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Category: Institutions

Coronavirus (14) – The Re-opening Conundrum

Most people want to know how the heck we get out of this mess.  Not dates, necessarily, but the process.  We have to see big declines in the number of new cases before we can start to unwind the physical-distancing measures are now in place.  How few cases do we have to see before the maximum gathering moves from five people (where it currently is in Ontario, YMMV), to ten?  To fifty?  A hundred?  When can we stop having to

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April 13, 2020 5 Comments

Coronavirus (12) – A National Effort in Online Education

Today, I want to issue a challenge to all Canadian universities.  I think a lot of universities are going to be in significant trouble come September.  I know everyone is working hard to avoid this outcome but fixing what needs to be fixed for September is simply too big a job for individual institutions.  And so, I am going to argue that the only way forward is for institutions is to do something which does not come naturally to them,

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April 7, 2020 12 Comments

Approaches to Marking

Take a breath–this is my one non-corona blog this week.  Since it’s exam time and people are experimenting with new ways of assessment in the midst of an emergency, my mind has been turning around the issue of different methods of marking and assessment.  Not different approaches to grading (which is a whole other story – especially since Canada is one of the very few and possibly only country in the world where there is not a standard national approach to grading, and yes Carleton,

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April 2, 2020 1 Comment

Coronavirus (8) – Scenario Planning

For the last three weeks, life on university and college campuses has all been about doing what is needed to save the semester and move to remote learning/remote working format.  I get the sense that this is the week when everyone’s attention is going to shift to “omg, what do we do now?”  The answer to that question will vary, of course, but if there is just one piece of advice I could give everyone, it is that the absolute

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March 30, 2020 1 Comment

(University) Life During Wartime

Since everyone is using war metaphors to describe current efforts against COVID-19, I thought it might be worth taking a trip down memory lane to look at what universities did during the World Wars (colleges, being mostly creatures of the 50s-70s, were not around then, so this is a single-sector survey).  I am not convinced it’s the right metaphor – in Britain, for example, their death-cult instinct makes them treat every crisis like it’s 1940. Because of their refusal to

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March 23, 2020 No Comments
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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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