Gulf Times HIGHER EDUCATION Supplement Nov 2018

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Unlocking the Growth Potential of Online Students

Accommodation of Working Adult Needs and Expectations Is Key to Developing Competitive Online Programs

By David Daniels

O

ver the past decade, many public universities discovered that moving high-quality programs online opened new markets for their institutions and in many cases drove record program enrollment.

Today, even as more than 2,300 degree-granting institutions in the U.S. are meeting the demand for online programs, these programs continue to grow in popularity despite an otherwise declining higher education market.

Succeeding in this highly competitive landscape requires an investment in the development of programs that meet the specific needs and expectations of working adults—the primary audience for online programs. To attract the nontraditional, working adult student, universities must attune themselves to the fundamental differences, needs and expectations of the online student compared to those of the on-campus students they have traditionally served. The average online student:

Research has shown that the online student considers these primary factors when selecting an online program: 1. Cost While cost is a consideration for most students, it ranks as the number one factor non-traditional students consider when selecting an online program4.

2. Program Duration Non-traditional students want to complete their degree as soon as they can. They are learning on their own time – at the kitchen table after a full day of work and after putting kids to bed, for example – and are looking to achieve career-focused results as quickly as possible.

Is older than their on-campus peers, with more than 80 percent age 25 or older n Works full time while balancing family responsibilities n May not have the schedule or flexibility to attend classes on campus n

Think Fast: The ‘Amazonification’ of Everything What makes a consumer choose an Uber over a taxi; a Netflix movie over a trip to the theater; or a product purchase from Amazon over a local retailer? Simply put, time. Today’s digitally savvy consumer seeks ways to accomplish more in less time using technology. This behavior also influences the way students choose a university to pursue their online education. In line with the non-traditional student’s need for flexible, accelerated courses, a university’s success in enrolling qualified online students is influenced by their ability to provide rapid feedback in the admissions process.

Taking into consideration the online student’s expectation of rapid feedback throughout the application and admissions process is critical. Not only does research demonstrate that these students favor universities that respond quickly in the admissions process, these students consider multiple options for their online education, and are more likely to enroll in a program that allows them to begin without delay. Recent findings in the Online College Students Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences Report found that 52 percent of students sought information from three or more schools, an increase from 29 percent in 2016. The survey – which polled 1,500 current, prospective and recently graduated online college students – also found that the number of students considering only one institution fell from 30 percent to 18 percent.

When setting admission requirements, focus on the needs of working adults and consider which admission criteria are most critical to predicting academic success. n Streamline the admission processing time for online students. n

As options for online education continue to expand, competition for students remains fierce. Public universities remain uniquely qualified to offer the high-quality, affordable instruction working adults seek. To meet their needs and to drive sustainable enrollment growth, universities must design programs and processes that deliver flexibility, accessibility and rapid response.

A Model for Programs That Attract NonTraditional Students 3. Admission Requirements As most non-traditional students are working adults, often with several years of experience, they seek programs that place a heavier value on their extensive work experience versus just their prior academic accomplishments or test scores.

Adult students are also keenly focused on job-specific requirements with nearly 80 percent of online students citing a career-focused reason as the primary motivation for enrolling in their program.

4. Multiple Starts On-campus students expect to start during the traditional semester schedules of fall, spring and summer. With busy schedules and a desire to progress through a program rapidly, non-traditional students want the ability to start at their convenience and seek programs that offer multiple starts per year.

In our work with more than 50 university partners over the last decade, we have found that when developing highquality, online programs that appeal to working adults, the following program attributes should be considered: Offering a high-quality, competitively priced program is paramount for universities looking to attract working adults. n An asynchronous, accelerated course schedule enables students to learn on their own time and fits the flexibility needs of non-traditional students juggling work, family and education. n Multiple start dates offer non-traditional students the ability to begin their program as soon as possible. n

David Daniels is the president of University Partnerships.

Courtesy: University Partnerships

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HIGHER EDUCATION

Special Supplement Sunday, November 25, 2018

The Challenges of Higher Education in the st 21 Century

By Jesús Granados Our imperfect world is advancing relentlessly towards uncertain future scenarios, and we must try to redirect it towards sustainability, that is, towards a new way of doing things in order to improve our environment while at the same time achieving justice, social equality and economic stability. However change is impossible without learning, just as learning is impossible without change. In the text that follows, I will analyze the need for a new form of education in today’s society and identify the specific challenges that higher education faces.

Characteristics of our Current Society We live in a world in crisis, in a knowledge society, and in an era in which time is fluid, nothing lasts, everything changes and is unstable.

The diverse and heterogeneous society of the new millennium is characterised by a series of internal crises in the welfare state: the social crisis, the environmental crisis and unsustainable practices, the crisis of states, the threat posed by globalisation, and finally, the crisis of democracy.

The consequences of these crises include the exacerbation of social and economic inequality; the emergence of a global form of planetary management with new decisionmaking centres that have undermined the decision-making power of individuals and states; and citizens’ loss of confidence in the democratic system due to the perception that political decisions are distant and difficult to influence.

When new forms of knowledge and symbolisation qualitatively impregnate all basic aspects of a society, or when a society’s structures and processes for reproducing itself are so penetrated by knowledge-dependent operations that information creation operations, symbolic analysis and expert systems are more important than other factors of production, then we’re talking about the knowledge society (Innerarity, 2010). The major challenge facing a knowledge society is the generation of collective intelligence: society’s intelligence as a whole is more important than just having a society composed of multiple individual intelligences.

