The big stories this week seem to be the discussions of collective bargaining and continuing debates over pensions. Moocs continue to be keeping on keeping on. — Bruce
1. The Senate discussed collective bargaining on Monday. The text of Randy McCarthy’s presentation and press coverage are below.
https://cfaillinois.org/2013/02/06/why-i-want-collective-bargaining/
http://www.dailyillini.com/news/campus/article_441f3e8a-6f53-11e2-a286-0019bb30f31a.html
2. Continuing pension coverage can be found at the invaluable site http://www.suaa.org/ with .pdf Minibriefing updates dated 2/8/13 on the state of the pension bills and other bills. You don’t have to be an annuitant (yet) to be a member of the organization. (End of plug.)
3. Mooc news this week begins with an amusing slip-up and continues to the first certification of on-line courses, including my former office neighbor Rob Ghrist’s calculus course from Penn, concluding with a cautionary essay.
(i) http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/04/coursera-forced-call-mooc-amid-complaints-about-course
Maybe it was inevitable that one of the new massive open online courses would crash. After all, MOOCs are being launched with considerable speed, not to mention hype. But MOOC advocates might have preferred the collapse of a course other than the one that was suspended this weekend, one week into instruction: “Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application.”
(II) www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/07/ace-deems-5-massive-open-courses-worthy-credit
4. Coverage of the proposed Illinois Manufacturing Lab, in Chicago, of course.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130206/BLOGS02/130209888
From http://www.uillinois.edu/our/news/summary.cfm (Read this yourself, so you won’t be surprised by OWR.)
Please suggest articles I may have missed.
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2/4 — pp.4-5 (NG) Prof. Jeffrey Brown’s op-ed on the pension situation
2/4 — pp.15-16 (IHE) Big ironic cluster-MOOC, see above
2/5 — pp.1-3 (NG,DI) The Senate discusses unionization, see above
2/5 — p.9 (syracuse.com) “Syracuse University Alumni Association president resigns over chancellor search committee makeup”. To replace Nancy Cantor: 11 of the 22 on the search committee are alumni, but none represent the AA specifically.
2/6 — p.1 (Crain’s) “U of I to open Chicago manufacturing institute”, see above
2/6 — pp.3-5 (N-G) “UI proposing China-funded `Confucius Institute’ on campus”
2/6 — pp.25-26 (IHE) “In wake of reports on false data, `U.S. News’ considers a new way to promote accuracy”.
2/7 — pp.1-2 (NG) “Governor endorses one lab; location of another irks Rose”
2/7 — pp.6-12 (various) Governor Quinn’s State of the State address.
2/7 — pp.24-25 (various) Five online courses are eligible for college credit, see above
2/8 — p.3 (DI) “UI announces new online course website”
2/8 — pp.8-9 (WP) “Misreported data raises questions about college rankings”
2/8 — pp.10-11 (Chron) “California’s public colleges still face mountains of deferred maintenance”
Campus Faculty Association 