IBL News

Author: IBL News

  • Online Learning | April 2021: Universities Mandating Vaccination, Soros, Unizin, IBM, Bank of America, Lego…

    Online Learning | April 2021: Universities Mandating Vaccination, Soros, Unizin, IBM, Bank of America, Lego…

    [ Newsletter format  |  Click here to subscribe ]

    APRIL 2021 –  NEWSLETTER #42  |  Breaking news at IBL News  |  Noticias en Español

     

    Universities and Vaccination

    • A University in Virginia Requires Full Vaccination to Its Staff by May 31

    • Duke and Boston Universities Will Mandate Vaccination this Fall Amid Students’ Consent

    • Notre Dame, First Christian University to Require Mandatory Vaccination for All Students

    • Cornell and Several More Universities Will Require Students to Be Vaccinated

    • Rutgers University Will Require All Students to Be Vaccinated for the Fall Semester

     

    Higher Ed

    • Soros Pledges $500 Million to Bard College in New York, One of the Founders of His University Arm

    • Unizin Makes Its Analytics Platform Available through Google Cloud to All Universities

    • Higher Ed Sees an Increased Number of Malware Attacks Demanding Payment

     

    Google

    • Google Expands its Search Tools into Math and Science Homework Problems

    • The NCC and Google Will Train State Lawmakers on Cybersecurity Attacks

     

    Corporate

    • Getty Images Says that It Won’t Close Its Acquired Unsplash Free Images Platform

    • IBM Expands its Ecosystem of Open-Source Developers Combating Climate Change

    • Bank of America Uses VR Headsets on Employees’ Instruction Programs

    • LEGO Announces a Playful, Hands-On Learning Program for Educators

     

    2021 Events | All of the Key Conferences Listed!

    • Education Calendar  –  APRIL — MAY — JUNE — JULY-DECEMBER  |  Conferences in Latin America & Spain

     

    This newsletter is created in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company specializing in AI-driven learning platforms and communities. Read the latest IBL Newsletter   |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters

  • A University in Virginia Requires Full Vaccination to Its Staff by May 31

    A University in Virginia Requires Full Vaccination to Its Staff by May 31

    IBL News | New York

    At least a dozen universities are mandating students to be vaccinated by the Fall Semester, before coming back to campus. Given that students’ reactions have been mostly positive, without showing reservations, one university has taken a step further.

    Hampton University is requiring faculty and staff mandatory COVID-19 full vaccination by May 31, according to a memo signed up by Chancellor and Provost, JoAnn W. Haysbert, and Vice President for Business Affairs and Treasurer, Doretha J. Spells.

    To be fully vaccinated by then, employees will have to get their second shot of a two-dose vaccine or a one-shot vaccine at least two weeks before the deadline unless show documentation of a medical or religious exemption.

    Unlike many other institutions in Virginia, Hampton University — a historically Black college in Virginia — has been all-virtual since last spring.

  • Degreed Reaches a Valuation of $1.4 Billion After Raising $153 Million

    Degreed Reaches a Valuation of $1.4 Billion After Raising $153 Million

    IBL News | New York

    Training and career development EdTech startup Degreed raised $153 million in Series D funding valuing it at $1.4 billion.

    The investment, which was co-led by Sapphire Ventures and Riverwood Capital, will be used for global expansion and pursue acquisitions — the company said. Existing investors that participated in the round included Signal Peak Ventures, Owl Ventures, GSV Ventures, and AllianceBernstein Holding LP.

    To date, Pleasanton, California–based Degreed has raised $335 million.

    This big fundraising came along with the announcement of a new CEO: Dan Levin, former COO of Box will succeed Chris McCarthy — who steps down as CEO after eight years since the company was founded. He will remain seated on Degreed’s Board of Directors.

    In 2020, Degreed more than doubled its active user base and increased its team by 50%, to 600 employees, across six continents.

     

  • Instructure Launches a Tool that Assesses Students’ Learning Loss During the Pandemic

    Instructure Launches a Tool that Assesses Students’ Learning Loss During the Pandemic

    IBL News | New York

    Instructure — the private company that runs the Canvas LMS platform — announced yesterday a tool that lets teachers evaluate students’ learning loss since the COVID quarantine began.

    The solution, called MasteryView Assessments, consists of a collection of short, pre-built assessments integrated into Canvas LMS. It will be available in August 2021.

    Schools will be able to assess and address what each student learned and what support will need to close gaps.

