Breakthrough Changes at Kaplan University

Sometimes there are special moments when you are very proud of where you work and the people you work with. This was such a week for me.

After more than six years of work, from conceptualization to development to implementation, Kaplan University has unveiled its three-way approach to competency assessment. This revised approach gives each learner evidence of their achievement in course outcomes, general education competencies (i.e. critical thinking, writing, etc.), and behavioral proficiencies that track the abilities that employers say make the difference between struggling on the job and being ready to work on Day 1. Combined with the modularization of its entire curriculum, the assessment of prior experiential learning, and the resources of the Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU), this creates a better fit between the needs of the learner and our content.

This adds up to an overall redefinition of what “meeting the needs of the learner” actually means. From a curricular standpoint, Kaplan is now able to wrap its resources around the learner’s needs instead of asking the learner to adjust to the college’s programs. As Kevin Carey points out in his recent book, “The End of College,” we are entering a period of mass personalization where responding to the learner’s needs can lie at the heart of the educational endeavor. By giving learners the evidence that employers need and want to see, we are meeting their needs in a new dimension, linking explicit evidence of their knowledge and ability to standards that employers value.

This integrated approach to competency assessment also mines each learning experience far more thoroughly for value, extracting and measuring all three kinds of learning instead of just the traditional course outcomes. This has significant implications for reducing the time and cost of attaining a certificate or a degree. When Provost Dr. Betty Vandenbosch announced this new approach, she was heralding Kaplan’s emergence as one of only a few leaders on this new frontier of how we “do” higher education. And with the pride of the moment comes our responsibility to do it well and continually improve our understanding and capacity to do it better.

Read the Paul Fain article “Profit and Competency” for more information on this new approach.

The Team is Everything

Several years after I resigned the presidency of California State University, Monterey Bay to serve as ADG-Education at UNESCO, a former colleague said to me, “If it wasn’t for you, this place wouldn’t be here.” For a while, I bathed in the glory of that sentiment. But, at heart, I knew how inaccurate, though well-intentioned, it was.

To be sure, I had led and held together a fractious environment, refusing to let a small cabal of people define the university in their own image. And the result, after almost 11 years, was one to be proud of: an innovative, growing university well on its way to becoming a great place to learn. But could I have survived, let alone prospered, without Diane, Betty, Bertie, Bill, John, Chris, Dino, and Kevin? The answer is “No way.”

These people symbolize all those who contributed to the university’s success during its founding years.

Diane Cordero de Noriega was our provost for the last six years of my presidency. She and her husband Carlos stood back-to-back with me as we built the academic program. She knew the California State University system in a way that I did not, easing our growth at that level. On top of that, they were my friends, lending their support when times were tough.

Betty McEady was a professor in the Teacher Ed program who not only served students superbly, but also developed community ties in the Marina and Seaside areas. When the university needed to do some explaining or when community members were concerned, Betty opened doors that I never could have moved. We didn’t agree all the time, but we did share a larger vision for the university, and Betty stood by it.

Bertie Bialek was a community member who took an interest in the university from a philanthropic angle. When state senator Bruce McPherson asked me whether I could raise $5M to finish a new science center if he secured base funding of $12M from the legislature, I immediately said “Yes.” At the time, we had not raised more than $250K in any year, let alone $5M for a science center. As we closed in on the date of the ground-breaking, almost $1M short of our goal, my phone rang. It was Bertie and she had successfully put us over the top.

Bill Head saw the opportunity to establish a science program, using earth systems as the organizing principle. He has committed the last 20 years (and counting) of his life to seeing that vision through and bringing it to life. But in the early days, there were skeptics aplenty who seriously questioned the legitimacy and quality of his vision.

John Ittelson was a quiet but tireless worker on the IT faculty. We were committed to being a wireless, “tech savvy” university in 1995. Many people helped put us in that place, but John, teaching, coaching, and doing community outreach near and far, symbolized the effort it took to succeed.

Chris Hasegawa and Dino Latino lived beside each other on Eichelberger Court, just down the street from me. Chris, a rarity in academics, shared a faculty position between the science and education departments and was a gifted jazz sax player. When we needed someone to help with our fundraising efforts, Chris stepped up. And Dino was the “fix-it” man. Whenever something broke or went “bump in the night,” he was there with a smile, to make it right.

Kevin brought business sense and a commitment to the university’s vision from day one. As the Director of the University Foundation, he continually found ways to generate revenues and add value to the quality of campus life. When we had the rare opportunity of acquiring an NPR radio station, he took on that challenge and brought the station into the university’s arms.

There were many, many others who made this success happen. From that experience, I know it is one thing to say “There is no ‘I’ in team.” It is another to know it in your bones. That’s what I learned at Cal State Monterey Bay. And it is a lesson I try to live by every day.

