On a typical day in 2014, more than 22 million cyberattacks threatened to infiltrate Penn State. Two
attacks targeting the university’s College of Engineering managed to slip past security systems. Thanks to an alert from the FBI, the university investigated the attacks and disconnected the college’s computer network from the Internet for three days while it beefed up security.
In K-12, school districts are constantly launching digital learning initiatives that require large amounts of bandwidth and mobile devices. But many of them don’t address the IT infrastructure beforehand. And that leads to horror stories of the network
slowing to a crawl with students and teachers unable to connect their devices to the Internet due to lack of wireless coverage.
“Infrastructure is one of those things that is not sexy and is not glamorous,” says Susan M. Bearden, director of information technology at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy in Melbourne, Fla. “I mean, who really wants to hear about switches or bandwidth or choke points in a network? But if you don’t have that infrastructure in place, then you are setting yourself up for failure.”
Unfortunately, education institutions don’t always recognize the tenuous situation they’re in until they fall prey to successful cyberattacks and show-stopping network failures. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
This Center for Digital Education (CDE) Special Report guides education IT leaders through the trends, technologies and tips that will help them build a future-ready infrastructure to carry their institutions through the challenges of life
in the digital age.
In the emerging knowledge-based economy, employers are requiring new levels of skill from labour market entrants. As employers’ expectations of postsecondary graduates increase, Ontario’s publicly funded colleges and universities are working to provide students with much of the knowledge, skills, and training needed for success in the community and in the changing workplace. As a result, there has been a movement within the postsecondary education (PSE) sector to provide a closer integration of learning and work as a strategy for workforce skills development (Fisher, Rubenson, Jones, & Shanahan, 2009).
In particular, work-integrated learning (WIL) programs such as co-operative education, internship, and apprenticeship are frequently endorsed as educational modes of delivery to support such integration. Offering work-integrated learning experiences for students requires a significant investment of human and financial resources to be effective. Faculty in particular play an important role in designing, supporting, and implementing WIL opportunities for students. Despite a growing recognition of the essential role played by faculty, very little is known about their perceptions of and experiences with WIL. To shed light on this issue, this report provides the results of the WIL Faculty Survey conducted by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) in partnership with 13 Ontario postsecondary institutions.
The report is part of a broader multi-phase project being undertaken by HEQCO on WIL in Ontario’s PSE sector.
The WIL Faculty Survey was designed to better understand faculty experiences with and perceptions of WIL as an element of postsecondary curriculum. Guided by a Working Group comprised of representatives from the 13 participating postsecondary institutions, the study sought to address four primary research questions:
1) How do faculty perceive the value and benefits of WIL to students, faculty members, and postsecondary institutions?
2) Do faculty views about WIL differ by employment status, program, gender, years of teaching, previous employment experience, or their own past WIL experience?
3) How do faculty integrate students’ work experiences into the classroom?
4) What concerns do faculty have about introducing or expanding WIL opportunities in postsecondary institutions?
The survey instrument was developed in consultation with the Working Group and was pre-tested with 25 faculty members. The survey was administered online from March to May, 2011, with e-mail invitations to participate sent to 18,232 faculty from the 13 partner institutions (6,257 college faculty and 11,975 university faculty). In total, 1,707 college faculty and 1,917 university faculty completed the survey to an acceptable cut-off point, for an overall response rate of 19.9%. Close to two-thirds of college faculty and roughly half of university faculty respondents reported having experience teaching in a program in which students participate in a co-op or apprenticeship. Fewer faculty had experience personally teaching a course with a WIL component, with 47.5% of college faculty and 28.9% of university faculty currently or previously having taught a course involving WIL. Among those who had taught a course with a WIL component, field placements were the most common type of WIL among college faculty, followed by mandatory professional practice (student placements required for licensure or professional designation). For university respondents, mandatory professional practice was the most common type of WIL taught, followed by applied research projects.
Over the past decade, the Ontario postsecondary sector has experienced pressure from a number of societal forces (Clark, Moran, Skolnik & Trick, 2009). The demand for increased access to postsecondary education (PSE), which is moving higher education from an elite model to one of near universal participation, has resulted in undergraduate enrolment increases
of close to 50 per cent over the past decade1. These increases are taking place in an environment where demands in other areas are also being made on institutions and faculty.Demands for increased accountability, demonstrated quality assurance and increased research and development responsibilities have placed higher burdens on institutions and faculty, which are intensified by tight budgets and limited resources. Institutions have responded to these pressures in part, by increasing average class sizes. In 2009, about two thirds of Ontario universities reported that 30 per cent or more of first year courses had more than 100 students.
