data related items

Buyer Beware: First-Year Earnings and Debt for 37,000 College Majors at 4,400 Institutions — from cew.georgetown.edu

Summary:

Did you know that in the first year after graduation you can make more money with an associate’s degree in nursing from Santa Rosa Junior College in California than with a graduate degree from some programs at Harvard University? Data from the College Scorecard reveal many more surprising details of post-college outcomes for students and families about that all-important first year after graduation. Buyer Beware: First-Year Earnings and Debt for 37,000 College Majors at 4,400 Institutions finds that first-year earnings for the same degree in the same major can vary by $80,000 at different colleges and universities. It also reveals that workers with less education can often make more than workers with more education, and that higher levels of education do not always result in higher student loan payments.

Speaking of Georgetown, also see:

Georgetown University partners with Coursera to launch an online bachelor’s completion program for adult learners — from blog.coursera.org

In the U.S. alone, more than 39 million students leave college without a degree. Black, Latino, and Native American students are overrepresented in this population.

SCS’s program is designed to help students of all backgrounds complete their degrees and unlock their earning potential. The degree’s most recent on-campus cohort is composed of 62% students of color and 40% military-connected learners. SCS is introducing this fully online degree to scale this program to learners worldwide.

2022 Winners of the LegalTech Breakthrough Awards — from legaltechbreakthrough.com

Categories include:

Case Management
Client Relations
Data & Analytics
Documentation
Legal Education
Practice Management
Legal Entity Management
Legal Research
Online Dispute Resolution
Contract Management
eDiscovery
Marketplaces
RegTech
Leadership

Also see:

Soaring Travel Costs Put Lawyers Back on Zoom –– from kift.com Matthew Parsons
Rising airfares and travel costs are prompting legal professionals involved in dispute resolutions to return to video conferencing.
Global Dispute Resolution: The Future of Virtual Legal Proceedings Is Shaped by Soaring Travel Costs — from matlawreview.com

With the cost of international air travel rising sharply, remote hearings are a practical alternative to in-person proceedings. International travel is expensive, and the virtual option means that it is no longer necessary to count travel as a “cost of doing business” when pursuing an international dispute. The widespread use of technology in global dispute resolution proceedings gives attorneys and their clients the option to participate remotely, which is a compelling cost saver for all parties.

Most debt lawsuits get decided without a fight. Michigan leaders want to change the rules. — from mlive.com by Matthew Miller
Excerpt:
Most of the 1.9 million debt collection cases filed in Michigan’s district courts over the past decade or so never went to trial. Usually, the defendants don’t show up to court, and debt collectors win by default, according to data compiled by the Michigan Justice for All Commission. In most cases, the courts end up garnishing defendants’ wages, income tax returns or other assets, sometimes on the basis of complaints that include little more than the name of the creditor, an account number and the balance due.

And both debt lawsuits and garnishment are more common for people living in primarily Black neighborhoods, regardless of their income.

Members of the Commission say Michigan’s rules around debt collection lawsuits don’t do enough to protect regular people, who sometimes don’t find out they’ve been sued until they see money coming out of their paychecks.

They say those rules need to change.

World-first virtual legal clinic opens for business across BC, aiming to increase affordability, diversity and reach of legal professionals — from finance.yahoo.com by Access Pro Bono

An early participant in the Law Society of BC’s Innovation Sandbox, the Clinic offers the in-person and virtual help of 25 articling students located in 15 different BC communities —from Tofino to Cranbrook— with the support of 15 supervising lawyers, four staff and dozens of local mentors. Together, they provide fixed-fee services in a wide range of areas covering everyday legal problems.

Recent Advancements In Artificial Intelligence — from forbes.com by Gaurav Tewari

Excerpts:

As the founder of a technology investment firm, I’ve seen firsthand just how much AI has advanced in such a short period of time. The underlying building blocks of the technology are getting astonishingly better at an exponential rate, far outpacing our expectations. Techniques like deep learning allow us to run complex AI models to solve the most difficult problems. But while those who work in technology-centric careers are aware of AI’s explosive capabilities, the public at large is still largely unaware of the depth of AI’s potential.

Enterprise functions such as marketing, sales, finance and HR are all areas that can utilize new AI-enabled applications; these applications include providing customers with 24/7 financial guidance, predicting and assessing loan risks and collecting and analyzing client data.

