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College graduates who showed paltry gains in critical thinking and little academic engagement while in college have a harder time than their more accomplished peers as they start their careers, according to a report released today. The report, "Documenting Uncertain Times: Postgraduate Transitions of the Academically Adrift Cohort," follows up on the highly influential and controversial book Academically Adrift, which was published one year ago. The report is being released at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and it expands upon many of the themes that the book explored by following a subset of students from the book into early adulthood.

As institutions invest in outreach to students deemed academically "at risk," software technologies to assist in early alert are proliferating on the market. Jennifer Jones, who previously managed a comprehensive program for identifying at-risk students at the University of Alabama, offers checklists of the questions you need to ask up front, prior to procuring new software

This week, Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation for Education, released a statement offering ideas for a national strategy to rapidly train workers for new jobs; among these, prior learning assessment (PLA) was cited as one possible game-changer. But beyond CLEP and the controversial challenge exam, how can enrollment managers and academic leaders assess prior learning effectively and with rigor? We asked Denise Hart, director of adult education and creator of the Success Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and author of a landmark study of prior learning assessment portfolios, for techniques that institutions should be thinking about.

ebrary, a ProQuest business, is expanding its ebook selection across acquisition models. The company reports this is in an effort to strengthen its new approach to strategic ebook acquisition based on three steps: Transition, Diversify, and Streamline. More than 1,800 new ebooks from Wiley, from John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and 2,300 new titles from publishers, including Princeton University Press and World Scientific & Imperial College Press, will be available in Academic Complete. An additional 6,300 ebooks from publishers such as MIT Press, Oxford University Press, and University of Illinois Press will be available through other ebrary models, including patron driven acquisition, short-term loan, and perpetual archive.

The lecture hall is under attack. Science, math and engineering departments at many universities are abandoning or retooling the lecture as a style of teaching, worried that it's driving students away. The faculty at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has dedicated this academic year to finding alternatives to the lecture in those subjects. Johns Hopkins, Harvard University and even the White House have hosted events in which scholars have assailed the lecture.

Debates continue in the public sphere over the quality and efficacy of online instruction, with research studies citing quite different outcomes confusing the issue. The heart of the matter is that not all online instruction is equal -- institutions still differ widely in the level of planning that goes into the online instruction they provide and in the level of preparation and training provided for online instructors.

"Imagine the moment when these completion exams permit a person to assemble learning from a variety of academic institutions and life experiences to complete a degree. At that moment, the monopoly of institutions over source and cost loosens, and the student gains control of how knowledge is to be gained and at what price. At that moment, the sources of learning are severed from credentialing. At that moment, American higher education is radically changed."

More food for thought on discussion and community.

After student complaints, Utah professor denied job | Inside Higher Ed I have a teaching innovation for you to consider. Extensive research repeatedly shows a positive impact on student learning. Corporate stakeholders clearly prefer to hire employees that have these skills. Democracy is strengthened… What's that? It might make the students uncomfortable? How do we approach this issue?