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Online education can be leveraged to help current students complete their degrees and to attract new students. While online learning is not new, in recent years, it has been moving away from the periphery of higher education and becoming a central component of institutional strategies for increasing student enrollment, retention, and completion. Research regarding online learning has demonstrated that there is no significant difference between student outcomes in online versus face-to-face courses; with some studies showing that online learning can be more effective. Student learning outcomes assessment must be part of quality course design and instruction whether a course is delivered face-to-face or online; many best practices for face-to-face assessment also apply to online learning assessment. Yet, there are differences between the two modalities that must be taken into account when developing online courses. The first part of this paper will provide an in-depth discussion of the Open SUNY Course Quality Review Rubric (OSCQR)--an online course design rubric and process that is openly licensed for anyone to use and adapt. The aim of the OSCQR Rubric and Process is to assist online instructional designers and online faculty to improve the quality and accessibility of their online courses. OSCQR also provides a system-wide approach to collect data that informs faculty development and supports large scale online course design review and refresh efforts in a systematic and consistent way. This paper then explores general considerations of online teaching as they pertain to the assessment of student learning outcomes. Finally, specific examples will be given of how online course instructors and distance learning administrators have designed their courses and programs to ensure appropriate assessment of learning outcomes.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce--the world's largest business federation--and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation have for the past five years been attempting to bridge the gap and address trust issues between the postsecondary education community and employer community. Rather than placing limitations on the curriculum or taking away academic freedom from faculty, such a partnership has the potential to unlock new learning pathways that can meet the needs of today's diverse learners. With this in mind, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation created the Talent Pipeline Management® (TPM) movement as an effort to bridge the divide between postsecondary education and the employer community. TPM® provides a framework for re-imagining the partnership of these two communities, co-designing learning pathways, and developing authentic, performance-based challenges and learning experiences that address the demonstration of learning gap. In this Occasional Paper, we describe the unique challenges a dynamic, changing labor market poses for employer-education partnerships; including the inherent limitations of current alignment practices and tools. Then, we introduce TPM as a partnership model that allows employers to more meaningfully signal their competency needs to educators and how educators can, in turn, describe their evidence of learning in ways that are understood by employers relative to those competency needs. The latter half of the paper explores how employers and education partners can use TPM as a framework for engaging one another in co-designing learning pathways that produce evidence of learning that is meaningful to both sides. [Foreword by Natasha A. Jankowski.]

Periodically, articles reporting research on student ratings of instruction (SRI), aka student evaluations of teaching, appear in the higher-education press. This literature often summarizes studies that challenge the validity and reliability of SRI. However, before drawing a conclusion about a quantitative study touted in the media, readers should evaluate both the credibility and generalizability of the primary source. In this paper, the authors review one set of criteria that aids in such evaluation--David Krathwohl's (2009) judgments about (a) internal validity or linking power; and (b) external validity or generalizing power. "Internal validity" is the extent to which a study demonstrates that its investigated variables are linked in a relationship. "External validity" is how well a study establishes that its findings are generalizable. Applying such criteria can prevent biased takeaways created from merely reading a news article without assessing the quality of the research paper it summarizes.

Adult proficiency in numeracy in the United States lags that of other developed nations, and the nonselective institutions that dominate the higher education sector struggle to address the learning needs of the sizeable proportion of students who enroll in their institutions and are deemed academically underprepared in mathematics. Research on curriculum and pedagogy in developmental (or remedial) mathematics indicates that typical teaching approaches emphasize memorization, often at the expense of the kinds of conceptual understanding that prepare students for college-level mathematics and the numeracy demands of the workforce. This paper examines CUNY Start, an innovative pre-matriculation developmental education program developed by The City University of New York (CUNY) that reimagines the design and implementation of remedial instruction to better serve students with weak academic preparation. Using data from interviews, classroom observations, an instructor survey, and curricular materials, this paper describes four key features of the CUNY Start mathematics instructional approach, paying particular attention to how these features differ from traditional developmental education. These features are: (1) the use of a highly detailed curricular document as a primary resource for instructors; (2) an emphasis on real-world contexts and number relationships, which serve as the instructional starting point (rather than rules and procedures); (3) a pedagogical approach that elicits student talk and discussion through questioning; and (4) explicit attention to students' organizational and study skills. This paper also elaborates on the processes, structures, and resources built into CUNY Start that support its implementation. This paper is part of an ongoing random assignment evaluation of CUNY Start undertaken with MDRC that so far finds that the program has significant positive effects on students achieving college readiness in mathematics (longer-term effects will also be estimated). This evidence strongly suggests that CUNY Start's structures, processes, and resources enable instructors to teach mathematics in a different way that may boost student achievement.