“Belling the Cat” of Investments in Higher Education

In their provocative new publication “Rich Schools, Poor Students: Tapping Large University Endowments to Improve Student Outcomes,” Jorge Klor de Alva and Mark Schneider painstakingly document yet another of the ways that the overall higher education investment in America favors the well-to-do – both institutions and students alike. By combining the property tax benefits as well as the inviolate status of large endowments, Klor de Alva and Schneider raise the issue of indirect public subsidies, putting them on the table along with the myriad other subsidies, including tuition, state and federal appropriations, and financial aid.

The findings are, frankly more extreme than I would have imagined. Over $100,000 per student at Princeton (my alma mater) with $50,000+ totals at the other leading non-profit, elite institutions. The authors then elaborate on who attends those institutions from a needs-based vantage point. Not unsurprisingly, although their numbers have improved, Pell-eligible students still constitute small minorities of the student populations at these institutions. The net effect is a huge cross-subsidy to everyone else and their families.

As a solution, the authors propose an excise tax on the largest endowments, scaled to the size of the endowment, while continuing to protect the deductions that go to donors, thus preserving that advantage. And they suggest that the proceeds go to improved student services (and hopefully improved outcomes) at institutions that serve a majority of low income learners. This might be called a “robin hood” approach by some; but I think of it as a progressive move to put our money where our societal and educational challenges, rural and urban, lie.

As author and professor Jeffrey Selingo reports, some people might well disagree with Klor de Alva and Schneider’s solutions to the problem, either the excise tax or how its proceeds would be used. And some people might argue against the whole proposition, citing the disruption it would cause these premier teaching and research institutions.

The simple fact of revealing the extent of the hidden subsidies for the 100 wealthiest colleges and universities, however, and asking whether this was really the intent of the policy makers when they were put in place, is long overdue. My study of the origins of these policies suggests no such intent. The institutions were deemed a social good, as were churches and other community institutions and given a pass on property taxes. The same gentle treatment was applied to endowments with the “misunderstanding” that they actually reduced the demand for public support by helping keep non-profit private institutions solvent.

As the run-up in tuition and costs has underscored in the last 20 years, the traditional equation is no longer working. I might suggest a different “fix” with the money raised by the excise tax, whatever its rate. Why not put the money – with a negotiated base allocation for each state that favors smaller, rural, and poorer states – in a trust fund to be allocated annually to the Governor of each state for re-allocation “from the bottom up” to the operating budgets of community and state colleges?

No matter what, the political and policy communities, not to mention the institutions that serve marginalized students and their families, owe Klor de Alva and Schneider great thanks for “belling the cat” of this extraordinary cross subsidy and the unintended inequity it represents.

OC@KU Wins 2015 Open Education Award for Excellence!

It is supremely satisfying to see great work recognized by a respected third party. This week, that happened to the Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) when the global Open Education Consortium (OEC) awarded us a 2015 Open Education Award for Excellence and named us as an “Outstanding Site” for open education resources.

By recognizing our website, OEC is calling attention to the “whole” of what we are doing and the integrated nature of our work. OC@KU is a new type of institution, one which wraps its resources around the needs of the learner. We emphasize using free and open resources to maximize breadth and quality while keeping our offerings affordable. To quote the subtitle of Kevin Carey’s recently released book, The End of College, we aim to be “The University of Everywhere,” meeting learners at their point of need and supporting them to reach the destinations they desire.

The OEC’s recognition of this team’s quality work is timely and deeply appreciated. After spending two years developing all aspects of OC@KU, the honors go to our outstanding team, including IT, Marketing, Operations, and the entire Academic Advising team, led by Susan Huggins, Donald Whipple, Carlos Fernandez, and Drew Ross.

For the full list of award recipients, visit http://www.oeconsortium.org/2015/03/open-education-consortium-announces-2015-winners-of-open-education-awards-for-excellence/.

The University of Everywhere

KevinCarey's March 5th NYT article is right on the money. Carey asserts that college as we know it will be seriously challenged when free and affordable learning resources are coupled with excellent and valid assessments of learning that are equally affordable. This adds up to very affordable, well-documented evidence of learning that will trump current transcripts and time spent in college with academic and career-relevant information that can be expanded on throughout life and through multiple careers. (For the complete discussion, see Carey's book, “TheEnd of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University ofEverywhere," Riverhead Books, 2015.)

As Carey says, the “future of learning and the University of Everywhere” is here to stay, and at Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU), our team has been working towards just this future. Led by Drew Ross, Susan Huggins, and myself, OC@KU already has the elements of that university in play.

