IBL News

Category: Top News

  • edX, Skillshare, and Outschool Featured in the Top 10 of Innovative Ed Companies

    edX, Skillshare, and Outschool Featured in the Top 10 of Innovative Ed Companies

    IBL News | New York

    edX, Skillshare, and Outschool have been included in Fast Company’s top 10 most innovative organizations in education in 2021.

    The magazine explained that these companies found ways to thrive during the COVID-year when most learning is remote. Skillshare and Outschool amused learning while developing their creative passions, while edX reinvented the bachelor’s degree.

    The 11 “MicroBachelors” degree programs launched by edX last year enrolled over 180,000 students.

    This is the complete list, along with Fast Company’s reasoning.

    1. Outschool — For making remote learning fun. With 1.6 million sign-ups, Outchool is a marketplace for virtual extracurriculars, such as ukulele lessons and food-science experiments, for students ages 3 to 18.

    2.  Ruangguru — For livestreaming school for free to 10 million students during lockdown. This Indonesian startup took an engaging approach to help kids.

    3. Skillshare — For giving creatives and hobbyists a pandemic outlet. This video platform for video lessons attracted 3 million new users last year.

    4. Tonies — For bringing children’s stories to life — without a screen and without Amazon. Toniebox is a Germany-based alternative to Alexa for parents looking for audio storytelling without an e-commerce link. To date, the company has sold 1.7 million Tonieboxes.

    5. edX — For reinventing the bachelor’s degree. MicroBachelor students can earn transferable credits and work their way toward credentials for less than a third of the cost of a traditional undergraduate program.

    6. 4.0 — For giving educators an entrepreneurial boost — For teachers, New Orleans–based 4.0 is both a community and an incubator for entrepreneurial ideas. 4.0’s fellowships provide cash and coaching, giving educators tools to build solutions to challenges they see in their classrooms.

    7. Homer — For improving early reading scores. Founded in 2013, the company takes a research-based approach to build reading skills in children ages 2 to 8—the group that has struggled most with the transition to virtual learning.

    8. Virti — For training frontline healthcare workers to respond to a deadly new threat. This U.K.-based startup uses immersive AR/VR scenarios to train healthcare professionals to manage infrequent, high-risk events—a mission that COVID-19 made all the more urgent.

    9. Packback — For bringing intellectual curiosity to online discussions. Packback is a tool for facilitating online discussions that serves 600,000 university students. When they participate in online course forums, students get peer feedback on their critical thinking. Packback uses the pedagogical framework Bloom’s Taxonomy as the basis for its AI engine.

    10. Encantos — For creating fun bilingual learning for preschoolers. Encantos creates bilingual learning experiences for kids ages 2 to 12, with a focus on preschoolers.

    Resource:
    • The World’s 2021 Most Innovative Companies

  • Udemy Launches LenovoEDU Community for Learners in Australia, U.K, and U.S

    Udemy Launches LenovoEDU Community for Learners in Australia, U.K, and U.S

    IBL News | New York

    Udemy announced this week the launch of a learning community for Lenovo.

    LenovoEDU offers content, resources, and pathways to build “your own curriculum”. It includes Udemy’s library of 155,000 courses taught by 70,000 instructors.

    The initiative is mostly based on the curation of Udemy’s courses, featured with better pricing.

    The advertised goal is to support college and career students, parents, and guardians of K-12 students in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.

    San Francisco, California-based Udemy explained that this community “offers learners and educators a one-stop-shop to connect with peers”.

    Llibert Argerich, SVP of Marketing at Udemy, said, “members get access to curated educational video and expert blog content offering advice on teaching, learning, and professional development.”

    Ajit Sivadasan, Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo.com, explained, “we’re collaborating with Udemy to offer smarter online education for all through the LenovoEDU community.”

  • Google Issues New Certificate Courses Oriented to Entry-Level Jobs on IT

    Google Issues New Certificate Courses Oriented to Entry-Level Jobs on IT

    IBL News | New York

    Sundar Pichai, CEO at Google and Alphabet, announced in a blog post three new online, self-paced, certificate courses in Data Analytics, Project Management, and User Experience (UX) Design.

    These courses—currently developed on Coursera.org at $39 per month—prepare learners for an entry-level, well-paid job in under six months. The certificates don’t have any prerequisites.