Bertman (1998) described life in today’s society as a “nowist culture” and a “hurried culture”, because we place more importance on brand-new, high-impact things than on those which require exploration. According to Bauman (2007), we have gone from linear time to pointillist time:

what matters is the moment, and our identities are continually being built and modified.

The Need for a New Education In the beginning, education and the ideals it embodied aspired to create a “perfect” citizenry. Later, the objective shifted to ensuring that citizens were well-trained, and more recently it shifted once again to the awakening of the critical spirit. Today, the ideal is creativity: the capacity to learn and a lifelong willingness to face new things and modify learned expectations accordingly; there can be no learning without re-learning, without the revision that must be undertaken when we realise the weakness of what we thought we knew. In a knowledge society, education is the capacity to be creative in an environment of particular uncertainty, the capacity to properly manage the cognitive dissonance that gives rise to our failure to comprehend reality (Innerarity, 2010). Therefore, in the world of liquid modernity, we must move away from sporadic education and towards lifelong learning. This entails overcoming security-driven resistance: the pillars to which we cling because they lend us a sense of security: a mistake in a world filled with insecurities and ephemeral validities.

Conventionally, education has been understood as preparation for life, as personal realisation, and as an essential element in progress and social change, in accordance with changing needs (Chitty, 2002). Orr

(2004) declares that if certain precautions are not taken, education may equip people to become “more effective vandals of the earth”. He describes education of the sort we have seen thus far as a possible problem, and argues for a new type of education: “More of the same kind of education will only compound our problems. This is not an argument for ignorance but rather a statement that the worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival. It is not education, but education of a certain kind, that will save us.”

(Orr, 2004: 8) “Education, in other words, can be a dangerous thing (...). It is time, I believe, for an educational ‘perestroika’, by which I mean a general rethinking of the process and substance of education at all levels, beginning with the

admission that much of what has gone wrong with the world is the result of education that alienates us from life in the name of human domination, fragments instead of unifies, overemphasizes success and careers, separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical, and unleashes on the world minds ignorant of their own ignorance.”

(Orr, 2004: 17) Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has emerged as a paradigm for revising and reorienting today’s education. ESD consists of new forms of knowing and learning how to be human in a different way. This education aims to contribute to the sustainability of personal integrity, or in the words of Sterling (2001), to the integrity of the spirit, heart, head and hands. As argued by Dewey and the educational reconstructionists, it is often not enough to do things according to custom or habit, that is, to reproduce the existing social system. Instead, new answers must be sought. If we are to imagine new ways of living and acting, then we must be capable of assessing and bringing about social change, because successfully achieving sustainable development requires the following principles: being aware of the challenge, taking action voluntarily, assuming collective responsibility and forming a constructive partnership, and believing in the dignity of all human beings without exception. These principles for lasting human development, formulated at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, imply lessons that largely coincide with the four pillars of education set out in the Delors Report: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to be. In the context of ESD, UNESCO (2008) suggested the inclusion of a fifth pillar: learning to transform oneself and society.

In a sense, education must lead to empowerment: through education, individuals should acquire the capacity to make decisions and act effectively in accordance with those decisions, and this in turn entails the ability to influence the rules of play through any of the available options. Thus, education consists in developing not only personal but also social qualities; it is the development of social conscience: awareness of how society works, knowledge of how it is structured, and a sense of the personal agency which allow action. This agency, however, at the same time restricts our interventions and makes it is necessary to decide our personal degree of action.

(Goldberg, 2009). Essentially, it opens a dialogue between the personal and the collective, between common and individual interests, between rights and obligations.

Challenges faced by institutions of higher education The following are the challenges faced by universities and other institutions of higher education: • Changes in universities as institutions and at the level of internal organisation. These changes should aim to improve the management of resources (human, economic, etc.) and be restructured to improve internal democracy. Universities must continue their mission to educate, train and carry out research through an approach characterised by ethics, autonomy, responsibility and anticipation.

• Changes in knowledge creation. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches should be taken and nonscientific forms of knowledge should be explored.

• Changes in the educational model. New teaching/ learning approaches that enable the development of critical and creative thinking should be integrated.

The competencies common to all higher-education graduates should be determined and the corresponding

Reformulation of Higher Education Einstein once said that no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. Current needs suggest that we must learn to view the world and therefore education, in a new way. Higher education has in the past demonstrated its crucial role in introducing change and progress in society and is today considered a key agent in educating new generations to build the future, but this does not exempt it from becoming the object of an internal reformulation.

According to the World Declaration on Higher Education for the 21st Century (1998), higher education is facing a number of important challenges at the international, national and institutional levels.

At the international level, there are two main challenges. The first is the role of supranational organisations such as UNESCO in advancing the prospection of trends and improvements, as well as in promoting networking and twinning programmes among institutions.

The European Union (EC-JRC, 2010), for example, has stressed that higher education must change and adapt

expectations should be defined. In a knowledge society, higher education should transform us from disoriented projectiles into guided missiles: rockets capable of changing direction in flight, adapting to variable circumstances, and constantly course-correcting. The idea is to teach people to learn quickly as they go along, with the capacity to change their mind and even renounce previous decisions if necessary, without over-thinking or having regrets. Teaching and learning must be more

to economic and social needs, that institutional change is active, connected to real life, and designed with students essential to educational innovation, and that information and their unique qualities in mind. and communication technologies must form part of the • Changes aimed at tapping the potential of information teaching and learning process. The second international and communication technologies in the creation and challenge is to encourage international cooperation between dissemination of knowledge. The goal of such changes is institutions in order to share knowledge across borders to create what Prensky (2009) calls digital wisdom. and facilitate collaboration, which, furthermore, represents • Changes for social responsibility and knowledge transfer. an essential element for the construction of a planetary The work of higher-education institutions must be (Morin, 2009) and post-cosmopolitan citizenship (Dobson relevant. What they do, and what is expected of them, and Bell, 2006): the assumption of interdependence, must be seen as a service to society; their research “deterritorialisation”, participation, co-responsibility, and must anticipate social needs; and the products of their solidarity among all inhabitants of the planet. research must be shared effectively with society through States must provide the necessary financing so that appropriate knowledge-transfer mechanisms. universities can carry out their public-service function.

