Digital Learning in 'Inside Higher Ed' This Week

The following developments related to online and digital learning received coverage in Inside Higher Ed this week:

• The U.S. Department of Education on Friday released a long-awaited response to an audit by its inspector general, which found that one of the country’s largest online universities had run afoul of federal standards. The inspector general found in 2017 that Western Governors University, which enrolls more than 83,000 students, failed to meet federal requirements for the interaction between faculty members and students. The audit said WGU should repay $713 million in federal student aid. The Trump administration wasn’t expected to carry out the IG’s recommendations. The Education Department has been less interested in cracking down on colleges under Betsy DeVos, the U.S. secretary of education. And Western Governors has received bipartisan support from Washington policy makers, including praise from the Obama administration for its low-priced, competency-based model.
• The Education Department has proposed the removal of a federal cap on the proportion of degree programs that colleges can outsource to other institutions or private companies, Dozens of colleges, including many with widely known brands, outsource parts of degree programs to other institutions or private companies. Under federal rules, colleges can offer degree programs in which up to 50 percent of instruction is outsourced, including through unaccredited entities. The department's proposal, released as part of a package of possible changes in federal rules, would remove that cap entirely, potentially allowing colleges to completely outsource curriculum and instruction for degree programs. That possibility is alarming consumer advocates who worry it will give low-quality operators backdoor access to federal student aid money.
• New research suggests that "light-touch, targeted feedback" delivered via email can improve students perceptions of and performance in class. The studies, by two professors at the University of California, Davis, sought to gauge how faculty members might influence student behavior using simple techniques.