for-profits

Apollo Group joins learning technology partnership with Stanford University

On 09/17/2010, in education technology, interaction design, interactivity, learning theories, research, by Daniel Christian

Apollo Group joins learning technology partnership with Stanford University — from businesswire.com
Partnership brings together academic researchers and select industry partners to study interactive communications and technology; Apollo Group’s Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti to serve as visiting scholar

Through the partnership, Apollo Group and Dr. Wilen-Daugenti will work with Stanford University faculty and researchers studying basic issues about the design and use of modern technologies and their impact on today’s learner. Apollo Group will also participate with Stanford faculty members and graduate students to explore the role technology can play in higher education organizations, with a specialization in distance learning.

“Technology today is changing at an extremely fast pace, which impacts both enterprise and educational institutions, requiring them to keep up with the latest trends,” said Dr. Wilen-Daugenti. “Students are increasingly exposed to the latest technology in their lives, and seek access to it in their work and education environments. Through this partnership and visiting scholar program, we hope to address this issue and find ways for higher learning institutions to more readily use technology to address the needs of today’s students.”

Tagged with: cognition • cognitive psychology / computing • educational technology • for-profits • interaction design • interactivity • learning theories • research

New Business Models for Higher Education

On 08/27/2010, in business side of he, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, new business models, traditional / tradition, by Daniel Christian

New Business Models for Higher Education — from David Collis, Yale University [via Educause]

Collis assesses the new higher education marketplace, replete with distance learning courses offered online. He reviews the business models of dozens of for-profit Internet based firms entering the higher education market, compares their strategies with those of traditional colleges and universities, and projects the effects of the new entrants on established institutions. Collis concludes that the new firms will move more quickly along a technology-enabled learning trajectory, which in the end will put them at a distinct advantage when they move from their most common point of entry — the corporate market — into the traditional higher education realm.

Tagged with: educational technology • for-profits • future of higher education • game-changing environment • higher education • innovation • new business models in he • traditional

3 million and counting

On 08/26/2010, in Uncategorized, by Daniel Christian

3 million and counting — from insidehighered.com

WASHINGTON — Love ’em or hate ’em — and many of this city’s current power brokers seemingly fall into the latter category right now — for-profit colleges are attracting students in ever-growing numbers, as made powerfully clear by an Education Department report released Wednesday.

The report, an annual study of college enrollments, prices and degrees awarded, includes data on the number of students who enrolled in various types of postsecondary institutions throughout the 2008-9 academic year. As seen in the table below, the statistics show that for-profit colleges enrolled a total of 3.2 million students, 11.8 percent of the nearly 27.4 million students who studied at all institutions that year.

Tagged with: for-profits

Traditional schools grow online

On 08/23/2010, in higher education, online learning, traditional / tradition, by Daniel Christian

Traditional schools grow online — from boston.com by D.C. Denison
Students lured by cachet of brick-and-mortar schools’ reputations

The best-known online players include the University of Phoenix, Walden, and Capella University, with the for-profit Phoenix’s current enrollment of 476,500 students making it the biggest university in North America.

But the brick-and-mortar competition is catching up, from the likes of Northeastern University, Lesley University, and Boston University, while smaller institutions, such as Southern New Hampshire University, in Manchester, are promoting online programs, too.

“It’s hard to think of a college that’s not building its online capability,’’ said Carol Aslanian, a senior vice president of market research at EducationDynamics LLC, a marketing firm that specializes in higher education.

Tagged with: for-profits • higher education • online learning • traditional

A major opportunity for more “traditional” institutions

On 08/05/2010, in business, business side of he, ethics, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, using teams, by Daniel Christian

“Shellacking the For-Profits” — from InsideHigherEd.com by Jennifer Epstein

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats made it clear Wednesday that their examination of for-profit higher education has only just begun, and that they plan to pursue legislation aimed at reining what they see as the sector’s dishonest — if not fraudulent — practices.

At a hearing on the “student recruitment experience” at for-profit colleges that began Wednesday morning and carried on through the mid-afternoon, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, outlined plans to hold more hearings on the sector, to collect broad sets of information from for-profit colleges, and to begin drafting legislation aimed at cleaning up the sector.

“Education is too important for the future of this country,” he said. “Facing the budget problems we have in the next 10 years, we just can’t permit more and more of the taxpayers’ dollars that are supposed to go for education and quality education … to be going to pay shareholders or private investors.”

From DSC:
Coming from a corporate background, I’m thinking this morning in terms of market share. If those of us in the more “traditional” institutions of higher ed were smart, we’d take this as major opportunity. The for-profits made a big mistake here — sacrificing integrity and reputation for building up their revenues; very bad move. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who once said something like, “Glass, china, and reputation, are easily crack’d, and never well mended.”

The for-profits here seemed to have taken their cues from the casino we call Wall Street. Yet another example of cold-heartedness. This is an opportunity for those institutions of higher ed to take the legitimate, effective items of what was/is working for the for-profits and implement them with integrity instead…for example, implementing the use of teams.

Also relevant:

Monsters in the making? Washington grapples with a booming education industry (7/22/10) — from the Economist

Tagged with: business • business side of he • ethics • for-profits • future of higher education • game-changing environment • higher education • Using teams

E-textbooks — and some thoughts about being innovative and using teams

On 06/22/2010, in business side of he, digital textbooks, future of higher education, game-changing environment, library / librarians, textbooks, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Reflections on The E-Book Sector — from InsideHigherEd.com

First of all, some excerpts (with emphasis from DSC):

E-textbooks might be the most-talked about and least-used learning tools in traditional higher education. Campus libraries and e-reader manufacturers are betting on electronic learning materials to overtake traditional textbooks in the foreseeable future, but very few students at traditional institutions are currently using e-textbooks, according to recent surveys.

Not so in the world of for-profit online education.

For-profit institutions in general are moving toward wider e-textbook use than other sectors of higher education, Stielow says. “I think a great many [for-profits] are certainly trying to move toward this model,” agrees Bickford. And the ones that have appear to be succeeding.

Why is that?

John Bourne, executive director of the Sloan Consortium, which studies online learning, posits that it might be a function of the more centralized administrative structures at for-profit institutions. “For-profits do things like provide lesson plans for instructors, provide you with what you’re supposed to do; they hire all these adjuncts to deliver all these things that have been sculpted by instructional designers,” says Bourne. Being able to dictate to the faculty what text format they should assign to their students probably makes it easier to implement e-textbook adoption across the institution, he says.

It is more difficult to engineer change at such scale at nonprofits, because of their more distributed governance models. At those colleges, faculty control of curricular texts — including mode of delivery — is “sacred,” Bourne says.

Manny Rivera, a spokesman for Phoenix, says that the online giant’s centralized administration does indeed allow it to make sweeping changes without many hang-ups. “The university is set up to be more nimble to confront market forces,” Rivera says. “So we’re able to innovate more quickly.”

From DSC:
To be more nimble…to confront market forces…to be able to innovate more quickly…to use materials created by teams of specialists…hmmm….sounds like a solid position to be in as the bubble continues to expand (and may even be beginning to slowly burst based upon where students are going — more community colleges, more state/public schools, lower-cost alternatives, etc.)

Tagged with: business side of he • digital textbooks • for-profits • game-changing environment • innovation • library / librarians • Using teams

For-profit colleges boom — from InsideHigherEd.com

On 04/13/2010, in game-changing environment, by Daniel Christian

For-profit colleges boom — from InsideHigherEd.com

From DSC:
I wonder how many of these for-profit colleges are using a team-based approach to the creation and delivery of content/instruction…?

Tagged with: for-profits • game-changing environment

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