“The report…shines a light on how leaders in government and in our colleges and universities are being enticed by snappy slogans and slick sales pitches into making decisions that benefit investors and corporations instead of the students we’re supposed to serve,” said Lillian Taiz, a professor of history at California State University, Los Angeles and a participant in a teleconference about the report. “We’re talking here about a critical public need, higher education — one that affects individuals and societies in far reaching ways. The long-term costs and damage can be huge. And that’s what we set out to do in this work — look behind this rhetoric.” The report draws a link between the drop in business and value for for-profit schools following a damning 2012 government investigation of the sector and the current surge in partnerships between public institutions and private operators… The conundrum for public institutions is that the cost for participating in MOOCs is “relatively high,” according to Trinity College President Patricia McGuire, “and the net returns unclear at best.” Yet, to avoid the wrath of a Moody downgrade, she suggested, universities “will repress more thoughtful consideration of the value of adopting MOOCs for any given institution — and will encourage further avoidance of faculty participation in the decision — in favor of rushing to embrace this unproven method ―because Moody’s said so.” Her conclusion: “Moody’s should stay out of academic decisions.”

Read full article [here].
by Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology.

Posted: October 9th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.