IBL News

Category: Top News

  • GW Plans a Workshop for STEM Faculty Who Teach Engineering through Computing

    GW Plans a Workshop for STEM Faculty Who Teach Engineering through Computing

    IBL News | New York

    The George Washington University (GW) is planning a workshop for STEM faculty who want to transform their teaching through integrating computing.

    This “Faculty Development Workshop 2020” was scheduled to be held over three days starting on the 25th through the 27th of March. However, due to the Coronavirus national emergency and travel restrictions, it has been postponed, the organizers told IBL News.

    The event will be sponsored; meaning that GW will be offering full travel support –including lodging and food– for 20 to 25 participants. The sponsor is Leidos, Inc., with additional support from the National Science Foundation through a grant to Prof. Lorena A. Barba.

    “This workshop is for faculty at any stage of their career, who are teaching in science, engineering, or related technical fields,” explained GW’s Prof. Lorena A. Barba, who leads the workshop.

    “We use the label “Engineers Code” in a project that is developing open learning modules (see our repository on GitHub), and the #EngineersCode hashtag on Twitter for announcing newly-released content, and inviting a community,” she added.

    Participants will use Python and Jupyter as the programming language and environment. They will also take advantage of the Open edX platform’s integration with Jupyter notebooks, auto-graded homework assignments, and the library-hosted JupyterHub platform.

    The presenters in this workshop have developed openly licensed material that is meant to be reused.

    Learners who complete course requirements receive a certificate of completion.

    Resource:

  • Blackboard Shifts Away From the Open Source Business By Selling Its Moodle Based Business

    Blackboard Shifts Away From the Open Source Business By Selling Its Moodle Based Business

    IBL News | New York

    Blackboard Inc. announced this week the sale of its Open LMS, a Moodle-based platform formerly known as Moodlerooms.

    The buyer is a London-based corporate education company Learning Technologies Group (LTG) for $31.7 million. The deal is expected to close during the second quarter.

    “The transaction enables Blackboard to further simplify its business and accelerate momentum in helping clients move to its Software as a Service (SaaS) deployment of Learn and Ultra,” said Bill Ballhaus, CEO at Blackboard.

    As a part of the agreement, Blackboard will continue to provide its products to Open LMS clients. In addition, Blackboard’s current Chief Learning and Innovation Officer, Phillip Miller, will depart this company to lead the Open LMS business at LTG.

    “This transaction will provide new opportunities for Blackboard to sell its products, and at the same time will enable Open LMS to focus on expanding within the Moodle community,” said Miller.

    The move comes as Canvas LMS overtook Blackboard in its share of the North American market with 35% and 31%, respectively, of student enrollments. D2L’s Brightspace follows at 14%, while Moodle has a 12% share.

    Blackboard’s sale of Open LMS showed its difficult relation with Moodle and overall the open-source community.

    Moodle founder and CEO, Martin Dougiamas, revealed on a tweet that “BB (Blackboard) never supported Moodle well, don’t answer calls, never contribute to community efforts, they just exploit our code and try to convert folks”. “I am sorry for their clients being tossed around like meat on a barbecue!”

     

     

  • Coursera and edX Launch Initiatives to Support Universities Impacted by the Outbreak

    Coursera and edX Launch Initiatives to Support Universities Impacted by the Outbreak

    IBL News | New York

    The CEOs of the two leading MOOC platforms, Jeff Maggioncalda, from Coursera, and Anant Agarwal, from edX, stepped in this week to offer price-reduced programs to help universities impacted by the coronavirus.

    Coursera announced that it will provide the Coursera for Campus‘ course catalog free to universities impacted by the coronavirus. These institutions will have access to 3,800 courses and 400 Specializations until July 31. Students who enroll in Coursera courses on or before July 31 will retain access until Sept. 30, 2020.

    “Over the next few days, we will also hold webinars and share more resources, including experiences from our partner community, to help institutions looking to transition online during this crisis,” Jeff Maggioncalda wrote on a blog post.

    Over the past few weeks, Duke University has been using Coursera for Campus to serve impacted students at their Duke Kunshan campus in China.

    With universities all over the world looking to quickly move face-to-face classes online, massive open online course companies Coursera and edX have stepped in to offer access to their vast portfolios of course content.

    For its part, edX launched an initiative – called the Remote Access Program – to provide students from partner universities with free access to courses on edX.