    • Data Analytics Professional Certificate – This seven-course certificate explores analytical skills, concepts, and tools used in many introductory data analytics roles – including SQL, Tableau, RStudio, and Kaggle.
    • Project Management Professional Certificate – This six-course certificate prepares learners to launch a project management career. It covers industry-standard tools and methods, including the agile project management system, and key soft skills, such as stakeholder management, problem-solving, and influencing.
    • User Experience (UX) Design Professional Certificate – This seven-course certificate explores UX principles, UX terms, and industry-standard tools, including Figma and Adobe XD. By the time they complete the program, learners will have three portfolio projects to use in their job applications.

    Each certificate includes resources to help learners enhance their resumes and prepare for interviews.

    Upon completion, learners can share their information with 100+ partners committed to sourcing talent from Google certificate programs, including Deloitte, Anthem, Verizon, SAP, Accenture, Walmart, Infosys, and Google. The employers are “eager to hire people who have earned these certificates,” according to Pichai.

    Google is also launching apprenticeships in the certificate fields of data analytics, project management, and UX design, with applications opening in April.

    To make its Career Certificates more accessible, Google is offering 200,000 scholarships to learners across the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Africa. They will be distributed through organizations such as Merit America, Per Scholas, NPower, Goodwill, Futuro Health, and Generation USA.

    Additionally, Sundar Pichai announced a new Associate Android Developer Certification.

    The search giant said that since launching Grow with Google program in 2017, it has already helped 6 million Americans get training in digital skills and nearly 170,000 Americans get a new job and increase their income.

    With more businesses embracing digital ways of working, it’s estimated that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025.

     

     

  • Study States that Conservative Academics Experience Peer Pressure and Discrimination

    Study States that Conservative Academics Experience Peer Pressure and Discrimination

    IBL News | New York

    A new study that investigates authoritarianism and political discrimination among colleges and universities, shows that a “majority of conservative academics experience a hostile environment for their beliefs in U.S., Canadian, and British universities.” 

    “A significant portion of academics discriminate against conservatives in hiring, promotion, grants, and publications. Over 4 in 10 US and Canadian academics would not hire a Trump supporter, and 1 in 3 British academics would not hire a Brexit supporter.”

    However, most professors do not back “cancel culture” in its most authoritarian forms.

    The study, titled “Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship”, was authored by Dr. Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London.

    According to the data of the research, in the U.S., “over a third of conservative academics and Ph.D. students have been threatened with disciplinary action for their view, while 70% of conservative academics report a hostile departmental climate for their beliefs.”

    • Summary of the Report
    • Full Report (PDF)

     

  • Harvard’s Commencement Will Be Virtual for the Second Year

    Harvard’s Commencement Will Be Virtual for the Second Year

    IBL News | New York

    Harvard University’s 2021 live commencement—scheduled for May 27—will be virtual for the second year due to the pandemic.

    “The delay of our Commencement Exercises for two years running is deeply disappointing, but public health and safety must continue to take precedence,” said Lawrence S. Bacow, President of Harvard University.

    “We will gather as a community online on Thursday, May 27, to award degrees and celebrate the achievements of our graduates. After degrees are conferred, each School at Harvard will follow up with its own special virtual event and afterward deliver diplomas through the mail.”

    Ruth Simmons, the president of Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college near Houston, will deliver the principal address.

  • Tech Conference Cancels Google as Sponsor after Two Female Scientists Were Fired

    Tech Conference Cancels Google as Sponsor after Two Female Scientists Were Fired

    IBL News | New York

    The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) canceled Google as a sponsor for the fourth annual Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT), which takes place online March 3-10, 2021.

    The association had been facing pressure to address a recent event at Google, which is the departure of two female computer scientists: Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell (in the picture). Inside Higher Ed reported the story.

    Timnit Gebru, former co-lead of Google’s ethical AI team, abruptly left the company in December.

    She explained—see the tweet below—that she’d been fired after executives wanted to censor an unpublished paper she’d co-authored with academics about the ethical and environmental risks of large language model AI.

    Google argued that Gebru’s paper ignored important bias mitigation developments within AI.

    Many employees and computer scientists said that Google failed to live up to its stated values about diversity in firing, effectively or directly, Gebru, a Black woman who researched ethical technology.

    Last month, Google also fired Gebru’s former co-lead on ethical AI, Margaret Mitchell.

    Mitchell said on Twitter that she’d written an email to Google about Gebru’s termination and its relationship to sexism and discrimination — and then promptly had her own work email access cut off. Google later fired her.

    Google has said it terminated Mitchell, who is white, for violating company policies.

  • Universities Will Receive $40 Billion in Federal Aid; Half of It Will Go to Grants to Students

    Universities Will Receive $40 Billion in Federal Aid; Half of It Will Go to Grants to Students

    IBL News | New York

    The U.S. colleges and universities will receive nearly $40 billion in new aid as
    Congress approved the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, this week.

