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Monday, March 31, 2014
Fostering Employee Engagement in Your Organization
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Engaging With The New eLearning
Author: The Corporate Executive Board Posted Date: Summary:
eLearning achieves its potential when used repeatedly over time and place by engaged participants. Engaged people seek out online lessons and references - and now, in this Web 2.0 world, they also contribute generously, making choices to both consume and create resources. This white paper outlines 12 strategies for engaging and retaining learners through compelling online experiences.
eLearning achieves its potential when used repeatedly over time and place by engaged participants. Engaged people seek out online lessons and references - and now, in this Web 2.0 world, they also contribute generously, making choices to both consume and create resources. This white paper outlines 12 strategies for engaging and retaining learners through compelling online experiences.
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This document is no longer available for download.Outplacement for Everyone Five Strategic Advantages of Universal Outplacement
Posted Date: 3/4/2014 Summary:
At some point, you’re probably going to have to terminate an employee. With business and economic cycles in a seemingly constant state of flux, this has never been more of a reality. Nobody likes thinking about it, but everyone should have a plan.
At some point, you’re probably going to have to terminate an employee. With business and economic cycles in a seemingly constant state of flux, this has never been more of a reality. Nobody likes thinking about it, but everyone should have a plan.
Have you thought about outplacement? Think it is too expensive to offer to everyone? Think again. Learn about your options and advantages in this white paper, including:
Some surprising and strategic advantages of universal outplacement.The limits and high costs of traditional, brick-and-mortar outplacement solutions.A newer, non-traditional, and affordable outplacement options for everyone, not just executives.How universal outplacement may help contain unemployment costs.
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This document is no longer available for download.Why are some public universities charging more for online courses?
Overheads constitute almost 50% of campus-based operational costsHaynie, D. (2103) U.S. News Data: Online Education Isn’t Always Cheap, August 28
What
This report caught my eye: A 2013 survey conducted by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Learning House, which will be published this October and involved 400 public universities, concluded that :
more than 60 percent charged the same tuition for face-to-face courses as they charged for online courses. Thirty-six percent of the schools charged more for online tuition.
This was also backed up by a USNews survey of 300 public universities.
The average per credit, in-state cost for an online bachelor’s program is $277, compared with $243 per credit at brick-and-mortar schools.
I’m also aware that some Canadian institutions also have a premium fee or an additional charge for the online version of a face-to-face credit course.
Why
According to Susan Aldridge, a senior fellow at AASCU:
The courses cost more to develop, take more time to develop and take more time for the faculty to teach. In order for students to succeed in these online courses, 24/7 technical support, reference librarians, writing labs, automated degree plans and tutoring need to be available.
And Ray Schroeder adds:
schools often have to train their faculty to teach effectively on online platforms – an expensive, ongoing endeavor
Really?
Online learning costs more than classroom teaching? Not in my experience. Once again, it depends: on how you cost programs, on how you design your online courses, and how you deliver your face-to-face classes.
John Ebersole, president of Excelsior College, believes that online education is cheaper for colleges to provide because they don’t have to invest in creating or maintaining facilities. Those savings, he said, should outweigh the cost of any initial investment in technology.
If my online students aren’t going to take advantage of the cafeteria, going to the student union, participating in the extracurricular activities and we don’t have the building costs, why isn’t it cheaper?
In other words, the overheads are lower for online teaching than they are for classroom teaching – and since overheads constitute almost 50% of operational costs on a campus-based university, this is a significant factor.
And Ray says:
Most faculty members come prepared to teach face-to-face. They need substantial training and support in order to teach effectively. It’s not a one-time training.
Sorry, Ray, the first part of your statement is the problem. Many faculty do NOT come properly prepared to teach face-to-face. In fact what we are doing is expecting a lower standard for face-to-face teaching by not preparing them properly, while having to do it for online instructors.
In essence, online learning changes the cost structure of teaching. It does need more start-up investment and so there is a cost of change. If you have small online class numbers, it probably will cost more to go online. However, if you have too many students to accommodate on campus, going online will reduce your costs per student and there are some economies of scale as online enrollments increase. This is why it’s important for institutions to track the costs not only of going online, but the real cost of their campus-based classes, including overheads and faculty development (or lack of it).
Lastly, even if online learning is more expensive for the institution (which it needn’t be) there is an equity issue here. Why should students pay more for the same end-product just because it is packaged differently?
What do you think?
Does your institution charge more for online credit courses? If so, why?
