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By Goldie Blumenstyk in The Chronicle of Higher Education - Administration section, May 22 2013. Announcement of a new report by the Century Foundation looking at the growing differences between 2-Year and 4-Year schools and considering socioeconomic impact of that gap.

By Amanda Ripley, part of Time's cover story on Reinventing College, Oct 18 2012. In this piece, Ripley provides a brief survey of the three major university-related MOOC suppliers: Udacdity, Coursera and EdX. The author describes a Udacity physics course (which she deems among the best of those MOOCs she sampled) and then compares it to physics courses at Georgetown University and University of DC.

By Nick DeSantis, technology column, The Chronicle of Higher Education April 15 2012. According to this article, at present most student-related data (grades, course selection, graduation rates, etc.) is "locked-up" within colleges. In this new era of "open data" the Dept of Ed and others are calling on colleges and universities to make this data more accessible to developers -- including students in their own institutions.

By Josh Fischman, and part of The Chronicle (of Higher Education's) 2011 Special Report on Online Learning, published Nov 6 2011. Central Piedmont Community College developed an Online Student Portal learning system to improve retention among its students. They have had success with the system (in use 2004-2008). Now, with a Next Gen grant, they will roll the system out to 6 additional local schools to see if they can match the retention improvements. The system is based both on learning styles and on frequent intervention by students and counselors.

By Marc Parry, Technology column, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 18 2012. This piece profiles some of the new "Big Data" innovations at Arizona State University, the largest public university in the US. There are systems to track students against the requirements of their majors; recommendations about classes in which they might be successful, etc., all towards the goal of improving retention and graduation rates.

Many provocative ideas in this article, not the least of which is how these applications speak to various "recommender systems," whether telling students what courses to take, professors how to teach, administration how to track, etc.

A special feature in the Technology section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb 26 2012. The 12 Innovators run the gamut and include an advocate for mobile learning, edu-Punk and digital storytelling (ds) 106 guru, ideas about open learning from Carnegie Mellon, and the director of Hathi Trust's digital library. None of these profiles is in-depth, but each might launch a more in-depth look at the individual or his/her project.

Related: Hacking the Academy. One of the innovators mentioned in this article, Dan Cohen, is at George Mason University, the institution behind Hacking the Academy.

By Elinor Mills in the InSecurity Complex column of CNET News, posted July 15, 2010. Mills presents a variety of password storage solutions, from the "old school" (on a scrap of paper in your wallet) to desktop, web-based, and USB-based solutions. There are links to many of the key players, as well as to earlier CNET articles.

By Jennifer D. Jordan in the Providence Journal, Oct 20 2010. One state (Rhode Island) looks at the transition from high school to college and the steady need for developmental education among nearly 2/3 of its community college students, despite efforts made in K-12.

By Garry Boulard in Community College Times, published May 4 2010. The article looks at the finding that, the more times a student takes a specific developmental math course, the less likely he or she is to pass it. Quotes Paul Nolting, learning specialist, enrollment services advisor, and author of Winning at Math: Your Guide to Learning Mathematics Through Successful Study Skills.

By Sam Dillon in New York Times, March 9, 2010. An international comparison of K-12 education systems and their relative success from Andreas Schleicher, a senior education official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. Schleicher offered testimony before the Senate education committee.

Guy Raz interviews Anya Kamentz (reporter and author) on All Things Considered (NPR), March 13, 2010. According to this story, "about 10 percent of students in America are now enrolled at these online universities." Assume that they mean for-profit online universities, since that is the topic of the report.

From Education Week, April 21 2010. This article is not available for free, online. If you are not an Education Week subscriber, check with your local library for full text of this article.

By Josh Margolin and Ted Sherman for the Newark Star-Ledger, May 5 2010. NJ Governor Christie is appointing a panel to study higher education issues in New Jersey; the panel will be led by former governor (and former university president) Tom Kean.

By Tracy Jan in the Boston Globe, May 5 2010. In Massachusetts, a new plan to "measure and report student achievement," called the Vision Project. Development of the plan included all 29 of the state's public colleges, universities, and community colleges.

By David Moltz, News column, Inside Higher Ed, June 21 2010. Jamie Merisotis (president, Lumina Foundation) and Stan Jones (president, Complete College America) urge President Obama "to prioritize the distribution of funds from the recently created Community College and Career Training Grant program to those institutions that radically remodel their certificate and degree programs to emphasize speedy graduation and job placement."

By Tamar Lewin, New York Times, June 23 2010. While interest in community colleges is on the rise, budget cuts are drastically decreasing access to students, and decreasing the course offerings. It is actually taking students longer to graduate, as they are denied courses that they need for graduation.

By Lev Grossman, Time Magazine, May 27 2010. This article provides an overview of recommendation engines and how they work, looking at sites like Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube, but really concentrating on Pandora/Music Genome Project.

By Lisa M. Krieger, Physorg.com, June 27 2010. This article profiles the "exuberant founder and sole faculty member of the nonprofit Khan Academy," Sal Khan who creates short YouTube videos on a variety of educational topics, primarily (but not exclusively) math. You can find his work at http://www.youtube.com/khanacademy

By Jennifer Brooks, The Tennessean, July 2 2010. Tennessee is looking at revamping their remedial education with hybrid and online classes in community colleges. In four-year colleges, remedial needs are often addressed with extra work/extra time in the regular classroom.

By Sophia Lin in Wired Campus, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 28 2010. An online textbook project at the University of Illinois that will also serve Illinois' community colleges. The comments are also of interest.