Online University Lowdown

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

Projects and research on distance education and its impact on society are getting a boost through the competitive grants program being offered by the Outreach School. A sum of $10,000 has been earmarked for the faculty and staff at the University of Wyoming and personnel at the Wyoming community college to pursue research or inquiry-based projects that concentrate on distance education.

Each award will have a maximum limit of $2,500, according to Scott Seville, , associate dean of the UW Outreach School and associate professor of zoology and physiology at the UW/Casper College Center. The winners, who will be announced on November 15, will have to complete their projects within the span of a year.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

The world’s first online Executive MBA program, Canada’s largest Executive MBA program – it’s as if these accolades are not enough; there’s an additional feather added to the cap of the EMBA offered by the Athabasca University (AU). The program has not only been ranked among the London Financial Times’ top 85 EMBA programs in the world; it’s also the only online EMBA to feature in the list. Some honor this!

The rankings are based on various factors including:

alumni career progression; percentage of alumni salary increases; percentage of international faculty, board members, and students; percentage of faculty with doctorate degrees, and the quality of faculty research.

The course, which was launched in 1994, has over 1,000 students over the globe, with 1,700 alumni members.

Follow this link for more information.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

ACCESS, a program that enables students to earn credits in courses that are not offered at their schools through online education, will leverage interactive education technology from DyKnow to improve its offerings. The Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators & Students Statewide (ACCESS) program, which provides high school students access to advanced level courses and electives that are not available in their district, will use the DyKnow software solution at 44 schools in the state initially. The solution will be rolled out all across the state in the future to make a distance learning laboratory a reality in all public schools in Alabama. ESchool News reports:

The Alabama State Department of Education has purchased licenses of DyKnow Vision and DyKnow Monitor for use in virtual classrooms throughout the state. These classrooms, which are currently equipped with Interactive Video Conferencing and Tablet PCs, will use DyKnow software to enable teachers to instantly transmit content to student computers for annotation and review. Students’ personalized notes can then be saved and replayed at a later date. Teachers will also be able to see a bird’s-eye view of student computers during class and block distracting applications, even at a distance.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

More than 50 public and academic libraries in the five counties of Greater Gwent in Wales, UK, will be linked through the “Gateways to Learning” project, undertaken as a joint effort by the University of Wales, Newport, and the Caerphilly County Council. The initiative hopes to provide adults online access to the region’s libraries so that they can develop their skills through e-learning measures. All libraries can be searched using branded Gateways areas that offer information, resources, guidance, e-learning materials, and computer access. With help from library staff and members of the project, learners can use skills picked up to obtain certification qualification validated by the Open College Network. The project will run till August 2007. Public Technology reports:

Project manager Christine Clark at the University of Wales, Newport, said, “Learners will hold a special membership card allowing access to all libraries and enabling them to search all the catalogues of partner libraries from a single site. A dedicated inter-library loan system will deliver resources to the user’s home library.”

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

If you’re looking to further your education with an online degree, you need to be familiar with the workings of a computer and the Internet. Almost all content is delivered online, either asynchronously, as assignments and tests that you can do at your own pace as long as you adhere to a deadline, or synchronously, as online lectures and discussions that require your virtual presence at certain times.

So before you sign up for the Internet classes, learn to find your way around the Web so that you can access online resources that aid your learning process, check out the accreditation and legitimacy of the course you choose, get to know your cyber-classmates and lecturers, and generally get the hang of online education.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

You don’t have to pursue a degree to learn online, all you need to do is be a consumer. RadioShack and Powered Inc. are teaming up to offer consumer electronics education programs on RadioShack’s website. The courses, which are absolutely free, include topics such as choosing the right computer, satellite radio, home theater system, setting up and configuring HDTV systems and cropping photographs. The courses will have staggered start and end dates in October and November. Biz Journals reports:

“Customers give credit to RadioShack for its knowledgeable sales associates who help them understand new technologies and select the best solutions for their individual needs,” said Cara Kinzey, RadioShack’s senior vice president-information technologies. “We’re now bringing that distinctive world-class customer service to online shoppers as well.”

Follow this link to access the initial offerings from RadioShack.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

It’s not the end of the road if you end up in the pen, as these women are proving. They are pursuing an education, not within the walls of a classroom, but from behind bars. The College Program for the Incarcerated (CPI) offered by the Ohio University (OU) has breathed new hope into the lives of women confined to the Virginia Correctional Center for Women by allowing them to enroll in correspondence courses.