Examining the potential and reality of open educational resources: the 2013 COHERE conference
Panel: Robert Clougherty; George Veletsianos; Johan Fridell; Diane Salter; Rory McGrealCOHERE (Collaboration for Online Higher Education and Research) runs one of my favourite annual conferences. It is relatively small (around 75), the participants are mainly leading practitioners in online learning, and the sessions are excellent, usually encompassing leading developments in online learning, research reports, and extensive discussion from people in the front line of online learning. (Click here for a report on the 2012 conference.)
This year, the conference, jointly sponsored by the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE), and held at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Richmond campus in British Columbia, focused on ‘Open Resources, Open Courses: their Impact on Blended and Online Learning’.
The two main keynote speakers this year were Cable Green, the Director of the Creative Commons, and David Porter, the Director of BC Campus. Here is a summary of my closing remarks which aimed to review the conference (although I was able to attend only 25% of the parallel sessions – I can do any time, anywhere, but not yet two places at the same time).
To get copies of the slides of presenters, you will need to get a Dropbox invitation from Stacey Woods. I don’t have my own slides – just the notes below.
Creative Commons
This seemingly simple idea, of an ‘author’ creating a license enabling people to freely access and adapt copyright material, without charge or special permission, is one of the great ideas of the 21st century. This does not take away someone’s copyright but enables that copyright holder to give permission for different kinds of use of their material without charge or any bureaucracy. There is no real legal or technical barrier now to making educational material free. It does though require a particular mindset among both copyright holders – i.e. the creators of materials – and users – i.e. teachers and instructors who could use this material in their teaching. Thus the main challenge is one of cultural change.
The spectrum of Creative Commons licensesOpen textbooks
In some ways, open textbooks are a no brainer. There’s probably no greater racket than the school and college textbook industry (other than the research journal industry.) Often these textbooks are not ‘original’ work, in the sense of new knowledge, but carefully written and well illustrated summaries of current thinking in the different subject areas.
Students and governments, through grants and financial aid, pay billions of dollars each year on textbooks produced by people who are largely already employed in the public education sector (and who in any case are lucky to get 10% of any revenue generated). A student in Canada spends on average about $800 a year on textbooks, even more in the USA. In some subject areas, the cost is well over $1,000 a year per student.
Nothing seems more absurd to me than the sight of hundreds of students lining up for up to an hour every day for the first week of the semester at the UBC bookstore to buy their books. This is time lost studying. Cable Green pointed to research that shows that when first year math students have their textbooks from the first day, they do much better than students who often don’t get the key textbook until three weeks into the course. He also pointed to research from Florida Virtual Campus that indicates that many students (over 60%) simply do not buy all the required textbooks, for a variety of reasons, but the main one being cost. Indeed, students are often reluctant to take their books to campus in case they lose them (although he was referring to k-12 children here).
So why shouldn’t government pay the creators of textbooks directly, cut out the middleman (commercial publishers), save over 80% on the cost, and distribute the books to students (or anyone else) for free over the Internet, under a Creative Commons license? What’s not to like (unless you’re a publisher)? In his presentation, Cable Green came up with a great ‘vision’ for open textbooks: 100% of students have 100% free, digital access to all materials on day one.
So it was good to hear from David Porter that BC Campus is developing 40 open textbooks for first and second year university courses, and another 20 for two year college vocational and technical courses. BC is also collaborating with Alberta in Canada, and Washington State and Oregon, in the USA, to avoid duplication and to increase sharing of open textbooks. Explore the BC Campus web site: at the time of writing this post there are already seven open textbooks available, and perhaps more significantly, faculty from 20 of the 24 post-secondary institutions in B.C. are participating in the creation of open textbooks. Someone asked the question: what is Ontario (Canada’s largest province) doing about open textbooks? The answer to date is: nothing.
However, there were some cautionary concerns from some of the participants about open textbooks:
Elizabeth Murphy, from Memorial University, questioned the whole idea of textbooks, whether open or not. She saw textbooks as a relic of 19th century industrialism, a form of mass broadcasting. In the 21st century, students should be finding, accessing and collecting digital materials over the Internet. Textbooks are merely packaged learning, with the authors doing the work for students. Nevertheless, it has to be recognized that textbooks are still the basic currency for most forms of education, and while this remains the case, open textbooks are a much better alternative for studentsothers (including myself) questioned the likely impact of ‘open’ publishing on creating original works that are not likely to get subsidized by government because they are either too specialized, or are not yet part of a standard curriculum for the subject; in other words would it impact on the diversity of publishing? What is the incentive for someone now to publish a unique work, if there is no commercial reward for the effort (especially if you believe that open publishing will eventually wipe out commercial publishing, as I do)? Writing an original, single authored book remains hard work, however it is published.although there is now a range of ’open’ publishing services, there are still costs for an author to create original work. Who will pay, for instance, for specialized graphics, for editing or for review? How can these costs be recovered? In particular, in what format (pdf, html, Word, ePub, xml, a wiki) should original work be created so that it can become interactive, easily re-purposed, and multimedia? Much more work still needs to be done to support the open publishing of original work in book format, at least – or is the book itself a relic of another time? If so, what does that mean for how knowledge is created, disseminated and preserved? (Answers on a – digital – postcard, please).Although these are all important concerns, they seem to me to be manageable. Just getting a proportion of the main textbooks available to students for free is a major step forward.
