Author: IBL News

Georgia State University Study Showed that Chatbots Helped Students

IBL News | New York

Are AI-powered chatbots really effective in higher ed?

If configured correctly, they are. That’s what a recent study from Georgia State University on one of its community colleges — Perimeter College — suggests.

The research, conducted in partnership with the company Mainstay during the 2020-21 academic year, found that 11,000 students attending the mentioned community college receiving targeted, personalized text messages from a virtual assistant were more likely to complete tasks.

Students received text messages, with emojis, on their phones about deadlines in schedules, outstanding balances, applications for financial aid, and other topics. The chatbot responded to questions from students on these issues, drawing on built-in answers to FAQs.

In addition to course requirements, deadlines, and campus resources, the chatbot customized feedback on their progress and provided practice quizzes, coaching, and encouragement. Students in the program received two to three messages per week from the chatbot.

The study also found that virtual assistant reminders, including nudges, successfully encouraged students to seek help to resolve problems that could hinder their enrollment.

“Our recent RCT (randomized controlled trial) demonstrates a significant increase in the completion of important tasks related to college persistence when students received timely support from empathetic chatbots,” said Mainstay. “These outcomes confirm the objective impact of timely, relevant, and non-judgmental support in the lives of students.”

“If used sparingly and strategically, the chatbot can cut through the communication clutter,” said Timothy Renick, a manager at Georgia State, in a report at Inside Higher Ed.

Another company, edsights.io, said that its AI texting, SMS, and two-way communication chatbot applied at four SUNY institutions — Genesee Community College, Finger Lakes Community College, and Clinton Community College — boosted engagement and success among struggling students.

“It enabled early interventions for at-risk students, gauged student satisfaction, and provided insights into student wellness and financial insecurity,” said the company in a case study.

June 13, 2022

MIT, Cambridge, and Stanford Are the World’s Best Universities, According to the QS Ranking

IBL News | New York

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the world’s best university, followed by the University of Cambridge, Stanford University, Oxford, and Harvard.

This classification is according to the QS World University Ranking 2023, which features 1418 institutions worldwide, and was released this week.

London-based analyst QS Quacquarelli Symonds highlights in its 2023 ranking that the University of Oxford has dropped two places while Cambridge gained one. In addition, 49 of 90 UK institutions declined.

MIT celebrates eleven years as the world’s best university.

In the US, 103 out of 201 ranked universities fell and 29 rose, being 29 new entrants.

China, the third most-represented higher education system, with 71 universities, is home to two world’s top 15 universities for the first time ever: Peking University (12^th) and Tsinghua University (14^th).

Asia‘s top university is the National University of Singapore (11^th).

ETH Zurich has remained continental Europe’s best university for fifteen consecutive years.

France‘s merged universities ascend in the table, with Université PSL (26^th) breaking into the top-30.

Universidad de Buenos Aires (67^th) is confirmed Latin America’s best. Hampered by low research impact scores, more of the continent’s universities are falling than rising.

Arab Region’s top university – King Abdulaziz University, 106^th – reaches a record high.

Africa‘s leader is the University of Cape Town (237^th). Only five of the continent’s universities are among the top-500.
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QS World University Rankings 2023: Top 20
2023	2022
1	1	MIT	US
2	3=	University of Cambridge	UK
3	3=	Stanford University	US
4	2	University of Oxford	UK
5	5	Harvard University	US
6=	6	Caltech	US
6=	7	Imperial College London	UK
8	8=	UCL	UK
9	8=	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
10	10	University of Chicago	US
11	11	National University of Singapore	Singapore
12	18	Peking University	China
13	13	University of Pennsylvania	US
14	17	Tsinghua University	China
15	16	The University of Edinburgh	UK
16=	14=	EPFL	Switzerland
16=	20	Princeton University	US
18	14=	Yale University	US
19	12	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
20	21	Cornell University	US

June 11, 2022

McGraw Hill Says that Its Annual Digital Billings Exceed $1 Billion

IBL News | New York

Global education company McGraw Hill reported this week $1.8 billion in billings, up 13% for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, noting that its business transformation is working.

“This billings growth drove significant profit improvement and margin expansion for the fiscal year,” said the 130 years-old Columbus, Ohio-based firm.

Digital billings, which accounted for 58% of total billings in the fiscal year of 2022, have grown by a compound annual growth rate of 8%, according to the company. This increase came after an investment of $200 million per year in digital content and products and the acquisition of Achieve3000 in November.

The two most notorious, McGraw Hill Connect and ALEKS, each experienced activations and unique users of six million.

