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Topic: Student learning and outcomes

Blog Post
February 25, 2019

On Being Student-Centered

Reflections on the CCLASSS Project and DREAM 2019

What does it mean for us to be student-centered in our work at Ithaka S+R? In our collaborative research initiative on student success and community college libraries, the Community College Libraries & Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project, being student-centered means that we have positioned student voices as not only valuable but essential to our work. While our ultimate aim for the CCLASSS project is to design new library…
Past Event
April 1, 2019

Jenna Joo and Martin Kurzweil at the TPSE Partners Meeting

On Monday, April 1, Jenna Joo and Martin Kurzweil will participate in the TPSE Partners Meeting in Miami, Florida. About the meeting TPSE Math aims to support the efforts of organizations working to effect change in post-secondary mathematics education. By understanding where priorities overlap and where they differ, what research and data are available and what additional information is needed, what innovations have been implemented and merit scaling up, and what additional resources are needed, TPSE is committed to enhancing…
Past Event
March 10, 2019

Catharine Bond Hill Will Deliver the Robert H. Atwell Plenary Address at ACE 2019

On Sunday March 10, from 5:00 – 6:00 pm, Catharine Bond Hill will deliver the Robert H. Atwell Plenary Address at ACE 2019 in Philadelphia. For more information on the pleanary sessions, please see ACE’s press release. To register, please visit the conference website.    …
Past Event
February 20, 2019

Martin Kurzweil Attending the ELI Annual Conference in Anaheim

Martin Kurzweil will be attending the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, on February 20 -21. For more information about the conference and to register, please visit the ELI website. About ELI The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through information technology innovation. The ELI Annual Meeting provides an opportunity for those interested in learning principles and practices, all dimensions of student success, and innovation…
Past Event
March 5, 2019

Martin Kurzweil at SXSW EDU

Who Does Online Education Really Serve?

On Tuesday, March 5, Martin Kurzweil is speaking as part of a panel session on “Who Does Online Education Really Serve?” at SXSW EDU in Austin, Texas. Martin will be joined on the panel by Jill Buban, Chief Academic Officer at Unizen,  Robert Ubell, Vice Dean Emeritus of Online Learning, at New York University, and Jeffrey Young, Senior Editor at EdSurge. The panel will run from 4 – 6:00 pm. For more information and to register, please see the SXSW…
Blog Post
January 16, 2019

Announcing a New Project on Teaching with Primary Sources

We are excited to announce a new research project designed to support effective teaching with primary sources. Teaching undergraduates with primary sources promotes student engagement and critical thinking skills and is a key ingredient in the current pedagogical push toward “inquiry-based” or “research-led” learning.* Although leveraging physical collections remains important, technological affordances have additionally transformed possibilities for teaching with primary sources: not only by increasing content availability, but by enabling digital discovery, curation, and annotation. The…
Blog Post
January 14, 2019

Defining Academic Support Services in Community Colleges

Last year, Ithaka S+R, along with a team of outstanding advisors from a variety of community colleges and college systems, embarked on the first phase of the Community College Academic and Student Services Ecosystem (CCASSE) project, a new research initiative to examine and develop recommendations for how academic support services can more effectively support student success. The project was inspired by earlier findings from the Community College Libraries and Academic Support for…
Blog Post
January 10, 2019

New Report: Enrolling More Veterans at High-Graduation-Rate Colleges and Universities

In November, Ithaka S+R and the College Board hosted “Improving Opportunities for Veterans.” This conference brought together leaders from higher education, the military, and veterans service organizations who share the goal of increasing the enrollment and graduation of veterans at colleges and universities with the highest graduation rates. In our new report with Catharine Bond Hill and Martin Kurzweil, we investigate the underrepresentation of United States military veterans at colleges that graduate at least 70 percent of their students.
Research Report
January 10, 2019

Enrolling More Veterans at High-Graduation-Rate Colleges and Universities

Higher education plays a vital role in raising income, moderating income inequality, and increasing economic growth and global competitiveness. But U.S. higher education attainment continues to lag for lower-income and underrepresented-minority students, particularly at the colleges and universities that have the most resources and the highest graduation rates. As a stark example, research by economist Raj Chetty and his team found that there are more students from the top one percent of the income distribution at the Ivy-Plus colleges than…
Past Event
March 6, 2019

Veterans Serve Us. Higher Ed Must Serve Them

Catharine Bond Hill at SXSW EDU 2019

On Wednesday, March 6, Cappy Hill will join panelists Christine Schwartz (Service to School), Cristine Pedersen (Georgetown student), and Bruce Shahbaz (College Board) at SXSW EDU 2019 in Austin, Texas to discuss strategies for enrolling and graduating more veterans in the highest performing colleges. More information about SXSW EDU is available on the conference website. About the panel Veterans are among our most committed, talented citizens, and yet they are 50 percent less likely than others to enroll in…
Past Event
February 25, 2019