UMass Boston has been a campus in turmoil for the past 20 months. Internal upheaval first became public in January 2017 when the UMass Board of Trustees (BoT) refused to extend Chancellor Keith Motley's contract. In March 2017 the trustees disclosed that the campus was facing a budget deficit of up to $30 million with just three months remaining in fiscal year 2017. In April of 2017, Chancellor Motley resigned, prompting students, alumni, and community leaders to rally on the State House steps demanding that officials reject his resignation. UMass Boston has struggled to right its financial and administrative ship amidst the continuing frustration of students and faculty. In May 2016, seven months before the financial crisis at UMass-Boston became public, Pioneer Institute published a three-part analysis entitled "UMass at a Crossroads." The report identified many of the systemic financial problems that ultimately led to the UMass-Boston budget crisis, including unsustainable cost growth resulting from student enrollment expansion, facility expansion, rapid growth in self-funded research and development, a rising UMass Central Office budget, and unfunded deferred maintenance at campus facilities. Pioneer's report cited data from internal UMass documents and financial disclosures to Wall Street bond rating agencies and federal student lending agencies. Following a detailed review of records obtained from the UMass Comptroller's office and other publicly available sources, Pioneer Institute concludes that the UMass President and Board of Trustees (BoT) unfairly scapegoated former Chancellor Keith Motley and UMass Boston administrators for creating UMass Boston's $30 million fiscal crisis in 2017-2018 when the president and BoT themselves bore primary responsibility for creating the crisis as a result of their having approved a massive, accelerated capital expansion plan without assuring that capital reserves would be available to pay for it. This white paper provides an introduction, detailed summary of findings from that review, and recommendations for the future. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 1: Is the UMass Enrollment Expansion Plan Sustainable? White Paper No. 145," see ED598651. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 2: Is UMass' Expansion Fiscally Sustainable? White Paper No. 146," see ED598659. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 3: UMass' Growing Dependency on Tuition and Fees and Strategic Recruitment of Out-Of-State Students. White Paper No. 147," see ED598661.]

Postsecondary workforce development is one of the major innovations of the modern community college. In a workforce approach, curriculum is driven by the needs of local industry, course delivery systems are sufficiently flexible to meet the diverse needs of students and industry, and students experience a mixture of work-based and classroom learning. These features combine to help students succeed at a postsecondary education and gain important training with less than a four-year degree. This paper describes how community colleges came to be a major resource for the nation's workforce development requirements and discusses the ways this role continues to evolve to meet the needs of students, employers, and local communities. The authors conclude by identifying major trends that will inform the future of workforce development in the American community college. [This paper is based on a chapter in "13 Ideas That Are Transforming the Community College World," edited by Terry U. O'Banion and published by Rowman & Littlefield and the American Association of Community Colleges in March 2019.]

This paper provides information about noncredit instruction in the California Community Colleges and updates the 2009 paper "Noncredit Instruction: Opportunity and Challenge" to incorporate subsequent changes from the last decade. Since the passage of SB 361 (Scott, 2006), noncredit instruction has seen significant changes, including the equalization of funding for some areas of noncredit instruction, the passage of the Adult Education Block Grant that created adult education consortia including K-12 and community college adult education providers, and the passage of AB 705 (Irwin, 2017) that specifically encouraged colleges to use noncredit courses to support the needs of credit students. Despite noncredit's long history in the community colleges, a limited number of robust noncredit programs currently exist, and many colleges may be looking to or are beginning to offer noncredit courses for the first time. This paper is intended to provide information about noncredit instruction that will be useful to individuals with varying backgrounds and experience with noncredit and to provide recommendations that will help noncredit continue to serve the needs of diverse student populations. [For the original paper, "Noncredit Instruction: Opportunity and Challenge" (adopted spring 2009), see ED510579.]