The average number of FTE students per full time faculty has increased from 17 in 1987 to 25 in 2007 (Clark, Moran, Skolnik & Trick, 2009, page 99). The consequences of this and other adjustments on educational quality are unknown. Undoubtedly, these pressures will continue and intensify in coming years given projections of demand for PSE in Ontario, particularly for undergraduate degrees. As a result, there is a need for the higher education sector in Ontario to identify the challenges and opportunities that are unique to large class teaching environments, as well as strategies to approach these issues, in
order to maintain the quality of student learning in the face of rising class sizes.
A major problem in identifying trends with large classes is in defining what constitutes a large class. This will differ according to the discipline, the level and nature of the class (such as introductory or upper year, lecture, tutorial or laboratory), and the perceptions of lecturers and individual students. For the purposes of this study, a large class is defined as one in which a change in traditional teaching methods is deemed appropriate or necessary, so it may include an introductory class of 700 students or an upper year seminar with fifty.
The digital revolution is transforming our work, our organisations and our daily lives. Driverless cars are now legal in three American states. One third of payments in Kenya are made via mobile phones. Wearable computing will soon mean that your jacket will monitor your heart rate (should you want it to). I have seen a violin - played beautifully - that was 3-D printed.
This revolution is already in homes across the developed world and increasingly in the developing world too. And there, it is transforming the way children and young people play, access information, communicate with each other and learn. But, so far, this revolution has not transformed most schools or most teaching and learning in classrooms.
61% of parents have more than one type of debt, with a mean number of debt types at 2.25
▪ 28% of parents have either type of student loan debt (for parents’ or kids’ education), and 5%
have student loan debt for both parents’ and kids’ education
▪ Parents with student loan debt (from parents’ education) are significantly more likely to have
credit card debt (67% vs. 54%) and payday loan debt (19% vs. 7%)
▪ Parents with student loan debt (from kid’s education) are significantly more likely to have
credit card debt (75% vs. 54%) and payday loan debt (38% vs. 5%)
▪ Parents with student loan debt (from parents’ education) are significantly more likely to say
they lose sleep worrying about college costs for their kids (49% vs. 40%)
This report reflects the enthusiasm and commitment of students, staff and faculty in realizing the vision of environmental sustainability on Ontario’s university campuses.
The report is based on an annual survey of 20 Ontario universities conducted by the Council
of Ontario Universities (COU).
Check the backpack of any higher education student and you’re likely to find a smartphone. The handy handheld tool has long been a favorite of on-the-go college kids to remain on task through the use of calendaring; up-to-date with e-mail and Internet access; and ‘in the know’ by way of social media, IM and text messaging.
Mobile computing is mainstream. But despite its ubiquity in the personal lives of students — and the efficiencies it brings — mobile computing has not been utilized by the higher education community to enhance student learning and deliver content and resources with greater efficiency. Until now.
Identified as the No. 1 technology to watch for out of more than 110 technologies considered, the Horizon Report predicts that mobile computing will enter mainstream use for teaching and learning within the next 12 months. The set of teaching and learning activities that are well-suited to mobile devices continues to evolve rapidly as mobile devices and networks improve, educators and instructional designers develop innovative uses for those devices and networks as applied to education, and courses and curriculum are redesigned to take advantage of mobile computing as a delivery medium for blended and online programs.
Business programs in particular are poised to take advantage of the benefits mobile computing has to offer, with the following uses becoming commonplace in undergraduate business concentrations and MBA programs:
• Course registration and scheduling
Students can register for courses via mobile devices and view class schedules and calendars once enrolled. In addition, mobile devices provide the perfect platform for communicating last-minute changes to meeting times or places, as well as accessing other timely alerts.
• Access to assignments and course materials Students can access course content via learning management
systems, cloud computing solutions and shared portals.
Information and data can be uploaded, downloaded and revised.
• Collaboration on group projects
Group work is a substantial and critical component of business
school curriculum, and mobile computing enables teams of students to communicate and collaborate on projects across space and time.
• In-class polling
Some mobile device platforms are capable of running applications to support in-class polling, effectively eliminating the
need for standalone clicker systems in lecture halls.
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to offer junior scholars a front-to-back guide to writing an academic, theoretically positioned, qualitative research article in the social sciences.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on formal (published) advice from books and articles as well as informal (word-of-mouth) advice from senior scholars.
Findings – Most qualitative research articles can be divided into four major parts: the frontend,
the methods, the findings, and the backend. This paper offers step-by-step instructions for writing each of these four parts.