Defining Success: Uncovering Community College Student Perspectives

Christine Wolff-Eisenberg at the League for Innovation Conference

Christine Wolff-Eisenberg will join Braddlee from Northern Virginia Community College and Jean Amaral from the Borough of Manhattan Community for a panel discussion on “Defining Success: Uncovering Community College Student Perspectives” at the League for Innovation Conference in New York City. The panel will take place on February 25 at 3:00 pm. Conference registration is now open on the League for Innovation website. About the panel Braddlee, Christine, and Jean will provide an overview of the Community College Libraries…
Blog Post
December 19, 2018

Three Questions for Strada Education Network’s Beth Bean

Thanks to support from Strada Education Network, Ithaka S+R published Mapping the Wild West of Pre-Hire Assessment: A Landscape View of the Uncharted Technology-Facilitated Ecosystem earlier this month. We asked Beth Bean, Vice President, National Engagement, Philanthropy and Policy at Strada Education Network, to tell us more about the organization’s focus on education-to-employment transitions. Strada Education Network has made innovative solutions in education-to-employment transitions a priority area for its philanthropic work. In your view, what are the…
Research Report
December 17, 2018

A 2018 Report on the Progress of the American Talent Initiative in its First Two Years

This report offers the first look at the progress achieved during the American Talent Initiative’s first two years. Between the 2015-16 academic year (the year before ATI’s founding) and the 2017-18 academic year, ATI members increased their enrollment of low- and moderate-income students by 7,291, an increase that represents about 15 percent of the 50,000-by-2025 goal, achieved by about a third of eligible schools. During this period, more than two-thirds of ATI members increased Pell enrollment, and for about half…
Research Report
December 11, 2018

Mapping the Wild West of Pre-Hire Assessment

A Landscape View of the Uncharted Technology-Facilitated Ecosystem

The rise in technology-facilitated assessments has created a paradigm shift in employer talent acquisition. Traditionally, the process of assessing candidates’ skills has focused on resumes composed of credentials signifying successful participation in or completion of an experience (like a degree, a training program, or a prior job) and candidates’ own claims of competencies. Such a process favored intermediaries like higher education institutions, industry associations, governmental agencies, and former employers, who awarded credentials for successful program completion or could vouch for…
Blog Post
December 11, 2018

Uncharted Territory: How Employers Are Using Big Data and AI to Redesign the Hiring Process

Candidate screening in the United States is in the midst of rapid innovation. Traditional processes of assessing candidates’ skills focused on resume screening that evaluated candidates’ degrees, training programs, or prior work experiences—a process that favored credentialing intermediaries like higher education institutions, industry associations, and former employers. Today’s employers, however, are turning to advanced algorithmic solutions for verifying candidate competencies and predicting best job fit. The tools—such as resume filtering, talent analytics, online simulations, cybervetting, digital interviews, gamification,…
Blog Post
December 10, 2018

Learning at LAC

Notes from the Library Assessment Conference 2018

This year, the Association of Research Libraries and the University of Washington Libraries hosted their biennial Library Assessment Conference (LAC) in Houston, Texas. Having recently joined the Ithaka S+R survey team in November, this was my first time attending LAC, and I was eager to immerse myself in the sessions described in the schedule. I knew I was in the right place when the conference started with “Wednesday Metrics with Steve.”…
Blog Post
November 15, 2018

What’s the ROI for Instructional Reform?

New Tool Provides Estimates

Last year, Ithaka S+R published Instructional Quality, Student Outcomes, and Institutional Finances, a white paper commissioned by the American Council on Education (ACE) that explored the relationship between institutional finances and instructional quality, asking whether improvements in instructional quality can increase a postsecondary institution’s net revenue. It’s an important question, as many higher education institutions are under strong pressure to improve student learning outcomes as they face increasing financial constraints. The conventional view is that increases in instructional quality…
Blog Post
November 14, 2018

The College Board and Ithaka S+R Host Veterans Week Conference

We are excited to be partnering with leaders from higher education, military, and veterans service organizations to increase the number of veterans who enroll in, and graduate from, college. In conjunction with a national conference we are hosting today, we issued the following press release. For Immediate Release: November 14, 2018 College Board and Ithaka S+R Host Veterans Week Conference to Increase the Number of Veterans Who Enroll in, and Graduate From, College  Higher education and veteran leaders highlight solutions…
Blog Post
November 13, 2018

Community College Student Success Project in the Journal of Academic Librarianship

Preprint Available

Last week, the Journal of Academic Librarianship published an article that I co-authored with Braddlee from Northern Virginia Community College on the Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success (CCLASSS) project. The CCLASSS project is focused on understanding (1) how “student success” can be defined so that it is inclusive both of students’ own needs as well as important policy priorities, and (2) what services colleges and their academic libraries…
Blog Post
October 22, 2018

Martin Kurzweil in Change Magazine

Alternative Postsecondary Pathways: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and Why It Matters

Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning recently published its 50th anniversary issue, featuring invited essays offering insights on a wide range of higher education’s most pressing issues. Drawing on his prior research on the subject for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, Ithaka S+R’s Martin Kurzweil contributed a piece discussing “Alternative Postsecondary Pathways: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and Why It Matters.” As Change Editor David Paris…