HERI's web site and blog: Always worth checking

Checking HERI's web site (Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA) is always a good idea but at present has two compelling reasons to take the time:

1 - Link to the HERI blog (or go straight there with this link) for presentation slides from the June 2009 AIR conference. Topics from HERI were outcomes for intro science and math courses, underrepresented students, first-year experience, and Habirs of Mind study (more first-year experience).

2 - Look at the HERI web site's list of Upcoming Conferences (bottom-left of the web page). You'll still have to make your own visit to the sponsor's web site for more information about each conference, but the HERI list is handy for scanning more than half-dozen events scheduled for Fall 2009.

© 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.

APA-6: A New Edition of the Style Manual

It doesn't happen often, but when a style manual revises, there's a thud of tossed books heard round the world.

This week the revision comes for the APA Publication Manual. The 6th edition has been launched, along with a new companion piece, the Concise Rules of APA Style.

For a chapter-by-chapter outline of what's new in the 6th edition, go to http://www.apastyle.org/manual/whats-new.aspx

© 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: Mobile Apps for Higher Ed

As higher education institutions go global... and mobile... it's interesting to see the companies behind the apps. MobilEdu is an arm of Terriblyclever Design which is an off-shoot from Stanford. The company was launched by students and now extends its products and services to other universities.

As the MobilEdu site indicates, clients include Duke, UC San Diego, Medical College of Georgia, Stanford, and Texas A&M.

The mobile apps range from campus maps to course lists to videos. Creation of apps has exploded with the iPhone and developers are, of course, working across smartphone boundaries. It will be interesting to see how the field grows in the next few years. Using Terriblyclever as example: the company has grown its client list very quickly as its first product (iStanford) launched in October 2008.

The branding of an app for a university or college is easy today, compared with how campuses struggled with web branding. With considerable marketing wisdom developed since the 1990s, administrators are more open to the use of mobile devices to support students and also to market the institution. The closest comparison to app development in higher ed may be the adoption of or contribution to iTunes University. Some institutions took to iTunes with energy and enthusiasm; others began multi-year legal analyses of the implications of contracting with the web site. Today, the debate would be very different. Or at least some different.

© 2008 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.