Openstax open textbooksGetting faculty to use OERs
Increasingly faculty are creating open educational resources, or making resources freely available for others to use under a Creative Commons license. There are increasing numbers of depositories or portals where faculty can access open educational resources. Faculty have a number of choices:
create your own digital resources, and make them available to others (there are plenty of guides on how to do this.)take OERs selectively from elsewhere, and incorporate or adapt them into your own teachingtake a whole course from elsewhere (e.g. a MOOC) and provide learner support and teaching around those materials (such as San Jose State University is doing, or as in the Carnegie-Mellon Open Learning Initiative.)There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the take-up of OERs by instructors is still minimal. Diane Salter of Kwantlen Polytechnic University led a discussion on how best to get faculty to incorporate OERs into their teaching. Many of the suggestions made will be familiar to anyone concerned with change management in higher education: there was the discussion of the need for the move to be both top-down and bottom up; I argued the importance of these kinds of decision being made at a program level; faculty development and workshops are essential.
However, Keith Hampson raised a much more important barrier and that is how university faculty see themselves. They don’t see themselves as ‘just’ teachers, but creators and disseminators of new or original knowledge. Therefore their teaching needs to have their own stamp on it, which makes them reluctant to openly incorporate or ‘copy’ other people’s work. We can argue that this is absurd – we all stand on the shoulders of giants – but it’s the self-perception that’s important, and for research professors, there is a grain of truth in the argument. It makes sense for them to focus their teaching on their own research. But then how many Richard Feynmans are there out there? The problem is that OERs can easily be associated with ‘packaged’, reproductive knowledge, and not original work, changing faculty from ‘artists’ to ‘artisans’.
One practical step that could increase greater adoption of OERs would be some open course design templates into which OERs could be dropped, with examples, and places for instructors to add their own resources. These design templates could range from more didactic teaching somewhat similar to an open LMS (some of which exist already), to more open or more flexible designs where students find, analyse and apply open resources within an overall teaching framework. I would hope such templates would include spaces for student activity, and multimedia resources. This would take something like CoursePacker to the next level.
The problem remains though that even when faculty adopt OERs, they are often inside a closed teaching environment, such as an LMS. What the OERu is doing is opening up this whole process so that students can openly access whole programs and receive full qualifications from the participating institutions. In fact, the OERu was launched yesterday at Thompson Rivers University, in Kamloops, British Columbia (more on this in another post).
The panel responding to David Porter’s presentation also raised several interesting points. While open education activities were reported from both Memorial University and the University of Ottawa, they tended to be outside actual course design, focused on library initiatives or open publishing in journals. Incidentally it seems bizarre to me that institutions are paying up to $3,000 an article for publishers to make the article open access within a journal, when the research has been publicly funded (what David Porter described as ‘openwashing’).
Ron Owston reported on the dead hand Access Copyright has had on using secondary sources for teaching, having taken York University to court over its interpretation of fair dealing. This is a must win case for Canadian universities and if York is successful it should sue Access Copyright for wasting the court’s time and the university’s resources after an earlier clear decision by Canada’s Supreme Court.
Ron also raised the question of the poor quality of much of the OERs available a the moment – reams of text with no interaction, course design, or media other than text, often in PDFs that cannot easily be changed or adapted. If OERs are to be taken up, they will need to be better designed.
Research and development on MOOCs
Ah, MOOCs. Funny how these came up. Well, there were some interesting presentations on this topic.
WideWorld Ed
WideWorld Ed is a new Canadian, online open education platform, the main driving force behind which is Jenny Heyman, who gave an interesting presentation at the conference (declaration of interest: I’m on the Academic Advisory Board). Its first MOOC is a six week course: Online Instruction for Open Educators, which opened on October 14. The instructors include some famous names: Terry Anderson, Athabasca University; Dave Cormier, University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI); Bonnie Stewart, UPEI; Jenni Hayman, Wide World Ed; and Sean Gallagher, Wide World Ed. Interestingly, sponsorship for the course comes from Desire2Learn.
