AcademyOne designs, develops and hosts innovative websites, portals, mobile applications and widgets for all education providers, including higher education, government agencies, high schools, vocational schools, corporate universities, and a variety of specialized organizations and consortiums. The company powers a shared education cloud bridging distributed data systems with loosely coupled technologies.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Launch of AcademyOne Blog
www.academyone.com is a company formed to address the challenges of academic institutions and governments working to align efforts in support today's 21st century learners. The challenges crossing borders both physical and artificial, policies and methods have been comprimised by complexity, duplication and lack of connectivity.
AcademyOne is focused on academic credit portability, prior learning recognition and the development of tools to support student mobility across educational providers over time, built on core principals of collaboration and respect for individual and community needs.
AcademyOne is focused on academic credit portability, prior learning recognition and the development of tools to support student mobility across educational providers over time, built on core principals of collaboration and respect for individual and community needs.
Friday, February 27, 2009
College and University Information Online
A few years ago, I bought a cool HDTV with DLP. The TV’s bulb needed to be replaced. So, I Googled and found the company’s website and PDF manual. A few minutes later, I found the bulb information in the parts section. Then, I ordered the replacement bulb needed through their website. In a few days, my TV was up and running. In another example, I was upgrading my Pentium XP to Windows Vista. I needed to update the device drivers for the Pentium Computer. So, I visited the company’s website and found the drivers and downloaded the PDF documentation I needed for the upgrade. Within a few minutes, I finished installing my update to Vista. Imagine a world where we could not do this for products we purchased a few years ago? How frustrating would it be? Well, higher education or at least some institutions think it is not important to give the community free access to their archived academic and administrative information online.
With the rising tide of adult learners entering colleges or universities, they often are not enrolled and associated with a single institution. Most of these potential new students have prior learning and desire recognition for their past investment before enrolling and deciding on an institution. They need access to archived college and university catalogs from their prior institution. Each of us should be able to visit any institution’s website to find the information we need just like I found the information about the bulb I needed to replace in my HDTV. Let's commit to making it easier for all learners by creating an awareness of their special needs on all college and university campuses by maintaining the historical perspective.
Do you think restricting access to historical college and university information is a smart thing to do for a college or university? Every college and university should commit to publishing their annual catalogs and course descriptions online to support their community of stakeholders. Past, present and future students would be well served by this commitment. So would institutions sending and receiving their students. It is all about outlook and responsibility. Do you think it is a mistake that institutions remove archived catalogs, academic policies and course offerings from their website making it difficult for all who seek it? Do you think institutions should pay to archive their college and university information offsite and separate from their public website making it harder to find and access them? Many institutions should re-think how and where they publish current and archived college catalogs, course offerings and academic policies. I strongly suggest institutions publish their current and archived catalogs for the public to access - on their own website and make it easy for all to find. It is just good business. This service is an important element living up to the expectations of today’s consumer, just like the companies I mentioned above provide consumers access to their archived product literature and support years after a product is acquired. The problem is some institutions fail to see the importance of retaining the historical documents - making it harder for learners to protect their investment in learning. In addition, advisors, faculty and administrators from other institutions must hunt for or pay to obtain the archived content, making the process even more taxing, time consuming and reinforcing the wrong behavior public policy advocates express when we need a collaborative process. The unintended consequence of trying to save a buck and diminish the importance of the past has made the process of learning assessment even harder for future students.
Before one enrolls in an academic program, validate if the institution publishes and makes available the academic policies and course offerings in a medium you can access now and in the future. Retain copies of all college and university catalogs, course syllabi and course content that could demonstrate your prior learning. I know this is often suggested, but so many don't do this. Drawing former students back to the college or university website is a smart thing to do. It enhances the services offered to them. It might even get them to re-enroll. And, it is the right thing to do to help students no matter where they attend or continue with their learning.
With the rising tide of adult learners entering colleges or universities, they often are not enrolled and associated with a single institution. Most of these potential new students have prior learning and desire recognition for their past investment before enrolling and deciding on an institution. They need access to archived college and university catalogs from their prior institution. Each of us should be able to visit any institution’s website to find the information we need just like I found the information about the bulb I needed to replace in my HDTV. Let's commit to making it easier for all learners by creating an awareness of their special needs on all college and university campuses by maintaining the historical perspective.
Do you think restricting access to historical college and university information is a smart thing to do for a college or university? Every college and university should commit to publishing their annual catalogs and course descriptions online to support their community of stakeholders. Past, present and future students would be well served by this commitment. So would institutions sending and receiving their students. It is all about outlook and responsibility. Do you think it is a mistake that institutions remove archived catalogs, academic policies and course offerings from their website making it difficult for all who seek it? Do you think institutions should pay to archive their college and university information offsite and separate from their public website making it harder to find and access them? Many institutions should re-think how and where they publish current and archived college catalogs, course offerings and academic policies. I strongly suggest institutions publish their current and archived catalogs for the public to access - on their own website and make it easy for all to find. It is just good business. This service is an important element living up to the expectations of today’s consumer, just like the companies I mentioned above provide consumers access to their archived product literature and support years after a product is acquired. The problem is some institutions fail to see the importance of retaining the historical documents - making it harder for learners to protect their investment in learning. In addition, advisors, faculty and administrators from other institutions must hunt for or pay to obtain the archived content, making the process even more taxing, time consuming and reinforcing the wrong behavior public policy advocates express when we need a collaborative process. The unintended consequence of trying to save a buck and diminish the importance of the past has made the process of learning assessment even harder for future students.
Before one enrolls in an academic program, validate if the institution publishes and makes available the academic policies and course offerings in a medium you can access now and in the future. Retain copies of all college and university catalogs, course syllabi and course content that could demonstrate your prior learning. I know this is often suggested, but so many don't do this. Drawing former students back to the college or university website is a smart thing to do. It enhances the services offered to them. It might even get them to re-enroll. And, it is the right thing to do to help students no matter where they attend or continue with their learning.
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