IBL News

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

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

    IBL News | New York

    Cornell University put its Ithaca campus into alert level red, moving all final exams to an online format yesterday. This measure followed the rapid spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 among its student population. Around 883 students tested positive in the week ending Monday.

    In addition to moving finals, President Martha E. Pollack announced that all university events and social were canceled, including the December 18 recognition ceremony and athletics competitions.

    Also, libraries, fitness centers, and gyms were closed to students. Other measures involved the shut down for visitors and guests.

    “It is obviously extremely dispiriting to have to take these steps,” Martha E. Pollack wrote in a letter to the community. “However, since the start of the pandemic, our commitment has been to follow the science and do all we can to protect the health of our faculty, staff, and students.”

    Other colleges have also taken measures recently to head off the spread of the virus on campus.

    Princeton, Cornell, and Middlebury College in Vermont shifted to remote exams, while others, such as Tulane, gave students the option of finishing the semester online.

    Princeton University canceled indoor gatherings and encouraged students who plan to travel home for the holiday break to leave campus as soon as possible. According to Princeton statistics, more than 50 students of 8,200 who attend the New Jersey Ivy League university tested positive for Covid-19 Monday and Tuesday.

    Princeton, which requires all students, faculty, and staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, is now also requiring all eligible students to receive a booster by January 31.

    DePaul University in Chicago and Southern New Hampshire University each said this month that they would switch to all remote instruction, at least for a time, when classes resume in January.

    The Omicron variant generally causes milder cases, particularly among vaccinated individuals.

    The Omicron variant now represents roughly 3% of Covid-19 cases in the country, according to the CDC.

    Early data shows existing booster vaccines provided sufficient protection against the Omicron variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said Wednesday.

     

  • EdTech Esme Learning Acquires a Firm Founded by a Former edX Executive

    EdTech Esme Learning Acquires a Firm Founded by a Former edX Executive

    IBL News | New York

    Boston-based Esme Learning announced last week its acquisition of Riff Analytics, an AI-enabled collaboration company.

    The combined entity claims that it will serve 1,500 organizations in 95 countries, including MIT, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and Imperial College Business School.

    Esme CEO David Shrier and Riff Analytics Co-Founder, now COO, and President of Esme Learning Solutions, Beth Porter, will lead the venture.

    Beth Porter developed her career at Pearson and as Head of Product at edX Inc, which developed the Open edX software used today by 55 million learners worldwide.

    “With the Riff Analytics acquisition, Esme Learning Solutions is ideally positioned to grow its footprint in the online Higher Education market, which has grown exponentially from US$100 billion in 2009 and is expected to reach over US$370 billion by 2026,” said David Shrier.

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

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

    IBL News | New York

    Moderna, Inc., (Nasdaq: MRNA) announced the launch of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academy in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

    With its AI Academy, the well-known biotechnology company intends to educate its employees on AI and machine learning capabilities and skills.

    This program will focus on data quality and data visualization, statistical thinking and models, machine learning algorithms, and AI ethics.

    Classes will be both in-personas and online. The AI Academy will use the CMU-home-developed learning platform called ISLE (Integrated Statistics Learning Environment).

    Moderna will launch the program this week with its first cohort of students. In early 2022, will be the full rollout.

    The company’s goal is to identify and integrate these technologies into “every Moderna system and process to bring mRNA medicines to patients.”

    The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biopharmaceutical firm — which is pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, “attributes its speed in part to the incorporation of digital technologies,” said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna.

    “We believe AI is a key enabler of our ability to build the best version of Moderna now and into the future. This AI academy will enable us to make AI part of the company’s ways of working, part of our DNA. We look forward to driving this with Carnegie Mellon’s team.”

    To design and deliver Moderna’s AI Academy, CMU’s Department of Statistics & Data Science, a part of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Tepper School of Business are collaborating with professors across the university.