WideWorld Ed’s mission is to deliver well-designed and effective online courses and open education resources to diverse learners around the world. In particular it hopes to attract course providers from Canadian institutions and organizations, a Canadian edX. In particular, I can see a real market for NGOs, charitable institutions wishing to get better outreach for their services, and public institutions seeking wider audiences.This is a brave start-up effort, and I hope it gets the support it deserves from Canadian universities and colleges, venture capitalists and other sponsors. Now if we just had a Federal Department of Education to put some money behind it…..
Athabasca University’s research on MOOCs
Marti Cleveland-Innes gave a presentation on Athabasca University’s research program examining MOOCs, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is just starting and the aim is to address the research gap by evaluating MOOCs, and how they impact teaching, learning, and education in general. There has been an rfp for proposals administered by Athabasca University, and the successful applicants will be presenting their proposals at a forthcoming conference at the University of Texas Arlington December 5-6
Research into students’ experience of MOOCs
George Veletsianos, who recently moved from the University of Texas at Austin to Royal Roads University, BC, and who is a leading researcher on emerging educational technologies, has also been conducting research on MOOCs, from the learners’ perspectives. George’s take on MOOCs is interesting. He sees the MOOC phenomenon as a result of chronic failures in the post-secondary education system (I’m not sure if he was talking generally, or just the USA). Among a range of failures he cites the lack of impact of educational technology research on course design, and the failure of educational technologists to make any impact on practice (ah, well, there’s a lifetime’s work down the toilet). It’s hard to disagree with him, though, given his results from interviewing MOOC students: that MOOCs suffer from a lack of course design, that instructor’s presence during the course (beyond a recorded lecture) is important, etc., results that to be honest are highly predictable from the research that was done before MOOCs were launched.
But is that the fault of educational technologists, or computer science professors who blindly failed to do any literature research into online learning or how students learn, or even talk to educators before launching their products? Talk about arrogance and ignorance combined, especially given Keith Hampson’s comment that the Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative, based on cognitive science research and best instructional design practices, generally leads to a minimum of 25% improvement in student performance when colleges follow their approach (results also found by Carol Twigg’s course redesign studies.) To re-quote G.K. Chesterton, it’s not that research into educational technologies has been applied and failed – it’s never been applied by most instructors. That’s because we don’t train them in teaching, not because we don’t disseminate the results.
It’s great that both Athabasca and George are doing research on MOOCs. This is sorely needed. However, they are applying evidence-based research and rational analysis to a phenomenon that is political, emotional and largely irrational. For a true understanding of the MOOC phenomenon, we probably need a socio-cultural analysis, so their research could easily end the way that George has portrayed previous research into educational technology: ignored, though it is highly relevant.
Is open education becoming a tool of the right?
So here’s my socio-cultural analysis, for what it’s worth.
The reason that MOOCs have received such media hype is because the USA in particular has been destroying its own public higher education system through budget cuts and an unwillingness to pay taxes. If elite universities can deliver MOOCs for free, why do we need crappy state universities? The risk is a sharply divided two tier system, with a relatively small number of elite universities catering to the rich, and the masses going to MOOC-delivered courses with state universities providing minimal and low cost learner support for such courses.
This would be both a social and economic disaster, because it would fail to produce learners with the high-level skills that are going to be needed for good jobs in the the coming years – unless you believe that automation will remove all paid jobs except for a tiny elite (is this the hidden agenda?).
It should be noted that even for credit-based online program, content accounts for less than 15% of the total cost over five years; the main costs required to ensure high quality outcomes and high rates of completion are spent on learner support, providing the learning that matters most. The kind of MOOCs being promoted by politicians and the media fail spectacularly to do this.
We do need to be careful that the open education movement is not used as a stick by those in the U.S. (and elsewhere) who are deliberately trying to undermine public education for ideological and commercial reasons. Open content, OERs and MOOCs do not automatically lead to open access to high quality credentials.
