New research on the popular massive open online courses (MOOCs) finds that one way to keep students engaged in the free classes offered by hundreds of universities is to offer a certificate of completion for a fee. “The act of paying for the certificate and the motivation derived from wanting to earn the certificate lead to a 10-… Read More »
The Office of Academic Innovation is staffing up in anticipation of a new initiative and a new investment to be announced this fall. The department aims to hire 40 people over the next few years, bringing the total staff count to about 100, says James DeVaney, associate vice provost for academic innovation. DeVaney also said that the university… Read More »
Information Technology Services Teaching and Learning, Academic Innovation, the University Library, and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts have sponsored an institutional membership to the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). All U-M Ann Arbor affiliates now have access to OLC’s library of publications and archive of webinars, as well as opportunities to engage with peers at other… Read More »
Lynda.com was recently purchased by LinkedIn and will transition to a new on-demand learning solution called LinkedIn Learning. This change will be effective for U-M faculty and staff on June 20, 2019.
In October 2017, Michigan IT News reported on videoconferencing that enables clinical education in Ethiopia as part a project led by Center for International Reproductive Health Training at the University of Michigan (UM-CIRHT). The year after, UM-CIRHT launched a two-year project with the University of Rwanda. The partnership strengthens family planning training and builds student and faculty capacity… Read More »
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been around, in one iteration or another, since 2006. In 2012, U-M joined the growing digital learning landscape, and Michigan Medicine was eager to try its hand. It’s been at it ever since. Michigan Online currently offers 11 health-related MOOCs from Michigan Medicine produced in collaboration with the Office of Academic Innovation.… Read More »
The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan recently announced the launch of the Alumni Education Gateway, where more than 3,000 pieces of content from U-M await exploration. Developed with the goal of housing many of the digital resources of U-M’s schools and colleges in one place, the website allows users to find it all in one easy, curated… Read More »
Informationists at the U-M Taubman Health Sciences Library recently partnered with Academic Innovation (AI) to develop and launch a new massive open online course (MOOC): Advanced Literature Searching in the Health Sciences. Mark MacEachern, informationist, led the development of the MOOC and worked closely with AI to ensure its success. The online course covers: The components of advanced… Read More »
As members of the U-M community, all staff at U-M in Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint can complete 130+ courses for free through Michigan Online.
In the four years since U-M announced a centralized effort to promote digital learning and two years after President Schlissel announced Academic Innovation as a major initiative, the university has experienced more than 7 million enrollments in online learning opportunities that involved people in 190 countries. In addition, there has been impressive participation from faculty, staff, students and… Read More »
Putting a bandage on a cut doesn’t mean you want to be a doctor. But in the world of computer science, people assume that everybody with an interest in programming wants to become a computer scientist. It is precisely this thought that Charles “Dr. Chuck” Severance, clinical associate professor at the School of Information, is trying to change. Speaking… Read More »
For a long time, language instruction has been among those subjects that conventional wisdom held was a tough one to put online. But things are changing as Dearborn faculty are exploring the promise of creating hybrid language courses that pair class time with digital learning. UM-Dearborn instructional designer Alfonso Sintjago is a big believer in digital education, but he’ll be the first… Read More »
Some of Michigan’s most innovative strategies for online learning are based on values held throughout its 200-plus year history. In an interview with “Campus Technology” magazine, James DeVaney, U-M’s associate vice provost for academic innovation, explains why Michigan Online — a relatively recent initiative — brings communities of motivated learners together, both to learn together and to apply their knowledge to solving significant problems.… Read More »
Philomena Meechan, LSA Language Resource Center, and Todd Austin, LSA Instructional Support Services, recently presented with Professor Alexander Knysh, U-M Near Eastern Studies, and faculty from St. Petersburg State University, Russia at the SUNY COIL conference in New York and at the UNICollaboration Conference in Kraków, Poland. Their presentation showcased how two Near Eastern Studies courses used a combination of… Read More »
School of Information researchers Christopher Brooks, Joshua Gardner, and Kaifeng Cheng, presented findings at the London Festival of Learning that showed that replacing images of men with women in online courses encouraged female students to engage more with the course. These researchers are also working toward supporting the development of online courses with tailored content for the learners. The U-M research team conducted… Read More »