prep questions for national academic standardized tests (SAT, GRE, LSAT, etc.), as well as for the U.S. citizenship test and individual course exams. In an upcoming release, Socrato will “be able to track how students deliberate on questions by analyzing which answers they cross off first,” TechCrunch says. —Catherine Rampell

January 24, 2008

Online Colleges to Post Effectiveness of Programs

A coalition of colleges that operate online and serve mostly adult students announced Wednesday that it will team up with the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, or WCET, to disseminate data about the effectiveness of its members’ academic programs. The cooperative promotes the use of technology in higher education.

It is expected to develop a Web site, which will open next year, to publish data from the coalition—-called the Presidents’ Forum—-that show students’ graduation rates, what training the institutions provide, and how successful graduates are in their careers, among other things. Michael Offerman, vice chairman of Capella University, said the cooperative will act as an independent examiner of the data, which he said are primarily meant to help prospective students pick the right institutions and programs for their needs. “We’ve got data and we’re going to share it,” said Mr. Offerman. Capella is part of the Presidents’ Forum.

Other institutions in the forum are: American Public University System, Charter Oak State College, Excelsior College, Fielding Graduate University, Franklin University, Kaplan University, Regis University, Rio Salado College, Southwestern College, Western Governors University, and Union Institute & University. The University of Phoenix is considering joining the group.

The partnership between the cooperative and the online colleges is meant to help carry out a program that the colleges announced in October called Transparency By Design.—-Andrea L. Foster

January 17, 2008

Universities Unveil Distance-Learning Program in Nuclear Engineering

To help meet a growing demand for nuclear engineers, a group of universities has teamed up to sponsor online courses and swap information about the students taking them. One goal is to eliminate the hassle for students to transfer credits among the participating institutions.

Other universities have used distance learning to teach nuclear engineering, but the new effort is probably the largest such program, said John P. Gutteridge, director of university programs in nuclear energy at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Big 12 Nuclear Engineering Consortium will start the distance-education effort this spring using an information-sharing system, called ExpanSIS, developed by Kansas State University. The secure, Web-based system allows universities to jointly track information about course schedules, grades, student billing, and textbooks. Students can pay at their home institutions for the nuclear-engineering courses, which were developed by Kansas State, Texas A&M University at College Station, and the Universities of Missouri at Columbia and Texas at Austin.

ExpanSIS is already used by some of the Big 12 universities in a separate effort, the Great Plains Interactive Distance Educational Alliance, which offers graduate courses online in nonengineering fields.

Universities are working to expand education in nuclear engineering in response to a revival of interest in nuclear power as a way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

“It’s encouraging that the online nuclear courses have drawn immediate student interest,” said Mr. Gutteridge, of the Energy Department. “The industry is clamoring for engineers who speak nuclear.” —Jeffrey Brainard

January 4, 2008

U. of Illinois' Online Education Project Has Marketing Problems

“It’s important for people not to focus on the doggone numbers.” The speaker was not a campaign manager explaining a presidential candidate’s poor showing in Iowa last night. Rather it was U. of Illinois special assistant Chet Gardner, explaining the poor enrollment in the university’s new Global Campus online education project to the Chicago Tribune yesterday.

The doggone numbers showed fewer than 15 students enrolled in the much-anticipated program, which opened its virtual doors on Wednesday. Initial enrollment had been projected at 75, and the multi-million program is supposed to teach more than 9,000 students by 2012.

Mr. Gardner emphasized those goals were still within reach, and the important fact is that the university got the program rolling. It had been delayed by four months while the institution’s Board of Trustees debated over financing and fees, not giving final approval until the end of July.

That left precious little time for marketing and recruiting students, Mr. Gardner said. That effort didn’t start until October, and the first courses began January 2. As new offerings are rolled out later this spring, and publicity builds, the university expects the students—people who can’t get to the physical campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield—will follow.—Josh Fischman

January 3, 2008

Judge Finds University Didn't Discriminate Online

A federal judge dismissed a long-standing lawsuit against Capella University that had claimed the online university’s course-management software discriminated against people with disabilities. The judge decided that a former student was not disabled under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Even if he was, the judge said, the institution had provided reasonable accommodations.

Details of this decision came from a U.S. District Court memorandum last month. In the lawsuit, Jeffry La Marca, who argued he had cognitive and memory disorders, said problems arising from the university’s switch to WebCT, an online course-management program, prevented him from fully accessing course material. He also said the university did not sufficiently accommodate him despite his disability.