In the end, a well-funded public higher education system remains the best way to assure access to higher education for the majority of the population. Having said that, there is enormous scope for improvements within that system. Open education and its tools offer a most promising way to bring about some much needed improvements. That is my main take-away from this excellent conference.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
No. 7 aha moment: strategy matters in online learning
© Bates and Sangra, 2011This is the eighth in a series of posts about the most seminal ‘discoveries’ in my researching and working in educational technology, where I discuss why I believe these ‘discoveries’ to be important, and their implications specifically for online learning. The others to date are:
My seven ‘a-ha’ moments in the history of educational technology (overview)
1. Media are different.
2. God helps those who help themselves (about educational technology in developing countries).
3. Asynchronous is (generally) better than synchronous teaching
4. Computers for communication, not as teaching machines
5. The web as a universal standard
6. The convergence of online learning (from the periphery to the core)
What was the discovery? (1997)
Having worked as a manager by this time for 7 years, I was beginning to understand the bigger picture regarding the planning and management of learning technologies, and it wasn’t pretty. For educational technology to be used effectively, it has to be planned and managed well, and there were almost no specific guidelines at the time. Almost everything was left to the IT people. This had to change. Academics had to get involved as well.
How did this come about?
Part of my responsibility when I was at the Open Learning Agency between 1990-1995 was strategic planning. In fact I was sent on a very useful three day course on strategic planning offered by the American Management Association, but in reality at OLA my main responsibility was not so much to set strategy but to implement what the executive decided (and to be fair, I was part of the executive). This involved lots of Excel spreadsheets with deliverables and dates, but the strategies changed so often it started to become a meaningless exercise – the approach was far too much like the central planning of the Soviet Union, where plans were made but they failed to match reality. What OLA really did was driven mainly by external events, and how staff at the director level responded to them.
When I went to UBC, the approach to planning was very different, because of the culture of a university. In 2000, the then VP Academic, Dr. Barry McBride, sent out a note to all faculty which among other things stated:
We need to pay increased attention to IT and learning. While I am convinced that IT will have a significant effect on teaching and learning, I am not convinced that we fully appreciate the opportunities and pitfalls…….In response to the IT challenge, we need to do several things but chief among them are the following: first, encourage a wide discussion about the possible role IT will play in learning at UBC and second, implement an appropriate process to support the vision that emerges from that discussion. We must ensure that the process is responsive to the views expressed by colleagues.
He then created a committee (with the interesting name of ACCULT – Academic Committee for the Creative Use of Learning Technologies) with experts in using technology from various areas (the CIO, the Director of Distance Education, two or three faculty with experience of using LTs – including Murray Goldberg, who had developed WebCT, and representatives from the Library, student services, and a student representative.) The committee was chaired by Neil Guppy, the AVP Academic Planning, a position that had been created earlier with specific responsibility for learning technologies. among other things.
Thus it can be seen that at UBC:
leadership identified the issue, a senior administrator was appointed with a specific mandate to manage issues around learning technologies, a committee of experts/interested people was established to develop vision and strategy, a process to involve faculty across the university in setting a vision, or, as resulted, a set of visions, for the use of learning technologies was establisheda committee developed a range of strategies and actions that would facilitate the implementation of these visions, and this was subsequently approved by Senate and the Board of Governors.This is a good example of what I mean when I talk about the governance of learning technology or online learning.
The approach was also very different from that at OLA, with UBC focusing particularly on faculty developing vision and goals for learning technologies, rather than the administration setting goals and the ‘workers’ trying to find ways to implement what in fact were are a continually changing set of goals and strategies (and a continually changing external environment that the administration was continually responding to.)
Why is this significant?
The default model in many institutions had previously been to leave individual faculty to decide how to use learning technologies, and for the IT department to respond as best they could to these demands. In best case scenarios this would lead to the CIO developing an IT strategy that covered both administrative and academic needs, but was almost always underfunded and priorities could not be set (except by the CIO). There was no pressure or encouragement for faculty to use learning technologies, and no attempt to use best practices or identify success or failure in individual faculty initiatives.
In fact, we have seen online learning in particular now starting to converge with campus-based activities, so it has become increasingly important for institutions to develop plans and strategies for online learning and learning technologies. Experience and research now suggest what this process should look like. Here are the lessons I’ve learned about this (this is a summary of the main points from Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning).
