Comparing apples with oranges: online vs face-to-face learning in community colleges

Smith Jaggars, S. and Bailey, T. (2010) Effectiveness of Fully Online Courses for College Students: Response to a Department of Education Meta-Analysis New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.

From the abstract:

Proponents of postsecondary online education were recently buoyed by a meta-analysis sponsored by the U.S. Department of [...]

How does the use of adjuncts affect retention?

Jaeger, A. and Eagan, K. (2010) Examining Retention and Contingent Faculty use in a State System of Public Higher Education Educational Policy, June 13

Useful article with interesting statistics about the impact of different kinds of adjunct faculty on first year student retention.

I’ve included this because of the often heavy use of adjuncts [...]

Factors affecting time to degree completion

Bound, J., Lovenheim, M. and Turner, S. (2010) Increasing Time to Baccalaureate Degree in the United States Cambridge MA: National Bureau of Economic Research

This paper answers two important questions: Is it taking students longer these days to graduate at the bachelor’s level? And if so, why?

The answer: yes, more students today are [...]

New edition of the Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education

© 2010 Destination360

The TOJDE is always an interesting compilation of papers by researchers mainly from outside the Western Anglo-Saxon culture. Volume: 11 Number: 1 can be visited by clicking http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr

It contains articles from authors from Serbia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Iran, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, USA, and Ireland.

It includes [...]

Using LMSs to identify 'at-risk' students

Kolowich, S. (2009) The new diagnostics, Inside Higher Education, September 30

An article about three institutions, Rio Salado Community College, Purdue University, and Capella University, using data from their learning management systems to flag students ‘at risk’ of dropping out, as early as one or two weeks into a course.

See also: http://www.tonybates.ca/2009/10/28/lms-wars-e-learnings-third-phase/