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A very interesting article on the future of higher ed. I found this quote to be particularly interesting. "Colleges and universities have an abundance of intellectual capital; intellectual resources and assets that most companies would love to have in their R&D divisions.  Mathematicians, technologists, engineers, designers, marketers, anthropologists -- and the list goes on and on.  However, for some reason our collective academic culture does not encourage collaboration across the organization, and from what I hear from some colleagues, it can even be confrontational.  Yes, the needs of students, the needs of faulty, and the needs of the administration and staff can create competing priorities.  However, for most private institutions, and some public institutions, there is only one need that matters, and that is the need to survive long-term. "

Essay on how colleges could learn from Swiss watch makers

D'Arcy makes an interesting observation about what is driving the MOOC craze.

We need to formulate a plan for how we want to address MOOCs. We can't ignore them.

A thoughtful essay from the director and associate director of NITLE on the role of MOOCs for small colleges.

Some food for thought in here.

The business model is developing.

"America is shifting from a national, analog, industrial economy to a global, digital, information economy. Our social institutions, colleges and universities included, were created for the former. Today they all seem to be broken. They work less well than they once did. Through either repair or replacement - more likely a combination - they need to be refitted for a new age. Higher education underwent this kind of evolution in the past as the United States shifted from an agricultural to an industrial economy. The classical agrarian college, imported from 17th-century England with a curriculum rooted in the Middle Ages, was established to educate a learned clergy to govern the colonies. This model held sway until the early 19th century."

More relevant to the Massively Open Online Community courses (MOOCs) being piloted in higher education, a team of researchers from that replacing a physics teacher with lectures from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist nearly doubled test scores [PDF] http://www.um.es/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=c538d7e7-52a4-4f9a-93c7-92ac04c80b06&groupId=115466 

survey shows that colleges (w.liberal arts in sample) that have more spending per students, part time faculty and higher faculty-student ratios, get similar results on the NSSE score. A NSEE variable is "good teaching with high quality interactions with faculty"

"I think higher education is just on the edge of the crevasse. Generally, universities are doing very well financially, so they don't feel from the data that their world is going to collapse. But I think even five years from now these enterprises are going to be in real trouble."

Study finds that liberal arts colleges are disappearing