leadership is essential. The Board and the institutional executive team need to support a move to greater use of online learning, and they all need to be on the same page about this. However, the main role of leadership is to provide overall direction and broad goals for online learning (e.g., to enable more flexible access to programs) and especially to focus on the governance structure and governance processes for learning technologies, but allow the decisions on the right mix of delivery and learning technologies to be made by faculty (preferably at the program level).vision and strategic thinking about online learning is more important than detailed plans or targets. In other words avoid setting a goal of 100 fully online courses by 2014, but think strategically about where and for whom online learning will provide the most benefits.faculty need to be engaged primarily in developing a vision for teaching and learning with technology, and for implementing that vision, again preferably as a team at the program level.decisions about delivery models should take place through the same process as deciding about content (i.e. at the program level)the role and design of online learning will vary according to the needs of the students targeted and the requirements of the subject area, which is why the delivery model and the choice of specific technologies must be driven by faculty, supported by professionals such as instructional designers.a high level committee with representatives from all areas affected by the use of learning technologies needs to be established todeal with priority-setting for resources to support the use of learning technologies,set policies or strategies for learning technologies, such as for intellectual property, protecting student privacy, or for open educational resources,ensure that the necessary support for faculty and students is in placeto ensure that data and evidence is collected about successful and unsuccessful strategies, actions and innovations.this committee needs to be ongoing, as learning technologies will continue to develop, and the external world will continue to change, requiring strategic responses from the institution as a whole.faculty training and professional development is essential and also needs to be systematic and mandatory for online teachingrewards need to be put in place for innovative teaching, and a strategy needs to be developed to ensure that successful innovations are spread across the institution where they are appropriate.It can be seen that decision-making about learning technologies will take place at all levels in the institution. Good governance will ensure that the right kind of decisions are taken at the right level by the most appropriate people.
Conclusion
The planning and management of learning technologies are essential, but they can be done well or they can be done badly. In knowledge-based organizations such as universities and colleges, the full engagement of ‘front-line workers’ such as faculty and students in decision-making and especially setting a vision for teaching and learning, is paramount, but faculty and students need to be supported, so strategy, decision-making, priority-setting and training and development needs to be ongoing and continuous if learning technologies and online learning are to be used effectively.
Next
A bonus! The ninth (and last) post in this series will be on the importance of web 2.0 technologies for online learning. Coming next week at all theatres.
“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”: a retrospective of my work
Still alive on SundayBrindley. J. and Paul, R. (2013) Understanding the building blocks of online learning: Through the writings and research of pre-eminent online learning expert, Dr. Tony Bates Sudbury ON: Contact North, October 2
It was Mark Twain who complained in this way about a premature obituary in the New York Journal. While not quite an obituary, the Contact North post is the first in a series of eight that looks at my perspectives and advice on key issues in online learning, based, as each post unkindly points out, on my nearly 50 years of working for change and reform in post-secondary education. This series was researched and developed by Contact North | Contact Nord Research Associates, Dr. Jane Brindley and Dr. Ross Paul.
This first post discusses my views on the drivers of change in the way we teach and learn, and on the role of online learning.
It also summarizes the posts that are to follow under the heading of the Seven Key Building Blocks of Online Learning:
planning for effective teaching with technologyhow emerging pedagogies map onto the new technologieshow faculty can support learner successhow faculty can ensure quality in an online learning environmentguidelines for faculty from educational technology researchcosting considerations for hybrid and online coursesinstitutional and faculty roles in strategic planning.Contact North will be publishing one post every two weeks in this series.
Comment
Although I agreed to this project, and indeed have seen and commented on all the drafts for the series, you can perhaps tell that I am slightly embarrassed by the whole thing. Jane and Ross have done an amazing job pulling together an amorphous set of resources scattered through many blog posts, journal articles and books into a series of coherent posts that are directed clearly at the interests of faculty and instructors. I think the series will be particularly useful for those poor post-graduate students who have been given my books as set readings to wade through, and for instructors dipping their toes into online learning for the first time. I am immensely grateful to and honoured by Contact North for developing and promoting this series.
The main reason for my embarrassment is that most of the stuff in the posts is not my original work. Like everyone in academia, I stand on the shoulders of giants. (Interesting to note that this quotation was used by Isaac Newton in his introduction to Principia Mathematica – and he plagiarized the quote from someone else!) So all I have done in most of my writing is to pull together other people’s research and writings, and I am still concerned that this does not come across strongly enough in the series. You will also not find any critique or criticism of my work in this series, so please use the comment section after each post. Nevertheless, I respect Contact North’s desire for simplicity and clarity.
So I hope you will follow the series and more importantly (since regular readers of this blog are more than likely to be familiar with the material), direct colleagues, instructors new to online learning, and post-graduate students studying online learning, to this series of posts.
In the meantime THIS IS NOT THE END!
What’s next?
I will continue my blog as best I can while travelling, including the series on productivity and online learning (the next will look at the issues around scaling learner-instructor interactions).
I’m also working on a new book called provisionally ‘Teaching in a Digital Age’ which is due out next year.
So yes, I’m still alive.