States may also enact laws to ensure equality of access and strengthen the role of women in higher education and in Courtesy: www.guninetwork.org society.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Special Supplement Sunday, November 25, 2018

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Ideas that shape your world start here

C

arnegie Mellon University attracts a certain type of student: motivated, inventive, and driven to make a difference. Students come to Carnegie Mellon to learn, create and innovate with the very best. They leave with the passion, connections, credentials and lifelong friends who will help them change the world.

A private, global university, Carnegie Mellon stands among the world’s most renowned educational institutions, setting its own course with programs that inspire creativity and collaboration.

At the invitation of Qatar Foundation, Carnegie Mellon joined Education City in 2004 to deliver select programs that will support and contribute to the longterm development of Qatar.

Learn by doing Students at Carnegie Mellon Qatar learn beyond the classroom through a slate of unique enrichment opportunities. Most students choose to study abroad during their four-year education, and many travel on academic trips that enhance classroom work. Students who intern receive on-the-job experience, which adds an important dimension to their undergraduate education.

Research is part of the fabric of a Carnegie Mellon education. Students engage in a wide variety of research endeavors, such as independent studies, senior and honors theses, summer internships and funded projects as junior researchers.

Small campus, big spirit The CMU-Q student body is exceptionally diverse, representing 38 nations.

Students form a busy and active community, participating in clubs, organizing large-scale events, traveling for service and academics, and competing in local and international contests. The low student-to-professor ratio means students receive unparalleled individual attention.

Programs of study CMU-Q offers undergraduate programs that are ahead of the curve, in fields at the forefront of technology, innovation, scientific discovery and economic growth. All undergraduate majors require four years of full-time study, after which students earn a bachelor of science degree. n Biological Sciences has a core curriculum of biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics. In-depth exposure to multiple disciplines prepares students for careers at the forefront of emerging new fields. n Business Administration provides the foundation for motivated students to become leaders in the business arena within Qatar, the region and the world.

The program emphasizes an analytical approach to problem-solving, providing the tools to adapt to an evolving business environment. n Computational Biology applies computer science techniques to complex biological and biomedical problems. The program provides an intensive, interdisciplinary education grounded in the disciplines of biology and computer science. n Computer Science provides students with the core skills of mathematical reasoning, algorithmic thinking, and programming. The program encourages creativity and provides the fundamental skills to develop new technologies. n Information Systems is based on professional core courses that teach students to analyze, design, implement and test information systems using current and emerging practices. The flexible nature of the program encourages students to work outside of traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Ideas that shape your world start here.

Carnegie Mellon University attracts a certain type of student: motivated, inventive and driven to make a difference. Students come to Carnegie Mellon to learn, create and innovate with the very best. They leave with the passion, connections, credentials and lifelong friends who will help them change the world.

www.qatar.cmu.edu

Biological Sciences • Business Administration • Computational Biology • Computer Science • Information Systems

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HIGHER EDUCATION

Special Supplement Sunday, November 25, 2018

Enough with All the Innovation

By John Patrick Leary At Wayne State University, a commuter campus in Detroit where faculty members and students struggle to turn people out for events, the opening of the Innovation Hub last fall was a big deal. I have rarely seen so many people in one room on campus. Speakers gushed about the university’s “innovation ecosystem” and the “disruptive” start-ups sure to blossom in its “incubators.”

Speakers paced the stage giving TED-style speeches rich in the soothing platitudes of business books. To nurture innovation, explained one, “you’ve got to have serendipity and creativity, and that’s when two plus two equals seven — apologies to the math department,” he added, chuckling at his own baffling joke. “You’ve heard the word ‘innovation’ a lot so far this evening,” said another, apologetically, briefly giving me hope that the term would finally be defined, or better yet, discarded. He continued: “You’re about to hear it a lot more.”

It was a success: Students were excited, the free food was unusually good, and the whole production could have probably paid for a couple of adjunct history professors.

I left disheartened by it all: the unskeptical embrace of buzzwords, the unexamined enthusiasm for the marketplace as a wise referee of ideas. I also wondered whether the reason students were so enthusiastic about running a potentially lucrative start-up at school was that their Wayne State education wasn’t as affordable as it was two decades ago, when the state of Michigan accounted for two-thirds of the university’s operating budget, as opposed to one-third today.

Private universities like Princeton, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Rice are locked in what some have called an “innovation arms race,”competing to open new entrepreneurial “labs,” “hubs,” and “makerspaces” to facilitate student and faculty startups. Public universities like mine are racing to keep up. The Innovation Hub is part of a major new initiative, explained university officials in a statement, to “prepare our

students with innovation and entrepreneurship skills” while also leading “the revitalization of the Detroit region.”

That last is a task that has bedeviled generations of local, state, and federal politicians, but the merchants of innovation do not lack for confidence. Or deep-pocketed donors: The Innovation Hub will join a new “Entrepreneurial Learning Laboratory” this year, funded by a private-equity executive, as part of the new Mike Ilitch School of Business, itself named for Detroit’s late pizza and sports baron.

