News

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MOOC Moratorium at American University

Byuclafaculty

MEMORANDUM [American University] May 8, 2013 To: AU Faculty and Staff From: Scott A. Bass, Provost Re: MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Moratorium at AU On January 9, 2013, I issued to the deans a moratorium on MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) at AU. Recently, the Faculty Senate asked that I write to the campus community to clarify the current moratorium. In collaboration with the Faculty Senate, we are exploring the development of a policy regarding MOOCs at AU. The policy we craft will eventually be reviewed by the Board of Trustees. In the interim, there are many creative online…

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Not Clear on the Concept

Byuclafaculty

You may have seen the LA Times article today which reports that UCLA’s Reagan hospital received a D grade for patient safety, albeit up from F in the prior survey of the Leapfrog Group.  We reported on the F last November: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/11/whatever-happened-to-grade-inflation.html The new report says UCLA’s Santa Monica Hospital, in contrast, received a top grade.  I get nervous about composite rating systems so I went on the Leapfrog website [http://www.leapfroggroup.org/cp] which allows comparisons of hospitals and compared Reagan with Santa Monica.  The two look pretty much the same as the image above shows. [Click on the image to enlarge.] …

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UCLA’s Hammer Museum Nailed It

Byuclafaculty

Some readers may recall our blog entry of April 13 with the image above which involved the quest by UCLA’s Hammer Museum for a grant for a project to use the many empty Westwood stores and, hopefully, to rejuvenate the area.  The Museum was successful in obtaining the LA2050 grant.  From the Museum: We are pleased to announce that the Hammer Museum will receive a $100,000 grant from the Goldhirsh Foundation to implement our urban renewal project Arts ReStore LA: Westwood. Thank you for the overwhelming support and to everyone who made this possible. The Hammer was one of ten…

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Once Burned – Something Learned?

Byuclafaculty

Like higher education institutions everywhere, the University of California is moving to expand its online course offerings, albeit slowly. The UC may be cautious for a reason: An earlier digital foray didn’t work out so well.UC Online Education launched as a pilot in 2010 with the expectation it would attract thousands of non-UC students willing to pay $1,400 to $2,100 per class. But the development and approval of courses were slow and the timing of the effort coincided with the growing enrollment in free online courses offered by elite universities, known as massive open online courses, or MOOCs. While more…

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Underpaid

Byuclafaculty

De Neve Plaza California’s labor commissioner announced today that she has ordered three contractors to pay more than $1.8 million forviolations in public works projects at UCLA, Saddleback Community College in Orange County and the Global Green Generational Charter School in Pacoima… Tile contractor B.A. Marble Granite Inc. was ordered to pay $539,051 in wages, $4,693 in apprenticeship training funds and $652,600 in fines for the failure to pay 55 employees the proper wage for installing tile in bathrooms at the De Neve Residence Halls project at the UCLA campus… Full story at http://business-news.thestreet.com/daily-news/story/north-hollywood-tile-contractor-ordered-pay-nearly-12m-labor-violations-work-ucla-housing/1  The official statement from the labor…

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Trends

Byuclafaculty

A report to the Regents’ Committee on Educational Policy for the May 15 meeting highlights the growth in the student/faculty ratio at UC.  [Click on the images above and below to enlarge them.] The report – entitled “Academic Performance Indicators at the University of California – more generally appears to be an attempt to respond to the governor’s push to make the UC budget contingent on meeting various performance measures such as graduation rates.  You can find it at http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/may13/e1.pdf Note: An earlier post at http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/05/may-regents-meeting-preliminary-agenda.html provided the general agenda for the upcoming Regents meeting.  Apart from the item in…

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The name seems to be taken

Byuclafaculty

In a recent post, we noted the Regents will be taking up the setting up of an entity at UCLA to market university innovations, patents, etc.  The details are now up on the Regents’ agenda for their meeting next week. Excerpt: The President seeks the approval of the Regents to establish and participate in a separate §501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation (referred to herein as “Newco”), tasked with managing the types of intellectual property (IP) including technology transfer and industry – sponsored research contracting (ISR) at UCLA currently managed by UCLA’s Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research (UCLA OIP-ISR). The…

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Hearing CalPERS Rate Hike for Long-Term Care Insurance

Byuclafaculty

San Francisco’s Poor House As prior blog posts have noted, although UC is not under CalPERS, UC employees – because they were state employees – were invited to enroll in CalPERS’ long-term care insurance plan.  Such plans ostensibly protect enrollees against potential catastrophic expenses that can be entailed in major health crises.  Those who did enroll now find themselves facing large rate hikes or accepting an alternative less generous plan.  Many who enrolled did so assuming that CalPERS would protect them from such hikes.  Yours truly has encountered a number of folks who now find themselves in this predicament.  CalPERS…

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More on the UCLA-Wake Forest University Monkey Dispute

Byuclafaculty

An earlier post noted that there is a dispute between UCLA and Wake Forest U over joint operation of a primate research center.  You can find the earlier post – and a note that yours truly really doesn’t have the story on what led to the conflict – at:http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/03/complicated-monkey-business-involving.html The parties have been told that if they don’t agree to avoid a jury trial and allow a judge to decide the case, it will be a long time before a trial can be scheduled.  The report can be found at:http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/article_326729b0-b741-11e2-9eca-001a4bcf6878.html