online education

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Follow Up on the Steinberg Platform

Byuclafaculty

A prior post on this blog referred to the recent legislative hearing on California Senate president Darrell Steinberg’s bill that would create a “platform” for various online courses that could be taken for college credit.  At the hearing, he offered amendments to the original bill (SB 520) and was asked to come back with the written versions. The amended bill can be read below: But are you ready for the platform? Update: Don’t tell Steinberg:http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/02/survey-finds-presidents-are-skeptical-moocs Update: Anyway, don’t tell Steinberg unless you are sure it is him:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-online-cheating-20130502,0,795806,full.story

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Duked Out

Byuclafaculty

Put up your dukes! According to today’s Inside Higher Ed, faculty at Duke have blocked a program of online undergraduate courses: Duke University faculty members, frustrated with their administration and skeptical of the degrees to be awarded, have forced the institution to back out of a deal with nine other universities and 2U to create a pool of for-credit online classes for undergraduates… The courses were to be offered by Duke and other top-tier universities in a partnership organized by 2U, formerly known as 2tor. Unlike massive open online courses, or MOOCs, only a few hundred students were expected to enroll…

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Audio of Steinberg & Powell on Online Higher Ed at State Senate Committee Hearing 4-24-13

Byuclafaculty

An earlier post dealt with the state senate hearing on online higher ed this past week and provided a link to a video of the hearing.  Embedding the official video of the hearing into the posting did not work well so a link was provided instead.  However, that link also doesn’t work especially well.  Below is a link to two excerpts from that hearing.  They are audio tracks with a still picture, first of Senate president Darrell Steinberg and then of UC Academic Chair Robert Powell.  Steinberg is the proposer of a bill which in its original form mandated 50…

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Yesterday’s State Senate Hearing on Online Higher Ed Bill

Byuclafaculty

A California State Senate committee held a hearing yesterday on SB 520, a bill that in its original form mandated 50 online courses at UC, CSU, and the community colleges.  The bill is being pushed by Senate President Steinberg. At the hearing, he offered amendments setting 50 as a goal rather than a mandate and allowing “public-public” partnerships as opposed to public-private.  The latter refers to deals with private MOOC companies.  Public-public would include, for example, cross-campus courses.  He also offered an amendment that no public monies would be used for the private side of any public-private partnerships. (It’s not…

Another user review of MOOCs

Byuclafaculty

The NY Times today carries (yet another) review by a journalist user of MOOC courses: …When it comes to Massive Open Online Courses… you can forget about the Socratic method. The professor is, in most cases, out of students’ reach, only slightly more accessible than the pope or Thomas Pynchon. Several of my Coursera courses begin by warning students not to e-mail the professor. We are told not to “friend” the professor on Facebook. If you happen to see the professor on the street, avoid all eye contact (well, that last one is more implied than stated). There are, after all, often tens…

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Leading by Example: But Leading to What?

Byuclafaculty

From Inside Higher Ed today: Florida lawmakers advanced a bill this week intended to upend the American college accreditation system. The measure would allow Florida officials to accredit individual courses on their own — including classes offered by unaccredited for-profit providers… The Florida plan is similar to a high-profile California bill. Both would force public colleges and universities under some circumstances to award credit for work done by students in online programs unaffiliated with their colleges… “Now you see the nation being squeezed by California and now in Florida,” said Dean Florez, a former California state senator who leads the Twenty Million Minds…

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New Ideas from the State Legislature Seem to Correspond (pun intended) to Old Ones

Byuclafaculty

1916 Correspondence School Ad AB 1306, as introduced, Wilk. Public postsecondary education: Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, the California State University, under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University, and the University of California, under the administration of the Regents of the University of California, as the 3 segments of public postsecondary education in this state. This bill would establish The New University of California as a 4th segment of public postsecondary education in this state. The bill would establish an 11-member…

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A cautionary note on MOOC missionaries

Byuclafaculty

William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, is generally a proponent of online education as a potential cost saver.  But in Inside Higher Ed today, there is a profile of Bowen and his views and it includes the following cautionary note: Bowen… takes the hype about MOOCs with a grain of salt. “Missionaries don’t particularly want their methods tested – they are missionaries after all,” he warned. The missionaries include MOOC providers, the media, administrators and business-minded higher education policymakers, Bowen writes. “There is a real danger that the media frenzy associated with MOOCs will lead some colleges and universities…

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Thanks, But No Thanks

Byuclafaculty

Inside Higher Ed today notes that it appears that the Academic Senates of the three tiers of California public higher ed are decidedly unenthusiastic about the proposed legislation to mandate online courses under certain conditions.  Previous posts on this blog have reported on the controversy.…Academic senate leaders from all three public higher ed systems – UC, Cal State and the California Community Colleges — now outright oppose the efforts, though their full senates have yet to take formal votes…In particular, faculty representatives are concerned California lawmakers are preparing to hand over untold thousands of students to for-profit companies that have not proven…