However, Judge Marc L. Goldman of the Central District in California wrote in his decision that La Marca’s disabilities did not substantially limit his capacity to learn given his past academic success.

In regard to accommodations, Capella offered “one-on-one interaction with instructors,” according to the court document, and “a directed study program would have addressed every issue [the] Plaintiff raised.”

Capella suspended La Marca from the university after he wrote several complaints on a class discussion board in 2004. He said the action was discriminatory, and in retaliation against his complaints about WebCT. The judge wrote that he did not find La Marca’s suspension to be either — rather, it was an action to stop his disruptive posts on a class discussion board. — Hurley Goodall

December 20, 2007

Congress Approves Money for Wireless Networks at Minority Colleges

A pilot program that would provide for the development of digital and wireless networks at nine colleges that serve minority students cleared Congress Wednesday. The measure is part of the $555-billion omnibus spending bill, HR 2764, that is headed to President Bush for approval.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, would administer the nine grants, each worth $500,000, for the purpose of promoting online education at the institutions. The program authorizes $4.5-million in each of the 2008 and 2009 fiscal years. The money is just a fraction of the $250-million that would have been provided under a similar bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in September.

Institutions receiving the grants could use the money to purchase hardware, software, and wireless infrastructure, for faculty training, and for the development of educational services and strategic plans for information-technology investments. —Andrea L. Foster

December 11, 2007

Yale U. Puts Complete Courses Online

Modern poetry, as well as introductory courses in physics, psychology, and political science, are four of seven classes from Yale U. that the institution put online today. Not only are the courses free for anyone who is interested, but they are as close to being there as online technology allows.

“These are gavel-to-gavel presentations,” Tom Conroy, a university spokesman, told The Chronicle. “We’ve put everything online that we could, and I think that’s what makes this different.” Lectures can be downloaded and run in streaming video or in audio only. There are searchable transcripts of each lecture, as well as course syllabi, reading assignments, problem sets, and other materials.

Diana E.E. Kleiner, a professor of the history of art and classics and director of the project, which is called Open Yale Courses, said in a written statement that the project’s leaders “wanted everyone to be able to see and hear each lecture as if they were sitting in the classroom.”

The courses available are:

• Astronomy 160: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, with Professor Charles Bailyn.

• English 310: Modern Poetry, with Professor Langdon Hammer.

• Philosophy 176: Death, with Professor Shelly Kagan.

• Physics 200: Fundamentals of Physics, with Professor Ramamurti Shankar.

• Political Science 114: Introduction to Political Philosophy, with Professor Steven B. Smith.

• Psychology 110: Introduction to Psychology, with Professor Paul Bloom.

• Religious Studies 145: Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), with Professor Christine Hayes.

The project also has international connections, with Open Yale Courses lectures broadcast over Chinese television and a satellite network in India. The lectures will also be available at 300 libraries and universities throughout the world, via a U.S. State Department project called American Corners. —Josh Fischman

October 30, 2007

High-School Students Seek Online College Courses

Jamie Gladfelter, an online economics instructor at community colleges across the country, tells The New York Times in an interview this month that he is seeing an uptick in the number of ambitious high-school students who are taking his courses for credit.

“These students are able to satisfy their general-education requirements with little cost, and enter a four-year university with a year of credits under their belts,” he says during the interview. “Students in this group are usually very bright and have excelled in academics.”

Are other online instructors observing this trend?—-Andrea L. Foster

August 29, 2007

Colorado State Approves Online University

Yet another state university is hoping to strike gold with online education for working adults. Colorado State University’s Board of Governors on Friday approved $4.5-million for the creation of an online university, according to an article Sunday in the Coloradoan.

The online, nonprofit university, to be called CSU-Colorado, is being developed with the Colorado Community College system. It is expected to cost a total of $12-million and be open for business next year.

“We must reach broader student populations, particularly those who are geographically isolated or fall into nontraditional categories because of family, work, and financial need,” said the chancellor of the CSU system, Larry Edward Penley, in a statement posted on the university’s Web site.

Is demand for online education great enough to support another online institution from a state university? The University of Illinois and the University of North Carolina announced their own distance-education spinoffs earlier this year. —Andrea L . Foster

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