"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."

"In two different tests, the NTM was asked to 1) learn to copy blocks of binary data and 2) learn to remember and sort lists of data. The results were compared with a more basic neural network, and it was found that the computer learned faster and produced longer blocks of data with fewer errors. Additionally, the computer's methods were found to be very similar to the code a human programmer would've written to make the computer complete such a task."

"For me, risk literacy is central to digital literacy. It is our ability to assess the drawbacks, dangers and limits of control in digital and digitally augmented environments. It is an acknowledgement that by using digital tools, no matter how open, if a learner is unable or not required to modify the code to create a learning experience, as much as we'd like them to stay learners, they occupy the role of an "end user.""

"How about an empowered use policy (EUP) instead? In other words, instead of saying NO, NO, NO! all the time, how about saying yes? Here's one to consider…"

"Some districts have started implementing responsible digital use guidelines or empowered digital use policies. Regardless of the title you choose, it should provide a sense of purpose for using technology beyond the idea that "said devices may get me in trouble.""

"It's a problematic mission, to be sure, but digital advertising network Exponential felt it was up to the task when it defined 12 millennial subgroups that marketers should know. At the recent Advertising Week in New York, researcher and Exponential vp Bryan Melmed presented the findings from his team's data analysis of 4 million young adults."

"Teaching face-to-face and teaching online are both teaching, but they are qualitatively different. In comparison, driving a car and riding a motorcycle are both forms of transportation, but they have enough differences to warrant additional training and preparation when switching from one to the other. The same is true when faculty move from the traditional classroom to the online classroom. There are some things that the two have in common, but there are also plenty of differences. With this in mind, consider the following eight roles of an effective online teacher."

"Google Design are open-sourcing 750 glyphs as part of the Material Design system icons pack. The system icons contain icons commonly used across different apps, such as icons used for media playback, communication, content editing, connectivity, and so on. They're equally useful when building for the web, Android or iOS."

"But is this viewpoint, from Shift, too simplistic and too in love with the idea of digital disruption? Are schools not changing as much as Silicon Valley types would like to think they are? Is this hype or reality?"

"The centenarian who just celebrated her 114th birthday felt her age when she tried to create a Facebook account recently, only to discover that the social networking site's options for date-of-birth only go back as far as 1905. Stoehr was born in 1900."

"Labeling colleges as the "worst" is controversial of course. But with more and more Americans feeling like they've been priced out of college or are not getting bang for their buck, questions of value and return on investment are getting lots of attention, especially from the Obama administration."

"Stephanie Richter introduced memes to her colleagues at Northern Illinois University with a Prezi, identifying a meme as a snippet of culture, a thought, behavior, or artifact it spreads via transmission and adaptation, sharing and imitation, and is something everyone has seen or recognizes."

"At Buffer, we create all the images for our blogposts and social media sharing without any outside design help. We rely on a handful of amazing tools and resources to get the job done, and I'll be happy to share with you the ones we use and the extras that we've found helpful or interesting."

"University teaching and learning have transcended the physical boundaries of the classroom. UTK instructors and students can now connect and engage in learning through a variety of Internet-enabled technologies. Interest is growing in pedagogically sound online courses. An online course is delivered via the Internet and is comprised of instructional materials designed and developed to be student-centered and uses a variety of tools and techniques to facilitate communication and convey the subject matter. OIT has developed the Online Instructor Toolkit to assist instructors in preparing and teaching their online courses."

"The chart is part of a summary of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded studies by the Education Advisory Board, a business that produces research for colleges. The board looked at seven colleges, mostly regional public universities whose names have not been revealed, and tried to figure out what it costs to teach students. Analysts combed through 250 million rows of data to draw up reports that spelled out the costs of each student credit hour in each section in each department of each college."

These are just a glimpse of some of the most recent (within the last two years) updates to distance education policy standards set forth by regional and national accrediting organizations in the U.S. And as many institutions begin implementing online programs, it's never been a more critical time for administrators and leaders to become well-acquainted with the hallmarks of quality required for both new, and currently in-place, distance-ed programs.