Libraries are the central resource for supporting faculty and students in their research and information needs, both physically and remotely. This essential role of libraries and library faculty has remained consistent amid significant technological and pedagogical changes within the community college system. As librarians continue to determine their other roles within the California Community Colleges System and local districts in response to evolving demands, the inclusion and engagement of library faculty in college decision-making processes, program development, and other academic and professional matters are critical. Just as each student body and community is diverse with its own characteristics, needs, and goals, so are each of the libraries throughout the California community colleges. This paper provides encouragement for library faculty, administrators, and staff to apply the various recommendations outlined throughout its text to meet their individual campus needs and requirements in providing impactful and equitable library instruction and services. It outlines the importance of library faculty in facilitating student success and provides information on the core roles of library faculty in the California Community Colleges System. The content of the paper may be used to inform the development of local and external policies, regulations, and guidelines that pertain to the operation and performance of California community college libraries and assist in the ongoing dialog among library faculty, staff, and administration regarding the role, services, design, and development of libraries and librarians. [The paper was developed by the Transfer, Articulation, and Student Services Committee of the Academic Senate in partnership with the Council of Chief Librarians.]

Work-based learning provides students an opportunity as aspiring employees to explore careers and to turn theory and simulation into practice by gaining on-the-job experience. The hands-on experience gained from work-based learning opportunities, especially when considered in combination with the attainment and application of employment soft skills, is a critical component of career training and preparation. This paper seeks to define a variety of work-based learning experiences including internships, cooperative work experience, apprenticeship programs, clinical or practicum experience, preceptorships, and other forms of work-based learning, including work study as a financial aid option, all of which are used within the California Community College system. These experiences are defined by providing information about intent and guiding principles, statutes and regulations, funding, and stakeholder roles. A summary of recommendations concludes the report.

Shifting demographics within the state of California and more specifically within the California Community College System have created a need for equitable processes to promote the success of students. Students who enter community colleges should be afforded the same level of support whether they enter virtually or in-person. The development of the Online Education Initiative has sparked great interest and collaboration within the system to support students' successful completion of courses by using services such as online tutoring. Framing the need to innovate and reimagine the way institutions serve students in a continually adapting and evolving world of technology is equally valuable and important. Colleges must meet the needs of all students who may have barriers to success, such as full workloads along with course commitments and other barriers that impact diverse student populations. This document was created by the Transfer, Articulation, and Student Services Committee (TASSC) of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges and is intended for local academic senates to use as a guide for online tutoring considerations. It may also be used to assist community colleges with the development of effective practices for online tutoring programs. Information provided in this paper may help to develop, enhance, identify, and address areas of both value and concern for online tutoring programs. As such, this paper contains multiple sections that include the following: (1) Accreditation and Online Tutoring; (2) The Value and Benefits of Online Tutoring; (3) Audiences for Online Tutoring; (4) Online Tutoring Skills and Practices; (5) Challenges and Parameters of Services; and (6) Recommendations for Practice.

To increase faculty participation and to recognize the strategic educational position held by undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activities (URSCA) in many institutions, faculty mentorship of undergraduate students needs to be valued as a standard component of workload and formally included in activity reports and evaluations, including those that lead to reappointment, tenure, and promotion. This white paper presents the need for recognition of faculty mentorship of URSCA, recommends best practices for institutions to adopt, offers a selection of case studies that features some of these practices, and summarizes upcoming challenges. [This white paper is published by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). For "Undergraduate Research: A Road Map for Meeting Future National Needs and Competing in a World of Change. CUR White Paper No. 1," see ED600981.]

Despite the widespread popularity of entrepreneurship education, there is thin evidence on its effectiveness in improving employment outcomes over the medium to long term. A potential time lag between entrepreneurial intentions and actions is sometimes presented as a reason why employment impacts are rarely observed. Based on a randomized control trial among university students in Tunisia, this paper studies the medium-term impacts of entrepreneurship education four years after students' graduation. The paper complements earlier evidence that documented small, short-term impacts on entry into self-employment and aspirations toward the future one year after graduation. The medium-term results show that the impacts of entrepreneurship education were short-lived. There are no sustained impacts on self-employment or employment outcomes four years after graduation. There are no lasting effects on latent entrepreneurship either, and the short-term increase in optimism also receded. [This paper is a product of the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice.]

This paper investigates whether the decision to attend university depends on university enrollment of close neighbors. I create a unique dataset combining detailed geographic information and educational records from different public agencies in Chile, and exploit the quasi-random variation generated by the rules that determine eligibility for student loans. I find that close neighbors have a large and significant impact on university enrollment of younger applicants. Potential applicants are around 11 percentage points more likely to attend university if a close neighbor enrolled the year before. This effect is particularly strong in areas with low exposure to university and among individuals who are more likely to interact; the effect decreases both with geographic and social distance and is weaker for individuals who have spent less time in the neighborhood. I also show that the increase in university attendance translates into retention and university completion. These effects are mediated by an increase in applications rather than by an improvement on applicants' academic performance. This set of results suggests that policies that expand access to university generate positive spillovers on close peers of the direct beneficiaries.

