Virtual "Student Retention" Conference

U of Oklahoma's Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange sponsors symposia and this year will add a Virtual Conference on the subject. At $500 - $600, attendees can gain an access point for use in an office or conference room (for any number of people). Unlimited viewing of streaming videos is permitted between October 16 and November 20, 2009.

Virtual meetings are not new for the oganization. CSRDE offers regular one-hour webinars for $129 (member) to $229 (non-member) on subjects such as identifying at-risk students, the transfer student experience, and student services retention strategies. The 2009-10 Webinar Schedule promises a new topic every month.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

The Chronicle's Helpful Chart on Higher Ed Enrollments Worldwide

The past 20 years saw slow but steady increased enrollments in higher ed in the U.S. And we tend to think of that as typical around the globe. It is not typical. The global experience is one of explosive growth. For Asia and Africa, enrollments since 1990 have grown more than 200%. The Chronicle of Higher Education compiled stats from multiple sources to produce a helpful graphic to understand the growth.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Tech Note: Want a Blackberry?

Peter Schilling's second annual IT Index of technology uses at Amherst College discloses that 81 employees have Amherst-provided Blackberries. That's not so unusual these days, of course. The rest of the list details student email use, twitter followers, the increasing number of MACs on campus, and so forth. Trends, at least short term ones, can be spotted through comparison with last year's Index. (At the bottom of Schilling's list is a link to the 2008 Index.)

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

The Value of Poor Examples in Assessment

Dartmouth College's Office of Institutional Research provides its community with numerous Assessment Resources, including guides on assessment design. Of particular interest on the Assessment Design web page is a set of examples, good and bad. The examples use Claude Steele's stereotype threat theory as basis for an assessment effort, and reading through the "good" example gives an introduction to Steele's powerful work. Reading through the "poor" example is also instructive!

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Publications courtesy of Middle States

While any accreditation agency's web site is understandable focused on its own protocols and its own membership, there are some gems to be found on publications pages such as Middle States'. And a direct link to a summary page from Suskie's 2009 book is also on the site. It's a wonderful list of examples of evidence of student learning.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Tech Note: Keeping up with Apps on the Web

By the time you finish exploring this directory of Web 2.0 applications, Web 3.0 will be underway. Web applications emerged before anyone named the era of interactive apps as Web 2.0 but today the two terms are well linked (no pun intended). This directory site organizes web applications by category and also provides a sure guide to the most conventional tools under "Most Popular" (from the traditional LinkedIn to several artwork-sharing sites).

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Two October Conferences

Two conferences I'm making time for in October:

SAIR: October 17-19, 2009 in Dallas
Southern Association for Institutional Research
36th annual conference

IUPUI Assessment Institute: October 26-27, 2009 in Indianapolis
Annual conference on outcomes assessment

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Free Virtual Conference: Reserve December 3

Let's assume the Campus Technology 09 Virtual Conference won't run out of seats... still, an early reservation to the free event will assure that you reserve the date on your calendar.

For anyone who has ever attended the Campus Technology F2F conference (nee Syllabus), the upcoming December 3, 2010, free option is attractive. Even if you don't know that you need CT in your life, the company's quality of displays makes registration a given. You'll want to see what they've invented this year.

Registration for the free conference and expo includes a system check on your computer to insure best results on December 3.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

No Pat Ending: Report Brief on Outcomes Assessment

"There is no pat ending to this research brief. The issue appears to remain contentious among sociology chairs."

The research brief (What's Happening in Your Department with Assessment) is the American Sociological Association's report on survey of academic sociology departments (U.S. higher ed) on their assessment activities. Specifically, student outcomes assessment was addressed. The assessment activity is high; the attitude toward the activity is... mixed.

With a sampling frame of 915 programs/departments, and a response rate of 60%, the online survey produced data that allowed comparison with previous years. The report, at 22 pages, gives a lively accounting of survey results.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

iRubric: Search and Copy, too

Without joining the Rcampus web site, you can search for rubrics and view them on-screen. For the time that it takes to enter basic web form data, you can join Rcampus and gain access to the rubrics to copy, edit, print, and otherwise put the rubrics to full use.

The iRubrics web page also invites users to scan the Public Gallery. More features are available with the user membership registration. The "open tools" are free.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Transparency by Design: New Web Site

College Choices for Adults is the just-launched web site of the Transparency by Design project of WCET*.

The College Choices web site presents profile data for programs at member institutions including Western Governors, Capella, Kaplan, and APUS. Typical data: student demographics, NSSE results, alumni survey results.

Capella University's profile also includes data on student learning outcomes. A pair of clear examples:

MS in Human Services displays capstone course rubric results of largely Proficient and Distinguished ratings on eight outcomes, an expected result as graduate students typically strive to be.... proficient and distinguished.

BS in Information Technology displays capstone course results with greater variety among the ratings.

*WCET: Western Cooperative for Educational Technology was created in 1989 by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). The founding 15 western states have since been joined by members from most U.S. states. The goal of integrating DL and educational technology remains the same and includes conferences and special projects.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.