Filter & Sort
Cutting Computer Science Departments While Teaching More Students to Program?
News broke this weekend about the University of Florida's plans to restructure its computer science department. What are the ramifications -- on the department, on the discipline -- of this decision?
Scaling College Composition
Some thoughts on MOOCs, community, college composition and robot essay graders.
Udacity's CS101: A (Partial) Course Evaluation
A course evaluation on Udacity's CS101. Of course, typically if you drop a class, you don't get to complete course evaluations, and I didn't actually finish the class. But in the case of these free online classes, I'd argue that my thoughts still do count -- after all, how can we help make sure that even if there's no credit offered and no tuition fees assessed, that we're supporting learners all the way through the material.
Crowdfunding's Next Frontier: Academic Research?
Microryza launches its official beta today. It's a crowdfunding platform for scientific research with an emphasis on social learning and the scientific process -- not just on outcomes or "a product."
OER Textbook Startup Sued By Publishers For Copyright Infringement
OER textbook startup Boundless Learning is being sued for copyright infringement by Pearson, Cengage, and Macmillan. While the startup says that it's using openly licensed content to build its free textbooks, the publishers contend that the startup is copying topics, sub-topics, layouts and the like.
A New "Elite University" Gets $25 Million in Seed Funding
The Minerva Project announced $25 million in seed funding today from Benchmark Capital, promising to found the first "elite university" in the U.S. in over a century. The university -- online and for-profit -- has some big names on its advisory board. But can it actually live up to this big vision and promise (and investment)?
The New LMS Product: You
Some thoughts on the new LMS market, which as Blackboard's pivot might show, might not be about the LMS product itself any longer. So where's the money to be made for companies like Blackboard? Where's the value for universities? It's in the data.
GoodSemester: Basecamp for OER?
A look at another education startup, GoodSemester, that's build a learning and collaboration platform. It's not an LMS, the founder Jason Rappaport insists. Even so, I opted to hold this story until today since we were all a-twitter yesterday about the Blackboard news. After all, GoodSemester is another indication that many education entrepreneurs are trying to reimagine the LMS.