Also relevant/see:

What is the Future of Artificial Intelligence? — from thedigitalspeaker.com by Dr. Mark van Rijmenam

Excerpts:

Let’s explore some real-life artificial intelligence applications.

Using Artificial Intelligence for Navigation
Marketers Use Artificial Intelligence to Increase Their Efficiency
The use of Artificial Intelligence in robotics
Gaming and Artificial Intelligence
Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Lifestyles

Artificial intelligence (AI): 7 roles to prioritize now — from enterprisersproject.com by Marc Lewis; with thanks to Mr. Stephen Downes for this resource
Which artificial intelligence (AI) jobs are hottest now? Consider these seven AI/ML roles to prioritize in your organization

While these seven AI roles are critical, finding talent to fill them is difficult. AI, machine learning, and data analytics are new fields, and few people have relevant experience.

This leads us back to the fact: We are dealing with a Great Reallocation of the labor force to an AI/Machine learning, data-driven world.

3 ways AI is scaling helpful technologies worldwide — from blog.google by Jeff Dean
Decades of research have led to today’s rapid progress in AI. Today, we’re announcing three new ways people are poised to benefit.

Excerpts:

Supporting 1,000 languages with AI
Empowering creators and artists with AI
Addressing climate change and health challenges with AI

Radar Trends to Watch: November 2022 [Loukides]

On 11/05/2022, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence / Agents / LLMs / and Related, bots, computer science, data related items, digital audio, music, platforms, programming, by Daniel Christian

Radar Trends to Watch: November 2022 — from oreilly.com by Mike Loukides
Developments in AI, Programming, Quantum Computing, and More

Excerpts:

Maintaining a separate category for AI is getting difficult. We’re seeing important articles about AI infiltrating security, programming, and almost everything else; even biology. That sounds like a minor point, but it’s important: AI is eating the world. What does it mean when an AI system can reconstruct what somebody wants to say from their brainwave? What does it mean when cultured brain cells can be configured to play Pong? They don’t play well, but it’s not long since that was a major achievement for AI.

The creators of StableDiffusion have announced HarmonyAI, a community for building AI tools for generating music. They have released an application called Dance Diffusion.

Google’s new AI can hear a snippet of song—and then keep on playing — from technologyreview.com by Tammy Xuarchive
The technique, called AudioLM, generates naturalistic sounds without the need for human annotation.

2023 Top 10 IT Issues: Foundation Models — from educause.edu

Excerpt:

Recent times have brought about a Great Rethink that is upending previous models of management and working. Higher education is no exception. In 2023, institutional and technology leaders are ready for a new approach.

The EDUCAUSE 2023 Top 10 IT Issues help describe the foundation models that colleges and universities will develop next year and beyond, acting on what was learned in the pandemic and framed by the three building blocks of leadership, data, and work and learning.

See where things are headed in 2023 and beyond.
.

.

From DSC:
At this point in time, I’d find your visionary, innovative, tech-savvy leaders out there — and not just for IT-related positions but for Presidents, Provosts, CFO’s, Heads of HR, and similar levels of positions (and ideally on the Boards as well.) Such people need to be at the table when strategies are hammered out.

For example, if your institution didn’t get seriously into online learning long before Covid19 hit, I’d clear house and go back to the drawing board on your leadership.

Also, data won’t save higher ed. New directions/pathways might. But I’m doubtful that new sources of data will — no matter how they are sliced and diced. That sort of thing is too much at the fringe of things — and not at the heart of what’s being offered. The marketplace will eventually dictate to higher ed which directions institutions of traditional higher education need to go in. Or perhaps I should say that this is already starting to occur.

If alternatives to institutions of traditional higher education continue to grow in acceptance and usage — and don’t involve current institutions of higher ed — those sorts of institutions may already be too late. If more corporations fully develop their own training programs, pathways, and credentials, there may be even fewer students to go around.

A final thought: Cheaper forms of online-based learning for the liberal arts may be what actually saves the liberal arts in the long run.

