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"U of C Student Success Centre Goes Mobile Students at the University of Calgary can stay connected to services offered by their Student Success Centre (SSC) with a new custom mobile application. The application allows students to read recent news, to register for workshops or seminars, to book appointments with advisors, writing tutors, career and academic development specialists, and to access the SSC events calendar 24/7. "We are committed to effective communication with students and to making it easy for them to access the programs and services we offer," says Joel Wilkinson, Director of the Student Success Centre. "Most students do almost everything online and our new application will allow them to stay connected with the resources and events available to support their path to success." The application was developed by the company 4abyte Inc., which was founded by Charles Newton Price, a recent U of C graduate student. "We were pleased to be part of this project," says Charles. "Given the prominent presence of smartphones on campus, going mobile has become indispensible for post-secondary institutions." SSC's sharp, attractive, and easy application, available for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry Torch devices, adds to the University of Calgary's steps to remain at the forefront of student engagement. The application is available for download on iTunes (iPhone only) or via the SSC website at: http://ucalgary.ca/ssc "

"The Rental Phenomenon In the past two years, the post-secondary textbook rental market has exploded. Driven by the outcry over book prices, federal legislation, readily available pricing information on the Internet, and sophisticated web-based rental management platforms, old and new competitors are disrupting the $10 billion college textbook business. Book rental isn't really a new phenomenon-a few college stores have been renting books since the Civil War. The National Association of College Stores (NACS) proclaimed fall 2010 as the "Year of the Rental." Players include long-timers like Follett and Budgetext, institutional stores and fast-growing start-ups. BookRenter, started in 2008, netted $40 million from investors in a funding round this past February. Chegg, started in 2007, has raised $200+ million in venture capital and attracted senior management from Yahoo and Netflix. The same drivers are growing trade in used books, eBooks, and online instructional content. Rental is also driving new business models for sourcing and distributing educational materials that may carry the industry forward into digital. Having book inventory isn't necessarily required-at least one high-flying firm, BookRenter, exists mainly as an online marketplace. Read on to see how this change in distribution is impacting the higher education market. Next month we'll look at what all this means for K-12."

"What is lost with this settlement is the chance for something better. The shift away from Access Copyright in recent months has led to a growing awareness of the large number of licensed materials on university campuses, the benefits of open access, the emergence of open educational resources, and the move to digital course materials. Investing in new open materials - which pay the creator but allow for more flexible use and reuse - would offer innovative teaching materials at the very time that Canadian higher education should be rethinking how course materials are developed and disseminated in a digital world. This is hard work as new models require real investment, commitment from faculty, and patience from students. The payoff would have been significant, but the AUCC is seemingly more interested in "cost certainty" than in education innovation. The big question now is whether its members feel the same. My guess is that most will sign, but perhaps some will carefully assess their experience of operating outside the collective and see some short term pain for long term gain. "

New agreement re ACCESS copyright this week.

Yesterday was a big day for Twitter - the company premiered its first ever TV commercial during a NASCAR race, which showed off a brand-new hashtag page that could open a new and very welcome revenue stream for the micro-blogging platform.

A new tool (or at least new to me) for concept mapping, collaborating and sharing ideas.

Old vs New Ways of Thinking About…

"Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms This delightfully illustrated video entertains while educating. The video does a wonderful job of explaining how today's factory-like education model is outmoded and how it needs to evolve into a more personalized model if we are going to take it to a new level. Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education This video discusses "The Hole In The Wall" experiment that Mitra started in New Delhi in 1999. Children deprived of learning opportunities available in other parts of the world nevertheless figured out the computer at their disposal and started using it to learn and to teach each other. These results repeated themselves as the experiment was conducted in various other locales. Kids can and will teach kids. How can we take advantage of this to improve on education across the world?"

"But a new study urges caution to those who believe that online education is a panacea for educating more community college students. The study finds that students who enrolled in online courses -- controlling for various factors that tend to predict success -- were more likely to fail or drop out of the courses than were those who took the same courses in person. Notably, there was not a gap in completion between those enrolled in hybrid and in-person courses. "

"Apple has always made accessibility one of their top priorities when it comes to the Mac, and more recently the iPhone and iPad. As a Mac user would come to expect, when Mac OS X Lion was recently released, there were a few new accessibility features that made the upgrade process even better for users with motor, visual, and hearing impairments. In Mac OS X Lion, Apple has added over 11 new features that allow individuals with disabilities to use their computers more easily. "

"Google has announced a new initiative to increase accessibility for visually challenged users on its major Web services. At the outset of a new school year, Google is rolling out accessibility improvements to Docs, Sites and Calendars. Google is hosting a live webinar for enterprise customers - which include educational institutions - on Wednesday, September 21 at 12:00 pm (Pacific Time)."

"Four major textbook providers-Cengage, Macmillan, Pearson, and John Wiley & Sons-today announced that they will build tighter links between their advanced e-textbook platforms and Blackboard's popular course-management system. Blackboard announced a similar deal with McGraw-Hill last year. So the company now has partnerships with the five dominant textbook publishers. For students, a major benefit will be the ability to get to the publishers' e-textbooks and online assignments through the campus network without having to create new logins and passwords. For professors, the new links will make it easier to push students' grades on online quizzes from the publishers' e-textbook systems to the gradebook they use on the Blackboard system."

This is a real plus for BB.

"Online education is often held out as a way to increase access to higher education, especially for those -- adult students, the academically underprepared, members of some minority groups -- who have historically been underrepresented in college. But that access is meaningful only if it leads somewhere, and if the education students get helps them reach their goals. New data from a long-term study by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College suggest that some of the students most often targeted in online learning's access mission are less likely than their peers to benefit from -- and may in fact be hurt by -- digital as opposed to face-to-face instruction. The study did not, however, account for the quality of the online courses studied, making it difficult to draw from its findings overly sweeping generalizations about the efficacy of online learning."

Interesting article on online learning - completion rates, completers . . .

Copyright law is back on the table

"Around fall 2010, the college began looking for a tool that could be distributed to faculty and students for user-generated content. Said Palson, criteria for evaluation focused on two areas: "It had to be accessible via mobile. And it had to be easy to use." Ease of use included the ability for a new user to "jump into it, create something, and it would be ready to go." The instructional technology staff began a pilot using Brainshark and, according to Palson, immediately saw that it was different from what had been used in the past."

Brainshark - another tool for generating online presentations

"Even though e-textbooks make up a small portion of the bookseller's business, that market is likely to grow in the next several years, and teaming up with Microsoft will strengthen its ability to grab a larger share of the college bookstore market, Mr. Iannone said. One of the first new features the joint venture will offer is a Windows 8 application for Nook, Barnes & Noble's e-book reader."