Prior research has shown that about 15% of teachers are hired into the same school in which they student taught, about 40% are hired into their student teaching district, and the location of teachers' student teaching placements is more predictive of where they are hired than where they went to high school or college. While this suggests that strategic student teaching placements are a potential policy lever for addressing regional teacher shortages, there is no prior empirical evidence of a relationship between student teaching placements and teacher shortages. In this paper, we describe research from Washington state that descriptively explores the relationship between student teaching placements and a proxy for teacher shortages, the proportion of new teacher hires in a school or district with emergency teaching credentials. We find that schools and districts that host fewer student teachers tend to hire significantly more new teachers with emergency credentials the following year, and that these relationships are robust to controlling for school and district urbanicity, distance to a teacher education program, and other observable school and district characteristics. This descriptive evidence suggests exploring efforts to place student teachers in schools and districts that struggle to staff their classrooms.

This paper examines inequalities in the match between student quality and university quality using linked administrative data from schools, universities and tax authorities. We analyse two measures of match at the university-subject (course) level, based on student academic attainment, and graduate earnings. We find that students from lower socio-economic groups systematically undermatch for both measures across the distribution of attainment, with particularly stark socio-economic gaps for the most undermatched. While there are negligible gender gaps in academic match, high-attaining women systematically undermatch in terms of expected earnings, largely driven by subject choice.

Movement to fully open-access electronic scholarly publication has been hampered by the conflicting interests of universities, private publishers, researchers themselves, and those who fund research. The situation interacts strongly with traditions regarding peer review and the ways in which researchers establish stature within their fields. Progress to date has led to seemingly awkward and probably transient systems of dual publication or dual publication status, including green, gold, and hybrid open access. There are also efforts to establish pay-to-publish as the standard model to replace pay-to-read. The ultimate situation should be immediate open-access electronic posting of results of all research, with pre-posting peer reviews solicited by the author rather than a journal editor, following any institutional policies regarding the type and amount of pre-publication peer review. There could then also be publications and/or web sites that harvest among posted articles selectively for further attention and may be fee-based, but open-access would be the primary and recognized form of publication. There are several things that research universities can do to encourage this transition. One is to provide or arrange for services to facilitate preparation and posting of articles and books in open-access repositories. Another is to make the contents of repositories readily discoverable in searches. The provost should be a central actor toward these ends, since faculty matters, the library, institutional publishing services, and often computing typically report to the provost. A provost can encourage policies for reviews of faculty members that do not consider pre-publication peer reviews and measures of journal quality and which instead give more attention to cumulative and integrated accomplishments than to individual papers. Shared governance provides useful ways of working with the faculty to promote recognition of the value of online, open-access publication. Engaging the interests and support of the most intellectually respected and senior faculty members can be particularly helpful.

Under the Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) initiative, 45 two- and four-year colleges have undertaken reforms that aim to provide students with seamless, holistic advising experiences that lead to improved academic outcomes. Colleges participating in iPASS have adopted a data-oriented approach to select and integrate new technologies into their advising practices to facilitate better interactions between students, faculty, advisors, and other student services staff. Based on research on iPASS and other advising redesign efforts, the Community College Research Center (CCRC) developed an evidence-based framework for advising redesign called SSIPP, which emphasizes a "sustained," "strategic," "integrated," "proactive," and "personalized" approach to advising. This paper describes the key principles of the SSIPP framework and illustrates how these principles have been adopted in reforms. The information and recommendations shared here are derived primarily from qualitative research conducted when iPASS reforms were being developed. The focus is on examples of practice and lessons learned.

Internships are a widely touted co-curricular activity that may enhance students' employability, their future wages, and employer talent needs. However, how students themselves understand and conceptualize the internship experience is poorly understood. Reasons why understanding students' perceptions of internships is important include the fact that debates about employability are dominated by employer voices and interests, and that developing student-centered educational experiences require a deep understanding of their conceptions of the learning and developmental process itself. In this paper we adopt an ethnographic perspective to reposition the perspectives of students from the periphery to the center within discussions of employability and internships, and use the freelisting method to document the words or phrases that are most salient to students (n=57) as they consider the cultural domain of "internships." We analyzed the resulting data using saliency analysis, inductive thematic analysis, and techniques from social network analysis to document the most frequently and psychologically salient reported terms associated with internships, themes related to these terms, and differences between students who have and who have not taken an internship. Results indicate that the most salient terms in the cultural domain of internships were: "experience," "learning," "paid," and "connections." Students discussed these words in utilitarian terms (e.g., something to "get" for one's résumé), as important aspects of career- and self-exploration, and to highlight the importance of compensation. Differences in the complexity of student accounts were evident between students who had taken an internship and those who had not. These findings highlight how common definitions of internships reflect a homogenous and aspirational perspective that is inconsistent with student accounts. We conclude that students' insights about internships are important to consider to reframe the employability debate to include student interests, to avoid one-size-fits-all approaches to internship design, and to facilitate student self-reflection.

