Race and Ethnicity in College Admissions
The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to consider whether the University of Texas at Austin has the right to consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions. Those bringing the case hope the Supreme...
View ArticleApple Sued Over Book Deals
The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Apple and five big book publishers for price fixing. The story is that back in 2010, Steve Jobs encouraged the six to meet in order to discuss ways they might...
View ArticleThe Mac Virus
Some people - probably Windows users - seem to be happy that there is finally an actual Mac virus out there.It has been 28 years of essentially virus-free surfing for Apple Mac users. Windows users...
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What that e-book you are reading is telling the publisher about you
Back in that other century when we read books made of paper, publishers had no way of knowing what you were doing while you were reading their book. Reading was a private act. Maybe you only read the...
View ArticleAdults Only
Nontraditional students - adults who attend college part-time - are a large and growing segment of American higher education. They figure into the “completion agenda” (or lack of completion) that has...
View ArticleReport is unflattering portrait of for-profit higher-education industry
From chronicle.com"Senate Report Paints a Damning Portrait of For-Profit Higher Education" By Michael Stratford For-profit colleges can play an important role in educating nontraditional students, but...
View ArticlePlagiarizing Even When It Doesn't Count?
An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education says that there have been "Dozens of Plagiarism Incidents Reported in Coursera's Free Online Courses by students even though the MOOC's carry no...
View ArticleThose Tests
The average scores on the SAT fell two points this year. On average it dropped a point each in critical reading and in writing. It stayed level in mathematics. The drops are smaller than the six-point...
View ArticleBig Changes in Remedial Education
Remedial courses are supposed to get under-prepared students ready for college-level work. Unfortunately, all the numbers indicate that too often these students hit a dead end and often never move...
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Can We Measure Noncognitive Attributes of College Applicants?
Ask professors what kind of students they want in their classes and you might hear attributes like initiative, persistence and leadership. How well are those attributes measured by admissions tests?...
View ArticleThere Is No Defending the Dissertation
In an article from The Chronicle by Stacey Patton, she asks "The dissertation is broken, many scholars agree. So now what?"The article covers an issue that is not new. In the big mix of things that...
View ArticleOutsourcing Public Higher Ed in California
A plan in California to require public colleges to award credit for certain online courses offered by other institutions and providers has attracted considerable interest and considerable faculty...
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Another Google Service Is Going Away
If you use Google Reader, as I do, you have seen the notice there that Google Reader will be retired on July 1, 2013. Google Reader is a content application and platform that aggregates content served...
View ArticleSupreme Court Rules On Copyright Law For Discount Resale
The Supreme Court has made a ruling on copyright law that might affect colleges. It gave foreign buyers of things like books and movies the right to resell them in the United States without the...
View ArticleUnderstanding Cheating in Online Courses
So, there's a course on how to cheat online. But with the purpose of preventing cheating online. This course is a massive open online course titled “Understanding Cheating in Online Courses,” which is...
View ArticleWhen Instructional Technology and Information Technology Overlap
When I was the Manager of Instructional Technology at NJIT, I asked my staff to emphasize the "instructional" prt of our name. We were IT, but not the information technology folks who had very...
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Parents Invoice Pearson For Using Their Kids for Field Tests
Here's an unusual story concerning standardized testing. Some concerned parents in New York have drawn up a bill of about $38 million to Pearson LLC for using their children as uncompensated research...
View ArticleCalifornia and Credit and MOOCs
It was big news earlier in the year when a bill was proposed (and since was approved) in California that mandates statewide open online courses be approved for college and high school credit. That...
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Online Disinhibition Effect
The term "online disinhibition" is new to me, but the concept is not. It is defined as being the loosening or complete abandonment of social restrictions and inhibitions when online that would...
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No Privacy By Default
Websites and services, especially those in the social media category, continue to make the mistake of sharing your information by default. This issue has hit Facebook and Google and many other smaller...
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