Massive Online Open Courses

Allen Meadors New Post |

Within the last ten years the growth and success of massive online open courses (MOOCs), online educational courses which aim to provide users with a reliable learning experience through the digital realm, has been apparent. However, this success has been among a much different consumer group than expected. Recent findings by the University of Pennsylvania suggest that students tend to struggle to stay consistent within the course and many actually drop out before it is finished. This sort of flaw has drawn much criticism from educators who, has a CNBC article pointed out, feel that “…there’s a lack of proof that they [MOOCs] work as well as traditional classroom methods”. Despite the criticism and failure of MOOCs in the educational sector, corporations have suprisingly adopted MOOCs with presently $130 billion invested annually.

    This large investment is used for an array of different educational services ranging from employment training to job certification. Among the big names that use MOOCs for their employees are Bank of America, AT&T, Intuit, Qualcomm, and Yahoo! who all depend on providers such as Coursera and Udacity. As the head of business development and strategic partnerships for Coursera pointed out, “There’s a lot of potential for how MOOCs can be used for corporate training and development…The companies are looking for new ways to train their employees and get them up to speed on skills that may not have been relevant five years ago.” And while cheap education is certainly attractive to some firms, MOOCs have granted some businesses greater success.

    A company named Brightpearl, an online business software management developer, has reported that since starting an MOOC program last fall, they noticed that the trained team produced 32% more revenue compared to past years. In addition, MOOCs can also save businesses the time and money they put into employee training. Take for example 1-800-Flowers who partnered with MOOC program Udemy to create a new web version of their BloomNet Floriology Institute. Now rather than spending expenses on transportation for its’ employees, they can complete the program from the comfort of their desk.

    Though the benefits of hand-on learning and traditional classroom tactics have always remained important, MOOC programs are beginning to blossom. With endorsements from some of the biggest companies on the market, there is no way of telling how popular MOOCs will be in future time.

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Adjunct Professors and the Affordable Care Act

Allen Meadors New Post |

With the passing of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration has established rules that clarify exactly who is eligible for employer health insurance. Under such regulation, jobs that work requires a dedication of 30 hours a week qualify for US employer-paid health insurance. Said rules place specific significant on seasonal and part-time jobs such as freelancers, transportation crews on layovers and of course the reason for this article, adjunct professors.

    Adjunct professor is the name given to those part-time instructors who surprisingly make up a large percent of all instructors, approximately 75%. These guidelines established by the US government will make it easier for adjunct professors to calculate their hours but it will make harder for those professors who spend extra time to help their students. For the better part of a decade, universities have relied on adjunct professors as they attempt to maintain the balance between affordable education and the strong demand for degrees. This reliance has caused the number of employed adjunct professors to skyrocket, growing at three times the rate of full-time faculty. Yet despite university reliance, many institutions have limited adjunct professor hours in an attempt to avoid having to pay for their health insurance.

This has caused a number of complaints among adjunct professors who feel that the set number of hours required may cause some universities to keep their hours to a minimum to avoid further fees. Because of this, a growing number of adjunct professors have turned to unions to improve their situation. As one individual sarcastically posted on the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education,  “So if I am in the middle of a lecture, exam or finals, and my adjunct clock strikes 29 hours, do I pick up all the exams, stop lecturing mid-sentence and tell students, ‘sorry, I’m over the hourly limit imposed by the government and this institution, so if you completed the exam fine, if not too bad, take it up with the IRS, Obama and the ACA?’”

    As this situation continues to forge itself one thing is clear. The next few months will certainly demonstrate the direction upon which higher education will steer itself for decades to come.

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