A new landscape is emerging at community colleges across the country -- a new approach that puts preparing students for the workforce at the center of the college's mission and culture. Occupational education has always been part of the mission at community colleges. What's changing today: New technology is putting a new premium on occupational skills, and educators focused on preparing students for the workplace have a new set of tools at their disposal. Encouraged by this new trend and eager to advance it, Lumina Foundation convened a group of innovative community college leaders to talk about shared challenges and strategize for the future. The half-day session took place in Indianapolis in February 2019. The educators around the table had questions, but they also had answers. This paper is a report on their conversation. The educators feel they are on the edge of a new, exciting universe -- a new way of serving students and delivering skills to fuel economic growth. They want to bring others -- other educators and more employers -- with them into this new world, and they want help from policymakers. This brief consists of two parts: first, a description of the new landscape emerging on community college campuses, and second, an inventory of the recommendations offered by the group in Indianapolis.

College is one of the most reliable routes to economic security for parents and their children. College credentials are linked to increased earnings, higher rates of employment, lower poverty rates, and improved economic and educational outcomes among the children of college graduates. Student parents and their families stand to gain disproportionally from college degrees, through both short-term economic returns and long-term multigenerational benefits. College students with children, however, face financial and time demands that challenge their ability to enroll and persist in college. Students with children spend substantial time caring for their families, often work long hours, and face significant financial insecurity, which can make it difficult for them to complete their educational programs. College promise programs, sometimes referred to as "free college" programs, offer invaluable college opportunities for many students who face obstacles to higher education. This briefing paper focuses on characteristics of the student parent population that make inclusive college promise programs an imperative for improving equity in college access and completion.

In fall 2012, a public-minded privately held firm, Quad Learning (QL), partnered with two community colleges to pilot a new program dubbed "American Honors" (AH), which was designed to help academically talented community college students overcome the challenges of transferring to more selective four-year destinations. By fall 2018, QL had dissolved the AH program for domestic students. This paper traces the components of the program's socially conscious theory of change and its for-profit business model, and the tensions between the two. We explore the meaning of AH's various components to students, faculty, and administrators, and we estimate its impact on students' academic outcomes and offer takeaways for future public-private ventures.

Demographic and postsecondary enrollment data suggest that the proportion of community college students who need support to access curricula in English is large and will continue to grow in the coming years. Yet there is limited research on the postsecondary experiences and outcomes of these English learners (ELs), and most of the studies that are available focus exclusively on the subset of ELs who enroll in ESL courses. Informed by relevant research literature, this paper examines factors within the community college context that affect the experiences and academic outcomes of the EL population broadly, and, given that they can be more easily identified and have been the subject of much more study, students who enroll in ESL courses in particular. We describe ELs and their academic needs and strengths, and we provide a brief discussion of the national and state policy landscape regarding EL students. We then provide perspectives from the research literature on ESL assessment and placement, instructional delivery, and student identity. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of these findings for policy, practice, and future research.

In this paper we estimate the impacts of the "pathways" chosen by community college students--in terms of desired credentials and fields of study, as well as other choices and outcomes along the paths--on the attainment of credentials with labor market value. We focus on the extent to which there are recorded changes in students' choices over time, whether students make choices informed by their chances of success and by labor market value of credentials, and the impacts of choices on outcomes. We find that several characteristics of chosen pathways, such as field of study and desired credential as well as early "momentum," affect outcomes. Student choices of pathways are not always driven by information about later chances of success, in terms of probabilities of completing programs and attaining strong earnings. Students also change pathways quite frequently, making it harder to accumulate the credits needed in their fields. Attainment of credentials with greater market value could thus likely be improved by appropriate guidance and supports for students along the way, and perhaps by broader institutional changes as well. [Financial support for this report was provided by the Economic Self-Sufficiency Policy Research Institute (ESSPRI) at UC Irvine.]

