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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- Perplexity launches its own freemium ‘deep research’ product - Anthony Ha, Tech CrunchPerplexity has become the latest AI company to release an in-depth research tool, with a new feature announced Friday. Google unveiled a similar feature for its Gemini AI platform in December. Then OpenAI launched its own research agent earlier this month. All three companies even have given the feature the same name: Deep Research. The […]
- Musk Staff Propose Bigger Role for A.I. in Education Department - Dana Goldstein and Zach Montague, NY TimesAllies of Elon Musk stationed within the Education Department are considering replacing some contract workers who interact with millions of students and parents annually with an artificial intelligence chat bot, according to internal department documents and communications. The proposal is part of President Trump’s broader effort to shrink the federal work force, and would mark […]
- Replit and Anthropic’s AI just helped Zillow build production software—without a single engineer - Michael Nuñez, Venture BeatZillow just built production software — without hiring a single engineer. Instead, non-technical employees used Replit and Anthropic’s Claude tool to create working applications that now route more than 100,000 home shoppers to agents. This isn’t just no-code; it’s AI-assisted software development at enterprise scale, powered by Claude and Replit’s automation stack. With a global […]
- Higher education is warming up to AI, new survey shows - EdScoopA growing number of educators view artificial intelligence as a strategic priority, according to a paper published Monday by the nonprofit Educause. The group’s 2025 AI Landscape Study includes a survey result showing that 57% of educators polled view “AI as a strategic priority,” up from 49% in last year’s poll. While educational leaders are […]
- Managers are not okay. Why we’re headed to a ‘manager crash’ in 2025 - Jan Bruce, Fast CompanyThe coming manager collapse is kicking off a vicious cycle for organizations. As managers struggle, Gen Z sees the toll of the job and backs away, leaving fewer employees to rise into management roles. This puts more pressure on remaining managers. At the same time, several years of manager layoffs have left fewer people taking […]
- AI humanoid robots step closer - thanks to new $350 million investment - Sabrina Ortiz, ZDnetAI-powered humanoid robots that co-exist with humans to help our workloads may seem like the plot of a sci-fi movie, but companies have been working on them for years. Case in point: Apptronik, a robotics lab founded in early 2016, has been working on a 5-foot 8-inch, 160-pound, general-purpose humanoid robot named Apollo. The company's […]
- Why OpenAI’s Agent Tool May Be the First AI Gizmo to Improve Your Workplace - Kit Eaton, Inc.Many of us have by now chatted to one of the current generation of smart AI chatbots, like OpenAI’s market-leading ChatGPT, either for fun or for genuine help at work. Office uses include assistance with a tricky coding task, or getting the wording just right on that all important PowerPoint briefing that the CEO wants. […]
- Quantum Large Language Model Launched to Enhance AI - Berenice Baker, Enter QuantumSecqai, a company specializing in ultra-secure hardware and software, has launched a hybrid quantum large-language model (QLLM). The QLLM aims to enhance AI applications by integrating quantum computing with traditional large language models (LLMs) to improve computational efficiency while enhancing problem-solving and linguistic understanding capabilities. The new model, which the company said is a world […]
- Superagency: The transformative potential of AI - McKinseyThere’s a critical difference between AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence]. Although the latest gen AI technologies, including ChatGPT, DALL-E, and others, have been hogging headlines, they are essentially prediction machines—albeit very good ones. In other words, they can predict, with a high degree of accuracy, the answer to a specific prompt because they’ve been […]
- Groundbreaking BBC research shows issues with over half the answers from Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistantsNew BBC research published today provides a warning around the use of AI assistants to answer questions about news, with factual errors and the misrepresentation of source material affecting AI assistants.The findings are concerning, and show:51% of all AI answers to questions about the news were judged to have significant issues of some form19% of […]
- A new operating model for people management: More personal, more tech, more human - McKinseyThe way organizations manage their most important assets—their people—is ready for a fundamental transformation. New technologies, hybrid working practices, multigenerational workforces, heightened geopolitical risks, and other major disruptions are prompting leaders to rethink their methods for attracting, developing, and retaining employees. In the past year alone, for instance, we have seen more and more companies […]
