A big question for MOOCs, the free online courses that hundreds of colleges now offer, is whether employers will take them seriously as credentials. But some of the biggest MOOC producers may have figured out how to jump-start employer buy-in: Get big-name companies to help design them. On Wednesday, Coursera, one of the largest MOOC […] … learn more→

The last two days of the writing course. Most of the participants now have something that looks like a paper. They’ve got all of the relevant sections even if these are not all totally finished. Some sections may have pieces of holding text – like (add more data here) or (find more references) or (is […] … learn more→

More than a week after becoming football legend, the Super Bowl’s last-minute interception continues to prompt second guessing: did Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll make a bad call when he ordered Russell Wilson throw the ball? Did the quarterback pass poorly? Or are we focusing on the wrong things altogether? First, let’s look at the […] … learn more→

The massive corruption of higher education isn’t restricted to college sportsball, but, thanks to the spirit of competition, what goes on there is more publicized. It’s no grand conspiracy that sports scandals get more press, just how things work. Cheating teams make the news because the losing side complains immediately after the loss. On the […] … learn more→

Their mottos might suggest to uninitiated visitors from abroad that Latin is still the lingua franca of our universities. Lux with its implication of enlightenment, along with truth (veritas), and knowledge (scientia) are among the favored terms, from Harvard’s veritas by way of Yale’s lux et veritas to Berkeley’s fiat lux and Michigan’s artes, scientia, […] … learn more→

I am a new PhD student, and have been reading and conversing with current and past PhD students and have come to the sad conclusion that there are more cons to doing a PhD than there are pros. The cons include the fact that a PhD can: take over your life stop you from having […] … learn more→

Institutions of higher education are increasingly using online courses and fully-online programs as tools to increase enrollment. There are many issues surrounding the subject of online education as an enrollment strategy. For instance, attrition rates are higher in online courses and online programs than in the face-to-face environment (Carr, 2000; Moody, 2004). It has been […] … learn more→

It’s always as well to know what can go wrong when writing a journal article. And there are multiple areas in any paper to think about. Just because there seem to be fewer conventions for the Results/Discussion section doesn’t mean that there aren’t some common difficulties… Here’s some that often get in the way of […] … learn more→

January is the cruelest month for job seekers in the humanities. Graduate students and recent Ph.D.’s gird their faith, pack their CVs, and journey to their annual conventions, which combine a high-powered conference with a high-intensity job fair. These pilgrim Ph.D.’s are everywhere visible, marked by sharp haircuts, sharply creased clothing, and worried looks. The […] … learn more→