The advantages are numerous:

• The women spend their time usefully
• They can start their own businesses once they are released. Job offers for ex-cons are few and far between.
• They generally never return to the world of crime. This means they are not jailed again, which saves taxpayers’ money.
• They use their education and experience to counsel youngsters and deter them from the path of crime.

The program does not claim to be a huge success – only 61 of the 3,454 inmates who enrolled over the past five years went on to earn degrees, but doesn’t every small drop contribute to the mammoth size of the ocean? Another factor is the cost – students have to pay for their own education. At $136 per hour, the price is a bit steep, and only those who have supportive families are able to indulge in this luxury.

Credits are transferable to other universities once the women are set free. They are also offered the opportunity to continue at OU, if they so desire.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

A four-day conference to highlight the importance of open learning is being organized by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) between October 30 and November 3 at Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Over 400 people from 60 countries are expected to take part in this Pan-Commonwealth Forum (PCF4) on Open Learning, which will focus on presentations and discussions on Innovation, Learning, Collaboration and Foundation under the broad theme of “Achieving Development Goals”.

The forum will also serve as the stage for the presentation of COL’s Excellence in Distance Education Awards (EDEA). Achievements will be recognized:

• For excellence at the overall institutional level
• For excellence in the development of learning materials
• For lifetime’s work as an educator
• For lifetime’s work as a student

Learning for Development reports:

PCF4 is being organized and hosted jointly by COL and the University of West Indies’ Distance Education Centre (UWIDEC), in co-operation with the Caribbean Association for Distance and Open Learning; the Jamaican Association for Distance and Open Learning; the Trinidad & Tobago Distance Learning Association; and the Office of Continuing Education and Distance Learning at the University of Technology, Jamaica.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

“Here is a piece of bark, talk about it,” “At what point is a person actually dead?,” “Put a monetary value on this teapot,” “What percentage of the world’s water is contained in a cow?” – if you are able to answer the above questions to the satisfaction of examiners at Oxford and Cambridge, you’re fit to enter the portals of these hallowed institutions.

I can almost hear what most of you are thinking – with such eccentric questions, it’s no wonder we have a tough time getting admitted here. While getting in to such prestigious institutions is a tough call, gaining access to their resources is not so anymore.

The Yale University is making it possible for all users of the Web to experience its classroom atmosphere and virtually attend the lectures through the Open Educational Video Lecture Project. The digital video format used gives viewers a simulated feeling of actually being in the classroom during the discourse.

Yale is not the only institution providing such service for online students; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is also allowing access to its learning materials through OpenCourseWare. Though the program is limited to course materials such as syllabus details, PowerPoint presentations, and problem sets, for students who learn from home, this is a virtual treasure trove.

Yale’s project is budgeted at $755,000 for a pilot period of 18 months. The first videos will go online in the fall of 2007.

– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer

There are five frogs sitting on a log. If four decide to jump into the pond, how many are left? The answer is not a simple one as you may have guessed. In fact, there is no definite answer to this question, because the query itself is ambiguous. We are only told that four frogs “decide” to jump; there is no mention of how many actually did so!

Confused? Don’t be. What I’m trying to get across here is that deciding to do something and actually doing it are two entirely different things. Remember your New Year resolutions? Exactly the point I’m trying to make.

So too with the pursuit of an online education. You may yearn to earn a degree, even decide to do so; but the actual act is affected by a number of factors like the time you have to spare, your finances, and your aptitude for the course in question.

If you work at a large or medium organization, at least one of those impediments – the cost aspect – should be resolved amicably. At least 80 percent of all medium and large firms offer compensation for further training or a degree earned while on the company’s payroll, according to Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania. Research by HR firm Hewitt Associates pegs the amount reimbursed between $400 and $25,000. But the most astonishing fact that emerges from these studies and research? That only 3 percent of employees take advantage of this offer!

Companies are in favor of employees getting extra training simply because it helps in retaining their services for a longer time. Workers who are offered tuition assistance generally tend to be more loyal to their employers as they feel a moral obligation towards them. Another compelling reason for employers is the fact that “Smarter employees make better products,” according to Paul Jackson, spokesman for United Technologies, Connecticut (UTC).

From the point of view of employees, the benefits are more than obvious – promotions, higher pay, better opportunities in the job market, and for employees at UTC, an option worth $10,000 in company stock for an advanced degree and one worth $5,000 for an associate’s degree!

Isn’t that reason enough to go back to school?