Learning frameworks are tools that specify learning outcomes and/or competencies that define, classify, and recognize educational, learner, and industry expectations of knowledge, skills, and abilities at increasing levels of complexity and difficulty. They allow for alignment, translation, and mapping of learning through various spaces in order to capture learning that can be valued and recognized by education, industry, and the military. This paper outlines the roles that learning frameworks play in the emerging ecosystem of connected learning--why they matter and how they can bring disparate pieces of the learning ecosystem together for greater portability and documentation of learning in all the places it unfolds. It concludes with a focus on technological innovations as a source of future directions for learning frameworks connectivity.

Compared with four-year colleges, community colleges serve a vastly disproportionate number of undergraduate students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and lower-income backgrounds. Yet the sector remains under-resourced--unable to compete against politically connected state four-year systems and flagship campuses for limited public funds. Worse yet, community colleges have been unfairly stigmatized as they struggle to redress the accumulated disadvantage experienced by much of their student body. What is an under-resourced and stigmatized higher education sector to do? One idea is to reshape words and deeds in ways intended to leverage the benefits of the nation's changing demographics and dispel deficit orientations toward populations community colleges enroll. "Demography as opportunity" is a simple idea grounded in a commitment to affirm the worth of the students who attend community colleges by being responsive to their life circumstances. As the demography of the nation changes--the United States is predicted to be majority minority by 2045--human capital investment in students from racial and ethnic groups, many of whom are first-generation college goers and low-income, is critical to the nation's vitality. "Demography as opportunity" marries the racial and ethnic shifts underway in the country and in higher education with equity perspectives on historically disenfranchised populations. It is a constellation of policy and practice that abides by implementation principles common to well-executed change efforts. It attends to both people and place and aspires to strengthen communities and the nation by investing in the increasingly diverse population of college goers. Community colleges are the ideal venue for demography as opportunity not only because of who they serve but also because of what they do. [This paper is based on a chapter in "13 Ideas That Are Transforming the Community College World," edited by Terry U. O'Banion and published by Rowman & Littlefield and the American Association of Community Colleges in March 2019.]

Fintech describes new technology aimed at improving and automating the delivery of financial services. The term encompasses a wide variety of finance industry segments, such as crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, payments, data collection, cryptocurrency, credit scoring, cybersecurity for finance, thematic investing, algorithmic asset management, stock and bond investing, private securities transactions and more. New technologies compete with traditional finance models and change the internal processes of financial companies. Universities around the world are beginning to examine fintech preparedness and some are attempting to create coursework to fill the skills gap. Characteristically, the majority of university fintech programs in existence have focused on regulation, security considerations and understanding the impact of technology on the market. This high-level approach does not go into depth about individual technologies, leaving students to learn on the job or pursue additional elective coursework. This white paper recommends some ways public universities can prepare students in fintech. For example, public universities in Massachusetts can strive to offer coursework that gives a broad overview of fintech and regulation by examining in-demand skills as well as the pioneering efforts of early movers in academic fintech. For students, a key goal of fintech education is to develop the tools to think ahead of the curve. In addition, Massachusetts public universities can begin a process of examining their elective coursework across disciplines, identifying areas of opportunity for business students to gain further fintech-related skills. University administrators could consider expanding some elective course opportunities, setting up new tracks for business majors or developing certificate programs for business students to package their additional course experiences for potential employers. Also while business students may feel the impacts of fintech growth most directly in their chosen field, computer science students at Massachusetts public universities may find themselves working for companies providing fintech software or within existing financial services companies doing software design, development and configuration. Academic leaders can begin -- or expand -- a process of assessing current coursework and degree paths, potentially creating new prerequisites or entirely new avenues to degree completion for business and computer science students. By working to understand shifts in the market brought on by fintech and their implications for job skills demand, public universities can endeavor to better prepare undergraduate and graduate students for the future and strengthen one of the core industries of Massachusetts.

