IBL News

Author: IBL News

  • Online Learning Newsletter | December 2021 – January 2022: Omicron, Harvard, Cornell, SUNY, Moderna, Wiley, Shopify…

    Online Learning Newsletter | December 2021 – January 2022: Omicron, Harvard, Cornell, SUNY, Moderna, Wiley, Shopify…

    [ Newsletter format  |  Click here to subscribe ]

     

    JANUARY 2022 – NEWSLETTER #48  |  Breaking news at IBL News  |  Noticias en Español

     

    Covid-19 Omicron

    • Colleges Start to Move Classes to Distance Learning Due to the Fast Spread of Omicron

    • Harvard Will Not Require SAT or ACT Test Scores Due to the COVID-19 Outbreak

    • Cornell and Princeton Move Final Exams Online After the Rapid Spread of the Omicron Variant

     

    Universities

    • SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras Resigns Over Text Messages to Cuomo Victim

    • Georgetown University Launches a New Master’s in Strategic Digital Transformation

    • Colleges and Universities Face a Surge in Mental Health Cases Among Students

     

    Trends

    • Falling Stocks Reduced Valuations by Between 30% and 60% on Cloud Software Start-Ups

    • 8 in 10 College Students Experience Significant Stress or Anxiety

    • AI and Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, and 5G Will Dominate in 2022

     

    Corporate Learning

    • Moderna Will Train Its Employees in AI, In Partnership With Carnegie Mellon University

    • The U.S. Air Force Partners with Udacity to Develop Programs on Data Science, Cloud, Programming, and UX

    • AWS Launches a Free Tool to Create Machine Learning Projects

     

    Industry

    • Wiley Continues Its Acquisition Strategy with the purchase of Knowledge Unlatched

    • Five Major Publishers Sue Shopify for Allowing Textbook Vendors to Commit Piracy

     

    2022 Events | All of the Key Conferences Listed!

    • Education Calendar  – 2022 |  Conferences in Latin America & Spain

     

     

    This newsletter was created in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company specializing in AI-driven learning platforms. We also film and produce courses for universities and business organizations. Read the latest IBL Newsletter   |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters

     

     

  • 8 in 10 College Students Experience Significant Stress or Anxiety

    8 in 10 College Students Experience Significant Stress or Anxiety

    IBL News | New York

    An 83% of students (8 in 10) reported experiencing feelings of significant stress or anxiety since the fall 2021 semester started, according to a survey on students’ mental health conducted by Barnes & Noble Education.

    When asked if their college or university provided resources for mental health/student well-being, nearly 70 percent of students indicated that their campus did provide resources, and just over half of those students (54%) said they felt those resources would be helpful to them.

    The Barnes & Noble College Student Mental Health Pulse Research surveyed 1,116 college students aged 18-24 years old across the U.S.

    Another research from Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. (NYSE: BNED) found that students want the removal of the stigma attached to mental health services. The survey found that 42% of students were comfortable discussing their mental health with friends and family, but almost half of the students (45%) said they were not.

    In October, the Biden administration rolled out a nationwide plan to address student mental health.

    In addition, the Barnes & Noble survey found that 75% of students who are attending in-person or hybrid classes feel happy now that they are back on campus and participating in in-person learning and on-campus activities. 73% of students said that being on-campus in-person helped them feel a sense of community.
    .

  • Three 2U Executives Will Be Part of the Technical Committee of Open edX

    Three 2U Executives Will Be Part of the Technical Committee of Open edX

    IBL News | New York

    The Center for Reimagining Learning, Inc — formerly edX Inc — announced the formation of the Open edX Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) this week.

    2U, Inc. and The Center for Reimagining Learning appointed six members:

    • Anant Agarwal, Chief Open Education Officer at 2U, Inc.
    • Luyen Chou, Chief Learning Officer at 2U, Inc.
    • George Babey, Director of Engineering at 2U, Inc.
    • Sanjay Sarma, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and Vice President of Open Learning at MIT
    • Dustin Tingley, Professor of Government in the Government Department at Harvard University and Deputy Vice Provost for Advances in Learning
    • Ed Zarecor, Vice President of Engineering for the Open edX project at The Center for Reimagining Learning

    Now, these six initial members [in the picture above] will select three members from the broad Open edX community. This selection will focus on reflecting the diversity of the Open edX community, according to the TOC.

    The inaugural meeting of this committee took place on December 10th.
    .

     

  • Skillsoft Pays $525 Million for SaaS Learning Platform Codecademy

    Skillsoft Pays $525 Million for SaaS Learning Platform Codecademy

    IBL News | New York

    Skillsoft (NYSE: SKIL) announced the acquisition of the learning platform Codecademy for $525 million in cash and stock yesterday. Earlier this year, Skillsoft acquired Global Knowledge and Pluma.

    By adding Codecademy’s clients and 40 million learners, Boston-headquartered Skillsoft will host 46 million users and over 12,000 corporate customers, according to its data. The Codecademy team — mostly based in New York, where the company was founded in 2011 — will join Skillsoft.

