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Academic change is the term being used increasingly to describe universities’ efforts to improve student success by creating optimally effective learning environments that simultaneously increase access, affordability, and quality of higher education for all those who want a postsecondary degree. Institutions are starting to see the vast potential of hybrid classrooms, shared courseware initiatives, open educational resources, competency-based education, learning analytics, and adaptive learning environments and they are seeking ways to scale and sustain these innovations.

The University Libraries, Teaching and Learning Transformation Center, and Student Government Association at the University of Maryland, College Park have published a new website for faculty and students about OER at UMD. 

The site provides an overview of OER, resources for students and faculty, and a great article on the top five myths about OER. 

The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) has completed a process to match all course learning outcomes and competencies with open educational resources for undergraduates.

Coppin State University joined nine educational institutions in Washington D.C., July 28-31 to reinvent higher learning and the student experience as part of the EDUCAUSE - Next Generation Learning Challenges 2015 Breakthrough Models Incubator funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Leading Academic Change Summit provides a rare and exciting opportunity for transformation leaders to meet with peers and learn about the portfolios of work underway.  During the highly interactive 2-day conference, participants share insights into how people learn and how that knowledge can be combined with emerging technologies to truly transform and improve the student experience.

UMCP is in their second year of partnership with Coursera to offer MOOCs ranging from Quantum Physics to Women and Civil Rights. With over 800,000 students registered and ~13,000 signed up for the verified “signature track” option (for a fee), they are not only showing our educational leadership, but also directly improving their on-campus classes.

UMBC participates in Learning Analytics (LA) primarily by focusing on student and faculty use of the Learning Management System (LMS). Since 2007, the University has observed that students earning a final grade of D or F use the LMS 40% less than students earning higher grades. While correlation does not equal causation, UMBC has built a "Check My Activity" (CMA) feedback tool that allows students to compare their own activity against an anonymous summary of course peers earning the same, higher or lower grade for any assignment -- provided the instructor uses the online grade book.

The University of Baltimore (UB) is working with Pulitzer-prize winning historian Taylor Branch and the USMCAI to offer the course “Citizenship and Freedom: The Civil Rights Era” in an innovative, online, for-credit format. Unlike MOOCs, this course is based on a seminar format that promises synchronous interactivity. Also unlike MOOCs, this course features a blend of lecture, panels, and real-time Q&A with the virtual audience.

In 2013, the USM entered into an agreement with Ithaka S+R (with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to explore the viability of repurposing MOOCs to be used as part of regular undergraduate programs at degree granting institutions. Given the momentum already established by the USM’s Maryland Course Redesign Initiative, faculty interest in MOOCs was robust. We ended up with 22 trials –many more than the 5-7 originally projected. So, as the highly controversial MOOC model continues to generate much national press –both positive and, more recently, negative– our side-by-side experimental MOOC-augmented courses are currently being tested (2013-14).