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global competition received submissions from 427 universities and enterprises from 43 countries with 21 awards judged by a panel of 25 international experts – a 'who’s who' of higher education.

release a notice inviting applications this week for a $1.5 million grant to study online education which will contribute to the growing body of evidence about what works in online education, especially for low-income and first-generation students.

The toughest nut to crack for competency-based education appears to be bachelor’s degrees aimed at traditional-age students.

hat’s what Purdue University is doing with a newly approved bachelor’s in transdisciplinary studies in technology

ombines technical disciplines with the humanities.

Customization is a big part of the degree’s novelty.

which will blend technology-focused disciplines such as computing, construction management, engineering, and aviation with social sciences, the humanities and business.

kills employers need for a “thinking economy.” That means complex problem solving, effective communication, critical thinking and ethical judgmen

igital badges and produce e-portfolios to display their work

In order to do that in a traditional sense, this student would have to get at least one major and three minors

urdue’s degree track is based on the credit-hour standard, in which the demonstration of competencies is linked to corresponding college credit

he U.S. Department of Education has taken some heat from its own Office of the Inspector General for approving direct-assessment degrees

an inspector general audit of Western Governors University over the faculty role in competency-based education (the results of which have yet to be made public), have had a chilling effect on how regional accreditors view proposals for new direct assessment and other competency-based degrees

mployer groups, such as the National Association of Manufacturers, praised the new degree in written statements.

To scale a program with this level of customization would be challenging,

esign is not even on the agenda

just like educators.

design and education have remarkably similar objectives

Design

quality of design in screen-based environments dramatically influences the end-user’s experience.

passive form of communication

Both design and education attempt to leverage the user’s existing knowledge

maximize the audience’s retention of relevant information

seeks to make the complex simple

move beyond a one-way

the end-user become an active participant in the process

y organizing the user’s attention; encouraging them to focus on what the designer/educator feels is most important.

establishing a competitive difference for institutions

students approach education like consumers

seeking out meaningful differences

Thoughtfully designed software and content can serve as a competitive differentiators

tangible; students can see (and experience) the difference

few institutions have the talent and resources in place to leverage design

Nimble and intelligent institutions can use design to stake out a significant difference

We have years of experience in optimizing distance education. We know it works. We know how to do it.

As we push more and more into low-residency and online education, are we doing enough to make our campuses remote work-friendly?

ctively researching the connections between learning design for online education and job design for remote work

For institutions that, in response to this notice, submit letters of interest for the Competency-Based Education experiment, the Secretary's process for selecting participating institutions will remain the same as was described in the July 31, 2014, notice.

Under the Subscription Period Disbursement set of waivers, the institution may include in its determination of a student's enrollment status competencies that begin prior to the start of the subscription period, as long as it does not include those competencies in enrollment status for two different payment periods. Institutions will disburse title IV aid based on the student's anticipated enrollment for a subscription period (which is equivalent to a payment period) rather than requiring completion of a specific number of competencies prior to making subsequent disbursements of title IV aid. While an institution will determine a student's title IV aid amounts based on the student's anticipated enrollment status, the institution will be required to perform a satisfactory academic progress evaluation for the student at the end of each subscription period (payment period) to ensure that the student has completed the appropriate number of competencies in that payment period, given the student's enrollment status.

For each payment period, students will be assigned by the institution an enrollment status (full-time, half-time, three-quarter time, less than half-time) based on the student's expected enrollment in and completion of competencies for the payment period. After consulting with the student, the institution will determine the student's enrollment status based on a realistic assessment by the institution of the number of competencies that the student will complete during the payment period

an institution will not be permitted to count a unique competency or course toward a student's enrollment status for more than one payment period

to use this set of waivers, an institution must have a mechanism for determining that a student has been participating in a competency during a payment period.

Subscription Period Disbursement set of waivers will modify the statutory and regulatory requirements for monitoring satisfactory academic progress so that an institution will be required to evaluate a student's pace by using competencies completed over calendar time, rather than by dividing a student's completed credit hours by attempted credit hours

he institution must evaluate a student's satisfactory academic progress after every subscription period (payment period), rather than at least once annually, even if the program is more than one academic year in length

he institution must evaluate a student's pace using two separate measures:

The student's progress for the payment period immediately prior to the evaluation, calculated using the number of credit hours or equivalents completed over the number of credit hours or equivalents included in the student's enrollment status for that payment period

he student's cumulative rate of progress, calculated by dividing the aggregate number of credit hours or equivalents completed as of the end of the payment period by the total number of credit hours or equivalents expected to be completed as of the end of that payment period in order for the student to complete the program within the maximum timeframe

r its evaluation of a student's cumulative rate of progress, the institution could use different standards for students on different enrollment tracks—for example, there could be a different maximum timeframe for a student on a half-time enrollment track, for whom the normal time for completion of the program is longer than for a student on a full-time enrollment track.

If a student fails either of the two satisfactory academic progress evaluations, the student will have failed to make satisfactory academic progress and will, based on the institution's satisfactory academic progress policies, either be assigned to a financial aid warning period or immediately lose eligibility for title IV funds. Institutions will have the same flexibility to establish options for appeals, probation periods, and academic plans as they do under the current regulations.

evaluating rules for competency-based education and the outsourcing of academic programs to nonaccredited providers

ccreditors have clamored for the department to get rid of the credit-hour definition, complaining it is difficult for them to track. Officials from some colleges, particularly those offering competency-based programs, have argued that the standard makes it difficult to comply with federal aid requirements.