    “We believe that by sharing access to content across a global group of universities, we can unite like-minded students and instructors to learn as a digital community,” Anant Agarwal announced on the corporate blog.

    SUNY and CUNY Move to Online Learning

    Regarding the pandemic chaos in higher education, closures or moving into online classes continue to accelerate. Several statewide systems and more than 100 colleges and universities announced these moves.

    One of the most notorious examples was SUNY and CUNY. The state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, announced the State University of New York and City University of New York systems would move to distance learning for the rest of the semester. “This will help us reduce density and reduce the spread of this virus,” the governor said in a statement on Twitter.

     

  • The ASU-GSV Summit Postponed to September 29th. AAC&U Conference Canceled

    The ASU-GSV Summit Postponed to September 29th. AAC&U Conference Canceled

    IBL News | New York

    Another high-profile conference canceled amid the concerns of the Covid-19 outbreak.

    Moreover, experts consulted by IBL News predict that disruption will affect the whole conference industry in the short term – at least until June this year.

    The ASU-GSV Summit, scheduled for March 30th to April 1st, 2020 in San Diego, California, was postponed to Tuesday, September 29th – Thursday, October 1st in San Diego “when we assume that the Coronavirus will have abated,” announced the event’s organization today.

    ”For our friends and partners of the Jewish faith, we know that Monday, September 28th is Yom Kippur and that September 29th will be a travel day. We will do everything in our power to schedule in a way that supports the full celebration of Yom Kippur,” wrote Deborah Quazzo and Michael Moe.

    This year, the 11th Annual ASU-GSV Summit was expecting 5,000 people including 500+ learning and workforce technology CEOs from across the globe, 400+ investors, 500 PreK-12 leaders, 500 Higher Education leaders, 400+ Chief Learning and Talent Officers, Policy Makers and Foundation Leaders, and Social Entrepreneurs.

    Also, yesterday, the American Council on Education (ACE) announced that it canceled its 2020 Conference on Diversity, Equity, and Student Success annual meeting, scheduled for this weekend in New Orleans, citing the “ongoing and growing threat posed by the novel coronavirus.”

    “Planning is currently underway to present selected keynote sessions and conference workshops virtually, and materials from concurrent session presentations will be posted online,” said the organization.

  • The Open edX Annual Conference Suspended Amid the Virus Concerns

    The Open edX Annual Conference Suspended Amid the Virus Concerns

    IBL News | New York 

    The edX organization announced yesterday the cancellation of the 2020 Open edX Conference, to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from May 19th to 22nd. Attendees that have already purchased tickets will receive a refund.

    The coronavirus spread is prompting educational organizations to suspend annual meetings everywhere.

    “Given the continued concerns, we concluded that canceling the event was the responsible thing to do,” wrote Ed Zarecor, a manager at edX.org.

    The organizing team is now evaluating whether it is worth it to set up a virtual event.

    The 2020 Open edX award will be granted, and submissions are open through April 17.

  • Princeton, Berkeley, and Rice Switch to Remote Classes to Head Off the Spread of the Virus

    Princeton, Berkeley, and Rice Switch to Remote Classes to Head Off the Spread of the Virus

    Mikel Amigot, IBL News | New York

    Princeton, Berkeley, Rice, Fordham, Yeshiva, Hofstra, and Sacred Heart universities joined Columbia and Barnard College this Monday on the announcement that they were suspending in-person classes and teaching remotely, in order to head off the spread of the coronavirus.

    The city of Scarsdale in New York also announced it was closing its public schools for the week after a teacher tested positive for the virus.

    Last week, the universities of Washington, Seattle, and Stanford shifted entirely to virtual courses.

    With New York under a declared state of emergency and with over 100 people testing positive, Yeshiva University in Manhattan and Hofstra University in Long Island communicated that classes were canceled for the week.

    A student and two faculty members at Yeshiva tested positive for the virus last week, and Hofstra said that a student had started showing symptoms after attending a conference; that test result is pending. Columbia said a university community member was quarantined for exposure to the new coronavirus.

    Meanwhile, Princeton University said in a statement that new policies would be in place through Sunday, April 5.

    “While much remains unknown about COVID-19’s epidemiology and impact, our medical advisers tell us that we should proceed on the assumption that the virus will spread more broadly and eventually reach our campus,” wrote Chris Eisgruber, President of Princeton University.

    In Houston, Rice University canceled in-person classes for the rest of the week after staff member tested positive for the virus. It also banned meetings of more than 100 people until May.