Simon Allen, McGraw Hill CEO, stated the following: “The demand for curated digital content and intuitive platforms has significantly transformed the way we think about our business and strengthened our ability to serve students now and in the future. As we seek to close the learning gap caused by the pandemic, we remain focused on supporting personalized learning experiences at scale and creating affordable and accessible products that improve learning outcomes.”

June 10, 2022
Harvard University’s President Will Step Down in June 2023

IBL News | New York

Lawrence S. Bacow announced yesterday that he will step down as Harvard University’s president in June 2023.

During his tenure, Bacow, a lifelong academic, fought a COVID infection himself, steered the institution through the pandemic, and dealt with an attack on its admission policies, one that will face a Supreme Court test later this year.

This spring, Harvard University committed $100 million to make amends for its historical ties to slavery. “Enslaved people worked on our campus supporting our students, faculty, and staff, including several Harvard presidents,” he wrote.

“There is never a good time to leave a job like this one, but now seems right to me,” he said in a statement. “Adele [his wife] and I are looking forward to spending more time with my children and grandchildren.”

His five-year tenure as Harvard president is brief compared to that of his predecessor, Drew Gilpin Faust, who served 12 years.

Bacow spent over fifty years studying, teaching at, and presiding over three major universities in the Boston area, including seven previous years as a member of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing organization.

Before being appointed Harvard’s president, Bacow spent ten years as president of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and 24 years as a faculty member and administrator at MIT.

Son of immigrants who escaped Nazi persecution, he attended college at MIT and then earned three degrees from Harvard, including a Ph.D. in public policy.

• The news on The Harvard Gazette

June 9, 2022
“Arming Our Teachers It’s Just Ludicrous,” Says Education Secretary Cardona

IBL News | New York

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said yesterday in a hearing on Capitol Hill that those calling for arming teachers in schools are showing a lack of respect for the profession.

“I think it’s a further reflection of the lack of respect that this profession has, and I would stand against that,” he stated.

In response to a question from Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, during the Senate Appropriations Committee, Cardona stated: “To think that arming our teachers and now having them be responsible for discharging a firearm in our schools, it’s just ludicrous to think about.”

This comment comes after 19 children and two adults were killed in a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school last month. The attack was one of several shootings recently, including one in Buffalo, Tulsa, and Philadelphia.

Some Republicans are calling for school security enhancements by arming teachers and administrators.

June 8, 2022
The University of Phoenix President Resigned Amid an Inquiry

IBL News | New York

George Burnett resigned as President of the University of Phoenix after the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation on his prior job management at another for-profit institution, Westwood College. USA Today broke the news last week.

Westwood College, a for-profit college that closed in 2016, faced tension with regulators over deceptive advertising among other concerns. The U.S. Department of Education has already canceled $130 million in student loan debt in connection to claims from students who attended Westwood in Westminster, Colorado.

“He has stepped down as president and board member of the university, effective June 1, 2022,” confirmed a Phoenix spokeswoman, Andrea Smiley. “Because Mr. Burnett believes this request could take some time to address, and not wanting to distract from the university’s mission of providing career-relevant higher education to working adults,” she added.

George Burnett was appointed head of the University of Phoenix in February 2022.

The department requests included questions about how long Burnett worked at the college and its parent company, Alta Colleges, and his role in the school’s advertisements, recruitment strategies, and job placement reports.

Chris Lynne, the university’s chief financial officer, will serve as interim president.

The University of Phoenix is one of the nation’s largest for-profit providers of online college education. It has 75,000 students, and it received about $930 million in federal money meant for student financial aid in the fiscal year 2020-2021.

June 7, 2022
Cornerstone Completed Its Acquisition of the EdCast LXP Platform

IBL News | New York

Clearlake Capital VC-backed Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. announced that it completed the acquisition of EdCast in May.

The former CEO of EdCast, Karl Mehta, was appointed to lead the new EdCast business unit within Cornerstone.

Another consequence of the integration is that now, Cornerstone is offering the EdCast platform to its customers through the website. On AWS Marketplace the brand integration is still pending and only EdCast features its platform.

The EO Santa Monica, California-based Cornerstone, Himanshu Palsule, said that “combined with the EdCast team, the company is fast-tracking our commitment to platform-agnostic innovation.”

The company said that “it will roadmap a single-user experience for customers across people growth and development, providing tighter data connectivity, deepened skills intelligence, and a single pane of insight and analytics across the entire Cornerstone portfolio.”

Organizations will be able to bring their own external LMS, content, performance, recruiting, and HRIS solutions.

