FLOSS In School - Open Source Software in the Education System

Why would a few minority organizations that don't normally speak on higher ed issues suddenly issue statements backing for-profit sector? Could this be "astroturfing"?

It's time for colleges to examine why students and scholars who are people of faith report so much hostility on their campuses, writes Timothy Larsen.

Jessica Quillin presents a set of dos and don'ts for higher education professionals who venture onto the social networking site.

The Educational Testing Service has announced that it is resuming registrations in Iran for the Test of English as a Foreign Language and the Graduate Record Examination. New United Nations sanctions against Iran led ETS to cut off registrations as the testing service could not process funds coming from the country. Now, ETS has a new arrangement in place to process credit and debit cards in Iran in ways that do not violate U.S. enforcement of the sanctions.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted to pass along the 2011 budget bill that includes Education Department appropriations with no changes to the higher education provisions approved Tuesday by a subcommittee. As it stands, the bill keeps funding unchanged from 2010 levels for most financial aid and access programs, and boosts the National Institutes of Health's budget by $1 billion, to $32 billion. Also unchanged from the subcommittee bill is the absence of funding to make up for the $5.7 billion Pell Grant shortfall. The House of Representatives' appropriations bill included that money, but the Senate committee's Democratic members said that a means for addressing it would have to wait until it goes before the full Senate this fall, or when it is combined with the House measure in conference.

Chicago City Colleges could see a series of reforms -- and also 225 layoffs of non-instructional employees -- under a budget announced Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. To save money, the two-year college system is eliminating positions, and centralizing many administrative functions at its seven campuses. With those savings and increased tuition revenue (due to enrollment increases), a series of enhancements are planned. More funds will be provided for technology and job training, with an emphasis on matching job training with actual jobs.

The Mount Sinai School of Medicine has released research that suggests students can succeed in medical school without any of the three things normally assumed to be absolute requirements to get in -- organic chemistry, physics and the Medical College Admission Test -- The New York Times reported. Mount Sinai has long had a small program admitting students who studied humanities or social sciences subjects as undergraduates and didn't take the MCAT. The new research found that these students' performance in medical school was equivalent to that of those who went through a traditional pre-med curriculum and who took the MCAT.

A committee considering ideas to reform higher education in Texas has released a draft with some of its ideas. The Houston Chronicle reported that these ideas include more of an emphasis on online education, shifts in policies to reward institutions for completion as opposed to enrollment, and new approaches to remedial education.

Catholic center will no longer nominate and pay for adjuncts to teach Catholic thought at Illinois. And for at least one more semester, controversial adjunct will be back.

The AAUW (formerly the American Association of University Women) has awarded $11,500 to the Women’s Law Project in support of a key gender equity lawsuit against Delaware State University. The suit was filed by members of the women’s equestrian team who argue that the institution violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by cutting their team and replacing it with a competitive cheerleading team. The circumstances of the suit closely resemble those of a recently-decided suit against Quinnipiac University. In that case, a federal judge determined that the university had violated Title IX by cutting its women’s volleyball team and replacing it with competitive cheerleading, an activity the judge determined cannot be counted as a sport to determine gender equity compliance.

Education programs are not being held accountable for their graduates, a new report says.

As Facebook has faced one criticism after another for the last year over its various privacy failings, many educators have worried that students were oblivious to the need to keep private some of the information they post about themselves. New research in the journal First Monday, however, suggests students may be more aware of privacy issues than they are given credit for. The research followed college students during 2009 and 2010 and found that as news spread of Facebook's privacy issues, more students started to modify their privacy settings, suggesting both awareness of the public debate and concern about its ramifications.

U. of Arizona draws NCAA penalties for recruiting infractions in men's basketball during tenure of Lute Olson, legendary former coach.

Even though women now make up half of medical school enrollments, they lag in assuming leadership roles in the classroom -- but that need not be the case, according to new research led by Nancy Wayne, a professor of physiology at the University of California at Los Angeles. For the research -- results of which are appearing in the August issue of Academic Medicine -- Wayne tracked the roles of men and women in small group discussions in medical school courses requiring such discussions and presentations by team leaders. Leaving the roles to volunteers, she found, very few women assume leadership positions. But when a brief pep talk is given to students about the importance of trying out leadership roles in small groups, she found, women are significantly more likely to go for the leadership position.

Wayne said the finding is important because the medical school curriculum is shifting away from lectures toward more group work, and also because many people assume that once women achieve a critical mass in enrollments, no further issues related to gender will need addressing. "People assume that if you have parity in the numbers of men and women training to become physicians, then everything else will fall into place," said Wayne. "Surprisingly, we found that wasn't the case."

Students at the Calcutta campus of Aliah University, a Muslim institution, have barred a female instructor from teaching without wearing a full burqa, the Associated Press reported. University officials deny that they enforce a dress code, but report that they have asked the instructor to consider teaching at another campus. Sirin Middya, the instructor, said that she is a devout Muslim. "I don't have a problem wearing the burqa, but when I wear it, it will be of my own free will," she said.