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Daily Archives: February 2, 2016

Commentary – The Open University at 45

Ben Wildavsky [via Brookings] director of higher education studies at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, State University of New York, and policy professor at SUNY-Albany: “Forty-five years ago, when Britain’s Open University (OU) began broadcasting its first lectures over BBC television and radio, there were many reasons to discount its importance. For one thing, the concept of providing higher education at a distance wasn’t new: the first correspondence course, teaching shorthand, was offered in the 1700s; the University of London began offering distance-learning degrees to students around the world in the mid-19th century. For another, would-be reformers had a long history of over-promising and under-delivering when it came to educational technology; as far back as 1922, for example, Thomas Edison declared that “the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system.” Little wonder, perhaps, that the OU’s radically democratic experiment in open access education was greeted with widespread hostility by many commentators inside and outside Britain’s traditional class-bound universities. (The shadow chancellor of the exchequer called the idea “blithering nonsense.”). Yet somehow the OU quickly put itself on the map. When it opened its virtual doors, 25,000 students soon enrolled, at a time when the combined student population of all other British universities was around 130,000. Before long, the new institution was transforming the world of distance education by granting respected, inexpensive university degrees to older, part-time students who could matriculate without conventional qualifications. Sir Eric Ashby, a former vice chancellor of Cambridge, called the university’s creation the most significant event in the history of higher education since land grant colleges were created in the United States a century earlier…”

Standing on the Shoulders of Cartographers

SSRN – Gregg Gordon:  “If you’ve seen my talks about information overload and discovery then you may recognize the image above. It’s borrowed from the Eigenfactor Mapping Science research done by Carl Bergstrom, Jevin West and Martin Rosvall. We’ve done some work with the Eignenfactor at SSRN and understand the benefits of applying eigenvectors to… Continue Reading

Federal Reserve Highlights Progress in Efforts to Improve U.S. Payment System

“In a report that comes one year after the publication of its Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System, the Federal Reserve on Tuesday detailed the progress made and outlined anticipated steps for moving forward with its initiative to enhance payment system speed, efficiency, and security. To date, the January 2015 initiative has resulted in… Continue Reading

Founder of Oyez.org seeks new manager and large purchase price

WSJ Law Blog: “For Sale: 61 years of Supreme Court oral arguments, including audio, transcripts and a suite of multimedia tools. It’s not on Craigslist yet, but Jerry Goldman says options are narrowing for Oyez.org, the private online archive of Supreme Court materials he has been building since the early 1990s and providing free to… Continue Reading

Demographic and Economic Profiles of New Hampshire’s Electorate

“In advance of the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9, the U.S. Census Bureau presents a variety of statistics that give an overall profile of the state’s voting-age population and industries. Statistics include: Voting-age population and estimate of eligible voters (i.e., citizens age 18 and older). Breakdown of voting-age population by race and Hispanic origin… Continue Reading

2015 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement Parallel Survey

“The Census Bureau today released the 2015 Parallel Survey Research File and a detailed health insurance table based on this file. The Parallel Survey uses the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement health insurance questions prior to 2013. See below for tables: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/data/cps-asec-parallel.html http://www.census.gov/housing/extract_files/toc/data/ Continue Reading