     

  • Docebo and EdCast Announce an Integrated Learning Solution

    Docebo and EdCast Announce an Integrated Learning Solution

    IBL News | New York

    Two learning platforms, Docebo Inc (NASDAQ: DCBO; TSX: DCBO) and EdCast, announced a strategic integration partnership intended to create an AI-powered solution. No further financial and technical details were provided. Docebo’s SEC filings page didn’t reflect this partnership this week.

    “Our integration with EdCast’s XP creates one universal learning platform, combining the benefits of LXP and LMS into one system,” said Federica Melis, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Docebo.

    The declared goal of Toronto-based Docebo and Mountain View, California-based EdCast — which uses Open edX software in its tech stack — is to offer an end-to-end learning system with one place for centralized reporting for auditing compliance, and upskilling.

    “EdCast and Docebo are the leading platforms in our respective segments that, combined, form an end-to-end ecosystem for enhancing the employee experience via learning and upskilling,” explained Karl Mehta, CEO of EdCast.

     

  • The New Open edX Organization Sets a Technical Committee to Govern the Project

    The New Open edX Organization Sets a Technical Committee to Govern the Project

    IBL News | New York

    The Open edX project — which moved from U2’s edX to Massachusetts nonprofit corporation called Center for Reimagining Learning (tCRIL) — announced this month the creation of a Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) that will provide the overall technical governance and stewardship of the initiative.

    This committee will have nine members: three appointed by The Center for Reimagining Learning’s Board of Trustees, three by 2U Inc., and three representatives from the Open edX community.

    tCRIL and 2U have already appointed their members, but their names have not been disclosed yet.

    For the first time, the community will have direct input into project governance. “We will be moving to identify and select the community members of the TOC as quickly as practical,” said MIT and Havard University’s led nonprofit organization.

    Appointed members will serve a one-year term and won’t receive any compensation.

    The nonprofit “will follow the consensus-seeking decision-making model and will only resolve issues by a vote in cases where consensus cannot be reached,” said the document, which set the general rules and operations.

     

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

    SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras Resigns Over Text Messages to Cuomo Victim

    IBL News | New York

    Jim Malatras, the Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), submitted his resignation on Thursday following intense bipartisan political pressure for him to step down. His resignation will go into effect on January 14, 2022.

    In the last week, the controversy over his allegedly “toxic management style” loudly increased until provoking his fall.

    Jim Malatras, an old Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s ally, faced mounting criticism over text messages that showed him belittling one of the women who had accused the now-disgraced politician of sexual harassment. The New York State Attorney General’s Office’s release of text messages sent by him accelerated his decision to step down.

    In his resignation letter to the SUNY Board of Trustees, Malatras wrote: “The recent events surrounding me over the past week have become a distraction over the important work that needs to be accomplished as SUNY emerges from COVID-19.”

    “I believe deeply in an individual’s ability to evolve, change and grow, but I also believe deeply in SUNY and would never want to be an impediment to its success,” he added.

    Malatras’s tenure at SUNY was short. On August 21, 2020, the Board of Trustees selected him without a national search process, prompting a vote of no confidence from faculty members who criticized his little higher education experience and his close relationship with then New York governor Andrew Cuomo. He was the first SUNY graduate ever to become Chancellor — the 14th, in this case.

    In July, Malatras defended a New York State Department of Health report that effectively absolved the Cuomo administration from responsibility for the rise in COVID-19 deaths in New York nursing homes.

    He was also questioned by investigators in September about how many working hours he spent editing and fact-checking Cuomo’s personal memoir.

    In November 2021, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, released old text messages that showed Malatras mocking Lindsey Boylan, a former aide to Cuomo, after she tweeted about a toxic work environment in the governor’s office several years ago.

    “Let’s release some of her cray emails!” Malatras texted to a group of current and former Cuomo staffers after a colleague suggested Boylan was using drugs.

    Jim Malatras was an expert in the science of politics. He received his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and a doctorate in political science from the University at Albany and is the first SUNY alumnus to serve as Chancellor.