- Colleges rebrand humanities majors as job-friendly - Jon Marcus, Hechinger ReportThe number of undergraduates majoring in the humanities at the University of Arizona has increased 76 percent since 2018, when it introduced a bachelor’s degree in applied humanities that connects the humanities with programs in business, engineering, medicine and other fields. It also hired a humanities recruitment director and marketing team and started training faculty […]
- Thinking Out Loud With AI - Ray Schroeder Inside Higher EdI had the pleasure recently to participate in a lifelong learning session with a group of mostly current or retired educators at my nearby Lincoln Land Community College. The topic was AI in education. It became clear to me that many in our field are challenged to keep up with the rapidly emerging developments in […]
- Sam Altman says AI is progressing faster than Moore’s law as he predicts AGI is ‘coming into view’, and it's leaving me worried about the future - Graham Barlow, Tech RadarAltman’s point is that the falling cost of using AI is another indicator that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is “coming into view”. AGI is an artificial intelligence that is on a par with, or smarter than, human intelligence, and developing it is the whole reason that companies like OpenAI exist because the benefits of AGI […]
- An Insider's Guide to How Students Use GenAI - Miriam Wun & Nah Yong En, Times Higher EdLast year, we talked to students across a range of disciplines, on what they thought of using GenAI tools in their studies. Some of the ways they were using the tools, we discovered, were pretty useful. But some students felt that they were getting too reliant on technology. We asked them about how they crafted […]
- Driver vehicle crashes and mental health challenges among commuter college students - Louis A. Merlin, Journal of Transport and HealthWe examine the relationship between commuter college students’ mental health and their driver vehicle crashes. Poor mental health, depression, insomnia, and constrained activity are positively correlated with being in a crash while driving. Caring for an adult at home was also associated with being in a crash, while higher GPA was negatively associated. Colleges may […]
- ‘Self-inflicted wound’: Widespread alarm as Trump administration slashes NIH funding - Ben Unglesbee, Higher Ed DiveA coalition of 22 attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday seeking to block the National Institutes of Health’s newly announced research funding cuts. NIH announced Friday it would cut roughly $4 billion a year worth of funding for indirect research costs such as administration and facilities — by capping reimbursement for […]
- Does OpenAI's Deep Research signal the end of human-only scholarship? - Andrew Maynard, The Future of Being HumanThis past Sunday, OpenAI launched Deep Research — an extension of its growing platform of AI tools, and one which the company claims is an “agent that can do work for you independently … at the level of a research analyst.” I got access to the new tool first thing yesterday morning, and immediately put […]
- ‘Shortsighted’ and ‘Dangerous’: Colleges Warn of Budget Cuts After NIH Slashes Medical Research Funding - Katherine Knott and Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher EdThe National Institutes of Health’s plan to cut funding for colleges’ “indirect costs” of conducting medical research, which includes hazardous waste disposal, utilities and patient safety, could cost institutions billions. Advocates and researchers also warned that the cuts would undermine key research life-saving medical advancements. “While this retrenchment may seem like a good deal for […]
- GPT-5 Will Be Smarter Than Me: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman - Office ChaiOpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that GPT-5 — the company’s upcoming large language model — will be smarter than he is. “How many people feel they are smarter than GPT 4? ” he asked the audience at an event, and several hands went up. “Okay, how many of you think you’re still going to […]
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AGB Search and UPCEA Partner to Serve Growing Nontraditional Higher Learning Sector
Partnership will focus on executive searches for professional, continuing, and online education. WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 28, 2017 – AGB Search, the firm focused exclusively on all aspects of higher education executive search, has partnered with UPCEA, the leading association for professional, continuing, and…
As society evolves, our fascination with generational differences never seems to cease. Driven by the worldly events of the time, each generation embodies a generalized collection of cultural differences which tells us a fair amount about their beliefs, influencers, and preferences. While our fascination is…
Secretary DeVos Issues Statement on Regulatory Reform Task Force Progress Report
US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION — U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos today released the following statement on the Department’s Regulatory Reform Task Force’s first progress report as required by President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13777: “The Regulatory Reform Task Force has been hard at work…
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