Campus Technology Insider

At Ohio State University, students developed a list of 10 ways that instructors can use the learning management system more effectively — common-sense guidelines that aim to make courses more consistent, predictable, easier to navigate and generally more student-friendly. We spoke with Sam Craighead, associate director of professional learning in Ohio State's Office of Technology and Digital Innov...

The pandemic has been a testament to the progress that has been made in the use of technology to support online learning, but it has also revealed how poorly traditional course design translates to a digital experience. And that's an opportunity for institutions to become more sophisticated in leveraging digital learning environments to go beyond what's possible in a brick-and-mortar classroom. Th...

Back in November, Campus Technology hosted a virtual summit about innovation in IT: all of the ways higher education technology leaders have embraced agility and flexibility in challenging times. A highlight of the event was a panel discussion on digital transformation, and how the pandemic has accelerated digital efforts on campus. Our panelists were: Marina Aminy, dean of Online Education and Le...

How will emerging technologies impact the future of education? While it's easy to get caught up in the hype around trends such as the metaverse and artificial intelligence, true progress comes in slow, incremental improvements in using technology to inform teaching and learning, according to Neil Heffernan, professor of computer science and director of the Learning Sciences and Technologies Gradua...

The digital transformation of higher ed has been going on for years, but the current pandemic has brought that process into laser focus – and accelerated digital efforts perhaps like nothing else could. Institutions are going through deep shifts in culture, workforce and technology, enabling new educational models, transforming operations, and even changing the whole value proposition of a higher...

The pandemic accelerated digital transformation and the adoption of new learning models at many colleges and universities — but higher ed culture has some catching up to do. While institutions traditionally measure change in decades, we're now in a time when flexibility, innovation and risk-taking are key to student access and opportunity as well as institutional survival. We spoke with Dr. Mark L...

Colby College in Maine is investing $30 million to create the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the first cross-disciplinary institute for AI at a liberal arts institution. Among its goals: to democratize AI, moving it beyond the realm of large universities and technology companies to transform teaching, learning and research in a wide variety of disciplines. Yet it's not just about how...

Over the past few years, online learning in higher education has gone through a period of disruptive change. Not only did the pandemic trigger a massive shift from in-person classes to online, but it also brought new models of hybrid learning to the forefront. And micro-credentials, programs certifying specific competencies that can stand alone or be applied toward a larger degree, have gained mom...

A team from Indiana University set out to expand the scope of pedagogical research by creating ManyClasses, a model for studying how students learn not just in a single classroom, but in a variety of different classes across multiple universities. For this episode of the podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly speaks with researchers Emily Fyfe and Ben Motz about how ManyClasses works, the challenges...

In 2015, California State University launched Graduation Initiative 2025, an ambitious plan to increase graduation rates and eliminate equity gaps in degree completion across the system's 23 campuses. Then halfway through that work, COVID hit — and all those student supports and services had to shift online. For this episode of the podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly speaks with Dr. James Minor,...

For many years, the Horizon Report has been tracking trends, technologies and key practices in teaching and learning. But this year, there's one striking difference: the impact of a global pandemic on practically every aspect of higher education. In some ways, colleges and universities may never be the same — but in other ways, trends that were important before COVID-19 have persisted, even as we...

When you picture a university innovation center, what comes to mind is usually a lot of hands-on collaboration and networking. But what happens when that heavily in-person experience is forced to go virtual? For this episode of the podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Matt Segneri, executive director of the Harvard Innovation Labs, to find out about the past year's challenges and succes...

EDUCAUSE recently released its first Information Security Edition of the Horizon Report, profiling important trends, technologies and practices shaping the future of IT security and privacy in higher education. For this episode of the podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly speaks with Brian Kelly, director of the cybersecurity program at EDUCAUSE, to discuss the new report, the technological trends...

One unintended impact of the pandemic in higher education is the strain that remote work and learning has put on IT security. Decisions made out of necessity in the heat of the moment, to preserve the continuity of teaching and learning, can potentially put campus networks and data at risk. In this episode of the podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Stephen Heath, chief information secu...

How will higher education evolve as we head into – hopefully – post-pandemic times? Is it even possible to make predictions with circumstances still in flux? In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Richard Garrett, chief research officer at higher education research firm Eduventures, about his predictions for 2021, the impact of the pandemic...

When Boston University launched its hybrid learning initiative this fall, it also created a Classroom Moderator program: essentially an army of student workers deployed in the classroom to help ensure that hybrid learning could run smoothly. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Ernie Perez, director of educational technology for BU Digita...

Last fall, Oregon State University launched an Ecampus online program for its introductory physics courses, with an emphasis on collaborative, hands-on work. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Senior Physics Instructor KC Walsh and Associate Department Head David Craig about how they've used technology, open educational resources, take-...

For information technology leaders in higher education, one silver lining of the pandemic has been the opportunity it has given IT to shine at a strategic level. In this bonus episode of the podcast, university CIOs Jill Albin-Hill and Paige Francis share how they have been able to get involved in pandemic response planning, fast-track IT projects, provide critical solutions to campus challenges,...

Since students have returned to school and remote learning this fall, there has been a dramatic increase in internet searches related to academic fraud — that's according to data from Cisco Talos. In a recent blog post, the threat intelligence team detailed how essay mills operate and how academic fraud websites can lead to more serious cybersecurity threats. It's a wild ride through falsified app...

China's Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University was one of the first to shift to remote learning when the COVID-19 pandemic hit earlier this year. Now, it's stepping things up for the fall by outfitting classrooms for the HyFlex model. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly talks with Roland Sherwood, manager of the university's educational technologies t...

The fall semester is beginning, and we are finally starting to see reopening plans play out at colleges and universities across the country. In this episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly explores the pandemic decision-making process with Dr. Eric Monday, executive vice president for finance and administration at the University of Kentucky, and also the chair...

In this bonus episode of the podcast, Dr. Elliot Stern, president of Saddleback College in Southern California, talks candidly about how his institution is making strategic decisions for the fall and what kinds of policies and infrastructure they are putting in place to move forward. The conversation comes from Campus Technology's recent Distance Learning Summit – a virtual event focused on the mo...

Julie Johnston, director of learning spaces for Indiana University, has been working hard to make classrooms safe for students and faculty this fall. In this episode, she talks with Campus Technology Executive Editor Rhea Kelly about how the new reality of COVID-19 is impacting IU's campuses, the challenges of preparing classrooms for the fall, and technology's role in ensuring a successful teachi...

In this first episode of the Campus Technology Insider podcast, Executive Editor Rhea Kelly speaks with futurist Bryan Alexander about higher education's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how the fall semester might play out as colleges and universities reopen.   Resource links: More about Bryan Alexander How to Be an Ed Tech Futurist Music: Mixkit Duration: 36 minutes