    Codecademy, an entirely SaaS business, is expected to deliver gross margins of more than 85% in 2021, with projected revenue of $42 million for 2021, up 31%, over the prior year, according to the company. In addition, the company is expected to generate a negative EBITDA of approximately $20 million in 2021.

    “Codecademy will significantly expand Skillsoft’s capabilities in the high-growth Tech & Dev segment,” said Jeffrey R. Tarr, Chief Executive Officer of Skillsoft. “Strategic acquisitions are an important part of our growth strategy.”

    “Together with Codecademy’s interactive, self-paced courses and hands-on learning, Skillsoft will be able to deliver even more immersive experiences through its AI-driven platform, Percipio,” said the company.

    Codecademy’s customers expressed their concern about the future of the platform.

  • Colleges and Universities Face a Surge in Mental Health Cases Among Students

    Colleges and Universities Face a Surge in Mental Health Cases Among Students

    IBL News | New York

    The new outbreak of the Omicron variant will likely prompt a surge in mental health cases among college students.

    Due to remote schooling, restricted gatherings, and constant testing, many students are anxious, socially isolated, and depressed, overwhelming mental health centers. Some even experience suicidal thoughts.

    The New York Times ran an article on this topic yesterday, indicating that the Omicron variant threatens to make life on campus worse.

    The list of schools going remote is growing. It now includes Harvard University, Stanford, DePaul University, Penn State, The University of California, Los Angeles, seven institutes in the University of California System — Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Riverside — and others.

    According to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State, “loneliness or isolation, along with loss of motivation or focus, are among the top concerns of college students who have sought counseling during the pandemic.”

    “Somebody said if we’re not careful, we’re going to trade one epidemic for another, and in many ways, I think we are,” stated Eli Capilouto, president of the University of Kentucky.

    “The rate of depression, anxiety, and serious thoughts of suicide has doubled among college students over the past decade,” said in The Times Daniel Eisenberg, a professor at UCLA and a principal investigator of the Healthy Minds Study, an annual survey of thousands of students across the country.

    “The pandemic has intensified those trends. Students reported lower levels of psychological well-being during the pandemic than before, according to a survey by the Healthy Minds Network and the American College Health Association. On the plus side, they reported higher levels of resiliency.”

     

  • Colleges Start to Move Classes to Distance Learning Due to the Fast Spread of Omicron

    Colleges Start to Move Classes to Distance Learning Due to the Fast Spread of Omicron

    IBL News | New York

    With the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus on the rise American colleges and universities are starting to take measures, that will impact the spring 2022 semester.

    The concern is that even vaccinated individuals contract the virus, disrupting institutions’ plans.

    Schools are closely monitoring the situation before alerting students to any changes. The input received from public health experts will mostly determine their course of action.

    Beyond this wait-and-see behavior, some institutions have made public announcements:

    • Harvard University already announced a transition to fully online learning to start in 2022. At least the first three weeks of classes will turn into remote learning.
    • Stanford University reported that it will start the winter quarter online, from January 3 until January 18.
    • DePaul University canceled on-campus classes until after January 17.
    • Penn State will begin the semester in person as planned. However, the school might alter plans. An update is expected in December. 30.
    • The University of California, Los Angeles, said it has yet to decide about returning to campus in January. Before December 25, the university will share more information with students.
    • Seven universities of California campuses — Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Riverside — announced that they will start instruction online in January.
    • Cornell, Princeton, Tufts, Towson University, and other schools are shifting final exams to online. Athletics and sports events are being called off in an increasing number of institutions.

     

  • MIT Press Makes Its Spring 2022 Monograph List Openly Available

    MIT Press Makes Its Spring 2022 Monograph List Openly Available

    IBL News | New York

    MIT Press, one of the largest university presses, announced that it will publish its full list of spring 2022 monographs and edited collections on an open-access model through June 30, 2022.

    The list includes titles from across the arts, humanities, and sciences, such as Treacherous Play by Marcus Carter, From Big Oil to Big Green: Holding the Oil Industry to Account for the Climate Crisis by Marco Grasso, Power of Position: Classification and the Biodiversity Sciences by Robert D. Montoya, and Cognitive Robotics edited by Angelo Cangelosi and Minoru Asada.

    “The goal is to be of use to as many readers as possible—across the world, rich or poor,” said Georg F. Striedter, Professor, Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, and MIT Press author.

    “I am thrilled that the MIT Press and a consortium of libraries are making it possible for the electronic version of my forthcoming book to be open access. I believe this is the future of academic book publishing, or at least it’s bleeding edge.”

    The move came after MIT Press reached the 50% threshold for participation in its Direct to Open (D2O) initiative.

    D2O moves professional and scholarly books from a solely market-based purchase model, where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model.

    Instead of purchasing a title once for a single collection, libraries now have the opportunity to fund them one time for the world through participant fees.