  • An Outage at AWS Causes Errors and Slow-Loading Pages at Canvas LMS

    An Outage at AWS Causes Errors and Slow-Loading Pages at Canvas LMS

    IBL News | New York

    The massive Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s outage that occurred on Tuesday, December 7, in the U.S. impacted Canvas LMS, among other companies, such as Netflix or Venmo. The users of Canvas LMS experienced errors and slow-loading pages.

    Instructure, the publicly-traded company behind Canvas LMS — which hosts over 30 million learners today —, admitted a “degraded performance.”

    “To those impacted, we hear you & know this is frustrating,” said the company. “We’ve appreciated your patience during this stressful time. We are seeing improvements as the day has progressed and hope to be fully restored soon.”

    Other products of Instructure, such as Portfolium and MasteryConnect, were also affected.

    Yesterday, Wednesday, Dec. 8th, Instructure reported via Twitter that “after being stable overnight, we’re back to all systems go this morning.”

    Many more EdTech companies, such as TopHat, Tableau, or Kaltura, were also impacted.

  • The Open edX Organization Prepares the Launch of Maple, the 13th Version of the Platform

    The Open edX Organization Prepares the Launch of Maple, the 13th Version of the Platform

    IBL News | New York

    The new non-profit entity of MIT and Harvard University stewarding the Open edX software — temporarily known as The Center for Reimagining Learning, Inc.— plans to release the latest version of the platform this week.

    The 13th Open edX version, named Maple, is scheduled for this December 9th, 2021.

    Developers are still working on the latest changes.

    After Maple, the upcoming versions — usually two per year — will be Nutmeg and Olive. Releases are named alphabetically with tree names.

    The first version was released in September 2014, with the name of Aspen.

    The history of the versions is here.

    The Open edX named releases — stable version of the platform codebase — are distinct from the daily deployments to edX.org — now under the control of 2U.

    The releases are tested both by the Open edX organization and the community.

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

    Wiley Continues Its Acquisition Strategy with the purchase of Knowledge Unlatched

    IBL News | New York

    Wiley announced this week the acquisition of online services for libraries start-up Knowledge Unlatched for an undisclosed amount. The acquired company specializes in online open access publishing.

    With this transaction, Hoboken, NJ-based, 200 years-old Wiley continues its acquisition strategy, specifically in the field of “innovative products and services that enable discovery, power education, and shape workforces,” as the company estates.

    Recent purchases included J&J Editorial, Hindawi, Madgex, and Atypon.

    “Wiley’s record as a leader in open access, combined with their extensive network of partners and customers, will accelerate Knowledge Unlatched’s growth and ability to innovate,” said Sven Fund, Managing Director at Knowledge Unlatched.

    Fund will continue to lead the business within Wiley’s Research organization.

    Currently, Wiley hosts a widely used research library from 1,900 journals. It views open access research as a key growth strategy.
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  • AWS Launches a Free Tool to Create Machine Learning Projects

    AWS Launches a Free Tool to Create Machine Learning Projects

    IBL News | New York

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced this week at its re:Invent conference a free service to instruct users on machine learning techniques and experiment with the technology.

    According to AWS, SageMaker Studio Lab provides students with all the basics to create data analytics, scientific computing, and machine learning projects with notebooks.

    In addition, it launched the AWS AI & ML Scholarship Program in collaboration with Intel and Udacity. The company is committing $10 million. Two thousand students will receive Udacity Nanodegree scholarships through this program every year, in addition to mentorship from Amazon and Intel employees.

    “Machine learning will be one of the most transformational technologies of this generation; we want to inspire and excite a diverse future workforce through this new scholarship program,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Amazon Machine Learning at AWS.

    The Amazon SageMaker Studio Lab is based on the open-source and extensible JupyterLab IDE. Compute of the models can be on CPU or GPU. A total of 15 GB of storage allows users to save the project and datasets in the cloud without starting from scratch every time.

    AWS Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the most adopted cloud platform, with millions of customers, and offers over 200 services from data centers globally.