[LINK] New free MIT learning platform 'with a virtual community of learners worldwide'

[Tom Worthington]

On 22/12/11 22:38, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:

> ... the UK government is hoping to make university choice
> easier with the development of Key Information Sets, to gather data such
> as stats about courses, the cost of accommodation and employment figures ...
>   http://www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/infohe/kis.htm

Julia Gillard, then Australian Minister for Education (now Prime 
Minister) announced a "My University" web site in March 2010 to commence 
in 2012: 
http://ministers.deewr.gov.au/gillard/government-introduce-%E2%80%98my-university%E2%80%99-website

Senator Chris Evan, Minister for Tertiary Education, released discussion 
papers about the metrics for the MyUniversity website 9 December 2011: 
http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Policy/Pages/AdvancingQuality.aspx

The proposed Australian measures are about student satisfaction and 
academic results. They do not appear to cover ancillary costs of 
studying or job success after graduation. I have extracted the 
introduction to each paper into a blog posting: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/12/performance-measures-for-australian.html

There could be considerable gaming of the figures (as has happened with 
the "My School" measures). For example, in the case of costs of 
studying, universities could make blended courses look cheap, by 
assuming that students will be distance education students. That is the 
university can say it has a wonderful range of on-campus facilities and 
accommodation, but assume the students never use them, when calculating 
the cost of study.

Of course that might be an accurate view of modern student life. I am a 
postgraduate university student at the moment. Six weeks into the course 
I just submitted my first mid semester assignment on Friday. The 
university has excellent facilities for students, but I have never been 
to the campus, as it is more than a thousand kilometres away.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/