By Azer Bestavros
Software for grading essays
This NYT articles considers the implications from the availability of edX software that uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers, freeing professors for other tasks.
CETLI activities on BU Today
Faculty Urged to Help Design Online Offerings
Presidential council studies technology’s benefits on and off campus
By Rich Barlow
April 4, 2013
Faculty-free University in CA?!
A bill being considered this month by the California Assembly would create a fourth division of the state's higher-education system that would provide no instruction and would issue college credit and degrees to any student who could pass a series of examinations.
The University vs the Internet
In one form or another, the online future is already here. But unless we are uncommonly wise about how we use this new power, we will find ourselves saying, as Emerson’s friend Henry David Thoreau said about an earlier technological revolution, “We do not ride the railroad; it rides upon us.”
An interesting and very informative perspective from the New Republic by Andrew Deblanco.
On Credit Worthiness of MOOCs
Professors who teach MOOCs do not think that their students deserve credit.
Teaching in the digital age
The key right of any learner is to the attention of his or her teacher. I suspect we still need to figure out how to offer online learners that sort of care and responsiveness.
UT announces nine edX MOOCs
Students around the globe will have the opportunity to participate in nine dynamic massive open online courses (MOOCs) to be offered by The University of Texas at Austin during the 2013-14 academic year.
MOOC Completion Rates
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to enable free university-level education on an enormous scale. A concern often raised about MOOCs is that although thousands enroll for courses, a very small proportion actually complete the course. The release of information about enrollment and completion rates from MOOCs appears to be ad hoc at the moment - that is, official statistics are not published for every course. This data visualization draws together information about enrollment numbers and completion rates from across online news stories and blogs.
Crowdsourcing MOOC Support to Alumni
Alumni of elite colleges are accustomed to getting requests for money from their alma mater, but the appeal that Harvard sent to thousands of graduates on Monday was something new: a plea to donate their time and intellects to the rapidly expanding field of online education.
CA Turns to For-Profit Courses
Here’s how California treats its public colleges and universities: first, cut public funds, and thus classes; then wait for over-enrollment, as students are unable to get the classes they need to graduate; finally, shift classes online, for profit.