The credit hour probably interferes with innovation almost more than anything

biggest providers of nontraditional education today -- online colleges -- have far more data on faculty instruction and student engagement than any other type of institution. And accreditors, she said, would come up with new ways to evaluate academic workloads based on that data.

department will propose that negotiators discuss federal rules for the outsourcing of portions of academic programs to nonaccredited or noncollege providers

Currently, no more than half of a program can be administered by an outside entity, such as an online program management (OPM) company

uild on lessons being learned from an Obama-era experiment to allow such partnerships to receive federal aid, dubbed the EQUIP program

e department wants to put more of an onus on colleges to justify not taking transfer credit,

makes little sense to convert your narrated PowerPoint into a 360 video if you’re still not sure whether students walk away having learned from the content.

This is where instructional designers come in

ven if an instructional designer can get an expert to explain a concept clearly, this sometimes has little effect on student understanding

students bring their own prior knowledge and misconceptions to educational media

ideo presents concepts in a clear, well-illustrated way, students believe they are learning, but they do not engage with the media on a deep enough level to realize that what has been presented differs from their own prior knowledge,

ou need a little friction in your educational media to actually modify the viewer’s understanding of the world and get the new understanding to stick

talk through the steps that people will need to take to apply their learning or complete an assignment

Relate” videos get the student to feel connected to the instructor. They seek to establish instructor presence. They also prompt students to reflect on their own prior experiences with the topic and reasons for taking the course.

arrate” videos share stories, anecdotes, or case studies that illustrate a concept or put the learning in context. They tap into the power of narrative to make learning sticky.

Demonstrate” videos illustrate how to do something in a step-by-step way.

“Debate” videos are perhaps the most important if you want students to actually change the way they think. These videos explicitly surface and address the misconceptions that students have about a domain and showcase competing points of view.

that social belonging interventions can be the key to helping students persis

coaching your experts to unfold their narratives in ways that will be riveting to an audience

A study by Columbia University School of Continuing Education found that videos in an online course that get the highest number of views have a direct connection to the course assignments

videos turn out best if I help the expert do four things: relate, narrate, demonstrate, and debate

focus on the places where people tend to make mistakes

gaps between novice understanding and expert knowledge

As the instructional designer, you should also be looking for controversies that might have surfaced about the expert’s work

minefields of misconceptions and asking the instructor to unpack them can yield rich pedagogical footage

o film a “debate” video, you can also invite someone else into the shoot—such as a colleague or a student—and have them discuss a topic with the instructor or receive feedback on a piece of work

alternative viewpoints or ways of doing things, you trigger higher cognitive load for viewers, but also prompt deeper engagement

tudents who watched a video dialogue involving alternative conceptions reported investing greater mental effort and achieved higher posttest scores than students who received a standard lecture-style presentation

Step 2, institutions further collaborate through shared contracts on resources, like learning-management systems

The first step is for state institutions to collaborate to establish a searchable clearinghouse of online courses and degree

report identifies five cumulative steps that build toward State U Online and gives an example of a state or system at each step

Step 3, systems also provide shared student-support services, such as advising, that can be used by students at all institutions in the system,

Step 4, an entire state, or a system of public higher-education institutions within the state, achieves all the previous levels of collaboration and in addition makes it easy for students to transfer credit among institutions.

enroll in a program at their "home" institution, but can easily take classes at any institution within the consortium.

Step 5 carries that concept beyond state borders. Students can take courses at any institution in such a multistate consortium and not worry about whether their credits will transfer, because institutional agreements within the consortium make that automatic.

offers practical suggestions about concerns like building sustainable revenue streams that are less dependent on allocations from legislatures, and on providing incentives and support for faculty members to offer online courses.

psychology, American government and sociology, and more courses in science, economics and the humanities will be available this fall.

some materials that were previously under a Cengage copyright, will be registered under an open CC-BY license so that institutions can adapt and customize the content

But for those who want to use the OpenNow platform, fees start at $25 per student per course. “The $25 is for the delivery of content that’s aligned to assessment and learning objectives, the additional assessments and videos we either curated or created, and the outcomes-based platform with personalization and analytics

many problems faced by traditional publishers -- how to reduce prices, how to enable customers to customize content, how to ensure students have their materials on the first day of class -- were problems that OER can solve. “So why not use OER to solve them?

s OER has gained momentum, more and more companies want to attach themselves to the idea of being open. But for each product that’s launched, we need to keep asking questions. Is it really open, or is it just being branded as open? Open is not just a set of attributes, it’s a set of values and practices that make education better.”

The economics of online education mean that it is possible to build a very small program that is financially sustainable.  If the focus is institutional differentiation and program quality - economic sustainability should be enough

Online teaching is the world’s greatest faculty development program

The instructional designers that you will bring to campus to build a quality online program will end up working on residential courses.

faculty teaching online in a small program are the same faculty teaching on-ground - and they bring all their new course design and active learning skills developed in their online teaching to the face-to-face classroom

The real online learning story is the extent that distance education has been a catalyst to improve all the teaching and learning that happens on campus.