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"Duneier's "defection" - as the Chronicle put it - is particularly interesting considering he wasn't just considered a MOOC convert, but a model MOOC instructor. His decision is also worth noting given that while many professors see MOOCs as a threat, Duneier himself isn't directly threatened by their encroachment."

"Digital Storytelling 106--better known as "ds106"--sprouted in 2010 as a computer science class on digital storytelling at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Founded by Jim Groom, educational technology consultant Alan Levine, and instructional technologists Martha Burtis & Tom Woodward, ds106 has evolved into a model for all instructors and students who aspire to experience, explore, and extend connected learning."

Rather than a standard rating system that assumes an institution will be relevant for all prospective students, regardless of what area of study they want to pursue, an Ohio State University official proposes the federal government explore adopting a business model that helps people find successful partnerships, such as Match.com and eHarmony.com.

"We are using the data from our initial offering of MOOCs to investigate the nuances of course persistence and completion, experiment with ways to measure learning outcomes such as peer-to-peer assessment, and discover and design new low-cost delivery models."

The border between our physical world and the digital information surrounding us has been getting thinner and thinner. Designer and engineer Jinha Lee wants to dissolve it altogether. As he demonstrates in this short, gasp-inducing talk, his ideas include a pen that penetrates into a screen to draw 3D models and SpaceTop, a computer desktop prototype that lets you reach through the screen to manipulate digital objects.

"At the end of the term, Hawkins will have completed the last college math class she will probably ever have to take. She will think back on this data-driven course model-so new and controversial right now-as the "normal" college experience. "Do we even have regular math classes here?" she asks."

"The advantage of the flipped classroom is that the content, often the theoretical/lecture-based component of the lesson, becomes more easily accessed and controlled by the learner. "

Twenty-first-century learners have expectations that are not met within the current model of higher education. With the introduction of online learning, the anytime/anywhere mantra taken up by many postsecondary institutions was a first step to meeting learner needs for flexibility; however, the choice and determination of delivery mode still resides with the institution and course instructors. Recently, the massive open online course (MOOC) movement has been introduced as an undeniable force in higher education, and the authors argue that it is distracting leadership from focusing on alternative options for supporting the needs of learners who demand both personalization and real access to learning opportunities. The key element to the MOOC movement is its openness that enables student access to education. In this article, the authors present the multi-access learning framework that envelops the MOOC phenomenon and merges course access modes enabling student choice and agency. The authors report results from a pilot study on one type of multi-access course, where students were able to choose their mode of access. In this case, remote students accessed the course via webcam and joined their on-campus classmates and instructor who were together face-to-face. Implications for multi-access learning in relation to the MOOC movement are discussed.

"In the United States-where public universities are hurting for funds, tuition and debt levels are growing, and graduation rates are stagnant-debate has focused on whether MOOCs represent a necessary innovation or the deplorable cheapening of elite university education. The question is: Could the hybrid, small-group model that's evolving abroad also provide a needed alternative for underserved American students?"

"This research looks closely at claims that ratemyprofessors.com creates a valid measure of teaching effectiveness because student responses are consistent with a learning model. While some evidence for this contention was found in three datasets taken from the site, the majority of the evidence indicates that the instrument is biassed by a halo effect, and creates what most accurately could be called a 'likeability' scale."

"As part of this work, we are organizing a conference at University of Texas Arlington December 5-6, 2013: MOOCs and Emerging Educational Models: Policy, Practice, and Learning. Registration is now open. We have a great group of keynote speakers and an outstanding list of successful grantees who will also be presenting."

"NBC's Chelsea Clinton hosts a panel examining how the new technology platforms, delivery models and credit systems of online programs change the higher education landscape."

For many years now, educators and instructional designers alike used the "ADDIE" Instructional Design (ID) method as a guide in designing and effectively tracking a project's progress. "ADDIE" stands for Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate.

"Under Chairman of the Board Martin Lipton and President John Sexton, New York University has been to operate as a real estate development/management business with a predatory higher-education side venture. A group of 400 faculty members at NYU, Faculty Against the Sexton Plan (FASP), have been working for years against what Pam Martens has called "running NYU as a tyrannical slush fund for privileged interests." FASP just published a devastating document, The Art of the Gouge, which describes how NYU engages in a mind-numbing range of tricks and traps to extract as much in fees as possible from students, while at the same time failing to invest in and often degrading the educational "product"."

"teaching a course using someone else's instructional media is out of alignment with the occupational model. Taken to its extreme, it  reduces the academic to the status of a "mere teacher"; no longer an "expert", and nothing grander than a K12 teacher. This is not a status or identity to which most traditional academics aspire."

"The rock-star meme implies that teaching is all about performance. What happens on stage is still what matters, even if techno-hip educators supplant traditional sages. Talk of rock-star faculty members reinforces the static lecture model that MOOCs were, ironically, developed in part to destroy. The audience at a rock concert is listening, not interacting. Decades of research and a modicum of common sense confirm that students engage and learn more through active participation in the classroom. For all the talk of personalized analytics and adaptive learning, MOOCs built around faculty rock stars will just transfer the lean-back experience of the lecture hall to a screen."

This lack of transparency from accrediting commissions is a relic of a bygone era when higher education was relatively stable and accrediting decisions mostly affected the specific institution under review. But given the changes that the higher education industry is facing and going through, these policies are damaging to those institutions who are trying out new models and need to know where the boundaries are drawn. Accrediting commissions play an important role in the governance of our higher education industry, in particular by providing a method for quality assurance. By operating in such an opaque manner, however, the agencies are effectively acting as a barrier to change and stifling innovation.

""You have to make the argument that this is going to cost us money up front, but it will create distinctiveness at the university that ultimately will aid us in the longer term," Jones said. "It guarantees our ability to be a player in this era of change.""

"Using a mix of skills in data engineering, analysis, and business intelligence, the Office focuses on analytics subject areas such as executive and academic program dashboards, marketing, enrollment management, retention, financials, and service centers. A service catalog includes predictive analytics, metrics dashboards, forecast modeling, Ad Hoc reporting, operational reporting, and variance analysis."

"I am ecstatic that one of my articles has been made officially free-to-access. I am excited that a publisher is willing to promote my article that challenges much of mainstream academic publishing. And I respect that a publisher already has systems in place to allow some form of openness (in the form of author manuscripts made open) beside the model that brings them money, and that moreover, they choose some articles to make them open access from their own site, at no cost to the author."