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"ACE announced today that 25 colleges and universities are joining an alternative credit consortium as part of an innovative initiative to create a more flexible pathway toward a college degree for millions of nontraditional learners. The 25 institutions serving in this pilot project have agreed to accept all or most of the transfer credit sought by students who successfully complete courses that are part of a selected pool of about 100 low-cost or no-cost lower division general education online courses. These institutions also will help identify the sources, criteria and quality of the courses."

The preview version of the TechWatch report entitled Preparing for Effective Adoption and Use of eBooks in Education is now available. We invite feedback on this report produced by JISC Observatory, to help shape its coverage and guidance to the Higher and Further Education sectors. The feedback period is open from 27 September to 8 October 2012.

This is an online course to help you understand better how to use technology to enhance your teaching practice. The course is aimed primarily at people teaching at Higher Education level, whether in Higher Education Institutions or Further Education Colleges.

"'CCK08' was a unique event on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge within a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in 2008. It was a course and a network about the emergent practices and the theory of Connectivism, proposed by George Siemens as a new learning theory for a digital age. It was convened and led by Stephen Downes and George Siemens through the University of Manitoba, Canada. Although the event was not formally advertised, more than 2000 participants from all over the world registered for the course, with 24 of these enrolled for credit."

The recently announced partnership with the University of Edinburgh presented the team with an opportunity to engage and experiment with the much-publicised MOOC format, and foreground issues related to the theory and practice of online education itself. What follows are some of our perspectives on the planning and development of a large scale open course, what challenges the MOOC presents for delivering a worthwhile educational experience, and what questions this type of course format provokes for a team already teaching and researching in the field of e-learning and technology in higher education.

"With this poorly articulated rationale in mind, I present first, some pros and cons to citing blogs within formal academic writing. Next, I put forth three main sub-questions that I think will help us-and by "us" I mean myself and the readers who grapple with the ethical and professional questions of rigor in standards of academic sourcing-organize our thoughts. "

OER can be looked upon as a process as well as a set of products. This is because educators need to rethink the way in which they create, use and distribute learning and teaching materials. Opening up learning and teaching materials does not equate to providing a free education. Open educational resources are components of a rich educational package which includes staff expertise, institutional facilities, tuition and feedback.

"The Digital Framework is a comprehensive collection of digital capabilities, skills and competencies that NTU has identified as relevant across the institution. The Framework consists of a variety of areas of practice and each area is split into four levels of development. See both the CPLD website and the new NOW NTU Digital Framework learning room for further information about the Framework."

"In 2014 the UCISA Digital Capabilities Group (then the User Skills Group) launched the inaugural Digital Capabilities survey of the UK higher education sector. The survey focussed on what has been variously referred to as digital capabilities, digital literacies or digital competencies. The need to improve the country's digital capabilities has been highlighted in a House of Lords committee report published in February 2015. Make or break: the UK's digital future notes that the higher education sector "has not responded to the urgent need for reskilling" and calls for institutions to develop courses to give students the skills they need."

"Provides ideas and resources to inspire the strategic development of digital literacies - those capabilities which support living, learning and working in a digital society"

"While eTextbook use is increasingly common, the reasons appear logistical (lower cost and convenience) rather than for pedagogical. The pedagogical side cannot be ignored. Publishers and providers of digital content need to increase the interactivity of the content in order to go beyond simple digital facsimiles of print versions. Additionally, instructors need to select eTextbooks with high quality features, as well as model the use of the eTextbook to show how to read and study effectively from the digital resource."

"Over half of American college students have used an eTextbook in their studies, but only around 3% of textbook sales in the United States are digital. Institutional adoption of eTextbooks is low in the United States, as only 5% are broadly deploying them. Adoption in the United States is typically limited to pilots or individual faculty."

"We met with the most obvious first: the textbook managers at the campus bookstore, where only 1% of book sales were in digital form. We received a demonstration of the digital platform and are now doing informal testing. This led to the creation of a Digital Course Materials page, to share the university's materials ordering policy, information about the digital platform, and textbook alternatives."

" A workshop planner based on the Carpe Diem process. Carpe Diem is based on research by Professor Gilly Salmon. Thje model has been further developed by Dr Alejandro Armellini at the Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester since 2006"

"Massive open online course, following a collaborative project-based pedagogy. Over 1200 registered participants, although impossible to predict how many will actually show up. We expect a significant portion of participants to follow through the MOOC, dedicating 3-10 hours a week, while others will participate casually, dipping in and out and choosing the activities they want to complete."

Below find sites that collect or search for open resources, including open textbooks, open courseware, and other OER. Hover over each link for a brief description. If you have a favorite site you don't see here, please leave us a comment at the bottom of the page.

"We define digital literacies as the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society. To help with thinking about this, we have outlined seven elements of digital literacy for consideration, which can be seen in the following diagram."

"Every time a student interacts with their university - be that going to the library, logging into their virtual learning environment or submitting assessments online - they leave behind a digital footprint. Learning analytics is the process of using this data to improve learning and teaching. Learning analytics refers to the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about the progress of learners and the contexts in which learning takes place. Using the increased availability of big datasets around learner activity and digital footprints left by student activity in learning environments, learning analytics take us further than data currently available can."