To confront today’s financial challenges, every college and university needs to create more operational efficiency. Some of these efficiencies start in the business office. For instance, key aspects of higher education financial management are paper-intensive and outdated —a stark contrast to the first-class technology used in campus classrooms. A primary target for business officers should […]
The setting was big, the company was good and the technology talk was buzzing at this year's UBTech Conference, held June 16 to 18 at The Mirage Las Vegas. And based on the feedback from our 1,273 attendees, the "Technology Changes Everything" tagline will be put into practice as administrators and educators from the more […]
Textbook publishing has long been seen as an impenetrable business, with five major players controlling most of the nearly $14 billion industry. But in recent years, the shift to digital and open-access content has led to a proliferation of free and low-cost alternatives. Meanwhile, spiraling costs, massive student debt, changing consumer demands and public as […]
Georgetown University officials had a bit of an epiphany recently about the impact of their noncredit courses. While the offerings had been around since the 1990s, administrators hadn’t realized the big benefits they could bring to the institution. “What started as fairly standard, adult-education, personal-interest type of courses has evolved into a major part of […]
Four major university systems will share online courses, analytics and learning-management software through a cloud-based digital education platform called Unizin, portions of which launched in July. Developed by Indiana University, Colorado State University, the University of Florida and the University of Michigan, Unizin will house everything from homework videos to flipped classroom content to distance […]
Rather than dealing with the intensive labor involved in sending and receiving paper transcripts—and frustration from students and graduates accustomed to automation—most colleges and universities have implemented electronic transcript capabilities. The process allows administrators to capture lots of valuable electronic data, but the majority of schools are not utilizing that information beyond sending or receiving […]
“Copyright is broken,” said Kevin Smith, scholarly communications officer at Duke University, to open his UBTech featured session on intellectual property. Smith, who is an attorney and a librarian, noted that in recent years technological innovation has put a severe strain on our copyright law, which dates from 1976. The law is supposedly technology-neutral, but […]
With apps now a fixture on the vast majority of campuses, colleges and universities are no longer debating whether to develop their own mobile platforms. Instead, they are creating the next generation of apps for students who turn to their smartphones for everything from checking their grades to checking their laundry. As of last fall, […]
Five years after the Great Recession's official end, higher ed endowments and fundraising are finally recovering, but there is no rising financial tide that's lifting all boats—especially smaller ones that depend heavily on tuition. Instead, a new "economic normal" is being keenly felt at smaller, tuition-driven universities and colleges, forcing campus leaders to diversify their […]
Faculty and students at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania have been using Mediasite technology for six years to record lectures for flipped instruction, classroom projects and special guests. The events are recorded and automatically fed into a video management and creation platform, My Mediasite. Some classrooms are equipped with multiple cameras to capture a fully immersive, […]