Education Leadership Data Analytics (ELDA) is an emerging domain that is centered at the intersection of education leadership, the use of evidence-based improvement cycles in schools to promote instructional improvement, and education data science. ELDA practitioners work collaboratively with school and district leaders and teachers to analyze, pattern, and visualize previously unknown patterns and information from the vast sets of data collected by schooling organizations, and then integrate findings in easy to understand language and digital tools into collaborative and community-building evidence-based improvement cycles with stakeholders. In June of 2018, over 100 participants gathered for the Education Leadership Data Analytics Summit at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City, including researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and funders. This report provides a summary of the central issues, themes, and recommendations for the future of the field that emerged from the discussions at the ELDA Summit event. These issues include building capacity in the field through incentivizing researcher practitioner partnerships, and providing conference and networking opportunities, professional development, certification, and ultimately degree programs to train ELDA researchers and practitioners. Additionally, a central focus of the ELDA field is equity, data security and privacy, in concert with open and FAIR data standards to develop and share de-identified data and tools across contexts. We conclude the report with a blueprint of possible skills and competencies needed for ELDA practitioner training and professional development and provide recommendations for next steps to help grow the field.

Over one in three students who started college in 2012 did not enroll in the fall immediately following their high school graduation. Despite the prevalence of delayed college enrollment, however, little is known about its consequences for labor market outcomes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this paper examines the characteristics and earnings trajectories of students who do not enroll in college immediately after high school ("delayers") and the effects of this choice on academic and labor market outcomes. Propensity score matching results show that delaying college enrollment decreases individuals' likelihood of enrolling in college and increases their tendency to enroll in two-year colleges if they do return to school. They also show that, consistent with the study's descriptive results, the early earnings benefits experienced by delayers fade out after their mid-20s and turn to significant losses over time. Oaxaca decomposition results indicate that differences in student characteristics only explain one third of the pay gap between the two groups; 60 percent of the pay gap is explained by delayers' reduced likelihood of attending and obtaining a degree at a four-year college.

How does a large research university establish a culture supporting student-centered evidence-based teaching? In this paper, we describe Purdue University's "Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation" (IMPACT) which has involved 321 instructors and 529 courses. Of every first-time undergraduate student, who first enrolled at Purdue West Lafayette in fall 2011 to summer 2018, 95.1% of them enrolled in at least one IMPACT course in any academic period during that time. We describe the history and evolution of the program, from its roots in National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) models and Faculty Learning Communities to an innovative adaptation of Self-Determination Theory principles. The program aims to maximize autonomy support for instructors, as they design classes to meet their instructional goals and student needs. IMPACT uses assessment on multiple levels: What should we examine in addition to grades to document achievement of learning outcomes in individual courses? How do we measure the learning climate and student engagement in a class? Most important, how does a faculty development program focused on course redesign lead to meaningful and lasting institutional change? In telling this story including lessons learned, readers will discover ways to enhance and evaluate their own faculty development programs to effect evidence-based and teaching-centric culture changes on their own campuses. [Foreword by George D. Kuh.]

The authors present evidence for the role of undergraduate research in college completion and preparation of a highly skilled workforce, particularly in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] fields. [This paper was produced by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR).]

Augmented-reality (AR) technology, and its impacts on teaching and learning, have already made their way into elementary, secondary, and higher-education classrooms. The authors discuss why AR matters in the higher-education context, and they describe current examples of AR use that can enhance teaching and learning across multiple fields in higher education, including but not limited to medical education, language learning, and science. They also review AR's pedagogical benefits as well as its challenges and conclude by offering tips for implementing AR in higher education. Although some may be hesitant to adjust their curriculum to accommodate AR, higher-education professionals should at least be aware of how augmented reality can shape teaching and learning, especially as current elementary and secondary students become accustomed to using similar technology in the classroom.

In the book "Redesigning America's Community Colleges" (Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015), the authors briefly noted the role that librarians might play in informing and supporting guided pathways reform. In this short essay, one of the book's authors joins with a librarian to provide updated and revised thoughts on the role of librarians in guided pathways. First we discuss the importance of embedding critical thinking into guided pathways curricula and librarians' unique position to support that goal; then we discuss various models by which colleges might leverage librarians' expertise and which models seem more or less compatible with the guided pathways framework.

The number of temporary residents that hold a postsecondary study permit in Canada has increased rapidly in recent years, going from 201,186 in 2009 to 294,020 in 2015--a 46.1% increase. The purpose of this study is to describe the postsecondary experience and early labour market outcomes of study permit holders (international students). The study found that about two-thirds of postsecondary study permit holders actually enrolled in postsecondary programs in 2015 (up from about half in 2009). International students were somewhat more likely to graduate from their postsecondary program than Canadian students within five years of initial registration. However, international postsecondary students were less likely than Canadian students to combine school and work. Furthermore, only about one-third of international students who graduated from a postsecondary program remained and worked in Canada six years after graduation. Among those who remained and worked in the country after graduation, former international students earned slightly more than Canadian students (and slightly less than permanent residents). However, international students generally possess more characteristics associated with higher earnings than Canadian students. When international and Canadian students with similar demographics, educational qualifications and pre-graduation work experience were compared, it was shown that international students earned less than Canadian students six years after graduation.