Also relevant/see:

Teaching and Learning Perspectives on the EDUCAUSE 2023 Top 10 IT Issues — from er.educause.edu
by Kim Arnold, Christopher Francique, Crystal Gasell, Allan Gyorke, Phil Ventimiglia and Kathe Pelletier
CIO and Senior Technology Leaders’ Perspectives on the EDUCAUSE 2023 Top 10 IT Issues — from er.educause.edu by Jennifer Burns, John Dunning, Jane Livingston, Jackie Malcolm, Dave Robinson and Betsy Reinitz

“Get Ready to Relearn How to Use the Internet” + several other items re: AI

On 11/02/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence / Agents / LLMs / and Related, business, change, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, data related items, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, languages and translation, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Natural Language Processing (NLP), NVIDIA, platforms, programming, skills, social learning / networks, society, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Get Ready to Relearn How to Use the Internet — from bloomberg.com by Tyle Cowen; with thanks to Sam DeBrule for this resource
Everyone knows that an AI revolution is coming, but no one seems to realize how profoundly it will change their day-to-day life.

Excerpts:

This year has brought a lot of innovation in artificial intelligence, which I have tried to keep up with, but too many people still do not appreciate the import of what is to come. I commonly hear comments such as, “Those are cool images, graphic designers will work with that,” or, “GPT-3 is cool, it will be easier to cheat on term papers.” And then they end by saying: “But it won’t change my life.”

This view is likely to be proven wrong — and soon, as AI is about to revolutionize our entire information architecture. You will have to learn how to use the internet all over again.
…
Change is coming. Consider Twitter, which I use each morning to gather information about the world. Less than two years from now, maybe I will speak into my computer, outline my topics of interest, and somebody’s version of AI will spit back to me a kind of Twitter remix, in a readable format and tailored to my needs.

The AI also will be not only responsive but active. Maybe it will tell me, “Today you really do need to read about Russia and changes in the UK government.” Or I might say, “More serendipity today, please,” and that wish would be granted.

Of course all this is just one man’s opinion. If you disagree, in a few years you will be able to ask the new AI engines what they think.

Some other recent items from Sam DeBrule include:

Natural Language Assessment: A New Framework to Promote Education — from ai.googleblog.com by Kedem Snir and Gal Elidan

Excerpt:

In this blog, we introduce an important natural language understanding (NLU) capability called Natural Language Assessment (NLA), and discuss how it can be helpful in the context of education. While typical NLU tasks focus on the user’s intent, NLA allows for the assessment of an answer from multiple perspectives. In situations where a user wants to know how good their answer is, NLA can offer an analysis of how close the answer is to what is expected. In situations where there may not be a “correct” answer, NLA can offer subtle insights that include topicality, relevance, verbosity, and beyond. We formulate the scope of NLA, present a practical model for carrying out topicality NLA, and showcase how NLA has been used to help job seekers practice answering interview questions with Google’s new interview prep tool, Interview Warmup.

How AI could help translate extreme weather alerts — from axios.com by Ayurella Horn-Muller

Excerpt:

A startup that provides AI-powered translation is working with the National Weather Service to improve language translations of extreme weather alerts across the U.S.

Using GPT-3 to augment human intelligence — from escapingflatland.substack.com by Henrik Karlsson

Excerpt:

When I’ve been doing this with GPT-3, a 175 billion parameter language model, it has been uncanny how much it reminds me of blogging. When I’m writing this, from March through August 2022, large language models are not yet as good at responding to my prompts as the readers of my blog. But their capacity is improving fast and the prices are dropping.

Soon everyone can have an alien intelligence in their inbox.

The Future Today Institute’s 15th Anniversary Tech Trends Report

Excerpt:

Future Today Institute’s 2022 Tech and Science Trends Report is now available. Downloaded more than 1 million times each year, FTI’s annual Tech Trends Report is a must-read for every industry. Learn the key trends impacting finance, insurance, transportation, healthcare, sports, logistics, telecom, work, government and policy, security, privacy, education, agriculture, entertainment, music, CPG, hospitality and dining, ESGs, climate, space and more. Discover critical insights. See what strategic action you can take on the futures, today.