    The University of California, Berkeley, became the fourth major U.S. university to suspend classes for an extended period of time due to concerns over COVID-19.

    Chancellor Carol Christ said in a message that the school will move all lecture courses and seminars to Zoom and other online tools starting today Tuesday and through spring break, which ends March 29. Courses that have to meet in person—such as labs, performing arts and physical education classes—will continue to meet as scheduled.

    Also yesterday, the American Council on Education called off its annual conference, originally scheduled for March 14 to 16 in San Diego, Calif0rnia.

    The coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, Chine, has killed so far over 4,000 people and infected more than 114,000. At least 875 people have died outside mainland China. The United States has reported over 700 cases and 26 deaths: 22 in Washington state, two in Florida, and two in California.

    The World Health Organization considers the outbreak an international public health emergency.

     

    • Johns Hopkins University’s dashboard tracking the disease in real-time

     

  • Adobe Creative Cloud and Spark Will Be Integrated Inside the Canvas LMS

    Adobe Creative Cloud and Spark Will Be Integrated Inside the Canvas LMS

    IBL News | New York

    The Canvas LMS dashboard will include the Adobe Creative Cloud offering, allowing students and educators to use tools like Photoshop, Spark and Illustrator, IBL News learned.

    These technologies are used to work with photographs, illustrations, infographics, layouts, animations, videos, presentations, posters, web and mobile experiences.

    Instructure, the company behind Canvas LMS, and Adobe plan to make the announcement this week.

    “As educators bring Creative Cloud and Spark into the classroom via Canvas they can build their students’ digital literacy as well as the essential ‘soft skills’ the modern workplace demands, including creativity, storytelling, collaboration, and presentation skills,” said Tara Gunther, Vice President of Partnerships at Instructure.

    Adobe Creative Cloud and Spark will be integrated on the LMS via Canvas API and LTI 1.3.

    These images depict how the Adobe – Canvas integration will look like:

     

  • Columbia University Cancels Classes After a School Member Is Put Under Quarantine

    Columbia University Cancels Classes After a School Member Is Put Under Quarantine

    IBL News | New York

    Columbia University in New York announced yesterday all classes had been canceled Monday 9 and Tuesday 10 after a school member was exposed to the Coronavirus and is now under quarantine.

    “From Wednesday until the start of Spring Break on Friday, classes will be taught remotely,” said president Lee C. Bollinger in a message sent to the university community.

    “We do not have a confirmed case of the virus on campus. This action is intended to prevent the virus from spreading,” Bollinger explained.

    The closure came as the city’s mayor Bill de Blasio announced the 13th confirmed case in NYC and more than 105 people tested positive statewide.

    Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency on Saturday.

    Columbia University’s decision followed a similar decision made by a number of schools—most notably Stanford, University of Washington and Seattle University—to cancel in-person classes.

    Resource:
    • Columbia Spectator: Columbia temporarily cancels class, quarantines affiliate after exposure to COVID-19

    Universities Adopt Emergency Plans

    In this context, universities have activated serious measures against the Coronavirus at their campuses. Many of them created specific planning teams to fight the spread of the disease, following the CDC’s and local health agencies’ recommendations.

    School officials sent emails and messages to their communities this weekend. For example, Sacred Heart University (SHU) in Connecticut set a pattern of precautions, along with a thematic website, that could inspire other institutions.

    This message was sent to the SHU community this Sunday:

    “Dear students, faculty, and staff,

    Welcome back from break. In today’s update, we want to tell you about the precautions we have taken—and will continue to take—to protect the University community from the coronavirus. These are precautions recommended by the CDC and local health agencies:

    • Bathrooms in all University housing have been disinfected in anticipation of students’ return
    • Touchpoints (doorknobs, faucets, flushers, etc.) will be disinfected daily with more frequent cleaning and sanitizing of public/common restrooms
    • Extra attention is also being paid to athletic areas because of the high traffic flow
      • Gym equipment is disinfected daily and wiped down with Clorox wipes
      • Hand soap is available in all restrooms and hand sanitizer can be found throughout the gym area
      • Clorox disinfecting wipes are also available throughout the gym area. These kill 99.9% of all bacteria in 10 seconds
    • In addition, extra protocols will be in place in dining halls
      • Food services personnel will go above and beyond in following CDC hygiene guidelines Hand sanitizers will be available to workers at all food preparation sites
      • Touchpoints (doorknobs, horizontal services, tables & chairs, condiment dispensers, drink dispensers, etc.) will be cleaned often
      • In addition to other locations on campus, portable sanitizer stations will available for students, faculty, and staff in the dining halls
      • We ask that you practice good food hygiene—don’t touch food with your hands (a piece of fruit, for example) and then put it back
    • The cleaning staff is available 24/7 to respond to any emergencies anywhere. Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., call 203-371-7870. Nights and weekend, students should report issues to their RHD to submit an off-hours MOP request

