The vast majority of Americans believe a college education is a good investment and the data shows they are right. But what kind of college education? For those with modest means or demanding work-life responsibilities, a traditional 4-year residential college experience may not be the best choice – or even a viable choice. At the same time, employers find that too few college graduates are ready for work and the age-old debate between advocates for liberal education and career-focused college muddles along. If liberal education “empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change” (AAC&U), and if professional and technical certification demonstrates command of specific knowledge and proficiencies, then is seems reasonable that both can create real value for individuals and to employers. Does steering learners toward one path or the other not reinforce a false dichotomy? Is there not a third way?

This session will look at the advantages of combining academic coursework with professional certifications. Examples of and possibilities for stacking and/or blending credit and non-credit programming will be discussed. Some of the challenges to more rapid innovation in this area will be reviewed, along with potential answers to these challenges, such as degree-inclusive certifications; creative use of educational technology; competency-based assessment; and flexible scheduling.

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Ever wonder how Amazon, Netflix, and Google always seem to recommend the right content at the right moment? They use analytics and predictive modeling based on data from millions of user interactions and searches, providing the optimal recommendation, personalized to each user. What if higher education faculty and instructional designers had the same capability to comb through the vast array of digital academic resources available to them today? This panel session will explore how instructional designers, faculty, and student support professionals can use content metrics to understand and drive student engagement while optimizing course content and design to best meet students’ needs.

With thousands of online students accessing their academic resources through OER, library, commercial, and other digital content, the very materials that students are using provide a critical window into the factors influencing student experience, satisfaction, and learning. Drawing on innovations in adtech and digital marketing and tapping into analytics to measure student engagement through content utilization, instructional designers can now use new technologies to quickly discover content and track its use to accelerate and improve course development and enhance the overall learner experience.

In July 2013, Western Governors University (WGU) developed a personalized Financial Aid Plan for students. By simply shifting emphasis and providing better information, WGU was able to significantly change student behavior and reduce borrowing. Learn about the simple policy and procedure changes and discover more on the next technology enhancement for continual improvement. The session will also provide insight on how to automate tracking of student educational activity in distance learning.

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Is your institution ready for next generation digital learning environments, featuring plug and play digital resources, learning tools, real-time analytics, competencies? IMS Global Learning Consortium along with its institutional members and partners, such as WCET, are collaborating to create an open ecosystem that will help institutions build flexible and sustainable learning environments that are needed to foster digital innovation. This session will look at some of the specific interoperability pain-points that get in the way of innovation and how IMS standards can help address these challenges. We will also explore some of the gaps that often sit at the intersection between the campus leadership, the curriculum, and technology standards and how the IMS Communities of Practice are helping to fill these by developing resources to help colleges and universities shape tomorrow’s ed-tech ecosystem.