    “It will help many states who are trying to figure out how to appropriately assess the extent of learning loss over the past year,” said an Instructure manager to IBL News.

    The Salt Lake City-based company said that “districts can purchase these MasteryView Assessments with funds designated in the recent federal stimulus packages to help students close learning gaps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.” These funds were designated in the December 2020 CRRSA/ESSER II federal stimulus package.

    “MasteryView Assessments appear like familiar online quizzes, covering both Math and English Language Arts (ELA) for Grades 3-8, including English I & II and Algebra I,” explained the company.

  • Duke and Boston Universities Will Mandate Vaccination this Fall Amid Students’ Consent

    Duke and Boston Universities Will Mandate Vaccination this Fall Amid Students’ Consent

    IBL News | New York

    More high-profile universities joined the list of institutions requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for the fall semester.

    Duke University and Boston University were the latest ones dismissing legal precedences for schools mandating immunizations.

    On March 25, Rutgers University in New Jersey became one of the first larger public universities to mandate the vaccine.

    Some voices expressed outrage, but student protests didn’t happen. Two Ivy League universities — Cornell in New York and Brown University — took also the risk of being criticized and went ahead with the mandate. Notre Dame was the first Christian Catholic university to move forward with the requirement.

    The list is expected to grow until almost any institution adopts the mandate.

    The waivers implemented on religious and medical exemptions have definitely opened the door.

    The news on Duke University came after the institution issued a stay-in-place order in March to battle rising COVID-19 cases. Some local TV stations reported mixed reactions among students.

    In the case of Boston University, its President, Robert Brown, stated that “our goal is to move to a “new normal” in the fall that includes only minimal social distancing, where all our facilities are open, students can move freely between residences, and guests are welcome.”

     

  • The OpenSAP Micro-Learning Free Platform Reaches Five Million Enrollments

    The OpenSAP Micro-Learning Free Platform Reaches Five Million Enrollments

    IBL News | New York

    openSAP announced this month it attracted five million course enrollments and 1.2 million learners on its platform – a free webspace that offers micro-learning and expert-led courses, as well as podcasts. In the last three years, the number of course enrollments doubled.

    Established in 2013, the openSAP platform mostly provides essential knowledge on SAP, such as SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Business Technology Platform, along with topics such as intelligent integration, digital transformation, and machine learning. It includes approximately 250 courses with an average of 20,000 enrollments per class. Gamification and discussion forums are part of the platform.

    “Our goal is to ensure that everyone in our ecosystem – customers, partners, developers, and employees – all have the right skills to thrive in a digital world,” said Maxwell Wessel, EVP, and Chief Learning Officer, SAP.

    Training through micro-learning is the shiny new trend, although the concept started in the mid-1990s. It is quickly becoming a staple of training programs. For example, Deloitte Australia announced a mobile training system with small digital courses for its 10,500 employees.

    The consultancy firm uses the EdApp micro-learning platform, which offers “bite-size learning” downloaded directly to employees’ smartphones. Jennifer Siu, Deloitte’s Manager for Leadership and Learning, explained it in a series of videos.

    Quick, engaging, and entertaining content provides learners with short pieces of information instead of watching hours of monotonous videos. Learning science probes that digestible pieces of content aligned with spaced repetition increase retention.

    Micro-learning and Nano-learning are effective ways to deliver knowledge not only to Generation Z‘s students — who grew up with smartphones and are used to soundbites on YouTube, Tik Tok, and Snapchat — but increasingly to corporate audiences.

    This is forcing many corporations to rethink their learning, credentialing, and assessment approaches.

  • Unizin Makes Its Analytics Platform Available through Google Cloud to All Universities

    Unizin Makes Its Analytics Platform Available through Google Cloud to All Universities

    IBL News | New York

    The Unizin university non-profit consortium made its Data Platform available via the Google Cloud Marketplace to any higher-ed institution beyond its 14 members.

    An example of usage is the University of Minnesota’s NXT GEN MED project, which leverages the work completed by the institution’s technologists and data analytics.

    As a Platform-as-a-Service solution, the Unizin Data Platform (UDP) allows universities and colleges to share and analyze data from LMSs and Student Information Systems, such as video management tools, proctoring tools, and assessment platforms.

    The UDP collects, cleans, models, curates, and stores all teaching and learning data to create a holistic view of each student. It will ultimately allow institutions to deliver more effective and engaging student experiences and improve learners’ achievement and retention.