Originality/value – Much of the advice in this paper is taken-for-granted wisdom among senior scholars. This paper makes such wisdom available to junior scholars in a concise guide.
Keywords Qualitative research, Theoretical contribution, Writing an article
Paper type Technical paper
There are many Indigenous perspectives in Canada and a diverse Indigenous student body, enrolled every year in a range of post-secondary programs. Indspire asked a sample of recent recipients of its Building Brighter Futuresi financial awards what led to their educational choices. What resulted was a better understanding of trends and lessons Indigenous learners can teach policy makers and program service delivery agents about what is important to them.
Understanding the motivations and decisions that successful First Nation, Inuit, and Métis students make, contributes to building and supporting Indigenous student success. Do Indigenous students make the same choices about attending post-secondary institutions as other cohorts of students? What drives the choices Indigenous students make, what brought them to their college or university of choice, what keeps them there, and what is contributing to their graduation? Are there things that can be done differently to improve the recruitment, retention, and graduation rate of Indigenous learners?
KPI 2015
An Act respecting the establishment and governance of colleges of applied arts and technology
EXPLANATORY NOTE
NOTE EXPLICATIVE
The purpose of the Bill is to continue the power formerly con-tained in section 5 of the Ministry of Training, Colleges andUniversities Act to allow the establishment and governance ofcolleges of applied arts and technology. The colleges and theboard of governors for each college are established by regula-tion. Each board is a Crown agent.
Le projet de loi a pour objet de proroger le pouvoir auparavant prévu par l’article 5 de la Loi sur le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités afin de permettre l’ouverture et la régie des collèges d’arts appliqués et de technologie. Les col-lèges et le conseil d’administration de chacun d’eux sont mis en place par règlement. Chaque conseil est un mandataire de la Couronne.
Background: Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young Canadians (10–19 years of age) — a disturbing trend that has shown little improvement in recent years. Our objective was to examine suicide trends among Canadian children and adolescents.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of standardized suicide rates using Statistics Canada mortality data for the period spanning from 1980 to 2008. We analyzed the data by sex and by suicide method over time for two age groups: 10–14 year olds (children) and 15–19 year olds (adolescents). We quantified annual trends by calculating the average annual percent change (AAPC).
Results: We found an average annual decrease of 1.0% (95% confidence interval [CI] –1.5 to –0.4) in the suicide rate for children and adolescents, but stratification by age and sex showed significant variation. We saw an increase in suicide by suffocation among female children (AAPC = 8.1%, 95% CI 6.0 to 10.4) and adolescents (AAPC = 8.0%, 95% CI 6.2 to 9.8). In addition, we noted a decrease in suicides involving poisoning and firearms during the study period.
Interpretation: Our results show that suicide rates in Canada are increasing among female children and adolescents and decreasing among male children and adolescents. Limiting access to lethal means has some potential to mitigate risk. However, suffocation, which has become the predominant method for committing suicide for these age groups, is not amenable to this type of primary prevention.
Tinto’s integration framework is often assumed to be inapplicable to the study of student persistence at community colleges because one of the linchpins of the framework — social integration — is considered unlikely to occur for students at these institutions. Community college students are thought to lack the time to participate in activities, such as clubs, that would facilitate social integration. Using in-depth interviews with students at two urban community colleges in the Northeast, we examine the ways that first-year community college students engage with their institutions. We find that the majority of them do develop attachments to their institutions. Moreover, this sense of attachment is related to their persistence in the second year of college. We also find that this integration is both academic and social. Contrary to findings from other studies that apply Tinto’s framework, we find that these two forms of integration develop in concert for community college students. The same activities lead to both academic and social relatedness. This is particularly true for information networks that students develop in the classroom.
In the traditional college classroom today, faculty and students arrive with a certain set of expectations, shaped largely by past experiences. And although students may need the occa-sional (or perhaps frequent) reminder of what’s required of them, there’s usually something very familiar about the experience for both faculty and students alike.
