Online and Professional Continuing Education News


See below for a listing of curated news articles of the day brought to you by Ray Schroeder, Senior Fellow at UPCEA. 

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  • Academic Approach to AI Maturing as Technology Evolves - Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed
    The conference, co-hosted this week by Inside Higher Ed and Times Higher Education in collaboration with Washington University in St. Louis, brought together hundreds of college administrators and education technology company officials to explore the possibilities and challenges of digital transformation in higher ed. “I’ve been on a digital transformation for over 20 years; the […]
  • Generative AI to Boost Productivity, Skill Creation, Report - Ben Wodecki, Jr., AI Business
    MIT, Google-authored report likens generative AI’s transformative potential to electricity. Despite being early in its life cycle, generative AI is already providing users with sizable productivity gains the report suggests. The technology will “increase and spread as people and organizations come up with complementary innovations that leverage generative AI’s capabilities.” The report referenced an OpenAI […]
  • Teaching Courses that Provoke Student Anxiety - Maryellen Weimer, Faculty Focus
    The authors of the Teaching Sociology article recommend teachers respond first by finding out if they have anxious students, how many, and what’s causing the anxiety. Is it related to the course specifically, their confidence as learners, worries about the grade, test anxiety, or the absence of some necessary skill? It’s a good recommendation because […]
  • Specially abled students get control over their learning journey through online education - Education Times
    The rising popularity of online education has emerged as a transformative force, breaking barriers, and providing equal education opportunities, particularly for differently abled individuals. In India, the differently abled community accounts for 2.68 crore people, which is over 2.21% of the population as per reports by the Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with […]
  • Exploring the effects of AI literacy in teacher learning: an empirical study - Hua Du, et al; Nature
    As most practitioners (including teachers) do not know how AI functions and cannot make full use of AI in education, there is an urgent need to investigate teachers’ intentions to learn AI and related determinants so as to promote their AI learning. Motivated by these gaps, our aim to explore the antecedents of K-12 teachers’ […]
  • E-Learning Experiences Among Nursing Students: A Scoping Review - Dove Press
    Fourteen articles were included for scoping review, themes include blended E-learning, nursing students’ e-learning readiness, and The challenges with the E-learning system. First: Blended learning may be a beneficial educational strategy in nursing education but it also requires a cautious and carefully planned approach with sufficient time for each student. Second: E-readiness is an important […]
  • The AI-Augmented Professor of 2024 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
    It is early August 2024. I am about to begin the fall term of teaching, research, administrative tasks and advising with the help of generative artificial intelligence tools and assistants. This is what I anticipate will be reality for savvy faculty members in the fall of this year. Versions of the technology capabilities mentioned are […]
  • Shares of two big online education stocks tank more than 10% as students use ChatGPT Michelle Fox, CNBC
    The rapid rise of artificial intelligence appears to be taking a toll on the shares of online education companies Chegg and Coursera. Both stocks sank by more than 10% on Tuesday after issuing disappointing guidance in part because of students using AI tools such as ChatGPT from OpenAI. Chegg, which announced a new CEO, said […]
  • Digital twins: When and why to use one - Mickael Brossard, et al; McKinsey
    Digital twins: When and why to use one - Mickael Brossard, et al; McKinseyIt is helpful to think of digital twins less as a tool for designers, engineers, and manufacturers and more as a laboratory in which nearly any organization can optimize its most precious resource—information—to continually push the boundaries of what it can accomplish. […]
  • Colleges are now closing at a pace of one a week. What happens to the students? - Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report
    About one university or college per week so far this year, on average, has announced that it will close or merge. That’s up from a little more than two a month last year, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, or SHEEO. So many colleges are folding that some students who moved from […]
  • What Do We Know About Micro-Credentials? Academic Minute - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
    Daniel Douglas is a Lecturer in Sociology & Director of Social Science Research at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He is also a Senior Researcher at the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University. My colleagues and I surveyed students in non-credit programs at two community colleges.  A review of existing studies on non-degree […]
