academic – Impact Lab

Analysis, Great Videos, Latest Trend, People Making a Difference

What impact do TED talks have on the audience?

February 12, 2014

TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) talks are a huge business and have had over a billion views. There are two main TED conferences a year – the TED conference and the TEDGlobal, are two main TED conferences done each year and there are a large number of satellite conferences (TEDx) all over the world. A quick Google Scholar search shows TED talks even receive scholarly citations. Sugimoto, Thelwall, Larivière, Tsou, Mongeon and Macaluso (2013) published an article in PLOS ONE discussing the scientific impact of TED talks. They looked into the characteristics of academic presenters, the relationship between these characteristics and video popularity, and the impact a TED talk has on the presenter’s citation impact.

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Analysis, Education, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

1 in 4 adults hold educational credentials other than an academic degree

January 20, 2014

A report from the U.S. Census Bureau says that in the fall of 2012, more than 50 million U.S. adults, or one in four, had obtained a professional certification, license or educational certificate apart from a postsecondary degree awarded by colleges and universities. This is the Census Bureau’s first-ever report on this topic.

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Analysis, Education, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Academic libraries are shaping the future of learning and research

August 7, 2013

Saltire Center at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Brian Sullivan, a librarian at Alfred University, wrote “the academic library has died” in an opinion piece responding to the gloomy tone of a 2011 report on the future of academic libraries. “One reason for cause of death is that library buildings were converted into computer labs, study spaces and headquarters for informational-technology departments.”

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Education, Latest Trend, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Preparing Our Minds for Thoughts Unthinkable: The Future of Colleges and Universities

July 28, 2013

Futurist Thomas Frey: If you haven’t noticed, there’s a massive battle brewing in academia. No it’s not just a battle between MOOCs and traditional education. What’s at stake is nothing short of the future of humanity.

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Business, Education, Internet, Science & Technology News

Coursera moves closer to academic acceptance

February 8, 2013

Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Stanford University computer science professors who started Coursera,

Coursera, an online-education provider is one step closer to academic acceptance, saying Thursday that the American Council on Education would recommend colleges grant credit for the successful completion of some of its free classes.

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Analysis, Economy, Education, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Big push for more scientists in the U.S. but there are too few jobs

July 10, 2012

U.S. pushes for more laboratory scientists.

Michelle Amaral planned a traditional academic science career to become a brain scientist to help cure diseases. She planned on her PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab. But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field.

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Analysis, Art, Education, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Latest News

The state of OpenCourseWare (infographic)

January 31, 2012

The world of academics is changing rapidly.

OpenCourseWare, or OCW, is a term applied to course materials created by universities and shared freely with the world via the internet. The movement started in 1999 when the University of Tübingen in Germany published videos of lectures online in the context of its timms initiative. The OCW movement only took off, however, with the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare at MIT in October 2002 and has been reinforced by the launch of similar projects at Yale, Michigan University, and the University of California Berkeley…

(infographic after jump)

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Analysis, Business, Education, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Accomplishment-Based Education

October 28, 2011

Futurist Thomas Frey: Today, our best and brightest are drawn to elite colleges like Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and Yale. As they attend these institutions they are surrounded by some of the most talented people in the world.

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Analysis, Education, Report

Pathways to Prosperity – Is College the Only Option for Career Success?

March 2, 2011

Students need more options to career success.

Despite decades of efforts to reform education, and billions of dollars of expenditures, the harsh reality is that America is still failing to prepare millions of its young people to lead successful lives as adults. Evidence of this failure is everywhere: in the dropout epidemic that plagues our high schools and colleges; in the harsh fact that just 30 percent of our young adults earn a bachelor’s degree by age 27; and in teen and young adult employment rates not seen since the Great Depression.

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Analysis, Education, Science & Technology News

Post-Secondary Education Does Not Guarantee Critical Thinking Skills

February 6, 2011

Critical thinking skills not a guarantee.

A post-secondary education won’t necessarily guarantee students the critical thinking skills employers have come to expect from university grads, says a recent study.

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