Wayne State is joining a nationwide trend, from the Ivy League to the regional state school — a trend that has benefited from the encouragement of rich donors. In 2003, the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation began donating millions to encourage entrepreneurship curricula at universities across the country.

The campaign to expand entrepreneurship outside of the business school has only accelerated since the 2008 financial crisis, the center acknowledged in a 2013 report.

“Among young people,” it warned, “the word has gone out that those without self-starting skills may be at a permanent disadvantage.”

Reliable statistics about the growth and number of innovation and entrepreneurship centers, makerspaces, and other business programs and courses are hard to come by — even the Kauffman Foundation report leans here on the anecdotal. And it certainly feels as if the shock of the 2008 financial crisis — specifically the cuts in public-university funding, and widespread panic about the job market and student debt — has had a lasting effect on how students and administrators think about the value of education. Benjamin Schmidt makes this point in an essay exploring the decline of undergraduate humanities

majors: “Students aren’t fleeing degrees with poor job prospects,” he writes. “They’re fleeing humanities and related fields specifically because they think they have poor job prospects.”

The word, accurate or not, has gone out on noncommercial majors — and universities are largely responsible. As tuition continues to rise, colleges and universities now increasingly market themselves — to students, legislators, and donors — as storehouses of innovation and engines of the “knowledge economy.”

And this, in turn, marks a shift in the way universities see themselves and their students: as servants of industry rather than the public.

Though every institution is different, innovation and entrepreneurship centers typically claim to do a little bit of everything: incubate student and faculty start-ups (usually for a cut, in royalties and licensing fees) while also addressing intractable social problems, like climate change or poverty, with market-friendly solutions. Its ability to encompass so much, while specifying so little, is the real secret sauce of “innovation.”

Unlike “business,” the more pedestrian term for commerce it usually replaces, “innovation” summons an association with the sort of public-oriented, qualitative knowledge that universities have traditionally produced but feel less obliged to support: art, philosophy, sociology, etc. And innovation carries with it an air of do-gooding benevolence: “changing the world,” as the Silicon Valley cliché goes.

One can be excused for asking the obvious question, then: What evidence is there that any of this very expensive innovation and entrepreneurship stuff works — that is, rewards students with fulfilling, well-compensated careers, while generating revenue for the institution (not to mention “changing the world”)?

Marc Levine, an economic historian at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, has studied the economic effects of university investment in innovation and entrepreneurship programs and found that there is little data to justify all

the spending. Outside of the few examples of academeto-industry synergy that most institutions dutifully cite as aspirations — Silicon Valley and Stanford, Boston’s Route 128 tech corridor and Harvard and MIT, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle — there’s scant evidence to connect these investments with local job growth or even increased university revenue.

As Levine argues, most universities measure the success of their entrepreneurship programs by the things they produce: patents issued and start-ups founded, mostly because these are things that can be counted. But you can’t eat patents, and most start-ups fail. And most universities don’t have the good fortune to be located in or around Palo Alto.

If the evidence for the economic value of entrepreneurship initiatives is so scant, and the crises of tuition, student debt, and class size so urgent, why do so many universities keep throwing money at the innovation chimera? One answer is that administrators, like most people, aren’t particularly innovative. They respond to trends. Think about it: What could be less innovative now than founding yet another academic center for innovation and entrepreneurship?

Second, administrators are under pressure to chase wealthy donors eager to promote a pro-business agenda and attach their name to a building. A third reason is ideological: We live in a society in which virtually every moral or intellectual value must be defended in market terms. Education is said to be worthwhile insofar as it enhances individual job prospects and national competitiveness. “Changing the world” is best accomplished with venture capital. Students, disciplined by a harsh job market, have learned the harsh lesson that our society teaches about education: The most worthwhile knowledge is the kind you can sell.

John Patrick Leary is an associate professor of English at Wayne State University. He is the author of Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism, forthcoming in December.

Article courtesy of: www.chronicle.com

HIGHER EDUCATION

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The Master’s degrees are being offered in fulltime and part-time modes to facilitate working professionals who are interested in receiving a graduate degree. The approval of these graduate programmes is a validation of the high quality of education offered at Stenden University of Applied Sciences in Qatar.

Offering Master’s degrees in hospitality and tourism management tenden University of Applied Sciences-Qatar (SUAS-Q) – a premium higher education provider in the areas of business, hospitality and tourism management in Qatar – has initiated offering two Master’s programmes from September 2018.The new programmes – Master’s in Leisure, Tourism, and Event Management, and Master’s in International Hospitality and Service Management – have been approved and licensed by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education after a rigorous review of the curriculum, teaching and learning resources, staffing and facilities of SUAS-Q.

Special Supplement Sunday, November 25, 2018

Commenting on SUAS-Q’s latest achievement, His Excellency Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani, Chairman of Al Faisal Holding, said: “The education sector has always been of great importance to us, as we actively sought – for more than two decades – to be one of the leading supporters of the Government’s wise initiatives in enhancing the local education sector and placing Qatar among the top ranks in that field globally. We have partnered with several international educational institutions and attracted them to Qatar in order to support the development and diversification of the education sector and better equip a more distinctive and highly efficient generation to lead the country forward.

The achievement is a key milestone in the development of SUAS-Q, which operates under the umbrella of Al Rayyan International Educational Company – a subsidiary of Al Faisal Holding.

The two Master’s programmes have enriched the educational portfolio of the university, and have contributed to the expansion of high-quality graduate education in the State of Qatar. The programmes have also added value to the development and growth of the tourism and hospitality sectors in the country.