  • The Prompt: The Mystery Of GPT2 - Rashi Shrivastava, Forbes
    On Monday, a mysterious chatbot called ‘gpt2-chatbot’ surfaced on a popular LLM benchmarking platform, sparking wild speculation over its origin and possible links to OpenAI’s next major update. When Sam Altman tweeted, “I do have a soft spot for gpt2,” he threw the rumor mill into overdrive. As some AI researchers noted, the chatbot’s capabilities […]
  • States, Conservative Groups Sue to Block New Title IX Rule - Katherine Knott, Inside Higher Ed
    Six states and a group of conservative advocacy organizations filed lawsuits Monday to block the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule and accused the Department of Education of acting unlawfully and overreaching. In two lawsuits filed in Louisiana and Alabama, the plaintiffs argued that several changes to the new rule, which was finalized earlier this […]
  • Shaping the Future of Learning: The Role of AI in Education 4.0 - World Economic Forum
    This report explores the potential for artificial intelligence to benefit educators, students and teachers. Case studies show how AI can personalize learning experiences, streamline administrative tasks, and integrate into curricula. The report stresses the importance of responsible deployment, addressing issues like data privacy and equitable access. Aimed at policymakers and educators, it urges stakeholders to […]
  • Why so many bad bosses still rise to the top - McKinsey Podcast
    Narcissism. Overconfidence. Low EQ. Why do we persist in selecting for leadership traits that hamper organizational progress—and leave the right potential leaders in the wrong roles? When leaders are competent, we all benefit—yet incompetent leadership is everywhere. Why do we equate leadership potential with qualities like overconfidence and narcissism, enabling incompetent people to rise to […]
  • ChatGPT 5: Release Date, Features & Prices - Niel C. Hughes, Technopedia
    The earliest expected release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5 is early in the summer of 2024. ChatGPT 5 is said to bring improved contextual understanding and AI agents capable of operating autonomously — no humans involved. The GPT-5 model is “materially better”, according to one sneak preview. New developments may include Sora and the AI voice […]
  • Students Needing Career Advice Turn to Faculty - Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed
    Faculty members serve as a critical resource for students charting their career paths, according to a new survey from the National Association for Colleges and Employers (NACE), with support from the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the National Society of Experiential Education. The study—which included full professors on down to adjunct-level instructors—found 92 […]
  • Microsoft Makes a New Push Into Smaller A.I. Systems - Karen Weise and Cade Metz, NY Times
    Now tech companies are starting to embrace smaller A.I. technologies that are not as powerful but cost a lot less. And for many customers, that may be a good trade-off. On Tuesday, Microsoft introduced three smaller A.I. models that are part of a technology family the company has named Phi-3. The company said even the […]
  • Here are 7 free AI classes you can take online from top tech firms, universities - PRESTON FORE, Fortune
    “AI is providing people with on-demand learning anywhere they are at any time of day on any day,” says Jared Curham, a professor of work and organizational studies at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Curhan recently launched two new AI-powered courses focused on the world of strategic negotiation and says that the technology is overall […]
  • How New Grads Can Find a Job in the Age of AI - Angie Kamath, US News
    So how do students (and their families) navigate this exciting and stressful time when Americans are reading about AI disrupting jobs at every turn? The best advice is to find impactful and purpose-driven work while being attuned to new trends that have emerged as the AI landscape matures. In higher education, enrollment professionals often talk […]

News from UPCEA: 

Affective Artificial Intelligence: Better Understanding and Responding to Students

Artificial intelligence is recognizing and responding to human emotions, oftentimes better than many humans. As a long-time professor of communication, I am fascinated with the cognitive characteristics of artificial intelligence as they relate to human communication. Image processing, computer vision, speech recognition, and pattern recognition are…

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Visioning Your Unit’s Future

Visioning is an essential, active process, requiring daily attention. We have both the good fortune and bothersome misfortune to live in a time of rapid change in online higher education. Technologies, pedagogies, practices and competition are in flux. Choosing among the options is a critical…

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Fake Meat and an Informed Generation on Higher Education

I went out of my way to go to Burger King to try their Incredible Whopper.  It wasn’t bad, but it got me reflecting on “where did this come from and why?” After one of my presentations on Generation Z a few years ago, a…

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