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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- Another Advance for the 3-Year Degree - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher EdJohnson & Wales University has become the latest institution to gain approval to offer bachelor’s degrees that require significantly fewer than 120 credits—and the first to win that approval from the New England Commission of Higher Education. Johnson & Wales said the four degrees it would begin offering next fall —computer science, criminal justice, graphic […]
- Free online anatomy textbook wins WOW award - University of Hawaii NewsA textbook that could save University of Hawaiʻi students more than $400,000 a year has earned a WOW award from the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technology (WCET). UH is a member of WICHE (Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education), which works to improve access to higher education and ensure student success. The WOW (WCET Outstanding […]
- Can Anthropic’s Claude control your PC? - Martin Crowley, AI Tool ReportAnthropic unveiled an updated Claude 3.5 Sonnet (which is available in public beta) with a new feature, called ‘Computer Use,’ which completes tasks on a computer like a human does. ‘Computer Use’ can understand and interact with any PC desktop app, and can control a PC—by moving the cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text—based on […]
- Ellucian's AI Survey of Higher Education Professionals Reveals Surge in AI Adoption Despite Concerns Around Privacy and Bias - EllucianEllucian, the leading higher education technology solutions provider, released its second annual AI survey report. This report shows that AI adoption by higher education professionals for work and personal use has more than doubled over the past year. In a survey of 445 faculty and administrators from more than 330 institutions across the U.S. and […]
- Geoffrey Hinton Reveals the SCARY Future of Employment - Technomics, YouTubeThis episode of the Technomics podcast focuses on the impact of AI on the job market, featuring insights from Geoffrey Hinton, a renowned computer scientist and AI expert. Hinton predicts a significant shift in the workforce, with AI potentially replacing 50% of jobs within the next decade. The podcast explores the vulnerability of various job […]
- Claude 3.5's New AI Agents Are GAME CHANGING (Claude 3.5 Agents + New Models) - Andrew Black, The AIGrid YouTubeThe YouTube video discusses the release of Anthropic's upgraded Claude 3.5 AI models, focusing on the significant advancements and new features. The speaker highlights the following key points: Improved performance: Claude 3.5 Sonet shows substantial improvements in various benchmarks, particularly in coding where it surpasses all other models, including specialized ones. It also shows marked […]
- Are colleges really facing an enrollment cliff? - Dick Startz, BrookingsA large number of colleges have very low student enrollment and few or no endowment resources, and these are the institutions most at risk now and in the coming years. Additionally, college enrollments in some states are likely to drop drastically over the next few years, putting some colleges in those states at risk. The […]
- Tracking college closures - Marina Villeneuve and Olivia Sanchez, Hechinger ReportCollege enrollment has been declining for more than a decade, and that means that many institutions are struggling to pay their bills. A growing number of them are making the difficult decision to close. This story also appeared in Mind/Shift. In the first nine months of 2024, 28 degree-granting institutions closed, compared with 15 in […]
- Unlocking autonomous agent capabilities with Microsoft Copilot Studio - Charles Lamanna, MicrosoftCopilot Studio provides an all-in-one platform for building agents, with managed software as a service (SaaS) infrastructure, AI models, a low-code design interface, and thousands of prebuilt connectors. It integrates personal, business, and analytical data, and enables publishing to Copilot, web, and your apps. These new capabilities allow agents to act independently, initiate events, and […]
- Black women on the academic tightrope: four scholars weigh in - Malika Jeffries-EL, Monica R. McLemore, Ruby Zelzer & Tiara Moore, NatureBlack women have long flagged an insidious issue they have to contend with: misogynoir, a combination of sexism and anti-Black racism that often manifests as a lack of respect and impedes their prospects. The data are clear, the problem is pervasive, including in academia. Here, four scholars discuss their anti-racism work. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03342-0
- Career Prep Tip: Teaching Entrepreneurship Students to Self-Teach With AI - Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher EdIncreasingly, employers are indicating that there’s a need for students to be trained in generative artificial intelligence tools as more businesses integrate the tech’s capabilities into the workplace. Some instructors have implemented AI into their classes to demonstrate prompt engineering and showcase AI’s research and writing abilities. Entrepreneurship professor Mark Lacker at Miami University in […]
