From the inbox earlier today…
Having trouble viewing this email? Click here
RESEARCH-BASED ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
Why first-year college students select online research resources as their favorite
This paper reports results of a preliminary study on why first-year college students select certain online research resources as their favorite. Results, based on a survey of over 500 U.S. college students in first-year writing classes, offer a more complex picture of student motivation than popular accounts of these students as disinterested, lazy, and ignorant. Students reported most frequently that they favored resources for reasons of ease, quality, and connectivity. They reported least frequently that they favored resources for reasons of relevance, variety, and speed. These results suggest that students value finding scholarly sources above relevant sources.
First Monday
The academic online: Constructing persona through the World Wide Web
This paper explores the way individuals are part of the prestige economy generated by universities as institutions. It explores how the construction of online identities or persona is now an essential activity for the academic both from the perspective of university value and individual/career value. Five distinct types of academic persona are explored primarily through academics working in digital communication areas; through these cases and examples this new communication environment is explored. This paper concludes that institutions and individuals need to develop in the most pragmatic sense, online academic persona and ensure that these online ‘selfs’ are connected with authenticity to the professional work of the academic.
First Monday
Online courses continue to become increasingly prevalent in higher education. The relationship between computers and writing is natural, as computers are now the primary tool for producing writing. The purpose of this case-study paper is to report on the design, development, and delivery of an online course that was created in response to the identification of a need for effective and efficient delivery of writing instruction to large numbers of university students. The paper describes an online academic writing course that evolved from an elective course enrolling 150 students to a required course enrolling over 2,000 arts and social sciences and engineering students at a mid-sized Canadian university. An account of the history of the course is included, along with discussion regarding institutional and student resistance to the course, technological challenges, use of peer review, cheating, course problems, and course successes. Course effectiveness data are also presented. Suggestions are offered for instructors wishing to create similar online writing courses.
MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching
Intellectual Capital, trust, cultural traits and reputation in the Romanian education system
The contemporary approach to the concept of ‘intellectual capital’ has transformed. The three components (human, relational and organizational capital) are not enough to reflect reality, as the static perspective was replaced by an integrative vision: intangible resources, actions and process that contribute to sustainable competitive advantage. However, this theoretical division provides solid ground for explaining the close bond between trust, cultural identity and cooperation, ‘soft concepts’, and intellectual capital in knowledge- based organizations. Therefore, we consider it is of high interest to identify the nature of the relational and organizational capital, and trust association. Is it first trust and then the two intellectual capital components, or the other way around? Also, we can take one step further and consider the intellectual capital formation process and architectural scheme behind it. This paper aims firstly at offering a theoretical framework for the liaisons between the concepts previously mentioned and intellectual capital, underlying specific characteristics for the Romanian educational system, especially for tertiary /higher education. The second objective is to provide new research directions, comparing the findings with situations of other cultures, like Japan and USA. The research methodology comprises a thorough literature review of scientific studies and of the 2011 National Romanian Education Law. It focuses on the changes and challenges for the intellectual capital formation phase. Also, it involves an empirical investigation of an evaluation of the current intellectual capital formation route. The research instrument is a questionnaire, collecting information for both quantitative and qualitative research purposes. The findings of this paper seek to identify the structure and dynamics of the intellectual capital formation process in the Romanian higher education system. As well, we hope to lead to concrete solutions for improving general dynamics, and acknowledgment of trust, cooperation and cultural aspects as corner stones in education intellectual capital formation area.
The Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management
IN THE NEWS
New distance learning agreement draft forthcoming
Higher-education institutions would find it easier to receive interstate accreditation under a new compact under development.
eCampus News
Download Working Draft: State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement
Higher education institutions, employing the capacities of available technologies, are increasingly able to offer services to students on a national canvas. Many of today’s colleges and universities employ online learning and varied degrees of onsite support to offer study on a national, and even international, scale. Designed originally to regulate in-state residential campuses, regulatory requirements and evaluative measures vary considerably from state to state. Fifty individual states, and the institutions that seek approval to offer courses within them, now engage in duplicative, costly, time-consuming and inconsistently applied regulatory exercises. Moreover, some states exercise minimum qualitative control, reducing the ability of states to accept approvals on an interstate basis. Reform is needed in the policies and processes of state regulatory review and approval for postsecondary educational institutions, and especially for those colleges and universities with national footprints that offer degrees across multiple political boundaries. To that end, The Presidents Forum and the Lumina Foundation approached the National Center for Interstate Compacts to help with the drafting of a compact aimed at reducing the problems.
National Center for Interstate Compacts, The Council of State Governments
The buzz surrounding massive open online courses, or MOOCs, has grown nearly as massive as the courses themselves. MOOCs are the new “thneeds,” the oddly-shaped items peddled by the Once-ler in The Lorax:Everybody seems to want one, even if nobody yet knows exactly what they are or what they mean.
Inside Higher Ed.
edX Offers Proctored Exams for Open Online Course
Students enrolled in a free open online course offered through edX will now have the option of getting their learning validated with a proctored final exam, under a new program announced today.
Wired Campus
The “Report on Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Education for Persons with Disabilities” presented herewith is the outgrowth of a joint initiative by UNESCO and the Trust for the Americas. It consisted of a significant study, country by country in South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, elucidating achievements and shortfalls, while demonstrating that democratizing free access to ICTs for persons with disabilities in the field of education is an attainable goal. As a result, this publication provides us with a meaningful assessment of the status of access to ICTs for such persons and identifies both the good practices and the problems and pending needs that require the most support. It also evinces the need to enhance access to ICTs and the duty for all societal stakeholders, both governmental and non-governmental, as well as international organizations, to work toward attaining this goal.
UNESCO
Desire2Learn Raises $80 Million in Financing Round from NEA and OMERS Ventures
Strategic Growth Round to Accelerate Global Expansion for Cloud-Based Learning Solutions
Desire2Learn
Farhad (Fred) Saba, Ph. D.
Founder and Editor
Distance-Educator.com
Forward email
Distance-Educator.com | 6977 Navajo Road #167 | San Diego | CA | 92119