7 Technologies that are Changing Healthcare — from digitalsalutem.com by João Bocas

In this article we are going to talk about the seven technologies that are changing healthcare:

Artificial Intelligence
Blockchain
Virtual Reality
Robots
Mapping technologies
Big Data
Neurotechnology

This startup 3D prints tiny homes from recyclable plastics — from interestingengineering.com by Nergis Firtina; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource

Satellite Billboards Are a Dystopian Future We Don’t Need — from gizmodo.com by George Dvorsky; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource
Brightly lit ads in orbit are technologically and economically viable, say Russian scientists. But can we not?

South Korea to Provide Blockchain-based Digital Identities to Citizens by 2024 — from blockchain.news by Annie Li; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource

Excerpt:

South Korea plans to provide digital identities encrypted by blockchain with smartphones to citizens in 2024 to facilitate its economic development., Bloomberg reported Monday.

The South Korean government stated that with the expansion of the digital economy, the ID embedded in the smartphone is an indispensable emerging technology to support the development of data.

From DSC:
Interesting to see blockchain show up in the first item above on healthcare and also on this item coming out of South Korea for digital identities.

The Bruce Willis Deepfake Is Everyone’s Problem — from wired.com by Will Bedingfield; with thanks to Stephen Downes for this resource
There’s a fight brewing over how Hollywood stars can protect their identities. But it’s not just actors who should be paying attention.

Excerpts:

Yet the question of “who owns Bruce Willis,” as Levy put it, isn’t only a concern for the Hollywood star and his representatives. It concerns actors unions across the world, fighting against contracts that exploit their members’ naivety about AI. And, for some experts, it’s a question that implicates everyone, portending a wilder, dystopian future—one in which identities are bought, sold, and seized.

“This is relevant not just to AI contracts [for synthetic performances], but any contract involving rights to one’s likeness and voice,” says Danielle S. Van Lier, assistant general counsel, intellectual property and contracts at SAG-AFTRA. “We have been seeing contracts that now include ‘simulation rights’ to performers’ images, voices, and performances. These contract terms are buried deep in the boilerplate of performance agreements in traditional media.”

Addendum on 10/26/22:

Blockchain and the Future of Medical Technology: Trends in Medicine — from intelligenthq.com

‘A tipping point for higher ed’: Google launches new, low-cost online programs for high-demand jobs

On 10/16/2022, in analytics, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, data related items, Google, higher education, online learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

‘A tipping point for higher ed’: Google launches new, low-cost online programs for high-demand jobs — from fortune.com by Sydney Lake

Excerpt:

Higher education has benefits ranging from career development to skill building to network development—but it certainly can come at a high cost. The average cost of college in the U.S. is more than $35,000 per year, according to the Education Data Initiative. And these students average about $37,000 in student loan debt.

Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google, came to the tech giant with a proposition: Help people “realize their full economic potential” by offering low-cost educational programs focused on high-demand industries. In 2017, Gevelber saw her idea come to life when Google committed $1 billion toward this Grow with Google mission, and the following year the tech giant launched the Google Career Certificates.

[On 10/13/22], Grow with Google takes this program a step further by developing university-industry partnerships. Grow with Google tells Fortune exclusively of the launch of its partnerships with top universities to offer specialized career certificates. These specialized programs build on Grow with Google’s existing programs, but offer more industry-specific take on the material.

U-M partners with Google to offer job-ready tech skills program — from record.umich.edu by Sean Corp

Excerpt:

A new flexible online training program on data science will prepare job-seekers in Michigan and beyond to quickly enter one of the fastest-growing labor markets and advance their careers.

The Center for Academic Innovation created the program, “Data Analytics in the Public Sector with R,” for data science and other professionals interested in how public data sets can drive decisions and policymaking in the public sector. The course complements current Google career certificates, flexible online “Grow with Google” job-training programs for high-demand fields.

Also relevant/see:

Google Cloud and edX Partner to Launch Cloud Computing Professional Certificate — from prnewswire.com 2U, Inc.

Excerpt:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Google Cloud and edX, a leading global online learning platform from 2U, Inc. (Nasdaq: TWOU), today announced the launch of a Professional Certificate program in Google Cloud Computing Foundations. The certificate will bring edX’s global community of 45 million learners access to skills that are central to cloud basics, big data, machine learning, and where and how Google Cloud fits in. Registration is open today at www.edx.org, with courses beginning November 2022.

