Thursday, May 31, 2012

2012 - Top 10 issues for IT leaders in Higher Education

Top 10 IT issues 2012 - Educause survey.

  1. Updating IT professionals' skills and roles to accommodate emerging technologies and changing IT management and service delivery models
  2. Supporting the trends toward IT consumerization and bring-your-own device
  3. Developing an institution-wide cloud strategy
  4. Improving the institution's operational efficiency through information technology
  5. Integrating information technology into institutional decision-making
  6. Using analytics to support critical institutional outcomes
  7. Funding information technology strategically
  8. Transforming the institution's business with information technology
  9. Supporting the research mission through high-performance computing, large data, and analytics
  10. Establishing and implementing IT governance throughout the institution

Friday, May 25, 2012

How's your life?

Check out the newly released interactive OECD Better Life Index. You can also create your own better life index and have it compared to the average index. The index compares well-being based on 11 topics - housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance - and integrates data on gender and inequality

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

New look for Google Scholar

Google Scholar has a new look, read all about the changes from the Google Scholar announcement.

To access the advanced search features, users must click on the arrow in the search box and can refine the search without leaving the result page.



Monday, May 7, 2012

Free online courses from Harvard and MIT

Harvard and MIT have teamed up to release edX an open source platform to deliver online courses worldwide.
The schools have committed to a combined $60 million ($30 million each) in institutional support, grants and philanthropy to launch the collaboration. Here is an excerpt of their FAQs.

Who can take edX courses? Will there be an admissions process?
EdX will be available to anyone in the world with an internet connection, and in general, there will not be an admissions process. For a modest fee, and as determined by the edX board, MIT and Harvard, credentials will be granted only to students who earn them by demonstrating mastery of the material of a subject.

Is there anything innovative about the online technology?
Yes. It will move beyond the standard model of online education that relies on watching video content and will offer an interactive experience for students. And the technology will be open source; other universities will be able to leverage the innovative technology to create their own online offerings.

edX press conference:


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