OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

What 2U’s new flat fee model could mean for the online degree sector
Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 2023/09/12

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The online program management (OPM) company 2U has traditionally offered its services in exchange for a (large) percentage of tuition revenue. This worked well until the pandemic hit, forcing most programs to move online, and colleges and universities relying on 2U to lose a large chunk of their income. Now (somewhat after the fact) 2U is offering a flat fee model. This may be more in response to legal challenges than to economics, as despite an exception for companies like 2U, there are laws designed to prevent companies from earning commissions on student enrollments.

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Announcing ‘All Access’: The World’s Most In-demand Skills, On Demand
Patrick Donovan, Udacity, 2023/09/12

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Udacity is now offering an 'all-access' subscription for its online courses. However, the monthly cost of $249 makes me gasp (I would have pegged the market rate for this at about $40). The library is composed of "80+ Nanodegree programs, 350+ courses, 370+ real-world projects, and 2,500+ skills" (not sure why they would use a '+' instead of exact numbers).

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Assessment Menu – list of sources
Isobel Bowditch, JISC, 2023/09/12

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This page references and lists the sources for a really useful resource produced by Jisc, a PowerPoint document organized so you can really quickly access assessment ideas for an AI-infused world. Click (ctl-click) on a major category, click on a subtopic, and you're taken to a page with very specific advice for your situation. For example, select 'Quizzes and In-class Tests' from Slide 7 (which is the main menu), then select 'Live Analysis' from the next slide, and you're taken to side 40, which describes a set of possible activities, what they assess, possible formats, and some ratings.

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Microsoft offers legal protection for AI copyright infringement challenges
Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 2023/09/12

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According to this announcement, "if a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for using Microsoft's Copilots or the output they generate, we (Microsoft) will defend the customer and pay the amount of any adverse judgments or settlement." In this report and others this claim is extended to the company's other products, but I read it as being limited to Co-pilot. Still, it's a move that will be welcomed by developers (though many, like me, still write code the old fashioned way: by looking at someone else's code to see how to do something).

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CER Resources for the Science Classroom
Miguel Guhlin, TechNotes Blog, 2023/09/12

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This fits right in with my longstanding interest in critical thinking and literacies. Miguel Guhlin rounds up a host of CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) CER resources. I would have quibbles (for example: why not use the word 'because'? and why not say 'we know' instead of 'in science we know'?). The resources are mostly focused on science classes but the method is sound and can be used much more broadly - in any subject, really. It focuses reasoning on what we know, rather than merely what we believe or what we hope, and this can be applied anywhere.

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We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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