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Description of a course offered by the Hague University of Applied Sciences, Fall 2012. Nancy White is one of the faculty. "The intersection of technology and social processes has changed what it means to "be together." No longer confined to an engineering team, a company, a market segment or country, we have the opportunity to tap into different groups of people using online tools and processes. While we initially recognized this as "online communities," the ubiquity and diversity of technology and access has widened our possibilities. When we want to "organize our passion" into something, we have interesting choices. It is time to think about a more diverse ecosystem of interaction possibilities which embrace things such as different group configurations, online + offline, short and long term interactions, etc. In this course we will consider the range of options that can be utilized in the design, testing, marketing and use of engineering products. In this course, we'll also begin to pay attention to "The Four i's of Innovation." You'll be learning a lot about these in the coming courses, but consider this a preview. The first i is the itch; "a hunch" that there is something going on. This inclination can indicate the sublime starting point for change or an innovation The second i is insight; the research framework to base the fundamentals of the innovation on The i for idea; the experimenting towards potential solutions ("what if"- approach) The final i is for impact; the realization of the changes and innovations."

article by Steven Mintz for the Chronicle of HE, July 22, 2013 Excerpt: "But the most important challenge involves a shift in the way students consume higher education. Instead of attending a single institution, students receive credit in multiple ways, including from early-college/dual-degree programs, community colleges, online providers, and multiple universities. Students are voting with their feet, embracing online courses and undermining core curricula, which served as a cash cow, by turning to alternate providers, and pursuing fewer majors that require study of a foreign language." Fifteen innovations: 1. e-advising 2. evidence-based pedagogy 3. decline of lone eagle teaching 4. optimized class time 5. earlier educational transitions 6. fewer large lecture classes 7. new frontiers for e-learning 8. personalized adaptive learning 9. increased competency based and prior learning results; 10. data driven instructions 11. aggressive pursuit of new revenue 12. online and low-residency degrees at flagships 13. more certificates and badges 14. free and open textbooks 15. public-private partnerships

Fabulous discussion by Siemens on how their DALMOOC that started recently was designed to solve certain problems such as the 1. students floundering for lack of timely support 2. Learners having limited engagement in developing knowledge together 3. Learners not getting to know each other 4. Availability of MOOC resources after course is finished 5. Lack of adaptivity of content for learners to start where they are and proceed with their interests

Terese Bird and Grainne Conole are holding a webinar on A Pedagogical Look at MOOCs. Funded by the EU project eMundus, they are trying to map out patterns of open educational partnerships between institutions around the world. This webinar will take a pedagogical look at MOOCs. They chose 5 MOOCs, each corresponding to a primary learning approach. They then mapped each MOOC against the 12 dimensions Grainne identified. The blog goes on to attempt to do this with one MOOC as an example.

Business models for innovation in higher education

Funny and accurate blog post about MOOC oversell and overfailure of same to HE. By Dave LLorens in Fast Company. Excerpt: ..."MOOCs certainly have a point that online education will not boldly improve live learning unless it includes genuine, specific, individual interaction between students and teachers (run on sentence). That's simply a fact and something to keep in mind as online educations evolves, but it is not by any means a reason why online education "doesn't work." Yet we seem to remain focused on shiny polarizing topics of online versus offline education. MOOCs work, they don't work, etc. It sounds like what they tell you to say as extras on a set when they want a "murmur," Watermelon, cantaloupe. Watermelon cantaloupe. Rhubarb Constantinople. SUMMARY: Even today, MOOCs are the main focus of anyone in any kind of online education capacity, and MOOCs are polarizing in a way that is hurtful to the discussion. MOOCs are also (at least today), only the repackaging of and a new delivery mechanism for traditional education. Being disappointed that MOOCs haven't changed the world yet is like switching over from cassette tapes to CDs and then being disappointed when the CDs don't contain untold and unimagined wisdom. "