Internationally Accredited Degrees Bachelor Degrees in:

“The Masters Programmes offered by Stenden University are considered a major milestone and an added value to the education landscape in Qatar.

I would like to congratulate Stenden University on this important achievement, as I wish them more success. I would also like to thank the Ministry of Education and Higher Education for their continuous support”.

• International Hospitality Management • Tourism Management • International Business and Management Studies

Master Degrees in:

• International Hospitality and Service Management • International Leisure, Tourism and Events Management

Dr. Ivan Ninov, Executive Dean of SUAS-Q, stated: “We are very proud of this achievement as we have been provided with an excellent opportunity to start delivering academic courses at a more advanced graduate level in key areas which are of great importance to the future development of the State of Qatar. We are confident that with the introduction of the two new Masters programmes, we will be able to further develop the skills of working professionals and help them enrich their professional careers. At the same time we are extremely excited as the licensure of both programmes comes at a very important time as both Master’s degrees are fully aligned with the pillars of Qatar’s National Vision 2030, and with the strategic objectives of the government. This is a very important moment in the evolution of Stenden University of Applied Sciences – Qatar, and a significant step towards achieving our vision as an educational institution.”

Tel: 44888126 - 44888116 www.stenden.edu.qa

Your future begins here

The Art of Getting Involved

Tips on how academics can take more active roles in their disciplines

By Myron Strong Four years ago, I was awarded my Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Texas and started my position as an assistant professor of sociology at the Community College of Baltimore County. During my 10 years in graduate school, I presented at only two conferences. I did not hold a position in any discipline-based organizations.

Like many recent graduates, I was unsure where I fit in the wider discipline and how to get involved. I wasn’t the only one, as I heard this viewpoint frequently repeated when I talked to other young scholars.

I now serve on various committees within the American Sociological Association, Eastern Sociological Society and Association of Black Sociologists, including the ASA Status Committee on Race and Ethnicity. And my involvement within the discipline has been no accident. It has been the result of cultivating a digital identity and being proactive.

Over the past four years of attending academic conferences, I have noticed that the same people from the same institutions plan and present. This limits the number of different views and perspectives in the discipline, which in turn creates a narrow view that affects the funding, accessibility and understanding of the broad discipline. And oftentimes the reasons various people aren’t attending are quite practical and simple. For instance, I recently met with someone who claimed they were interested in going to conferences but did not because the organizers frequently didn’t take the concerns of individuals with physical disabilities into account. Also, although many organizations discount memberships and annual conference cost for adjuncts and people from teaching institutions, they do not offer travel assistance or only offer it on a competitive basis. That makes many conferences cost prohibitive.

These experiences have led me to conclude that disciplines need more people with different voices involved in their activities. Most academics are not on the tenure track at top research universities or other elite higher education institutions. For example, at a recent conference, I told a colleague at a major research university that my institution had now switched to using open educational resources, or OER -- free textbooks and resources that

can be used and reused by students and faculty. My colleague had never heard of OER. What this tells me is that disciplines are not seeing the full picture. Academe needs people from a variety of institutions and even scholars from outside higher education -- those who may work for the government, nonprofits, think tanks and other organizations -- to get involved in the decision-making process for awards, committees and planning.

Some organizations recognize these issues and are attempting to address them. For example, the American Sociological Association is working to be more inclusive of sociologists from different institutions and with a variety of educational levels, socioeconomic backgrounds, types of experiences and expertise. My selection to the ASA Status Committee on Race and Ethnicity was in part because they wanted someone who worked at a community college and brought that experience to the committee.

Beyond the factors I’ve outlined above, new Ph.D. graduates and other academics are often also uncertain about how to get started, particularly those at teaching institutions and community colleges. So, based on my conversations with early-career and community college sociologists, I will offer some suggestions for getting involved -- with the caveat that individual effort won’t necessarily overcome structural factors -- though even those academics who recognize structural problems and have often been the victims of them have a real desire to get involved.

Here are some tips based on my experience.

Be confident in your value regardless of where you are in your career. Many scholars suffer from impostor syndrome shortly after completing their degree and are unsure how to become engaged. But whether you’re employed as an adjunct, at a community college, a research university or outside academe, you are a source of knowledge. You have distinct experience and insights that you can share with others.

Develop a digital presence and reach out to fellow scholars. Twitter is one of the best ways to meet and interact; it helps keep you current on new research in your discipline as well as new trends and directions in it. I found that scholars on Twitter are generally open and willing to communicate, and I regularly tweet about them and their scholarship. Twitter makes it easy to learn about fellow scholars’ research (and they have likely learned about yours). It also can act as a support system because you can share and connect with people with similar interests -- some of whom are going through similar stresses professionally. Such connections may facilitate face-toface meetings at conferences. Also, people recognize you from Twitter and often offer opportunities for conference presentations, fellowships, research projects and jobs.

Join professional organizations and get involved. While your discipline’s flagship conference may be too expensive, you can often join less costly regional and state organizations. The dues for regional organizations can be reasonable (as low as $15), and they often have conferences within driving distances. Some even have sections or committees dedicated to underrepresented groups. For instance, the Eastern Sociological Society has a community college committee that promotes community college scholars and has dedicated sections for sociologists at community colleges during the annual conference.

If you attend annual conferences, go to the business meetings. Get to know people and offer to volunteer.

And even if you do not attend, email the organization’s officers and offer to volunteer. The more people involved, the more representative the decisions will be. Go to conference receptions, too. They are a great way to meet and make connections with scholars in a noncompetitive, less stressful (though it can feel like a middle school dance) environment. Even if you do not attend conferences, you can follow the new research and general discussions on social media through organization pages and hashtags on Twitter.

