Vision
Success for all through learning and partnerships.
Mission
To ensure quality, accessible education through innovative programs, services and partnerships for the benefit of our Northern communities.
The Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) is the international organization for counseling center directors comprised of universities and colleges from the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia, comprised of 737 members as of this survey period. The mission of AUCCCD is to assist directors in providing effective leadership and management of campus counseling centers. The organization promotes college student mental health awareness through research, dissemination of key campus mental health issues and trends, and related training and education, with special attention to issues of changing demographics including diversity and multiculturalism. In 2006, AUCCCD developed and administered the Annual Survey to its membership as a means to increase the objective understanding of those factors critical to the functioning of college and university counseling centers.
In December, 2014 all college and university counseling center administrators, identified in the Higher Education Directory, were invited to participate in the Annual Survey. The survey was administered to 1708 verified email accounts via a secure internet interface. The reporting period for the 2014 Annual Survey varies among administrators, reflecting variations in organization specific annual reporting periods. All participants had reporting periods ranging from July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2014 to September 1, 2013 through August 31, 2014. This monograph serves to provide a summary of data trends reported in the AUCCCD Annual Survey. Participants have access to the online reporting features of the survey including data filtering and export. Additionally, AUCCCD members have access to a separate comparable salary table and items that access ethical dilemmas and legal issues. A total of 499 counseling center administrators completed the 2014 survey, of which 389 were AUCCCD members.
Universities and colleges strive to grow and fulfill their mission of educating their communities. Communicating the data around that mission—how many students are graduating? What does the student population look like? Is the University managing its finances?— is an important component of any institution’s daily life. In this era of larger data and disparate data sources, that can be especially challenging. However, institutions that have been able to present important data online have been able to tell their stories better and engage with their communities in a meaningful way.
This paper presents eight ways that higher education is using analytics and data visualization, supported by examples from real institutions. It also addresses common issues such as keeping data up-to-date as well as appropriately private and secure.
Chpt. 12 from Prentice Hall
The Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) has been engaged through a competitive process by the Ontario Ministry of Education (hereafter “the Ministry”) to evaluate the extent to which the Student Success/Learning to 18 Strategy (hereafter “the SS/L18 Strategy”) as currently implemented is aligned with the Ministry’s three overarching goals and is producing the intended
outcomes related to its specific five goals. The evaluation process is composed of two main phases. This Stage 1 report provides a description and chronology of the SS/L18 Strategy-related changes; a catalogue and preliminary analysis of source documents relevant to the initiative; the results of an analysis of interviews with 39 respondents identified for the initial stage of the evaluation; the results of four focus groups conducted with Student Success Leaders (SSLs); preliminary
observations about the conduct of the SS/L18 Strategy, its strengths and vulnerabilities, as well as some preliminary recommendations for the future of the Strategy.
How much time does it take to teach an online course? Does teaching online take more or less time than teaching face-to-face? Instructors, department chairs, deans, and program administrators have long believed that teaching online is more time-consuming than teaching face-to-face. Many research studies and practitioner articles indicate instructor time commitment as a major inhibitor to developing and teaching online courses. However, while they identify the issue and provide possible
solutions, they do not empirically measure actual time commitments or instructor perceptions when comparing online to face-to-face delivery and when comparing multiple iterations of delivery. The results of this study show distinct differences in developing online courses relative to developing face-to-face courses and distinct differences in teaching online courses relative to teaching face-to-face courses. The data from this study can be used by instructors, administrators, and
instructional designers to create higher quality course development processes, training processes, and overall communication.
Vision
Prosperous communities and transformed lives.
Mission
Creating new realities by opening endless opportunities.
Since the turn of the 21st century, universities in Canada have undergone significant changes. Student enrolment has exploded. Between 2000/01 and 2012/13, the number of full-time equivalent students in universities grew from 676,000 to 1,050,000, an
increase of 55%. The number and proportion of international students in universities have doubled during the same period, from 45,800 to 132,000, or from 5% to 10% of total university students. The number of academic staff has also increased, but the growth in full-time positions has not matched the increase in student numbers. Between 2000/01 and 2012/13, the number of full-time permanent university professors increased by 32%.Meanwhile, the number of part-time and temporary academic staff grew by 69% and 49% respectively, and the number of international visiting professors or lecturers increased by 66% since 2004.
These changes took place while the population, aged between 17 and 24 years, which makes up the bulk of post-secondary
students, grew by only 15% since 2000.