Occupations related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are generally associated with high pay and contribute to the development of new technology. Continued growth is expected for STEM occupations, which would provide STEM-educated workers with additional labour market opportunities. However, less is known about the extent to which STEM graduates enter into and remain in STEM occupations in Canada. This study uses data from the 2006 and 2016 longitudinal census files to examine the occupational pathways of women and men with postsecondary credentials in STEM fields. Generally, male STEM graduates were more likely than female STEM graduates to be employed in a STEM occupation. The occupational pathways of male and female STEM graduates also differed. Among STEM graduates who were employed in a STEM occupation in 2006, women were more likely than men to have moved to a non-STEM occupation by 2016. Younger STEM graduates were more likely to exit a STEM occupation than older graduates, and men and women with college-level STEM credentials were more likely to leave a STEM occupation than their counterparts with a bachelor's degree. Some differences in the occupational mobility of men and women with STEM credentials were associated with their field of study. For example, men who studied mathematics or computer and information sciences were less likely than their counterparts who studied engineering or engineering technology to exit a STEM occupation between 2006 and 2016. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the likelihood of leaving a STEM occupation among women who had studied in these two fields. Lastly, the wage growth of male and female STEM graduates who persisted in a STEM occupation between 2006 and 2016 was not significantly different from the wage growth of their counterparts who had moved from a STEM occupation to a non-STEM occupation. [This study was funded by the Department for Women and Gender Equality.]

Traditionally, four-year bachelor's degree programs have been available only at universities. More recently, they have been offered at some community colleges--particularly in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Using linked administrative postsecondary graduate and personal income tax data, this study finds that college bachelor's degree (CBD) holders earn about 12% more per year, on average, than university bachelor's degree (UBD) holders two years after graduation. Almost all of this gap can be explained by the different field of study choices made by the two groups of students. Compared with their university counterparts, CBD holders were more likely to take programs in business, management and public administration or health and related fields (fields generally associated with higher-than-average earnings), and less likely to take education, humanities or social and behavioural sciences and non-professional law programs (fields generally associated with lower-than-average earnings). The remainder of the earnings gap could be explained by the fact that CBD holders were more than two years older than UBD holders, on average. The study also showed that UBD holders registered faster earnings growth between two and five years after graduation and were more likely to enroll in graduate studies than their counterparts from colleges. Moreover, CBD programs were generally concentrated in colleges that were situated near a university and associated with above-average earnings (compared with other colleges) among their diploma holders.

More than half of community college courses are taught by part-time faculty, and the reliance on part-time faculty to teach developmental education courses and gateway math and English courses is even more prevalent. Drawing on data from six community colleges, this study estimates the effects of part-time faculty versus full-time faculty on students' current and subsequent course outcomes in developmental and gateway courses, using course fixed effects and propensity score matching to minimize bias arising from student self-sorting across and within courses. While students with part-time instructors have better outcomes in their current course and similar pass rates in the next course in the sequence, they are 3 to 5 percentage points less likely to enroll in that subsequent course. The negative effects on subsequent enrollment are driven by results in math courses. Notably, the estimated effects do not change substantially after controlling for instructors' demographic characteristics and degree attainment, but the size of the estimated effects is reduced by up to 40% when the analytic model accounts for course scheduling. Results of a survey on faculty professional experiences at the six colleges in the study suggest that part-time faculty had less institutional knowledge than full-time faculty did about both academic and nonacademic services. Given that part-time faculty did not have negative effects on the pass rates of students who did enroll in subsequent courses, it appears more likely that inferior working conditions for part-time faculty, rather than inferior instructional practices, are driving the negative effects on students' subsequent course enrollment.

Indiana, Oklahoma, and Washington have programs designed to address college enrollment and completion gaps by offering a promise of state-based college financial aid to low-income middle school students in exchange for making a pledge to do well in high school, be a good citizen, not be convicted of a felony, and apply for financial aid to college. Using a triple-difference specification, we find that Washington's College Bound Scholarship shifted enrollment from out-of-state to in-state colleges at which the scholarship could be used. While we find suggestive evidence that the program increased the likelihood of attending a postsecondary institution and attaining a bachelor's degree within five years of high school, we discuss why the program might be more successful if it did not require students to sign a pledge.