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"After conducting this small study we have come to think about academic blogging in two ways. Firstly, many bloggers are talking together in a kind of giant, global virtual common room. Over at one table there is a lively, even angry, conversation about working conditions in academia in different parts of the world. In a different corner another group are discussing their latest research projects and finding common themes. Another table houses a group of senior and early career academics discussing how to land a book contract and write a good CV. There is also a meeting going on about public policy, and this involves a number of public and third sector people, as well as academics, who work in the area."

"By "standards … effectiveness … accountability," what Rhee means, of course, is more emphasis on her reform agenda of assessing schools, teachers and students with high-stakes test scores - not at all an agenda uniformly accepted by top-scoring nations. Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg corrected her on a blog site at the Washington Post, noting that Finland's PISA scores are routinely at or near the top, yet "the Finnish approach to educational policy has stood in direct opposition to the path embraced by the United States.""

The adjustments to the district's policy are coming on the heels of numerous requests from staff, students, and administrators for more access to education based web technologies, according to Donald Williams, executive director of community services and communications for the district.

In short, the company is slowly but surely building out an advertising platform, not much different than what other social networks like Facebook or Twitter have. The company's policy says it will be collecting log data, cookie data, and device information. If Pinterest users don't like the idea of being tracked, they can manage their account settings, though it's not clear to what extent this will be effective.

school productivity has not become part of the reform conversation, and with this project, our hope is to shine a light on how productivity differs across districts, as well as to identify key areas of reform. Moreover, for the first time, we conducted a special analysis of educational fiscal practices, diving deep into state budgeting approaches. We believe that if our education system had a more robust way of tracking expenditures, it could do more to increase productivity. Together with this report, we have also released analysis by CAP Senior Policy Analyst Robert Hanna on twin districts. Hanna's analysis looks more closely at the programs and practices of more effective districts.

"ReCon is designed to raise and discuss current issues to do with research communication in academia and beyond. These issues range from the use of metrics for evaluating research, access to publications, how to share and store data, government policy to how this affects careers and incentives for researchers. ReCon includes speakers from government agencies, academics, publishers, people working in outreach and founders of startups working in the research space."

The intersection of copyright and the scale and delivery of MOOCs highlights the enduring tensions between academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and copyright law in higher education. To gain insight into the copyright concerns of MOOC stakeholders, EDUCAUSE talked with CIOs, university general counsel, provosts, copyright experts, and other higher education associations. The consensus opinion was that intellectual property questions for MOOC content merit wide discussion because they affect multiple stakeholders and potentially carry significant consequences. Each MOOC provider, for example, establishes a proprietary claim on material included in its courses, licenses to the user the terms of access and use of that material, and establishes its ownership claim of user-generated content. This conflicts with the common institutional policy approach that grants rights to faculty who develop a course. Fair-use exceptions to traditional copyright protection face challenges as well, given a MOOC's potential for global reach. Nonetheless, fair use and MOOCs are not mutually exclusive ideas. MOOCs remain an experiment. Initiating discussions with a wide range of campus stakeholders will ensure clarity of purpose and a common understanding of copyright issues in a MOOC environment.

"Open access to academic research has never been a hotter topic. But it's still held back by myths and misunderstandings repeated by people who should know better. The good news is that open access has been successful enough to attract comment from beyond its circle of pioneers and experts. The bad news is that a disappointing number of policy-makers, journalists and academics opine in public without doing their homework. Here, at the start of the sixth global Open Access Week, are the six most common and harmful misunderstandings about open access:"

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.

Since 2012 many people have expressed the opinion that MOOCs will, or have the potential to, change higher education. However, before MOOCs begin transforming the manner in which higher education operates in the United States, there are at least a few current educational policies and practices that will hinder the advancement of MOOCs.

"Yik Yak is the Wild West of anonymous social apps," said Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at University of Maryland and the author of "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace." "It is being increasingly used by young people in a really intimidating and destructive way." Continue reading the main story Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking. The app's privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm.

"Although there have been many claims that technology might enhance university teaching, there are wide variations in how technology is actually used by lecturers. This paper presents a survey of 795 university lecturers' perceptions of the use of technology in their teaching, showing how their responses were patterned by institutional and subject differences. There were positive attitudes towards technology across institutions and subjects but also large variations between different technologies. Two groups of technology were identified-"core" technologies, such as Powerpoint, that were used frequently, even when lecturers felt that they were not having a positive impact on learning, and "marginal" technologies, such as blogs, that were used much less frequently and only where they fitted the pedagogic approach or context. Rather than there being "leading" universities that were the highest users of all technologies, institutions tended to be heavier users of some technologies than others. Similarly, subjects could be associated with particular technologies rather than being consistent users of technology in general. The study suggests that university technology policy should reflect different disciplines and contexts rather than "one size fits all" directives."

"The new Learning and Work Institute - an independent policy and research organisation, which joins the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) and the Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion - held an OER Jam in Leicester, as part of the Institute's work on Open Education Resources (OERs) across Europe. The face-to-face event supported adult education practitioners in using OERs for teaching and learning. The Jam was designed as a follow-up to the OERUP! Online training - with supports people working in adult education, and can be started at any time."

Referenced by @tealia "Higher education institutions that want to significantly increase their student success outcomes must design their policies, practices, and organizational culture to promote the engagement and leadership of their faculty and staff. Colleges that invest in designing engagement and empowerment strategies that leverage the talent and dedication of faculty and staff are likely to produce more meaningful and sustainable results."

"in higher education, we do not have a common language to discuss the value of a college credit. At an event hosted by Jobs for the Future and Higher Education Advocates,called Paving New Pathways: Today's Students, New Credentials, and the Next HEA, I noticed a recurring theme: There is a serious issue with college credit transfer policies across postsecondary education. Courses that count for credit at one institution do not "translate" to another. This issue has real consequences on student success and degree completions."

"Instructors often kick off a discussion board assignment by asking each student to respond to an assigned reading. To prevent plagiarism, some learning management systems are set up, either by the platform or by policies of the institution or instructor, to only reveal the full contents of a discussion thread after a student has already posted."

"Digital networks, websites, and services are a necessary component of the toolset required to build and utilize digital and media literacies. Appropriate policies, procedures, and guidelines are necessary to protect the developers and administrators of these texts and tools, as well as the users of these spaces. These documents often fail to provide users with the freedom needed to expand their skills, while still creating safe and appropriate boundaries for use of the Internet and all it has to offer."

"Rather than just focusing on the OPM market itself, Czerniewicz and Walji place the subject into the broader context of "marketisation, digitisation, unbundling and austerity climates." This placement is valuable, as it frames the appropriate questions that colleges and universities should address when considering OPM or OPE vendor support."

"The Copyright Advisory Network (CAN) exists to help librarians understand copyright law and appreciate the important role that they can play in serving the public "to advance the progress of science and the useful arts." We use the Network to respond to copyright questions posed by librarians, but perhaps-more importantly, help librarians learn about copyright from a broader perspective, primarily its impact on information policy issues fundamental to our profession, including free expression, equitable access to information, censorship, and intellectual freedom."

"The evaluation of the factors leading to the digital divide can be summarised as the gap between 1) older generation and the digital natives, 2) level of education, and 3) high income - low income groups. These factors are further influenced by the geographical location Rural-urban divide, and Governmental policies. All these factors determine the level of skills of an individual and the quality of access of ICTs which determines their position in the digital divide."