22 mei - “Universities don’t know what useful knowledge is” and “the EU’s seventh framework programme for research is the worst thing ever.” Péter Halácsy, the founder of Prezi, has unorthodox ideas on how to solve youth unemployment in Europe.
14 mei - MOOC giant Coursera starts pilot programs with several education publishers to provide students with free e-textbooks. Student benefit, since they can use the needed content for free as long as the course takes. Publishers as well see new opportunities to develop better learning materials and sell more.
18 april - The EU’s new regulation on data protection is so strongly lobbied by industry that academics from computer science, law and business administration take up the gauntlet: the rules must not be watered down.
5 april - It’s a ‘single purpose vehicle’, the new university proposed in the State of California. No tuition, no faculty, no bureaucracy, just a lean structure to certify online learning.
28 maart - Scientific authors must be ware: the newest trick of cyber criminals is putting up fraudulent websites of reputable science journals. The members of the editorial board don’t exist and publishing fees are funnelled to Armenia.
26 maart - Academic authors will be fined with $3000 by publisher Taylor and Francis when they also publish their research results in the public domain. These threats left the editorial board no other option than to quit collectively.
14 maart - A shortage of people with programming skills? Not in Estonia, where Minister Jaak Aaviksoo even sets 7-year olds to the task. “Classical math education is not active, but reflective. We can change that.”
4 maart - Open educational resources can pose a big challenge to institutions, as these have to rethink their role. The European Commission plans to facilitate the shift, by pushing for validation of skills acquired through informal learning.
27 februari - This week Sugata Mitra, inventor of the famous ‘Hole in the wall-experiment’, received the $1 million TED Prize 2013. Another boost for his Delhi slum education project.
26 februari - The European University Association (EUA) paints a gloomy picture on the future of MOOCs. Will this negative outlook on new forms of education stimulate European Universities to embrace technological innovation?
14 februari - Not many neurosurgeons write software as a hobby. Dr. Pieter Kubben does, and what is more: his apps are widely downloaded and delivered him a top ten listing at the website Internet Medicine.
11 februari - Finally the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are getting mature: after positive evaluation from the American Council on Education, San Jose State University is the first to offer credits for online courses.
8 februari - An 18% cut on EU’s research budget heading compared to Van Rompuy’s earlier proposal: Europe’s 7 year budget deal shows some individual winners. ‘Research’ clearly had no single country to defend the budget.