Ladders in the orchard: What’s next for OER?

A movement to encourage and increase the creation and use of open educational resources (OER) in U.S. higher education has been growing for about 20 years. In Massachusetts, for example, 71 percent of public colleges are already using OER to some extent, although the total number of courses affected remains relatively small. The most common number of OER courses per school is between 11 and 20. Studies continue to show that the high cost of textbooks is a burden for students, to the point that many states have adopted legislation to reduce textbook costs or promote OER. However, in a study that surveyed faculty from the Virginia Community College System, Dr Braddlee and Amy VanScoy concluded that use of OER is still a “niche phenomenon, the province of innovators and early adopters.” Any change, no matter how potentially beneficial, takes both time and effort.

End of an Era

Returning to the farm, Bob Scott was unsure about what to do. His attempted comeback in 1980 resulted in a humiliation. But he served as president of the state community college system. His daughter, Meg Scott Phipps, was elected agriculture commissioner in 2000, but her career crashed and burned when she was convicted and went to jail for taking illegal campaign contributions. It did not help the Scott name that her father, Bob Scott, was one of her chief advisors.

Creating a knowledge-sharing community: The use and expansion of knowledge management at Tulsa Community College

Knowledge management (KM) is a very nebulous term. Research on the use of KM across different types of organizations and disciplines confirms this. This article examines the path that Tulsa Community College (TCC) took to not only build the use of KM across the college, but also to create the support structure to foster the creation of a knowledge sharing community.In order for an institution to be able to use KM effectively, several questions should be asked. Is there a culture of knowledge sharing at the institution? Is the concept of KM supported by those in the administration?In the case of TCC, the answers to these questions showed that there were a number of factors that precipitated the use of KM. First, the college began a complete reorganization of its academic units because, as a multicampus community college system, the academic units had become self-contained. A reorganization was carried out that greatly benefited the institution and brought it more in line with a “One College” model.

Community College Adaptation in Ghana

Community colleges are institutions dedicated to the mission of providing skilled manpower and labor in technical and vocational areas. There are many community college models in the world. In Ghana, polytechnics and technical institutes are adapted models of community colleges. The objective of this chapter is to examine the polytechnic system as practiced in Ghana using the American community college system as a perspective. Community colleges with their provenance in the early 20th century have undergone vicissitudes in their bid to carry out their functions. The polytechnics have also experienced evolving historical circumstances as second cycle technical institutes, then upgraded to tertiary education institutions, and then recently converted to technical universities. In spite of all these developments, the technical universities are believed to be inferior to the traditional public universities.

The Effect of Acceleration on Subsequent Course Success Rates Based on the North Carolina Developmental Mathematics Redesign

Recent trends in developmental education (DE) include the reduction of time spent in DE courses, which in- cludes the acceleration of the course content. In 2011, the North Carolina Community College System rede- signed all DE mathematics courses using this trend of acceleration. This study looks at the subsequent gateway mathematics course success rates for students who took the course in the traditional 16-week semester format and in the new 4-week accelerated modular format. The results of this study showed that there was no differ- ence in the success rates of the two formats. The researchers concluded that acceleration of courses does not affect the subsequent course success rates.

How Effective Are Community College Remedial Math Courses for Students With the Lowest Math Skills?

Objective: This article examines the effectiveness of remediation for community college students who are identified as having the lowest skills in math. Method: We use transcript data from a state community college system and take advantage of a regression discontinuity design that compares statistically identical students who are assigned to the lowest level of the math sequence that consists of three remedial courses versus the next lowest level that consists of two courses. Results: The results suggest that for the students with the lowest preparation in math, the longest developmental sequence offers little benefit and may even reduce the likelihood of earning a degree to certificate within 4 years. Contributions: This study is one of the first attempts to compare the academic outcomes of students assigned to long sequence of developmental math education to students with similar academic skills but assigned to shorter developmental math sequence. Results from this study can therefore help inform the national effort in reforming remedial education, especially in terms of whether shortening the long remedial sequence would either benefit or harm the academic outcomes of students who are least prepared for college-level coursework.