Online Learning, COVID-19, and the Future of the Academy: Implications for Faculty Governance and Collective Bargaining

The purpose of this article is to speculate on the future of higher education as online technology, including adaptive learning (also referred to as personalized learning) infused by artificial intelligence software, develops and matures. This is a risky undertaking since predicting the future, and in this case the evolution of technology, is difficult. While many try to predict what will happen and sometimes get it right, predicting when something will happen is far more challenging. Online and blended learning have already advanced within education, but the most significant changes are yet to come. Evolving technologies have the potential to change the traditional roles in our schools, colleges and universities to the point that many educators are reconsidering their purposes and roles as teachers, researchers and administrators

Big Data and Learning Analytics in Blended Learning Environments: Benefits and Concerns

The purpose of this article is to examine big data and learning analytics in blended learning environments. It will examine the nature of these concepts, provide basic definitions, and identify the benefits and concerns that apply to their development and implementation. This article draws on concepts associated with data-driven decision making, which evolved in the 1980s and 1990s, and takes a sober look at big data and analytics. It does not present them as panaceas for all of the issues and decisions faced by higher education administrators, but sees them as part of solutions, although not without significant investments of time and money to achieve worthwhile benefits

INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS DEDE

For a special issue of the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks (JALN), Conducted March 9, 2007 by Anthony G. Picciano

BLENDED LEARNING: IMPLICATIONS FOR GROWTH AND ACCESS

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on issues of growth and access in blended learning environments. Increasingly decision makers throughout higher education are considering blended learning as an important component of their academic programs. It is hoped that this paper will help to provide insight for these decision makers. Many of the thoughts and ideas in this paper evolved out of discussions on Growth Paradigms held at the 2005 Sloan-C Summer Workshop in Victoria, British Columbia, and the 2004 and 2005 Sloan-C Workshops on Blended Learning held in Chicago

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON BLENDED LEARNING

In April 2008, the University of Illinois-Chicago hosted the Fifth Sloan-C Workshop on Blended Learning and Higher Education. This workshop attracted 180 educational leaders, faculty members, instructional designers and researchers who discussed, shared and considered effective practices in the design and delivery of blended learning environments. Presentations on best practices, lessons learned, and research on the phenomenon of blended learning stoked the discussion for two days. The theme of the workshop, Blending with Purpose, attempted to focus the discussions on the importance of designing blended learning courses and programs with specific educational goals and objectives in mind. The theme developed out of a growing concern that many faculty were using the latest technology simply for the sake of the using technology without carefully considering the pedagogical benefits and “purpose”. The organizing committee for the workshop also understood that blended learning was not just a faculty-driven activity but needed support and guidance from the administration and instructional designers. As a result, three areas of focus helped organize the workshop activities namely: administration, pedagogy, and evaluation/assessment

BLENDED LEARNING AND LOCALNESS: THE MEANS AND THE END

Blended learning can be seen as the means to achieving a greater sense of “localness” on the part of colleges and universities. Blended learning has been evolving for several years and while definitions vary from one institution to another, it is defined in this paper essentially as a combination of face-to-face and online learning. Localness is a term used at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of a new funding initiative to support academic programs designed to strengthen a college or university connection to its core constituencies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship of blended learning and “localness”

COMPUTERIZED SUPPORT FOR DECISION-MAKING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: CASE STUDIES OF FIVE PRIVATE COLLEGES (PLANNING, MICROCOMPUTER)

The purpose of this study was to further the research on the effectiveness of computer information systems as used to support decision making in higher education. It attempted specifically to look at the effects of the introduction of an analytical tool into the complex, political decision processes that exist in colleges and universities. To do this research, case studies were conducted at five small, private, non-profit colleges. The major findings of this research were: (1) Computer technology was used effectively in supporting the different types of decision processes which existed at the five colleges studied. (2) The use of computer technology did not change the decision processes at the five colleges but was integrated into already existing decision environments. (3) Computer technology will play an expanded role in the future in supporting decision processes. These findings supported research which used broad survey methods conducted by Richard Mann (1974) and Robert E. Russell (1981). A secondary area of focus in this study was to examine decision making in higher education and to determine if it is becoming a more rational process as a result of external pressures such as declining enrollment and declining resources. Although it is accepted that decision making in higher education is essentially a political process, it was observed that the decision processes at all of the five colleges studied exhibited recently increased degrees of rationality, introduced as these institutions attempted to develop strategies for dealing with enrollment decline. A most important aspect of this research was to provide some practical benefits for administrators in higher education who are facing serious issues associated with declining enrollments. The detail provided in the case analyses was intentional to give administrators an inside look at other institutions which are facing similar problems. It is hoped that they can draw from the material on decision processes, on participation in decision making and on the development of computer technology and its uses in these processes

Big Data and Learning Analytics in Blended Learning Environments: Benefits and Concerns

The purpose of this article is to examine big data and learning analytics in blended learning environments. It will examine the nature of these concepts, provide basic definitions, and identify the benefits and concerns that apply to their development and implementation. This article draws on concepts associated with data-driven decision making, which evolved in the 1980s and 1990s, and takes a sober look at big data and analytics. It does not present them as panaceas for all of the issues and decisions faced by higher education administrators, but sees them as part of solutions, although not without significant investments of time and money to achieve worthwhile benefits

Educational Leadership And Planning for Technology

xix, 314 p.; ill.; 23 cm