AHELO: The Ontario Experience

Standardized international learning outcomes assessment possible but needs refining The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) feasibility study was successful in building international relationships, furthering the discussion on learning outcomes and exploring the potential for a common worldwide student assessment. But as an instrument to produce reliable, […]

Piloting the CLA in Ontario

Research Summary: Large-scale Learning Outcomes Assessments Should Focus on Student Needs to Increase Participation The Council for Aid to Education’s (CAE) Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and college-sector equivalent the Community College Learning Assessment (CCLA) are standardized tests to assess a postsecondary institution’s contribution to the development of students’ key competencies, including critical thinking, analytic problem […]

Categories

Martin Hicks – The alchemist’s dream

Just tell me, please, where the jobs of the future will be.  Then those working in higher education can plan accordingly, adjust the credential and programming mix, and drive students into the right programs.  Actually students won’t need driving, because they will surely make superior choices and not continue to stumble into the humanities or […]

Teaching Loads and Research Outputs of Ontario University Faculty: Implications for Productivity and Differentiation

Research Summary: Productivity 101: Increase teaching load of university professors who aren’t active researchers If professors who are not active researchers taught more, the teaching capacity of full-time professors in Ontario’s universities could increase by 10%, equivalent to adding 1,500 additional faculty members across the province, according to a new report from the Higher Education […]

Categories

Harvey P. Weingarten – Managing for Quality: A Change Manifesto for Canadian Universities

I had the opportunity recently to participate in a conference panel for members of the Boards of Governors of Ontario universities.  Our panel was charged to opine on the question of whether universities are meeting the needs of students and the public and, if there is room for improvement, what has to change. The conference […]

Categories

Harvey P. Weingarten – Suggestions for Better Performance Management of Postsecondary Funding

Today, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) released a major evaluation of the outcomes of the investment Canadian federal and provincial governments have made in graduate education. This report, Intentions For and Outcomes Following a Decade of Government Investment in Graduate Education, continues a series of papers we have published on graduate education.  […]

Intentions For and Outcomes Following a Decade of Government Investment in Graduate Education

Research Summary: ​Assessing government investment in graduate education: address the data gaps  Over the past decade, the federal and some provincial governments have made considerable investments in graduate education. But while available data identify enrollment trends, there is a notable lack of data on other important aspects of graduate education such as employment outcomes, according […]

The Diversity of Ontario’s Colleges: A Data Set to Inform the Differentiation Discussion

Research Summary: College degree granting dominates differentiation discussion While degree granting by Ontario colleges is barely a decade old and only 4% of the province’s college students are enrolled in degree programs, the topic dominates current discussions about college differentiation. A new report from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) says that moving […]

How Online Learning Affects Productivity, Cost and Quality in Higher Education: An Environmental Scan and Review of the Literature

Research Summary: Online education should bring effective learning and cost savings Online education has the potential to provide high-quality learning – for some students, in some fields of study – at significantly lower unit costs than traditional forms of instruction and those savings should help fund the cost of improving face-to-face learning, according to a […]