With OC@KU, learners can

• Build a portfolio of all prior formal, informal, and experiential learning at no cost and without the commitment of enrolling until they want the portfolio assessed. This reduces time and expense toward earning a degree, respecting the learning already accomplished.
• Take our free open courses and have access to course assessments for $100, also without enrolling.
• Access the free Career Journey program, which provides excellent career advice with data drawn from the LinkedIn economic database.
• Enroll in the accredited Bachelors of Professional Studies (BSPR) degree program for $195/month, which includes the assessment of their prior learning portfolio, design of an Individualized Learning Plan, ongoing academic mentoring, and access to free and open resources to fulfill the requirements of their competency-based degree program.

As members of the higher education community, we have a responsibility to make sure that everyone who wants access to learning, has it. As I reflect on Carey’s article, I am pleased to see that OC@KU is on the right track with adapting to the changing landscape of higher education. At OC@KU, we acknowledge that the future is now and we are proud to provide learners with the opportunity to take advantage of it today.

OEC and OC@KU: Putting the Learner First

I have had the honor and privilege of serving on the National Advisory Board to the MIT OpenCourseware project since its inception in 2001. Through this experience, I learned of the Global Open Courseware Consortium (OCWC), also established by MIT a few years later. OCWC was founded to promote open educational resources and encourage institutions around the world to offer open courses. At last look, OCWC had grown to several hundred participating institutions offering thousands of courses under a variety of Creative Commons licenses, resulting in tens of millions of course downloads annually.

Last year, OCWC changed its name to the Open Education Consortium (OEC) and the Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) has become a proud supporter and participant in this community. As an OEC member institution, we offer our MOOCs on OEC’s website, complete with course assessments for academic credit. We are excited about our ability to link MOOCs with rigorous academic assessments that can go on a college transcript. The potential for learners to benefit from high-quality free content and then convert that learning to academic value seems very significant to us.

In addition to offering our MOOCs and course assessments, we have also developed a portfolio which will act as a repository for OEC learners to collect and store their open course learning. Called the “Open Portfolio,” this tool fills a previously significant gap for OEC learners by allowing them to create a living record of their progress through open courses. The ability to collect and store throughout the open course experience immediately adds value to the learning itself by making the evidence and record tangible and public. It also opens the door to additional value-adds should the learner want them, including the option to use “Learning Plans.” Learning Plans are groups of open courses that help the learner meet specific learning goals. Using Open Portfolio, learners can develop their own Learning Plans, select/edit pre-developed Learning Plans, and share their Learning Plans with other Open Portfolio users if they choose.

We are very excited about our growing relationship with OEC. It combines the freedom and fairness of the open education resource movement with a practical reality: Learning, wherever and however it is achieved and recognized, ties powerfully to the learner’s career aspirations, academic goals, and personal fulfillment. By making the choices elective and learner-driven, our partnership puts the learner first, supporting whatever pathway he/she chooses to take.

Open Education Rocks the World! (#AllAboutOpen)

Open Education Week (OEW) is coming fast upon us; the week of March 9th to be exact. This global, week-long event will touch hundreds of institutions and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of learners and professionals from all stripes of education backgrounds and interests.

It is hard to imagine a world without open resources in the learning space for all to use without accruing personal expense or jumping through admissions hoops. But when I had the honor of serving on the MIT/OCWC Advisory Board over 13 years ago, this reality was only a gleam in the eye of an emerging set of education innovations.

Fast forward to today where millions of learners access open resources in multiple forms, from MOOCs to mobile apps to videos. And they do it to achieve personal, informal learning goals, economic and career goals, or to meet more formal educational goals.

This free and open treasure trove of content has forever changed the relationship between learners, employers, institutions, and content. And in so doing, it is driving the un-bundling and re-bundling of the higher education/lifelong learning value proposition in myriad ways.

It also is giving learners far more control over their lifelong journeys towards increased civic, social, and economic literacy and strength. Some educators love it; some think it’s a passing fancy; and others think it is the educational equivalent of the Barbarians at the Gate.  But open is here to stay and it is rocking the world.

In honor of this growing trend, join me next Wednesday, March 11^th as I participate in #AllAboutOpen, a 24-hour Open Education Week Twitter event dedicated to promoting the open movement worldwide. Co-sponsored by the Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) and the Open Education Consortium (OEC), this event will help set the stage for the next generation of innovation and development in open education resources of all kinds.

Starting at 8:00 AM EST, for 24 consecutive hours a global selection of “Guest Tweeters” will lead 30 minute sessions on topics of their choosing related to the open movement. Using the hashtag #AllAboutOpen, add your perspectives on these topics to those of thousands of other Twitter event participants. The objective is to generate a worldwide “town meeting” with global perspectives about the future of open education resources.

Visit our website https://www.opencollege.kaplan.com/AllAboutOpen/ to see the schedule of “Guest Tweeters” and topics for the March 11^th Open Education Week Twitter event. And then rest up and get ready to rock the world!