Present your work whenever possible. There are lots of spaces to present your teaching or research. Most conferences only require an abstract. I have presented at various conferences, and most people are open, encouraging and supportive.

In short, disciplinary organizations need to become more inclusive. But unless we in those disciplines push them, those changes won’t happen. You can make a difference.

Myron Strong is an assistant professor of sociology at the Community College of Baltimore County in Baltimore.

Courtesy: Inside Higher Ed

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HIGHER EDUCATION

Special Supplement Sunday, November 25, 2018

What College Rankings Really Measure Hint: It’s Not Quality or Value

By Jonathan Wai

E

ach year various magazines and newspapers publish college rankings in an attempt to inform parents and prospective students which colleges are supposedly the best.

U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” – perhaps the most influential of these rankings – first appeared in 1983. Since then, many other rankings have emerged, assessing colleges and universities on cost, the salaries of graduates and other factors.

For example, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education recently released their new rankings, which judge colleges on things that range from how much graduates earn to the campus environment to how much students engaged with instructors.

But what, if anything, do all these college rankings really reveal about the quality and value of a particular college?

In order to provide a new perspective on rankings, my colleagues Matt I. Brown, Christopher F. Chabris and I decided to rank colleges according to the SAT or ACT scores of the students they admit. We approached this matter as researchers with backgrounds in education and psychology.

For our analysis, we took data from the 2014 U.S. News rankings and recorded the 25th and 75th percentile scores on the math and verbal subtests for 1,339 schools. We took all the ACT scores and converted them to SAT scores using a concordance table. Then, we simply ranked all the schools by this standardized test score metric.

correlated between 0.659 to 0.890 with other rankings. This suggests the schools that end up at the top of the test score rankings also will end up at the top of these other rankings.

We first found high correlations between our test score rankings and U.S. News national university rank – 0.892 – and liberal arts college rank – 0.890 – even though U.S. News weights these scores only about 8 percent in their formula. Times Higher Education’s U.S. school ranking was correlated 0.787 with SAT and ACT scores and Times Higher Education’s full international school ranking was correlated 0.659. This suggests that the SAT/ACT rankings could function as a common factor that connects all rankings.

But what about other types of rankings that were formulated in very different ways for different purposes?

When we examined the correlation between our test score ranking and a “revealed preference ranking,” which was based on the colleges students prefer when they can choose among them, we found these rankings to be highly related at 0.757.

When we compared the test score rankings to a novel set of rankings created by Lumosity, the creator of “brain games” meant to boost cognitive functioning, we found that ranking to be highly related to SAT/ACT scores as well – at 0.794.

Finally, we examined a “critical thinking” measure – the CLA+ – intended to assess critical thinking among freshman college students. We again found this to be highly related to the test score rankings – at 0.846.

A Question of Usefulness

Hierarchy of Smarts One thing we discovered is that schools higher up on the rankings generally admit students with higher SAT or ACT scores.

In other words, what the rankings largely show is the caliber of the students that a given college admits – that is, if you accept the SAT as a valid measure of a student’s caliber. Though there is often public controversy over the value of standardized tests, research shows that these tests are quite robust measures to predict academic performance, career potential, creativity and job performance.

Critics of the SAT might say it actually tests for students’ wealth, not caliber. While it is true that wealthier parents tend to have students with higher test scores, it turns out the research robustly shows that test scores, even when you consider socioeconomic status, are predictive of later outcomes.

Our ranking also disproves the notion that the No. 1 school in the land is slightly better than the No. 2 school – and so on down the list. Rather it shows that the vast majority of schools admit students who earn a score between 900 and 1300 on the SAT – that is, on the combined scores on the SAT Math and Verbal. Greater variations in test scores appear in schools that admit students at the low and high end of the distribution – those students who earn below a 900 or above a 1300 on their SATs. In particular, most of the variation occurs between “highly selective” and “elite” schools, between the scores of 1300 and 1600

in the illustration. Thus, test score rankings can mean different things depending upon which group of schools students and parents are considering. For example, if you are deciding whether to attend two different schools that fall into the vast middle range of scores where there is much more overlap, the ranking differences likely will not tell you very much.

The similarities in rankings raise the important issue of what all these rankings actually measure. Do they really measure the value that a college adds to a student’s life? Or are they largely a function of student test scores, which reflects student characteristics and educational development, among other aspects, such as reasoning abilities.

To our knowledge, our graph represents the first illustration of how colleges and universities stack up against one another in terms of the SAT or ACT test scores of the students that end up on their campuses.

Considering the correlation between SAT scores and college rankings, is it fair for a school to say a parent is getting a good “return on investment” for the tuition they pay? Since student characteristics – as indicated by test scores – are so highly correlated with the rankings, we argue that student characteristics should be considered as inputs when evaluating any outputs of a school. This is because schools that admit students who score well on the SAT or ACT will also have successful graduates based on the research that shows standardized tests alone predict many long-term outcomes.

For instance, The Wall Street Journal-Times Higher Education rankings methodology does not include the SAT/ACT scores of students. The U.S. News rankings include SAT/ACT scores as part of their student selectivity portion, but these scores are weighted only about 8 percent in the total formula.

Schools may want to take as much credit as they can for the education and opportunities they give students. But if a school enrolls the top students to begin with, it’s hardly surprising that such a school would end up on top in terms of other outcomes. A college’s success may be less about the quality of its instruction and more about the talent it can recruit.

Different Rankings, Similar Results Our study also assessed the correlation — or how statistically similar — our test score rankings were compared to the U.S. News rankings themselves, as well as other rankings that are meant to assess entirely different dimensions of colleges and universities.