Informal Learning: Extending the Impact Of Enterprise Ideas and Information
Author: The Corporate Executive Board Posted Date: Summary:
While training continues to play an essential part of organizational life, most successful organizations know that corporate learning is no longer just about training. In today's hyperintensive workplace, forward-thinking organizations are turning to enterprise learning in their quest to be better informed, better skilled, supported at the point of need, and more competitive in their respective marketplaces. This white paper goes in depth on this topic with with Jay Cross, author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance.
While training continues to play an essential part of organizational life, most successful organizations know that corporate learning is no longer just about training. In today's hyperintensive workplace, forward-thinking organizations are turning to enterprise learning in their quest to be better informed, better skilled, supported at the point of need, and more competitive in their respective marketplaces. This white paper goes in depth on this topic with with Jay Cross, author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance.
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This document is no longer available for download.Outstanding Encouragement of Learning and Development Award
March 28, 2014 | In Rewards & Recognition, Training
The Office of Human Resources invites you to nominate a supervisor or manager for the Outstanding Encouragement of Learning and Development (OELD) Award. Nominations are being accepted through Thursday, April 3.
Nominations for the OELD Award are open to SPA and EPA managers who have had at least one year of continuous University service. The award is presented annually to one manager and includes 24 hours of paid time off, automatic nomination for a Chancellor’s Award in the category of Human Relations, and a plaque. Managers and supervisors who were nominated in previous years are eligible to be nominated again.
The nomination form is available here.
The OELD Award was created in 2004 by the Chancellor’s Task Force for a Better Workplace to promote a more engaged, productive, and effective workforce and to recognize supervisors who support their employees’ professional development.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Top Considerations for Recurring Revenue Solutions
Please select one Executive Manager (CXO/VP) HR Manager HR Professional Business Manager Business Professional Student HR Director HR Administrator HR Consultant Other Please select one Less than 9 10 to 49 50 to 99 100 to 249 250 to 499 500 to 999 1,000 to 4,999 5,000 to 9,999 Larger than 10,000
Thursday, March 27, 2014
NPSIA-PT&D’s new Practical Certificate in Federal Governmental Affairs Management
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Go to homepage for: Future Students Current Students Staff/Faculty Alumni ParentsjQuery(function(){$('#globalnavtop').bind('change', function () {var url = $(this).val(); // get selected valueif (url) { // require a URLwindow.location = url; // redirect}return false;});}); Home / News / NPSIA-PT&D’s new Practical Certificate in Federal Governmental Affairs ManagementNPSIA-PT&D is pleased to offer our newest professional training program the intensive 4-day Practical Certificate in Federal Government Affairs Management workshop. Specifically designed for new representatives of Governement, their staff and new members of the Public Service this program will be made available shortly in both open-registration and custom / sponsored basis. This program is available in both French and English
To learn more visit www.carleton.ca/npsia-ptd/
Advanced Certificate in International Biological Sciences Security – Certificat supérieur en gestion de la sécurité en sciences biologiques internationale
Home / News / Advanced Certificate in International Biological Sciences Security – Certificat supérieur en gestion de la sécurité en sciences biologiques internationale
The Office of Professional Training and Development at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and the Public Health Agency of Canada are pleased to announce a cooperative Program in International Biological Sciences Security Management and the pilot offering of the first Advanced Certificate in International Biological Sciences Security workshop this August 2012.
L’Office of Professional Training and Development de la Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, de l’Université Carleton, et l’Agence de la santé publique du Canada sont heureux d’annoncer la mise en oeuvre d’un programme coopératif dans le domaine de la gestion de la sécurité en sciences biologiques internationale, de même que la remise du premier certificat supérieur en gestion de la sécurité en sciences biologiques internationale, dans le cadre d’un atelier pilote qui se tiendra en août 2012.
To learn more about this program please visit: www.carleton.ca/npsia-ptd/
Our latest Manager’s Certificate in I-CIP workshop completed in Istanbul!
Home / News / Our latest Manager’s Certificate in I-CIP workshop completed in Istanbul!
NPSIA-PT&D would like to thank HPI-Hugh A. Palmer Inc. for the outstanding workshop recently run in Istanbul Turkey and to our attendees from BP, Nabucco Pipeline, DISI Water of Jordan and Risk&Co for making our Manager’s Certificate in International-Critical Infrastructure Protection – Pipeline and Linear Network Security a success. This workshop was held at the Crowne-Plaza Old City, Istanbul from March 18-22, 2013.
Our next workshop will be held from September 29 to October 2, 2013 in Manama Bahrain. Please consult our catalogue for further details.