Background and Context: The context for this study is the American legislative landscape covering the past 35 years, which witnessed a shift in political philosophies concerning the role of government in ensuring the social welfare of its citizens—from a focus on a “safety net” to a focus on “individual responsibility.” We frame these contrasting political philosophies as
political master narratives; these narratives shape the ways particular groups in society are perceived, help craft social policy, and have a profound impact on “local narratives,” which are more restricted in scope, are more contextually bound, and seek to make sense of lived experience in a particular domain. The specific local narratives we considered in this study are the “student
success stories” told in adult literacy programs, which are dis- tributed to legislators in hopes of influencing policy and funding decisions. We sought to understand the connection between political master narratives and the local narratives of adult literacy education.
On-line, blended and other forms of web enhanced learning are becoming increasingly popular as a means of delivering post-secondary education. According to a recent report completed by the Higher Education Strategy Associates, 57% of
Canadian university courses make use of some online component (Rogers, Usher & Kaznowska, 2011).
The decision of Mohawk College to move to blended learning was part of a strategic plan begun in 2008 that focused on “advancing educational outcomes through the strategic integration of learning technologies” (Mohawk College 1). To this end the college formulated a committee composed of faculty, administration and management to examine the various learning platforms current at that time (FirstClass, WebCT) and tasked with deciding which learning management system the college
should adopt. They selected Desire2Learn (D2L) as the learning management system to be adopted, and a further plan was developed to have all courses fully blended within five years of the initial start-up of D2L in 2009. Blended learning is defined as using the web “to deliver substantial course materials accompanied by a strategic reduction in face-to-face contact. Online and
face-to-face learning spaces are thoughtfully integrated, maximizing the unique characteristics of each, in order to enhance the quality of the learning experience” (Mohawk College 2).
This report provides a systems perspective on the state of skills and higher education in Canada an identifies areas where the sector could improve in producing highly skilled graduates. It is one of the three foudational studies for the Centre for Sills and Post-Secondary Education, that, together, offer the first steps in a diagnosis of the sector and its performance.
Can we step out of our bubble for a moment? I hope so, because unless we do we will not see that we are losing the battle.
What battle is that? Just the one for the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens, within the nation and without. Just the contest between the forces of rationality and those of darkness and ignorance. Just the eternal struggle to make ideas, and not force, relevant to the plight of those oppressed by ignorance and bad rhetoric. Just that.
If you have not seen the mainstream media lately, if you prefer more filtered sources of experience or retreats into sanity, maybe this is not obvious. However, a glimpse into the abyss of larger public discourse is enough to make the point vivid. Academic research, once celebrated as the vanguard of the best that was thought and expressed, is on the run. Enrolments are down. Public denunciations are routine, running a gamut from casual dismissal (“useless” degrees and the
like) to open hostility (“incubators of social justice warriors,” “ideological fog-machines,” etc. etc.).
Instructors of large classes must contend with numerous challenges, among them low student motivation. Research in evolutionary biology, echoed by work in other disciplines, suggests that aspects of the classroom incentive structure – such as grades, extra credit, and instructor and peer acknowledgment – may shape motivations to engage in studies and to collaborate with peers. Specifically, the way that incentives are distributed in relative quantity (the slope of competition; the proportion of benefits earned through performance relative to peers) and space (the scale of competition; the proportion of peers with whom one is competing) may affect strategies to cooperate or to compete with others.
We hypothesized that students would cooperate with one another more when competition was “global” (i.e., dispersed over the entire population of Introductory Psychology students) than when it was “local” (i.e., concentrated amongst a smaller group of students). We further hypothesized that students would be more motivated when competition was “steep” (i.e., benefits were conditional on relative rather than absolute performance) than when it was “shallow” (i.e., benefits were conditional on absolute rather than relative performance). Moreover, these two variables were expected to interact: cooperation among students was hypothesized to be greatest when competition was both global and steep and weakest when competition was both local and steep.
Here, we designed an experimental test of these hypotheses in a very large, university-level class. Over four semesters, students were randomly assigned, via their tutorial groups, to various competition conditions: global (between-tutorial) competition, local (within-tutorial) competition and asocial (individual) competition. Notably, the global and local competition conditions implied steeper competition than did the asocial competition condition. Within each semester, students were
rotated through each condition, so that all students experienced all conditions over distinct testing phases. Students competed over weekly tests for “bonus” credit that could be applied to reweight the course final exam in their favour. We measured their test performance (i.e., scores on the weekly tests) as well as their evaluations of the learning environment (e.g.,
their reliance on peers and their sense of community in the course).