A correlation of 1 indicates a perfect relationship between two variables whereas a correlation of 0 indicates no relationship between two variables. We found across our analyses that test score rankings

Jonathan Wai is Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Psychology and Endowed Chair, University of Arkansas.

Credit: The Conversation Image Courtesy: Forbes Magazine

HIGHER EDUCATION

Special Supplement Sunday, November 25, 2018

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The Learner Revolution and What It Means for Higher Education

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t a time when universities are responding to the digital revolution in learning by offering multiple start dates, competency-based degrees and onlinedelivered curricula based on a changing economy, the admission process and its criteria, particularly at the master’s level, seems stuck in the past.

A major reason that admissions has not kept pace with these concurrent changes in higher education is that in the traditional approach to admissions, universities cannot input student data without it being connected to a degree program. And since master’s programs were originally designed as an academic stepping stone to research and/or a doctoral degree, admissions criteria were based on undergraduate GPAs, standardized test scores, essays and professional recommendations.

Increasingly however, the working adult student enters a master’s program not to become an academic, but to improve performance in their career environment.

Universities who are adapting to the needs of the nontraditional learner by offering more online programs have also begun asking if past academic performance measures should be de-emphasized in favor of evaluating master’s candidates on the basis of their professional work.

Steps Toward a More Agile Admissions System But adapting admissions requirements to attract non-traditional students based on more flexible admissions by program, newly defined success metrics and innovative admission requirements that meet adult learner applicants at their qualification level is only the start. Universities helping students find their way through the admissions funnel is only part of imagining how their institutions might function, both online and offline, in the next decade.

Much as the first of this three-part series laid out the ways the networked world is fundamentally changing how we teach and learn, this second of the series will examine how admissions as a whole might shift toward a more “Agile Admissions System” to engage effectively in the Learner Revolution. strategies, institutions must combine data on how students interact in their learning environments and combine with data from surveys of students about their experiences.

As an example, for price sensitive students, a flexible option that provides a short-term certificate after a few classes might be the incentive to get them to enroll when they otherwise would be reluctant to commit to the cost of an entire program.

New Methods for a New Generation of Applicants What would a better process for graduate admissions look like? What if universities evaluated candidates using standards that are less academic and more realistic for working professionals, while still maintaining the quality of their graduate programs?

According to some college leaders, inventive graduate admissions solutions could begin with: •

Meeting applicants where they are by re-evaluating the presumptive need for graduate admissions tests, copies of undergraduate transcripts and/or letters of reference.

•

Define success metrics by evaluating why students in professional master’s programs succeed, and why they don’t. Universities should ask what the markers of success are and factor those into application requirements.

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Provide flexible admissions by program by tailoring the application process to the specifics of each program and the expectations for students enrolled in that program—versus a one-size-fits-all set of graduate admissions.

At first, this resulted in large gains in graduate online enrollments. Now, with increasing competition in the online education space, students who feel their needs are not being met will go elsewhere. In developing unique enrollment

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Same IELTS. More choice.

For the first time in Qatar, you can now take IELTS on a computer with the British Council

Computer-delivered testing A new way to experience IELTS

British Council is a proud co-owner of IELTS.

Abandoning legacy academic structures by unbundling offerings. Unbundled programs are slowly gaining ground as universities experiment with alternative ways to deliver degree programs.

Examples are MicroMasters, containing just over a quarter of courses (chosen from a wide range of study areas) in a typical master’s, with top performers qualifying to apply for a full master’s program.

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An unbundled experience can help students obtain the coursework they need immediately without making a long-term commitment of time and money to a full degree program while allowing them to return at any point to gain more education and training.

Based on interviews with chief human resources officers, workplace experts and college officials, four approaches to creating a more agile admissions process include: Revising recruitment practices by smarter segmentation of prospective student markets. Right now, many institutions think of the adult market through a single lens: age. This led universities to transfer the structure of traditional undergraduate education to the graduate level with a few tweaks, namely putting degree programs online.

BRITISH COUNCIL IELTS

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www.britishcouncil.qa

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Reimagining admissions requirements and allowing learners to “try before they enroll.”

Admissions could be based on the information and data already collected on prospective students rather than on a moment-in-time snapshot assembled for an application deadline. For

professional graduate programs, admissions could be remodeled into something similar to employers searching LinkedIn and other online databases to recruit talent; in this case better matching universities with students.

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Along with this, instead of waiting on applications, institutions could allow learners to try out an online class or two and gain full enrollment after successfully completing the courses.

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Blending undergraduate and graduate education to develop hybrid combined degrees. Various blended degree plans could combine the competencies students need to learn with broad knowledge of the liberal arts in a concentrated bachelor’s-with-master’s model compressed into four years, offering both on-campus and online components.

Higher Education at the Intersection of the Work World The goal for universities in rising to meet the admissions challenges presented by the learner revolution is to facilitate the success of a growing pool of working adult students and encourage them to embrace the essential training and new skill development found in higher education as a discovery of the value of life-long learning.

To maintain their centuries-long relevancy, colleges and universities must continue to adapt to the changing needs of society and the workforce.

Courtesy: University Partnerships

British Council launches Computer-delivered IELTS in Qatar – Same Test, More Choice

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ELTS is one of the world’s most popular high-stakes English language tests and is recognised by more than 10,000 universities, schools, employers and immigration bodies, including all universities in Australia and the UK and many of the leading institutions in the USA. With over three million tests taken in the past year, IELTS is the most widely used test of English for migration to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. Established in 1989, and jointly owned by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and Cambridge Assessment English, IELTS is now a household name in many countries around the world.

