The Impact of Incentives, Communications and Task Demand on Postsecondary Student Participation in Online Research

Monetary incentives effective in boosting student participation in research studies When it comes to persuading postsecondary students to participate in voluntary research studies, monetary incentives work best, according to a new study commissioned and published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HECQO). Encouraging participation in research is an ongoing challenge across sectors, but […]

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It’sNotAcademic – The podcast: Episode eight with Brenda Small

Welcome to the latest episode of It’sNotAcademic the podcast. Two years ago, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued 94 calls to action, or recommendations, urging all levels of government to implement policies to acknowledge and redress the harm caused by residential schools to Indigenous people. Several of the recommendations urged governments, schools and postsecondary institutions […]

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OUSA’s Victoria Lewarne and Marc Gurrisi — PSE’s ‘Skills Awareness Gap’

Despite the fact that we are a student and a recent graduate of a postsecondary program, we admittedly have difficulty articulating our skills and competencies. And we’re not the exception. While we can confidently state that we have comprehensive reading and writing skills, this only skims the surface. Competencies such as critical thinking, problem solving, […]

Skills, Competencies and Credentials

Current credential and accreditation system does not serve students well The current university system of credentials, accreditation and transcripts does not serve most undergraduate students well, according to a new report from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). While the current system does an excellent job documenting students’ knowledge of content, it provides […]

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Alan Harrison — Skills, competencies and credentials: The stairway to heaven?

Longer ago than I care to remember, I went to a presentation given by Norm Wagner, who was at the time the president of the Corporate Higher Education Forum, after 10 years as president of the University of Calgary. Wagner talked about what employers look for when they interview students who had successfully completed undergraduate […]

Assessing Learning Outcomes: Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking and Written Communication Skills

Humber College examines the effectiveness of a new skills-assessment tool Students’ critical thinking and written communications skills show the most improvement when they are explicitly taught, according to a new study by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) that examines the effectiveness of a new skills-assessment tool developed at Humber College. While the […]

Student Success ePortfolio: Student, Faculty and Employer Perspectives on the Value of ePortfolios in Assessing the Development of Essential Employability Skills

Students, faculty and employers see potential value in ePortfolios By assembling a digital record of a student’s skills and academic accomplishments, ePortfolios have the potential to improve educators’ assessments of students and the ability of students to clearly communicate and connect with employers. But are they effective? A new study from the Higher Education Quality […]

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Harvey P. Weingarten — The evolution of learning outcomes: Now comes the exciting part

I have experienced three phases in the evolution of the learning outcomes concept. Learning outcomes refers to what students should know and be able to do as a result of the education they get in their postsecondary programs. The first phase of the learning outcomes concept was already underway when I started at HEQCO in […]

Development of Analytic Rubrics for Competency Assessment

U of T rubrics assess student learning in communication , teamwork and design Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a set of rubrics to assess student learning in communication , teamwork and design , which can be applied to a wide range of courses and assessment types , according to a new report […]