California Virtual Campus

The dramatic announcement last week that the University of Colorado at Boulder will explore the discontinuation of its journalism school is the latest iteration of an intensifying conversation about how best to train the reporters of the future and what kind of industry will be in place to absorb graduates.

Discussions about the transformation of journalism education are hardly new, but Boulder’s case is distinctive inasmuch as it suggests an existing school may literally need to be destroyed before a more effective model can be realized. To that end, supporters of the move have given the tacit admission that the university’s current curriculum is not only ill-positioned to help tomorrow’s students, but may not be appropriately serving today’s either.

By Jack Stripling

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Ferris State University professors want a say in decisions regarding online classes and administrator tenure, but campus leaders say that would mean faculty expanding into management roles.

Faculty union members returned to class on Monday despite not having a contract since July 1 and rejecting what union President Jim Rumpf called a “last offer or strike situation” from the administration after bargaining throughout the weekend.

By The Grand Rapids Press

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With another summer ending, the time has come to ask the perennial question: Could this be the year higher education finally embraces the e-book?

Some think that developments since the last buying cycle, particularly the arrival of Apple’s iPad computing tablet, might foreshadow an especially good year for the electronic texts. CourseSmart, the e-textbook consortium comprising five major publishers, says it has sold four times more e-textbooks in 2009-10 than it did the previous year (although it would not say how many copies that translates to). CourseSmart would not disclose how e-book sales are going so far this season, saying it was too early, but that it is optimistic. “We expect triple-digit growth to continue,” says Heather Shelstad, director of the consortium.

By Steve Kolowich

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DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., Aug. 30 — /PRNewswire/ — To help meet the needs of patients and providers in a rapidly changing and complex healthcare environment, Chamberlain College of Nursing is launching two new advanced education options for practicing nurses who are interested in becoming managers, educators and executives. Both new offerings are offered online to support busy nurse professionals interested in pursuing advanced degrees while juggling their responsibilities at work and at home.

By Chamberlain College of Nursing

Read Sacramento Bee

Hannah Morris, a political science and public relations junior at OU, took an online class at Rose State College in addition to her course load at OU. Some OU students choose to take online classes at junior colleges, not to save money, but because they believe it will be easier. “Classes at junior colleges are less rigorous and more financially feasible,” Morris said. When a student enrolls in an online class at junior colleges Rose State College in Midwest City or Oklahoma City Community College, a fixed fee of $12 is added to the cost of tuition. This fee is added to cover the expenses the college takes on when offering classes taught in this manner. At Rose State, the cost per credit hour is $69, at OCCC it is $65. So, even with the $12 increase the cost of taking an online class is still fairly low. At OU however, in-state tuition is $117 per credit hour and out-of-state tuition is $236 per credit hour. This is the general cost of tuition at OU, and the fees can also be quite expensive.

By Katherine Borgerding

Read The Oaklahoma Daily

Here’s a novel idea: Let’s start a social networking site and make it just for college students. We’ll require them to have a dot-edu email address in order to sign up.

What? Someone did that already six years ago? Oh, well, someone else has decided to recycle the idea. Fun!

In a blog today, The New York Times discusses CollegeOnly.com, a startup, launched by New York entrepreneur Josh Weinstein, intending to serve as a social networking site for college students. According to the Website’s About Us page, the site’s objective is to connect students, allow them to share what’s hip-happenin’ on and around campus, and have a “protected identity,” free from the watchful eyes of those Parental and Employment Overlord types.

By Nicole Ferraro

Read Internet Evolution

Oregon State University is trying out a new type of classroom for its introductory physics courses, which typically have 75 to 100 students. The space, introduced in spring 2010, replaces rows of desks with round tables and covers the walls with giant interactive whiteboards. The idea, according to the assistant professor behind the new physics studio, is to move away from teacher-centrism.

By Dian Schffhauser

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Why do students have to pay for college textbooks? Couldn’t the reading material be considered part of the college infrastructure paid for by officials as part of tuition, like classroom buildings and course-management systems?

Virginia State University is experimenting with that idea this fall, with a new effort to give free e-textbooks to students in its business school for eight core courses. The university recently negotiated a deal with upstart publisher Flat World Knowledge that treats buying e-books like buying campuswide software—with the institution paying a small per-student fee. The university plans to formally announce the deal Tuesday.

By Jeff Young

Read The Chronicle of Higher Education

Ohio State University has filed a federal lawsuit accusing a company of trying
to print unauthorized programs for athletic events.

The lawsuit accuses GDS Marketing Inc. of trademark infringement, unfair competition and cyberpiracy. Ohio State says the Wisconsin-based company owns the web domain www.buckeyeillustrated.com.

AP via Chacato Tribune

Read University Magazine

As a professor, how do you get dropout-prone college students to stay in school? Give them your cell phone number. How do you get professors to promptly field text messages, calls and e-mails from students? Buy them smartphones and pay for the service plan.

That is the logic Georgia Gwinnett College employed when it decided to offer its more than 300 full- and part-time faculty members cell phones and encouraged them to respond to any calls or texts from students within 24 hours

By Steve Kolowich

Read Inside Higher Ed