    The integration is via LTI. The UDP enforces the use of two data interoperability standards: IMS Global Caliper and the Unizin Common Data Model.

    “It’s not easy for higher-learning institutions to aggregate, analyze, and use learning data at scale—nor can many institutions, except for the very largest, operationalize learning data in advising, business intelligence, and machine-learning initiatives,” said Cathy O’Bryan, Unizin’s CEO.

    “The UDP frees up colleges and universities from the technical challenges of integrating, normalizing, and managing data, so they can focus on using data for insights to enable student success during and post-college years.”

    “By partnering with Unizin, Google Cloud helps institutions make a large leap in their digital transformation, helping enable smarter decision-making at scale,” said Steven Butschi, Head of Education for Google Cloud.

    “The data-informed academic mission must play an essential role in helping every student reach their potential. Every week, we see our institutions leveraging the Unizin Data Platform to engage, enrich, and empower their students and instructors with data, analytics, and insights,” explained Etienne Pelaprat, Chief Technology Officer at Unizin.

    • Unizin Data Platform Dashboard

     

  • Notre Dame, First Christian University to Require Mandatory Vaccination for All Students

    Notre Dame, First Christian University to Require Mandatory Vaccination for All Students

    IBL News | New York

    The University of Notre Dame will be the first Catholic Christian higher-ed institution that requires all students — undergraduate, graduate, and professionals — mandatory full vaccination against COVID-19 for the fall 2021 semester.

    Some Catholic groups are against vaccination, dismissing Pope Francis’ statement — echoed by President Biden yesterday — saying that “it was a moral obligation.”

    The university will join the growing list of colleges implementing this requirement. Rutgers University was the first one last week, and Cornell and Brown followed.

    All of them, including Notre Dame, said that they would accommodate medical or religious exemptions.

    To date, almost no protest has emerged among student advocacy groups.

    In the case of Notre Dame, President, Provost, Vice President, and executive officers defended the vaccine requirement in a letter sent to the campus community.

    Father John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame University, said that the vaccine would contribute “to our ability to return to a more vibrant campus environment.”

    The announcement came along with the opening of a clinic on campus with the Pfizer-BioNTech two-dose vaccine.

     

  • The 2021 Open edX Conference Will Be a Virtual Half-Day Event on May 27

    The 2021 Open edX Conference Will Be a Virtual Half-Day Event on May 27

    IBL News | New York

    The 2021 Open edX Conference will be virtual and structured as a half-day event, from 9 AM to 1 PM (EDT), May 27th.

    The edX organization said in a blog post that “the event will focus on shaping the future of education together.”

    The virtual conference will feature a thought leader keynote, eight practical talks, and unstructured spaces for direct connections among attendees.

    Session topics will combine pedagogy and instructional design with the Open edX platform’s new features, extensions, and integrations.

    Some of the community speakers will include:

    • Anant Agarwal – Founder & CEO – edX
    • Marco Morales – Platform Product Manager – edX
    • Rupinder Kaur Kohli – Chief Solutions Architect – Skill-Up Technologies
    • Eran Raviv – Director – Campus IL
    • Braden MacDonald – CTO – OpenCraft

    The registration rate is $50. The event is sponsored by overseas firms: Three from Latin America and Spain — Aulasneo, eduNEXT, and Graspway —, two from Europe — OpenCraft and Abstract —, and one from Asia, Arbisoft.

  • Getty Images Says that It Won’t Close Its Acquired Unsplash Free Images Platform

    Getty Images Says that It Won’t Close Its Acquired Unsplash Free Images Platform

    IBL News | New York

    Getty Images will close at the end of April its acquisition — for an undisclosed amount — of Unsplash, a popular platform that reports over 100 million freely usable images downloaded per month, directly and through their partners via API. Started in 2013 as a Tumblr blog, Unsplash now offers over 2 million images free of cost.

    With 425 million paid images and videos including the world’s deepest archive of historic photography, Getty Images plans to combine Unsplash with its iStock brand, increasing its dominance on online images’ copyright business.

    According to Getty, “Unsplash will continue to maintain its free content model.” The founders Mikael Cho, Luke Chesser, and Stephanie Liverani will continue leading the company as well, although will report to Craig Peters, CEO at Getty Images.

    “This partnership is an important milestone for Unsplash, but our mission of Photos for Everyone remains unchanged,” ensured Mikael Cho.

    Despite these assurances, some voices expressed their concern that either Unsplash will change its image copyright polity or will be shut down.