    Over 160 libraries and consortia support the D2O initiative, including Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; Bryn Mawr College Libraries; Caltech Library; Carnegie Mellon University Libraries; The Claremont Colleges; Emory Libraries; George Mason University; Gettysburg College Library; Grand Valley State University; Johns Hopkins University Libraries; KU Leuven; Loyola Notre Dame Library; Loyola University Chicago; Michigan State University Libraries; MIT Libraries; NYU Libraries; Rockefeller University; Southern Methodist University; Texas A&M University-San Antonio University Library; University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign Library; University of Iowa Libraries; University of Maryland Libraries; University of Massachusetts Boston; Healey Library, University of Michigan Libraries; University of Redlands; Armacost Library; the University of Tennessee at Martin; University of Toronto Libraries; University of Washington Libraries; and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
    .

  • Harvard Will Not Require SAT or ACT Test Scores Due to the COVID-19 Outbreak

    Harvard Will Not Require SAT or ACT Test Scores Due to the COVID-19 Outbreak

    IBL News | New York

    Harvard College — the undergraduate college of Harvard University — will allow students to apply for admission without requiring SAT or ACT scores for upcoming classes of ’27, ’28, ’29, and ’30, according to a report on The Harvard Gazette.

    The current admission for the Class of 2026 is the second for which students have applied without requiring standardized testing.

    Harvard is making this decision due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, causing many students to have limited access to testing sites.

    “Students who do not submit standardized test scores will not be disadvantaged in their application process,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid.

    Accomplishments in and out of the classroom during the high school year, including extracurricular activities, community involvement, employment, and family responsibilities, are still being considered as part of the admission process.

    In this regard, Harvard College announced this week that it accepted 740 students to the Class of 2026 from a pool of 9,406 who applied under the early action program. Last year, 743 students were selected from the 10,087 who submitted applications.

    African Americans constitute 13.9 percent of those admitted (16.6 percent last year), Asian Americans 25.9 percent (23.4 percent last year), Latinx 10.5 percent (10.4 percent last year), and Native Americans and Native Hawaiians 3.7 percent (1.3 percent last year). International citizens comprise 12.6 percent of the admitted students this year, compared with 12.2 percent last year.
    .

     

  • Course Hero Achieves a Valuation of $3.6 Billion After Raising $380 Million

    Course Hero Achieves a Valuation of $3.6 Billion After Raising $380 Million

    IBL News | New York

    Course Hero Inc announced yesterday it raised $380 million in Series C funding achieving a valuation of $3.6 billion.

    The round was led by Wellington Management with participation from new investors Sequoia Capital Global Equities, OMERS Growth Equity, and D1 Capital Partners, and includes existing investors such as GSV Ventures, NewView Capital, SuRo Capital, TPG, and Valiant Peregrine Fund.

    “With these funds, the company plans to accelerate its goal of building a rich and dynamic learning ecosystem to meet the evolving range of study needs for today’s learners,” said Andrew Grauer, CEO and Co-Founder of Course Hero.

    The U.S. education market is estimated to grow to $2 trillion by 2025 and $10 trillion internationally by 2030.

    “We believe online learning platforms will continue to play an essential role in supplementing the student learning and educator teaching experience in today’s learning economy,” said Aneesh Venkat, Partner at Sequoia Capital Global Equities.

    Founded in 2006, the Redwood City, California-based company plans to grow from 2 million to 50 million annual subscribers by 2030. It will also expand to new verticals.

    Over the past year, Course Hero Inc. expanded its portfolio of companies through a series of acquisitions, such as:

    • CliffsNotes, the creator of iconic study guides used by high school and college students for more than 60 years
    • LitCharts, the creator of literature resources used by more than 50 million students and teachers to develop and support a better understanding of literary texts
    • QuillBot, an AI-powered writing platform used by 12 million people every month to check for grammar, make citations, and improve their writing skills
    • Symbolab, the creator of an AI-based mathematics solver
      .

     

  • Falling Stocks Reduced Valuations by Between 30% and 60% on Cloud Software Start-Ups

    Falling Stocks Reduced Valuations by Between 30% and 60% on Cloud Software Start-Ups

    IBL News | New York

    Falling stocks are provoking a huge correction — over 10% — in the value of SaaS companies, many of them in the EdTech area. Instructure/Canvas LMS and Duolingo are notorious examples of this crash.

    “Since 2016, public software has witnessed four corrections, and today we’re in the midst of the fifth,” said Tomasz Tunguz, Venture Capitalist at Redpoint.

    These corrections have reduced valuations by between 30% and 60%. However, cloud companies’ fast growth has pushed valuations higher since 2014.

    The 75th percentile multiple has appreciated 25% annually since 2016, and the median has increased by approximately 20%.

    “These undulations are short-lived; the market recorded new highs often within four to six quarters after the nadir,” he wrote.

    Some analysts like Jim Cramer are forecasting a rebound.
    .