    Colleges and universities will be required to spend approximately half of the funds in the bill on emergency grants to students. Whether undocumented and international students can get the help, however, still hasn’t been decided by the Education Department.

    This is the largest infusion of help to higher education approved during the pandemic. President Biden called the bill “a giant step forward” in providing help to Americans during the pandemic.

    ACE (American Council on Education) President, Ted Mitchell, said yesterday this federal help “falls short of our most recent estimate of at least $97 billion in student and institutional needs.” 

    The measure also provides additional dedicated support to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and other Minority-Serving Institutions.

    The Senate approved several amendments to the House-approved version, including one that would exempt all student loan forgiveness from federal taxes for five years, in the event the president or Congress decides to cancel any debt.

     

  • Michael Bloomberg Gives $150M to Harvard University to Create a Center for Cities

    Michael Bloomberg Gives $150M to Harvard University to Create a Center for Cities

    IBL News | New York

    Billionaire Michael Bloomberg gave through his philanthropic arm $150 million to Harvard University to establish the Bloomberg Center for Cities. The announcement was made yesterday.

    This center will build upon the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, which worked with 159 mayors and 800 of their advisers since it was launched in 2017 with an initial $32 million investment.

    According to a press release, the Bloomberg Center for Cities aims to assist mayors and their teams in order to advance organizational practices in city halls and create new research and instructional materials.

    “Mayors are the most creative and effective problem-solvers in government — and that’s exactly the kind of leadership that the world urgently needs,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, 108th mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies. “Building on our partnership with Harvard, this new investment will help more city leaders learn from one another and get even more big things done locally.”

    “The University is home to many people who are committed to serving the public and improving communities through deep expertise, useful knowledge, and wide-ranging research,” said Harvard President, Larry Bacow.

    “Bloomberg Philanthropies and Harvard University have created camaraderie among dozens of mayors from across the globe, allowing us to collaborate and find synergy as we all address our top priority — meeting the everyday needs of our residents,” said Randall Woodfin, Mayor of Birmingham, Ala.

     

  • Coursera Files for IPO. It will be listed on the NYSE as “COUR”

    Coursera Files for IPO. It will be listed on the NYSE as “COUR”

    IBL News | New York

    Coursera.org filed its IPO (Initial Publica Offering) prospectus with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) yesterday. The Mountain View, California-based company will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “COUR” likely sometime next month.

    The number of shares and price range have yet to be determined. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup will be the lead underwriters.

    Coursera was valued at $2.4 billion by private markets in October 2020. Other sources valued it at $5 billion. The start-up raised $443.1 million in venture funding since it was founded in 2012.

    The learning platform—which offers access to online courses and degrees from top universities—reported on its filing $293.5 million in revenue in 2020, a 59% growth rate from 2019. Net losses widened by roughly 20 million year over year, reaching $66.8 million in 2020. The net loss was $46.7 million loss in 2019.

    Registered users grew 65% in 2020. The company added 12,000 new degrees, at an average acquisition cost of under $2,000.

    “Our revenue significantly increased due primarily to an increase in the number of enrollments during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the company’s IPO prospectus stated.

    “Likewise, we have experienced a significant increase in our operating costs associated with our services, primarily driven by our freemium offerings and marketing efforts. As the pandemic made remote work and online learning more widespread, it is uncertain what impact the tapering of the Covid-19  pandemic could have on our operating results.”

    • Prospectus S-1

     

     

     

  • University of Florida Professor Facing Blame in a Student’s Suicide Is Put on Leave

    University of Florida Professor Facing Blame in a Student’s Suicide Is Put on Leave

    IBL News | New York

    A tragic story that exposes the ugly underbelly of Academia.

    Huixiang Chen, an international student from China and Ph.D. candidate, committed suicide on June 13, 2019 [In the picture above].

    Amid a lengthy investigation, the University of Florida has put the professor of computer engineering Tao Li on leave.

    Friends of student Huixiang Chen said that Professor Li pressured, threatened, and mistreated him, Inside of Higher Education reported.

    In the suspension letter to Li, the Department Chair, John G. Harris, prohibited him from engaging in “any activity that involves any aspect of your position, including business travel, consultation with faculty, staff or students.” The letter also commands Tao Li to cooperate with all ongoing investigations or be terminated immediately.

    “I feel my mentor has no academic integrity,” Chen—in the picture—wrote prior to his death.

    Many graduate students complain that their advisers and mentors have so much power and treat them unprofessionally.