Group items tagged

"Prices for a "tutor" vary. Boostmygrades.com advertises a $695 rate for graduate classes, $495 for an algebra class, or $95 for an essay. When Inside Higher Ed, posing as a potential customer, asked for a quote for an introductory microeconomics class offered by Penn State World Campus, noneedtostudy.com offered to complete the entire course for $900, with payment upon completion, and onlineclasshelpers.com asked for $775, paid up front. Most sites promise at least a B in the course."

"Designing a course that precludes cheating might require thinking creatively and breaking away from simply uploading lecture videos and administering quizzes, said Kyle Johnson, an independent higher ed consultant. "What kind of experience are we providing for students if someone is able to take an entire class for a student and we never figure it out from the interaction? At a pedagogical level, that's my concern," he said. "Are we really just dumping information at them so someone can come in and take a couple of quizzes and they're done?""

"Privatization of online higher education is on the rise. For-profit online education corporations like Academic Partnerships, Kaplan, Wiley, Pearson, and Blackboard contract with public and private nonprofit institutions to provide digital platforms for educational content, recruit students, manage enrollment, facilitate the development of course materials, and more. While the use of digital platforms and online teaching tools can enrich higher education, elements of contracting with for-profit online education corporations can present problems in areas of interest to faculty, particularly academic freedom and shared governance. Check out our resources, surveys, and social media shareables below and learn how you can get involved in making sure that higher education serves the common good, not private profit."

"The massive open online course craze may have subsided, but the debate about the role of online courses in higher education persists. Even as more faculty members experiment with online education, they continue to fear that the record-high number of students taking those classes are receiving an inferior experience to what can be delivered in the classroom, Inside Higher Ed's new Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology suggests."

Online enrollment growth, while still substantial, is slowing. The 2013 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one online course has now surpassed 7.1 million. The 6.1 percent growth rate, although the lowest for a decade, still represents over 400,000 additional students taking at least one online course.

"It was two years ago, give or take a week, that the MOOC mania started. Think about the effects on higher education of this seminal event and how short a time it has been. In the past two years online education and ed tech have moved into the front pages, being discussed in the front pages of leading newspapers, popular media magazines, and in president's cabinets and board meetings for most institutions. Previously, online education was discussed in small circles and specific contexts, but not as a dominant theme whenever higher education was the topic. Below is a brief (and incomplete) timeline of the national media articles as MOOC mania started in August 2011"

What would happen if you decreed (or maybe strongly suggested - we don't really decree in higher ed), that by 2015 that mobile will be the primary platform that our students will interact with digital curriculum and learning platforms.

Reclaim Open Learning is an innovation contest, sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, the Digital Media and Learning Hub, and the MIT Media Lab, with a humble mission. We want to find the five best examples of innovation happening right now in higher ed. The best of truly open, online and networked learning + The knowledge and expertise represented by institutions of higher education = Reclaim Open Learning.

Coursera just raised $43m of funding - what potential do investors see in MOOCs? Based on recent Forbes article - do you see MOOCs as replacing parts of traditional higher ed? Will growing numbers of online students reduce hesitation of employers to hire online students? How does this affect institutions being proxies for quality? What applications are there for MOOCs beyond academic programs? (with interesting answer from Michael based on DS106)

Apparently, no one really wants to talk about MOOCs anymore, the panel included. In one of my last posts for Edcetera, I wrote about how MOOCs changed higher ed in 2012, and I think we all agree to the fact that MOOCs have been hyped a lot over the past months. The panelists agreed that MOOCs are nothing really that new or exciting. There have been online courses available for quite a while, so why all that buzz all of a sudden?

You are struggling with your online classes or homework and you want someone to do it for you. We can handle almost any subject and customer service is a priority. Our company culture revolves around making sure you feel safe and satisfied knowing that your work is being done by an expert within your specified deadline. We are here to serve you around the clock by email, live chat, and phone. For all of your academic needs, WeTakeYourClass wants to be the one you turn to time and time again.

It seems pretty legit.

In this same thread, I just saw the article in Inside Higher Ed called "Paying for an A" and I thought it flowed with this conversation-they actually review the site you mention here. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/21/sites-offering-take-courses-fee-pose-risk-online-ed

"The large majority of faculty who have taught online courses (79%) say the experience has helped them develop skills and practices that have improved their teaching in the classroom as well as online."

"While distance-learning programs are not likely to replace the traditional college experience for everyone, the rate of growth in online enrollment is outpacing that for campus enrollment. The market for online programs is crowded and relatively easy to enter, but traditional name-brand universities now claim a larger share of it than in the past. This means smaller institutions with less-established programs will struggle unless they can set themselves apart, according to the report."

"it appears that the rise of free or low-cost online learning and professional education content is reducing the demand for some continuing-education courses offered by universities. In some cases, it may be reducing demand for executive education offerings, and even for degree programs like the traditional MBA. While individual workers remain interested in credentials-which are portable from job-to-job-companies often prefer to invest in targeted learning opportunities that relate directly to their business needs and has a clear business return on investment. "My people already have degrees, they need something more specific," says Bradley. "Academic credit is not always the selling point that universities think it is.""

""The shortage of students is a fallacy," says Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University, which enrolled more than 95,000 undergraduates in 2017, about 28,000 of them online. The number of Americans with some college but no degree presents "an unbelievable market," he adds, but most institutions that educate students on a brick-and-mortar campus are not equipped to recruit, or serve, such students."

New data from a long-term study by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College suggest that some of the students most often targeted in online learning's access mission are less likely than their peers to benefit from -- and may in fact be hurt by -- digital as opposed to face-to-face instruction.