June 6, 2022
Harvard University Endowment Saw a Decline of 43% in Its Stock Portfolio in 2022

IBL News | New York

The Harvard Management Company (HMC), which holds Harvard University’s $53.2 billion endowment, tripled its shares portfolio of Meta — formerly known as Facebook —, despite its stock price declining by more than 43% in the first quarter of 2022.

Only three of the 44 companies in HMC’s public portfolio saw their stock price rise during the first quarter of 2022, according to its latest disclosure required by the SEC for large assets management firms. The overall losses came as the market suffered a significant decline in 2022.

The Harvard Crimson reported recently about all of this.

Nearly all of HMC’s direct public investment lies in the technology, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical sectors.

During the first quarter, HMC invested in Vigil Neuroscience — which develops treatments for neurodegenerative diseases — and Pardes Biosciences — which develops antiviral treatments for Covid-19. The fund liquidated its position of $138 million on Royalty Pharma, a company that helps fund clinical trials for novel drug treatments.

The company’s investments in Meta and Alphabet accounted for half of HMC’s $990 million public securities portfolio on March 31, 2022.

Around 34% of endowment’s assets lie in private equity, while 33% are in hedge funds.

HMC doesn’t invest in any ETF holdings, which were all liquidated in the last quarter of 2021.

June 4, 2022
The Biden-Harris Administration Will Forgive $5.8B in Federal Loans to Students of Corinthian Colleges

IBL News | New York

The Biden administration said this week that it will forgive all of the loans held by 560,000 students who attended the defunct Corinthian Colleges, one of the nation’s largest for-profit college chains, before it collapsed in 2015 after it was found guilty of defrauding students.

This debt amounts to $5.8 billion and is the largest single debt cancellation ever by the Federal Government. This Corinthian College discharge is twenty times larger than the Marinello Schools of Beauty, a predatory for-profit organization that deceived 28,000 students.

“For far too long, Corinthian engaged in the wholesale financial exploitation of students, misleading them into taking on more and more debt to pay for promises they would never keep,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Corinthian Colleges mislead students about job placement prospects after graduation.

Vice President Kamala Harris announced the group discharge yesterday.

In 2013, Kamala Harris, at the time California’s Attorney General, sued Corinthian for using fraudulent advertising and other predatory practices.

At its peak, Corinthian had more than 110,000 at 100 campuses across the country.

In 2015, the Education Department joined the investigation and fined the organization $30 million. This event made Corinthian sink into bankruptcy, closing its 28 campuses with 16,000 students.

Later, over 1,000 students went on strike, refusing to pay back their student loans.

Today, the Biden administration will automatically forgive students’ debts. Borrowers will even be refunded on past payments if they still have an outstanding balance. However, borrowers who have fully paid off their loans will not be refunded.

Borrowers and their advocates celebrated the Corinthian decision as a watershed moment.

However, former Education Secretary Bill Bennett called the debt forgiveness “regressive” and a “mistake.” “Now, Corinthian Colleges were a scam, and they were putting a scam on a lot of students. They deserve some punishment and some accountability, but that does not mean the taxpayers have to pay for that, which is what we are doing here,” he added.

June 3, 2022
The Metaverse Virtual-Reality Technology Might Contribute $3 Trillion to GDP

IBL News | New York

While Facebook is doubling down on the Metaverse by rebranding itself as META — and even changing its ticket symbol on Nasdaq, new reports predict that this virtual-reality world will experience an astonishing growth.

According to a recent white paper from Analysis Group, in partnership with Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) says that Metaverse can contribute $3 trillion to global GDP by 2031. It would mean a 2.8% contribution to the economy.

Besides Meta (Facebook), other publicly traded companies, such as NFT Technologies Inc. (NEO: NFT), Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA), Funko, Inc. (NASDAQ: FNKO), and Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company (NASDAQ: HOFV) are working to build experiences and games for the Metaverse.

“This virtual-reality world has the ability to transform education, health care, manufacturing, job training, communications, entertainment, and retail,” says the report.

“One way to think about the Metaverse is as a set of interconnected digital spaces, including immersive XR experiences that combine the digital and physical worlds, in which individuals can easily move between different spaces and experiences as well as interact and collaborate with other people who are not in the same physical space.”

However, Metaverse will need mass adoption, and that’d mean broader take-up of VR headsets, AR glasses, and other technologies.

“As with the Internet and other technologies, the form and shape of the Metaverse will materialize slowly at first, and only after a critical mass of adoption is achieved, will its full potential begin to take more concrete shape.”

Anyway, the pathway to the Metaverse of Facebook won’t be easy. Yesterday, the stock fell 2.8% following the news that COO Sheryl Sandberg was stepping down from her long-time position. Sandberg helped guide Facebook from its early days starting in 2008.

June 1, 2022