In the online classroom, an entirely new set of variables enters the equation. It’s a little like trying to drive in a foreign country. You know how to drive, just like you know how to teach, but it sure is hard to get the hang of driving on the left side of the road, you’re not quite sure how far a kilometer is, and darn it if those road signs aren’t all in Japanese.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Many recent immigrant adult students (RIAS) are highly trained in their source countries and anticipate finding suitable employment upon arriving in Canada. (In this study, RIAS are defined as individuals over 24 years of age who have been living in Canada as permanent residents or citizens for less than 10 years.) There is mounting evidence, however, that in recent years the process of obtaining meaningful employment has become significantly more difficult for RIAS in particular. As a consequence, increasing numbers are turning to the Canadian postsecondary education (PSE) system to obtain more credentials and work experience as a means of gaining better access to employment. However, current research suggests that after entering universities and colleges, newcomers such as recent immigrants face a number of unexpected barriers to educational success, including lack of proficiency in either of Canada’s official languages; non-recognition of foreign transcripts and prior work experience; financial constraints; and insufficient knowledge concerning how the Canadian PSE system operates.
With increasing numbers of RIAS attending Ontario PSE institutions, there is growing concern that their learning needs may not be met, leading to decreased academic and employment success. Unfortunately, it appears that most PSE institutions have not identified RIAS as a group with unique learning needs. Academic success in PSE requires that students be fully
engaged and that they have access to resources that enhance engagement. There is a paucity of research concerning the degree to which RIAS are engaged in both academic and nonacademic components of Canadian PSE. Although all PSE institutions provide a variety of student services, there is no evidence that RIAS utilize them or that any particular benefits accrue in terms of promoting academic and social integration to even those RIAS who do use student services. This multi-institutional research study was conducted with the financial support of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). The study objectives included the following:
• developing a preliminary scale to measure RIAS engagement, consisting of academic and non-academic involvement in PSE,
• describing the demographic and institutional factors that influence RIAS engagement within their academic environment,
• identifying the unique immigration challenges of RIAS in PSE programs,
• identifying service needs and utilization patterns of RIAS, and
• developing recommendations for educational policy and service delivery changes within the Ontario PSE system.
The study also included exploration of the following research questions:
1. To what extent do RIAS become engaged with the academic community at the PSE institutions that they choose to attend?
2. What demographic and institutional factors influence their degree of academic engagement of RIAS?
The choice of whether and where to attend college is among the most important investment decisions individuals and families make, yet people know little about how institutions of higher learning compare along important dimensions of quality. This is especially true for the nearly 5,000 colleges granting credentials of two years or fewer, which together graduate nearly 2 million students annually, or about 39 percent of all postsecondary graduates. Moreover, popular rankings of college quality, such as those produced by U.S. News, Forbes, and Money, focus only on a small fraction of the nation’s four-year colleges and tend to reward highly selective institutions over those that contribute the most to student success.
Drawing on a variety of government and private data sources, this report presents a provisional analysis of college value-added with respect to the economic success of the college’s graduates, measured by the incomes graduates earn, the occupations in which they work, and their loan repayment rates. This is not an attempt to measure how much alumni earnings increase compared to forgoing a postsecondary education. Rather, as defined here, a college’s value-added measures the difference
between actual alumni outcomes (like salaries) and predicted outcomes for institutions with similar characteristics and students. Value-added, in this sense, captures the benefits that accrue from both measurable aspects of college quality, such as graduation rates and the market value of the skills a college teaches, as well as unmeasurable “x factors,” like exceptional leadership or teaching, that contribute to student success.
Based on its 50 years of experience serving developing countries through education, capacity-building, training and mentoring in a range of fields, CBIE respectfully offers the following input and recommendations.
One in five Canadians will experience a mental health [glossary] problem this year1 and the onset of the symptoms of mental ill health often occur between the ages of 15 and 24.2 These numbers tell us that many students in post-secondary education will experience mental health problems while they are attending college or university.
Ontario post-secondary institutions report a large increase in the number of students with mental health disabilities registered with their Offices for Students with Disabilities (OSD) [glossary]. Some students come to university or college with a diagnosed mental health condition such as depression or anxiety. Other students develop symptoms of mental ill health gradually while they are at school and may not realize that they need professional help.
If you are reading this Guide, you may be a student who has already been diagnosed with a mental health disability, be in the process of being diagnosed, or perhaps you are a parent/guardian of a student. Our goal is to help simplify the post-secondary experience for students with mental health disabilities by providing “need-to-know” information that is accessible and relevant. The Guide is written in a question-and-answer format and is addressed directly to students with mental health disabilities – so we use “you” throughout the text.
What is a typical budget and staff size for admissions and recruitment for private vs. public and small vs. large institutions? To answer this question and provide up-to-date benchmarks, Noel-Levitz conducted a brief, web-based poll of enrollment and admissions officers across the United States in the fall of 2013. The poll was part of the firm’s ongoing series of benchmark polls for higher education.
Stratosphere:
Integrating Technoloyg, Pedagogy and Change Knowledge