    We are also asking that all students and employees do their part by following the hygiene guidelines set forth by the CDC:

    • Avoid close contact with people who are sick
    • Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth
    • Stay home when you are sick
    • Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash
    • Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipes

    We are in regular contact with our cleaning contractors and food services staff to ensure that CDC guidelines are being followed in all areas of the University.

    More information can be found on the coronavirus page on the SHU website. In particular, you may want to check out the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on that page.

    We want you all to have a great finish to the spring semester, while at the same time taking the necessary precautions to keep us all healthy and safe.”

     

    Beyond these measures, several media outlets paid attention to the pressing questions around the virus. This New York Times’ article was one of the most remarkable.

     

  • Stanford Cancels Two Weeks of Classes. University of Washington and Seattle Make a Similar Decision

    Stanford Cancels Two Weeks of Classes. University of Washington and Seattle Make a Similar Decision

    IBL News | New York

    In response to the expanding outbreak of the coronavirus, Stanford announced late Friday that the school will cancel in-person classes for the final two weeks of the winter quarter, beginning Monday, March 9. Several large-group events at the university are also being adjusted or canceled.

    “To the extent feasible, we will be moving classes to online formats in place of in-person instruction,” said Provost Persin Drell in a statement. “Any winter quarter final exams that were scheduled to be administered in person will need to be administered in take-home format, complying with university rules for such exams,” he added. Though classes will not be meeting in person, the university will remain open.

    Also, Stanford University is canceling the in-person Admit Weekend event, for prospective undergraduates who have been or will be offered admission to Stanford, scheduled for the weekend of April 23-26.

    Stanford launched the teachanywhere.stanford.edu website with resources to assist and further guidance instructors. Canvas LMS will be the main instructional platform.

    On a separate note, school officials announced that a faculty member who works in a clinic tested positive for the coronavirus, although he didn’t stay in the work environment since experiencing symptoms. The university notified people who might have been exposed and requested that they self-isolate.

    Hours before on Friday, The University of Washington became the first university in the U.S. to announce that it would halt in-person classes and exams, in hopes that that will slow the spread of the coronavirus. “As of March 9, 2020, classes and finals on all three campuses (Bothell, Seattle and Tacoma) will not be held in person for the remainder of winter quarter, which ends March 20,” said  Provost Mark Richards in a statement. “We plan to resume normal class operations when spring quarter begins March 30, pending public health guidance.”

    Hours later, Seattle University made a similar decision. To support efforts by public health agencies to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the region, Seattle University announcing that beginning Monday, March 9, classes will no longer be held in person through winter quarter, March 20.

    • Stanford University’s website with the response to COVID-19.

  • The City of Austin Cancels SXSW March Festival and Plans a Virtual Conference

    The City of Austin Cancels SXSW March Festival and Plans a Virtual Conference

    IBL News | New York

    The SXSW famous educational and film festival in Austin, Texas, was canceled today, as the city declared a local disaster due to concerns about the coronavirus.

    The move came after many big-name companies and entertainers pulled out of the conference, along with a Change.org petition signed by tens of thousands of people calling for the festival to be canceled.

    Mayor Steve Adler [in the picture above], Judge Sarah Eckhardt, Dr. Mark Escott of the Interim Health Authority and Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden, made the announcement this Friday.

    Dr. Escott said the decision to cancel SXSW was made after weighing options to mitigate the risk of the disease. He said factors such as the close proximity of participants and attendance of international guests led officials to cancel the event entirely.

    City officials announced that all other upcoming events outside of SXSW will also be evaluated by Austin Public Health officials for a disease mitigation plan.

    “We are devastated to share this news with you,” SXSW said in a statement. “The show must go on is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. We are now working through the ramifications of the unprecedented situation.”

    The festival and conference said it was already “exploring options to reschedule and provide a virtual SWSW online experience as soon as possible participants.”

     

    • More News about SXSW