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Over the past several months, the proliferation of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) has been hailed as a potent defense against the rising cost and insular culture of attending a traditional college. The courses, which are generally taught by experts with affiliations to elite universities, are characterized by their unique pedagogy and unlimited enrollment. To date, no course has been accepted for transfer credit at a major on-campus institution; however some administrators and higher-education experts predict their gradual integration into university curriculum. This article examines the MOOC phenomenon, identifying aspects that academic librarians should consider in the coming years, including how these courses interact with scholarly resources and library services. Methods for integrating library services in these courses are evaluated, with recommendations for the best course of action.

"Since 2006, academics at the University of Surrey have been using a 'clicker' based Electronic Voting System (EVS) to engage students and promote interaction in their classrooms. Although the system has served the University well its reliance on proprietary hardware has limited wider adoption. An issue for students was the need to book clickers out from library services and carry additional electronic devices around (not to mention the prospect of incurring a fine if they lost them). For staff, getting the USB 'dongles' (receivers) to pick up the signal from the clickers at the beginning of the lecture was a concern. The time and resources required to manage and distribute clickers and dongles were a further consideration, as were long-term maintenance costs for the institution."

"The existence of 'Learning Styles' is a common 'neuromyth', and their use in all forms of education has been thoroughly and repeatedly discredited in the research literature. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that their use remains widespread. This perspective article is an attempt to understand if and why the myth of Learning Styles persists. I have done this by analyzing the current research literature to capture the picture that an educator would encounter were they to search for "Learning Styles" with the intent of determining whether the research evidence supported their use. The overwhelming majority (89%) of recent research papers, listed in the ERIC and PubMed research databases, implicitly or directly endorse the use of Learning Styles in Higher Education. These papers are dominated by the VAK and Kolb Learning Styles inventories. These presence of these papers in the pedagogical literature demonstrates that an educator, attempting to take an evidence-based approach to education, would be presented with a strong yet misleading message that the use of Learning Styles is endorsed by the current research literature. This has potentially negative consequences for students and for the field of education research."

The Development Programme has a focus on support for those with curriculum and teaching development and professional support roles in a range of professional and academic contexts. This programme has been developed by SEDA in association with CLL partners.

"If you're interested in education, at some point someone will have sent you a link to a video by Sir Ken Robinson, knighted for services to education in England in 2003. He has over 250,000 followers on Twitter, his videos have had over 40,000,000 views online, and his 2006 lecture is the most viewed TED talk of all time. The RSA Opening Minds curriculum his ideas are associated with is taught in over 200 schools in the UK. He clearly has some influence."

"The Open University has collected and analysed student data as a means of providing information relating to student support and retention for many years. The changing landscape of higher education has seen the rapid expansion of uses to which student data is put. The Open University, in common with many other higher education institutions, is now looking at its use of learning analytics."

General Electric has decided to forgo a partnership with Google and has formalized a strategic partnership with Zoho for its 400,000 desktops.

I asked for suggestions for a replacement for Netskills TONIC and Chris Hall (@chris_hall) passed on this recommendation from one of his students: BBC WebWise. This is a beginner's course aimed at adults who are new to computers and the internet. It has a very wide brief which seems to be the closest to TONIC in it's range of topics. Very high-quality resources as well as you'd expect from the BBC. Although not a direct replacement, WebWise was the best alternative that I have come across so far, and is the one I will be using with my EG-152 class this year (I will be linking to the Internet Detective and OU Safari too).

This is the project blog for a JISC funded project - Evaluating assessment diaries and GradeMark at the University of Glamorgan. This project is part of the JISC Assessment and Feedback Programme. The programme has three strands. Our project is in Strand B where we will evaluate assessment and feedback related innovations which are already underway in a faculty or institution, and report on lessons for the sector.

A Marked Improvement has been developed by a group of experts, working with the HEA to provide a strong rationale for transforming assessment in higher education. It includes an assessment review tool, offering a practical method to take stock of current practice and look to a targeted approach to strategic change. The publication also includes further resources for staff, which can be used to support changes to assessment policy and practice.

"This report has been developed as part of our research project Flexible Pedagogies: preparing for the future. Technology-enhanced learning is one of five main focus strands embedded within the theme of flexible learning. It offers a summary and analysis of the current state of play, as well as recommendations for developing robust and appropriate flexible pedagogies with a view to influencing policy, future thinking and change within the rapidly-shifting landscape of learning and teaching in HE"

Keen to get people on board with its Kindle e-reader, Amazon has announced the beta release of its free Kindle for PC application.

The intellectual property rights toolkit for public sector bodies has been developed for the Strategic Content Alliance by the Alliance's IPR consultants, Professor Charles Oppenheim and Naomi Korn.

The University of Leicester, a research-intensive institution, has topped the National Student Survey for mainstream universities for three consecutive years, hence is in a position to offer insight into effective learner-centred design. Leicester's pilot

You'd think that punting the desktop PC into oblivion would be the last thing on the minds of Microsoft, but it seems that the computing giant has submitted a patent for a "smart interface system" for smartphones.

"he MOOC space essentially doubled this year. More people signed up for MOOCs in 2015 than they did in the first three years of the "modern" MOOC movement (which started in late 2011-when the first Stanford MOOCs took off). According to data collected by Class Central, the total number of students who signed up for at least one course has crossed 35 million-up from an estimated 16-18 million last year."

"Applications are invited for the next Leading Transformation in Learning and Teaching (LTLT) programme which will start in March 2015. LTLT is the leadership programme to transform programmes and courses in higher education to meet new needs and expectations. It has been jointly designed by the HEA and the Leadership Foundation to help participants develop the skills, approaches and insights needed to lead course and programme teams through processes of transformation and innovation in curriculum development"

This guide has been produced by the International Centre for Guidance Studies, and aims to provide the information needed to make an informed decision about using social media and select from the vast range of tools that are available.

The first jailbreak for the iPhone 4 and iOS 4.0 has been released, and it's available now via mobile Safari.

Mozilla has updated Weave, its free add-on for Firefox that lets you synchronize all your personal data across the various Firefox installations you have running on your work PC, your home PCs and your mobile phone. This latest update to Weave (now at ver