- Keeping artificial intelligence real - Navrina Singh, McKinsey DigitalGenerative AI represents a sociotechnical revolution with massive implications for every aspect of our lives. Keeping humans in the loop is critical for its responsible development. Companies are entering a new phase with generative AI (gen AI), as they realistically ponder how to deploy the potent technology responsibly and profitably. The answer, says Navrina Singh, […]
- Harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence in New Jersey: The time is now - written by ChatGPT, edited by Andrew Zwicker, NJ.comBy investing in AI education for all students, from K-12 through higher education, the state will cultivate a workforce prepared to engage with and build on these new technologies. By fostering AI research and development in our four-year universities, New Jersey will create a talent pipeline with the skills and creativity to invent the next […]
- St. Louis University To Freeze 130 Positions And Lay Off 23 Staff - Michael T. Nietzel, ForbesFaced with mounting budget challenges, St. Louis University announced on Friday that it will terminate 23 staff positions and freeze another 130 current vacancies.The news came in a letter from St. Louis University President Fred Pestello that was reported by the student newspaper, the University News. Of the 130 unfilled lines that will be frozen, […]
- Report: Employers Still Don’t Understand Or Trust Education Badges - Derek Newton, ForbesBecause there were so many, because there was no regulation or oversight to assure quality or competency, because there was no standardization or segmentation of badges, people had no idea what they meant. One badge could represent watching a four-minute video, while another could represent a hundred hours of expert-led, one-on-one instruction and fieldwork. An […]
- Where the 2024 presidential candidates stand on higher education issues - Natalie Schwartz, et al; Higher Ed DiveAs the 2024 presidential election has drawn closer, it’s become more clear how the candidates may approach key higher education issues, including accreditation, international enrollment and student protests. Below, we’re looking at where Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump stand based on their statements, campaign websites, past actions and their parties’ platformhttps://www.highereddive.com/news/where-the-2024-president-candidates-stand-on-higher-education-issues/729612/
- Boston Dynamics, Toyota Research Institute Team on Humanoid Robots - Liz Hughes, AI BusinessBoston Dynamics said the project will combine the physical capabilities of its electric Atlas robot, along with its ability to be programmed and teleoperated to allow researchers to deploy it across a range of tasks to collect performance data that will be used to support the training of advanced LBMS to show that “large, pre-trained […]
- NotebookLM - Google BlogNotebookLM is a tool for understanding, built with Gemini 1.5. When you upload your sources, it instantly becomes an expert, grounding its responses in your material and giving you powerful ways to transform information. And since it’s your notebook, your personal data is never used to train NotebookLM. Millions of people are already using NotebookLM to understand and […]
- The Rise Of The Micro-Credentials Movement: Validating Skills Beyond Traditional Degrees - Aditya Malik, ForbesTraditionally, the conventional approach to education involves a lot of time and money investment through a comprehensive curriculum. Institutional prestige steps in as a bias; there’s a lot of theory involved, much more than practical experiments, and the earned credential becomes a gatekeeper toward employment, irrespective of whether there’s a skills mismatch with the role […]
- Challenges and opportunities of micro-credentials as a new form of certification in health science education—a discussion paper - Kinga Zdunek, BMCMedEdUCMicro-credentials are an element of the European Skills Agenda 2020. This five-year plan aims to develop improved applied and broader work skills in response to system demands from employers, industry and communities. Within the labour market, employees increasingly want to obtain new skills-based qualifications in a relatively short period of time. Micro-credentials, as a form […]
Other Curated News:
News from UPCEA:
Who is Driving Data Access and Usage? The Role of Tech and Data Teams
The role of information technology (IT) teams appears to be very different in higher education than it is in the business world. In business, CIOs and other managers of IT departments have made significant strides towards achieving strategic alignment. In higher education, however, it appears…
5 Online Education Trends to Watch in 2017 (U.S. News & World Report)
5 Online Education Trends to Watch in 2017 (U.S. News & World Report) January 5, 2017 As online learning continues to attract career changers, some experts say more degrees offered online in 2017 will focus on specialized areas – such as a bachelor’s in real…
Department Announces Final Rule on State Authorization
On December 19th, the U.S. Department of Education released final regulations to improve oversight and protect more than 5.5 million distance education students at degree-granting institutions including nearly 3 million exclusively online students by clarifying the state authorization requirements for postsecondary distance education. To ensure…
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