The success of IELTS rests on the high quality of the test, which measures the four key language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is backed by dedicated research teams in the UK and Australia and administered by centres in more than 140 countries around the world.

More and more people around the world need English to study, work or move abroad. IELTS opens a door to these life changing opportunities for millions of aspiring people around the world.

IELTS is being continually enhanced to improve the experience for test takers and stakeholders.

The world’s most popular high-stakes English language test for work, study and migration can now be taken on computer.

The computer-delivered solution is secure and capable of delivering the world-leading security, quality assurance measures and operational benefits that IELTS is renowned for.

Computer-delivered IELTS will not replace paper-based IELTS but rather offer a choice in delivery and more availability.

Test takers can now choose the option and time to take IELTS that best works for them. They can also get their results faster, with results typically available between five to seven calendar days after the test has been completed.

The test content, timing and structure remain the same in both options and, importantly, the Speaking test remains face-to-face with a certified IELTS Examiner. Whether test takers take IELTS on paper or computer, they can be confident that they are taking the same trusted English language test.

Test takers who choose the option of computer-delivered IELTS can access support materials with which to prepare for taking IELTS on a computer.

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HIGHER EDUCATION

Special Supplement Sunday, November 25, 2018

Qatar Finance and Business Academy Channelizing Qatari human capital towards 2030

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atar Finance and Business Academy (QFBA) is one of Qatar’s leading learning and development organizations, which supports the nation’s finance, business and government sectors through the delivery of pragmatic and innovative professional training and education. Learning at QFBA benefits entry-level to senior executive professionals in essential financial disciplines within the sectors of banking, asset management, capital markets and insurance. The Academy’s vision is aligned with the Qatar National Vision for 2030 to create a knowledge-based economy with a special emphasis on developing the nation’s financial sector.

To achieve this, QFBA has expanded its offering to include BA degrees in Accounting, Finance and other related disciplines to complement higher education programmes and to accommodate a larger segment of high school students, high school graduate, and professionals with a diploma in Accounting, Banking and other programmes to top up their diplomas. The Academy’s open-portfolio programs are designed around the critical issues facing the business environment today and into the future – these programs address the challenges and opportunities for professionals in the financial services industry.

Driven by an important mission of raising the financial services sector standards, QFBA’s strategy is built around the importance of people growth, extensive market researches, creating products that are needed by the market, and sustaining human capital growth locally.

QFBA development plans are focused around its centers of excellence viz., Northumbria, Kawader, QIPF, Kafaa, and code of excellence.

QFBA has achieved various milestones during this journey. It has brought in over 13 international certifications with 7 sub-brands, and has certified over 15 CEOs with over 19,000 alumni in less than 10 years and published 6 public researches during this period.

QFBA as a member of QFC, an important institution in Qatar’s financial landscape, further reiterates its commitment in taking the Qatari financial sector to the highest standards by empowering the local human capital with world-class education, thereby contributing towards the realization of an important pillar in Qatar National Vision 2030, The Human Development pillar. Utilizing a four-stage process (Diagnose – Design – Deliver – Evaluate), QFBA partners with world-class organizations to design customized learning programs addressing the business issues they face now and into the future. Drawing from its pool of learning professionals and expert practitioners from around the region and the world, custom programs are delivered using innovative and relevant learning methodologies.

In tune with the vision, QFBA is extremely elated to partner with Northumbria University, UK to offer globally aligned financing education to Qatari young students.

Associating with the University of such a stature reflects its vision & mission to offer Qatari residing students the best in class education they deserve as QFBA believes that its future generation requires global education to excel not only in the home turf but also be able to shine high globally.

With this intent, QFBA has commenced its first academic year 2018-19 of QFBA Northumbria University in September this year. A total 57 students from 12 different nationalities have been enrolled for the first academic year, among them, around 75% are Qatari nationals with a total tally of 38. Besides this, there are students enrolled from various countries such as Bangladesh (1), Egypt (1), India (1), Iran (3), Jordan (2), Lebanon (2), Pakistan (1), Palestine (2), Sudan (3), Syria (1) and UK (2). With around 25% of the faculty visiting from the main campus in Northumbria New Castle, students are going to acquire global accounting, finance and investment practices.

With more than 135 years of educational excellence, Northumbria University is one of the largest and oldest public universities in the UK with a student strength of over 35,000. Its programmes are internationally recognized and accredited by some of the world’s foremost professional accreditation bodies, which have positioned it amongst the Top 10 universities in the UK for graduate employment within 6 months of graduation. The University has been awarded the ‘Business School of the Year’ title by the Times Higher Education Awards and is ranked among the Top 10 universities for innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe.

The courses being offered will channelize their academic mindsets in the right direction and make them future ready to take the right business decision. Currently the courses being offered by QFBA Northumbria University include BA (Hons) in Accounting, BA (Hons) in Finance & Investment Management and BA (Hons) in International Banking & Finance. Going ahead, QFBA Northumbria University plans to expand the university’s facilities and add more majors, based on the market needs. QFBA’s partnership with Northumbria University opens a new gateway to a career in Accounting, Finance, and International Banking for the people in Qatar.

QFBA will continue in its endeavors to raise the financial services industry standards and help organizations and professionals achieve their learning and business objectives by building professional capacity.

The pursuit of a brighter future begins here Discover how at the University Expo 2018 at

Booth B17

QFC Tower 2, West Bay PO Box 23245, Doha, Qatar T: +974 4496 8333 F: +974 4496 8334 E: northumbria@qfba.edu.qa northumbria.qfba.edu.qa

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18/11/2018 13:44