MIT Will Offer Certificates to Outside Students Who Take Its Online Courses

“Millions of learners have enjoyed the free lecture videos and other course materials published online through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare project. Now MIT plans to release a fresh batch of open online courses—and, for the first time, to offer certificates to outside students who complete them.”

in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Students Shift to Computer Science

“The increase follows a national trend: Computer science majors increased 7.6% across the country from 2009 to 2010, the most recent available data, according to the Computing Research Association.

“Computing now penetrates into just about every line of business and academic discipline,” said Zhigang Xiang, chair of Queens College’s Computer Science Department. “It’s hard to find one field where you don’t need it.”

“People certainly realize [computing] is now getting to be a basic skill in the 21st century,” Mr. Xiang said.”
in The Wall Street Journal

Computer Studies Made Cool, on Film and Now on Campus

“The number of computer science degrees awarded in the United States began rising in 2010, and will reach 11,000 this year, after plummeting each year since the end of the dot-com bubble in 2004, according to the Computing Research Association, which tracks enrollment and degrees. Enrollment in the major peaked around 2000, with the most degrees — 21,000 — awarded four years later. The number of students who are pursuing the degree but have not yet declared their major increased by 50 percent last year.”

“Still, computer science graduates do not come close to filling the jobs available. Technology is one of the few bright spots in the economy, with jobs growing at double the rate of job growth over all, according to federal statistics. And colleges say they do not have enough resources or professors to teach interested students. Meanwhile, the programs woefully lag in attracting women and many minorities, though the share of computer science degrees granted to women climbed 2.5 percentage points last year to 14 percent.”

in The New York Times

Can the U.S. Afford Universities Focusing on Research Over Teaching?

“The question I’m raising here is whether we can afford a shift toward research and away from teaching in the United States.  There is evidence suggesting that the increasing costs of higher education are not due to growth in instructional costs, but in costs associated with sponsored programs and graduate education . In his blog, Rich DeMillo points out that university research rarely pays for itself . Doing research is more expensive than doing education well.  ”

in http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/98702-can-the-us-afford-universities-focusing-on-research-over-teaching/fulltext

The Quiet Revolution in Open Learning

“The concept is simple: Community colleges that compete for federal money to serve students online will be obliged to make those materials—videos, text, assessments, curricula, diagnostic tools, and more—available to everyone in the world, free, under a Creative Commons license. The materials will become, to use the common term, open educational resources, or OER’s.”

in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Few students make time to study computer science

“Elizabeth Jackson is different from other 17-year-olds.

“Most kids are like, ‘Ooh, a computer! I can go on Facebook,’ ” the Ligonier Valley junior said. “They don’t think, ‘What a cool piece of technology!'”

Jackson, on the other hand, has long been interested in how technology works.

“I always liked pulling things apart, taking apart remote controls,” she said.”

PittsburghTribune-Review

IT graduates not ‘well-trained, ready-to-go’

“There is a disconnect between students getting high-tech degrees and what employers are looking for in those graduates.

Employers agree that colleges and universities need to provide their students with the essential skills required to run IT departments, yet only 8% of hiring managers would rate IT graduates hired as “well-trained, ready-to-go,” according to a survey of 376 organizations that are members of the IBM user group Share and Database Trends and Applications subscribers.”

in Networkworld

Europe’s Push to Teach in English Creates Barriers in the Classroom

“As universities on the continent try to make English academe’s lingua franca, students might be losing out”
in The Chronicle of Higher Education

MIT Introduces Complete Courses to OpenCourseWare Project

“This week, MIT’s OpenCourseWare project launched OCW Scholar, a new series of courses “designed for independent learners who have few additional resources available to them.” To date, MIT has given students access to isolated materials from MIT courses. Now, with this new initiative, lifelong learners can work with a more rounded set of resources. OWC Scholar takes video lectures, homework problems, problem solving videos, simulations, readings, etc., and stitches them into a structured curriculum. Perfect for the self-disciplined student.”
in Open Culture

What is IT

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