Overview
The majority of employers continue to say that possessing both field-specific knowledge and a broad range of knowledge and skills is important for recent college graduates to achieve long-term career success. Very few indicate that acquiring knowledge and skills mainly for a specific field or position is the best path for long- term success. Notably, college students
recognize the importance of having both breadth and depth of skills and knowledge for their workplace success.
Echoing findings from previous Hart Research employer surveys, employers say that when hiring, they place the greatest value on demonstrated proficiency in skills and knowledge that cut across all majors. The learning outcomes they rate as most important include written and oral communication skills, teamwork skills, ethical decision-making, critical thinking, and the ability to apply knowledge in real-world settings. Indeed, most employers say that these cross-cutting skills are more important to an individual’s success at their company than his or her undergraduate
major.
Mohawk College promises its students a “college experience that empowers them to transform their lives.” Mohawk recognizes that student success depends on the entire experience students have at college, both inside and outside the classroom.
Ontario’s colleges share the provincial government’s belief that apprenticeship must play a greater role in addressing skills shortages and contributing to innovative, high-performance workplaces that enhance Ontario’s competitiveness.
Given the severity of the economic downturn, Ontario faces an immediate, serious challenge as apprenticeship workplace training is disrupted. Businesses are less able to take on apprentices and registrations drop as apprentices are often last on a company’s payroll and first off. To help apprentices and their employers, Ontario’s colleges propose that the government:
Online education programs continue to rely on a significant contingent of adjunct faculty to meet the instructional needs of the students. Discourse relating to this situation primarily focuses on the extent to which adjuncts are able to ensure the rigor and quality of instruction as well as the ability of the organization to attract, retain, and support qualified professionals. In response, organizations have created very structured,standardized professional development opportunities, meticulous monitoring of adjunct activities and inflexible policies to guide interactions with learners. This one-size-fits-all strategy limits the organization’s ability to facilitate an adjunct-organizational relationship that supports the adjunct in ways that meet their individual needs. The purpose of this exploratory, quantitative questionnaire study was to examine the difference between the adjuncts’ primary rationale for teaching, and their self-identified professional category. In addition, the study sought to explore the difference between the adjunct’s primary professional needs and their self-identified professional category. The results of the study demonstrated that there was a significant difference between the self-identified professional employment groups in the areas of student focused instruction, personal needs, an interest in online pedagogy, career advancement, and flexible work schedule categories. There was not a significant difference in the self-identified professional employment groups and the category of skill development
Historic High in the History of the Learning Technology Industry
The investments made to learning technology companies in the first half of 2015 were the highest for a half year period in the history of the learning technology industry and exceeds the total amount for the entire year of 2014. In the six month period between January and June 2015, $2.51 billion was invested in learning technology companies across the globe. This is astonishing considering that the total global investments made to learning technology companies for the entire year of 2014 was $2.42 billion, which set a record in the industry.
Given the pace of technological change and the strong forces to innovate from the global market place, the need to invest in human capital continues to increase as does the requirement for high return on investment (ROI) in training. One of the obstacles of measuring the ROI of training is that many of the benefits of training may not be immediately visible for measurement and it may be impossible to allocate the improvements exhibited by the firm to a particular training event. The lack of longitudinal studies to measure the ROI of training, particularly with respect to supporting the use of technology and intensity of innovation, is an area that will be addressed in this study.
The pace of innovation and technological change in the global market place make it imperative that companies constantly look at improving the skills of their workforce (Bresnahan, Brynjolsson and Hitt, 1999). The investment in human capital through the use of relevant and targeted training is critical in order to keep a business competitive (Rabemananjara and Parsley, 2006). One of the key components to an organization’s competitive advantage is the development of knowledge workers and increasing the value of their human capital.
Trust is indispensable for social and economic relations; it is the glue that holds organisations together and appears to work somehow mysteriously. Overall, trust is a ubiquitous ingredient in policymaking and implementation across many governance systems including education, whether it concerns accountability mechanisms, capacity building or strategic thinking. Yet our understanding, conceptualisation and measurement of these issues remain limited. This working paper asks the question: what is trust and how does it matter for governance, especially in education systems? It explores why trust is key for policymaking and where it fits within current governance issues. The paper examines different definitions of trust, presents various ways of measuring trust and discusses some of their benefits and limitations. It proposes a definition of trust made up of three parts: trust as an expectation, a willingness to be vulnerable and a risk-taking act. The paper then presents a simple model of trust and governance and reviews the relationship between trust and different elements in education systems, such as complexity, asymmetries in information and power, collaboration/cooperation, monitoring and accountability, and professionalisation. It concludes with some policy findings and identifies several research gaps.