“We are excited to launch our Google Cloud training content on the edX platform,” said Chris Pirie, Director of Google Cloud Learning Profile and Partnerships. “This partnership presents a fantastic opportunity for learners around the world to build in-demand cloud skills on a proven learning platform.”

New Mexico College Publishes Report to Advance a National Learning and Employment Record for Skills-based Credentialing and Hiring — from prnewswire.com by Central New Mexico Community College

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — In the current job market, applicants are usually asked to provide a broad résumé that lists the basics of their qualifications including college degrees and past work experience. It’s an outdated and inefficient system and one that Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) is now helping to improve.

Thanks to a grant from Walmart, CNM produced a comprehensive report that researches several independent efforts underway in order to build a model for creating a national Learner and Employment Records (LER) infrastructure. An LER enables the exchange of skills-based digital records that facilitate more efficient pathways from learning to earning.

An LER is more efficient and secure for both employers and job-seekers because it uses blockchain technology to provide security, trust, and transparency.

From DSC:
I still am learning about how secure blockchain-based applications are — or aren’t. But this idea of a Learner and Employment Record — which I’ve referred to on this blog as a “cloud-based learner profile” — seems to hold a lot of potential as we move into the future. Especially when the focus is increasingly on which skills a position needs and which skills an individual has.

I have used the term cloud-based learner profiles instead of LERs but the idea is the same

Data Science: Re-Imagining Our Institutions at the Systems Level [Grush & Siemens]

On 10/12/2022, in analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Agents / LLMs / and Related, Australia, colleges, community colleges, convergence, data related items, faculty, higher education, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning theories, student-related, teaching & learning, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Data Science: Re-Imagining Our Institutions at the Systems Level — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush
A Q&A with George Siemens

Excerpt:

We know that higher education institutions have been exploring data science for decades. Many began by leveraging institutional data to serve administrative computing needs and efficiencies, later taking on an additional learning science focus, at least to some, often limited degree.

What can institutions do now, to use data science better and perhaps reinvent themselves in the process? Are they taking advantage of all the access they have to so many disciplines and researchers, to help move data science ahead in the real world? Here, George Siemens, who is a professor of practice at the University of Texas-Arlington and co-leads the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning at the University of South Australia, talks with CT about data science in higher education.

Radar Trends to Watch: October 2022 — from oreilly.com by Mike Loukides
Developments in Machine Learning, Metaverse, Web3, and More

Excerpt:

September was a busy month. In addition to continued fascination over art generation with DALL-E and friends, and the questions they pose for intellectual property, we see interesting things happening with machine learning for low-powered processors: using attention, mechanisms, along with a new microcontroller that can run for a week on a single AA battery. In other parts of the technical universe, “platform engineering” has been proposed as an alternative to both DevOps and SRE. We’ve seen demonstrations of SQL injection-like attacks against GPT-3; and companies including Starbucks, Chipotle, and Universal Studios are offering NFT-based loyalty programs. (In addition to a Chipotle’s steak grilling demo in the Metaverse.)

Also relevant/see:

General AI News — from essentials.news

The consequences of our legal pace in the U.S. seems to already be having seriously negative ramifications [Christian]

On 10/04/2022, in change, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, Europe, future, innovation, internet, IT in HE, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, United States, by Daniel Christian

Also relevant/see the following post I created roughly a month ago:

In the USA, the perspectives of the ABA re: online-based learning — and their take on the pace of change — are downright worrisome.

In that posting I said:

For an industry in the 21st century whose main accreditation/governance body for law schools still won’t let more online learning occur without waivers…how can our nation expect future lawyers and law firms to be effective in an increasingly tech-enabled world?

The pace of the ABA is like that of a tortoise, while the pace of change is exponential

AI/ML in EdTech: The Miracle, The Grind, and the Wall [Feldstein]

On 10/03/2022, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence / Agents / LLMs / and Related, bots, computer science, data related items, education technology, emerging technologies, ethics, future of higher education, higher education, morals/values, programming, society, by Daniel Christian

AI/ML in EdTech: The Miracle, The Grind, and the Wall — from eliterate.us by Michael Feldstein

Excerpt:

Essentially, I see three stages in working with artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). I call them the miracle, the grind, and the wall. These stages can have implications for both how we can get seduced by these technologies and how we can get bitten by them. The ethical implications are important.

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