News

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Loneliness of the long distance MOOC runner

Byuclafaculty

In a recent study at the U of Pennsylvania, it turned out – as many other studies have noted – that few takers of MOOCs actually complete the course.  What’s interesting about the study is that many takers don’t even start them. Emerging data from a University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE) study show that massive open online courses (MOOCs) have relatively few active users, that user “engagement” falls off dramatically—especially after the first 1-2 weeks of a course—and that few users persist to the course end. Presented today by Laura Perna and Alan Ruby at the…

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Core Competencies for Regents?

Byuclafaculty

Yours truly noted with interest this item from the State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee: CalPERS’ governing board aims to up its collective understanding of everything from financial statements to financial markets with a new set of “core competencies” that will help shape education and training. The policy, which the board is imposing on itself, also requires board members to have familiarity with topics ranging from health care and pension plans to board governance and communication…  Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/05/5974549/calpers-sets-knowledge-standards.html Now if the Regents were to adopt such a policy, what would their core competencies be?  Pension funding?  Capital…

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New Normal for UC in the UCLA Anderson Forecast

Byuclafaculty

Above are two charts from yesterday’s UCLA Anderson Forecast. [Click on them to enlarge and get a clearer image.]  There is a much overused phrase nowadays: the “new normal.”  But when you combine those two charts with the chart below (slightly modified) from the recent Legislative Analyst’s report on the state budget outlook, the phrase takes on special meaning for UC. As can be seen on the Forecast charts, California’s economic base was hard hit around 1990 by the end of the Cold War.  Its population stopped growing relative to the nation as a whole.  And it lost jobs as…

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Again

Byuclafaculty

From Facilities Management: Northbound I-405 (all lanes) will be closed between Wilshire Boulevard and Moraga Drive from midnight until 5 am on the mornings of Thursday, December 5th and Friday, December 6th. Southbound I-405 will remain open during this time. When: Midnight-5 am on Thursday, December 5th and Friday, December 6th Where: I-405 Northbound between Wilshire and Moraga  And note that  the friendly folks on the 405 project often start blocking things as early as 10 pm.

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Password Hint

Byuclafaculty

From time to time, yours truly receives email messages – particularly from people with Yahoo or gmail accounts – that result from someone guessing their passwords.  The culprit then concocts a story about being stranded in Outer Slobovia and needing money.  If you get one of these messages, don’t send money and do let the account holder know his/her account has been hacked.  The moral is to have a password that is hard to guess. But then comes this word: Steven M. Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia, uncovered a startling fact. The launch code for all U.S. Minuteman…

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Bad Dream for Princeton Prez: Faculty May Want to Milk Their Own MOOC

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today points to an article in the Princeton University student newspaper in which it is reported that faculty there are interested in having their own MOOC rather than relying on Coursera (with which Princeton has an affiliation). Members of the faculty discussed the possibility of creating a University-specific alternative to Coursera, as well as the proposed creation of a new committee to oversee the continuation of online courses, on Monday at the December faculty meeting. Philosophy professor Gideon Rosen noted that the University is free to explore options outside of Coursera in order to avoid conflicts of…

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We’re sure there are no risks or they wouldn’t go ahead. Right?

Byuclafaculty

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, UCLA Health System and long-term care provider Select Medical announced today a partnership to open a 138-bed acute-care rehabilitation hospital in Century City in 2015. The aim “is to develop a world-class regional rehabilitation center providing highly specialized care, advanced treatment and leading-edge technologies to treat individuals with spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, strokes, amputations, neurological disorders, and musculoskeletal and orthopedic conditions,” a statement said… The new facility will be operated by Select Medical, a provider of long- term acute care services with hospital and outpatient locations in 44 states, including at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation…

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Three Open-and-Shut Events on the Late Night 405 Near UCLA

Byuclafaculty

The San Diego (405) Freeway will undergo full directional closures in West Los Angeles this week to accommodate roadway widening work that is part of the ongoing Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project.  All southbound lanes will be closed between Sunset and Wilshire boulevards from midnight to 5 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Metro.  All northbound lanes will be closed between Santa Monica Boulevard and Moraga Drive from midnight to 5 a.m. Thursday, according to Metro.  Lanes will begin to close at 10 p.m. and ramps will close as early as 7 p.m. in advance of all three closures, according to…

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We’re Not Alone in Pointing to the Risks of Open-Ended Capital Projects

Byuclafaculty

Vannevar Bush From: The Endless Frontier: Reaping what Bush Sowed?   by Paula Stephan (pp. 33-34)* NBER working paper 19687 (Nov. 2013) Excerpt: Overexpansion of research facilities In recent years, universities have gone on a building binge, constructing a substantial amount of new research space which led to a 30 percent increase in net assignable square feet for research between 2001 and 2011. Most of this increase is for facilities in the biological, biomedical and health sciences—a response of universities to the doubling of the NIH. Some of this space has been paid for by private philanthropy. At MIT, for…