Last days to register in the Failed and Fragile State Analysis workshop
Home / News / Last days to register in the Failed and Fragile State Analysis workshop
Only a few days remaining to register for the Practical Certificate in Failed and Fragile State Policy Analysis featuring NPSIA’s own Dr. David Carment and Dr. Yiagadeesen Samy. Learn more at www.carleton.ca/npsia-ptd/
NPSIA-PT&D Summer Residence Option programs
Home / News / NPSIA-PT&D Summer Residence Option programs
We are pleased to announce that many of our programs scheduled for the late spring and summer now come with a Residence Option. Trainees from across Canada and the world can now arrange their accommodation and meals though NPSIA-PT&D while attending one of our many professional training events scheduled from May to August 2010.
Consult the program description or registration form to determine if a Summer Residence Option is available.
June 3 to 6 our workshop in Intergovernmental Negotiation
Home / News / June 3 to 6 our workshop in Intergovernmental Negotiation
THE PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATE IN INTERGOVERNMENTAL NEGOTIATION Dates: June 3 to 6, 2013
Registration: Registration for this workshop is now open. To participate please download the registration form here.
Fee: $3000 + HST
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
First professional certificate workshops for the 2010 – 2011 Calendar year!
Home / News / First professional certificate workshops for the 2010 – 2011 Calendar year!
Join us this December when we feature two popular 4-day workshops: the Professional Certificate in International Negotiation program and the Professional Certificate in International Policy – Analysis to Evaluation.
Both workshops are delivered in a 2-step workshop format. International Negotiation is offered over consecutive days, from Tuesday December 7 to Friday December 10, 2010. International Policy will be offered over two weeks with Step 1 on Dec 13 & 14 and Step 2 on Dec 20 and 21.
Visit www.carleton.ca/npsia-ptd/ to learn more!
NEW Masters Certification in International-Critical Infrastructure Protection Program.
Home / News / NEW Masters Certification in International-Critical Infrastructure Protection Program.
NPSIA-PT&D will issue our first Masters Certificates in International-Critical Infrastructure Protection this June in conjuction with the HPI – Hugh A. Palmer Inc. Pipeline Security SpecialistTM Programme.
Designed to support global industry and professional accreditiation in association with sector educators and learning and development institutions, NPSIA-PT&D’s Masters Certification program will be launched this spring. Participants who complete the entire HPI – PSS programme will be the first recipients of the Masters Certificate in International-Critical Infrastructure Protection.
The HPI – Hugh A. Palmer Inc. Pipeline Security Specialist Programme will run at Carleton University from June 1 to June 11, 2010.
To learn more about the HPI – PSS Programme this June or NPSIA-PT&D’s Masters Certification for professional accreditation visit us at www.carleton.ca/npsia-ptd/
Practical Certificate in Consular Affairs Management program
Home / News / Practical Certificate in Consular Affairs Management program
April 18-22, 2009 – Practical Certificate in Consular Affairs Management program run at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Former Canadian Ambassador and NPSIA-PTD Training Fellow, Mr. Andrew Robinson with the participants of the ADA’s Advanced Foreign Service Program.
Inaugural Practical Certificate in International Social Protocol Program
Home / News / Inaugural Practical Certificate in International Social Protocol Program
25 participants completed training in the half-day workshop lead by Margaret and Larry Dickenson for new and current NPSIA students, recent alumni and special guests.
Appointment of a Vice Chancellor for Workforce Strategy, Equity and Engagement
Home > News and Events > Appointment of a Vice Chancellor for Workforce Strategy, Equity and Engagement January 21, 2014 | In Administration
Message from Chancellor Folt:
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Felicia A. Washington as the University’s new Vice Chancellor for Workforce Strategy, Equity and Engagement, effective February 1. She will replace former Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, Brenda Malone. As approved by the Board of Trustees, the new name for the position reflects its expansion to combine principal responsibility for the Offices of Human Resources, Equal Opportunity/ADA, and Diversity and Multicultural Affairs. This structural change was designed in consultation with campus leaders to strengthen support for Carolina’s workforce. By bringing these three critical areas together in a single division, we intend to significantly increase collaboration, create new campus-wide opportunities for engagement and learning, and advance Carolina’s mission to provide a welcoming, equitable and stimulating educational environment for all.
Felicia brings an impressive record of professional expertise, experience with Carolina, and strong personal leadership skills to this important campus-wide position. She will lead a division responsible for the administration of, and compliance with, federal and state laws and UNC-system policies regarding human resources management, equal opportunity and harassment and discrimination. In addition, she will focus on the critical area of diversity across campus.
A Carolina undergraduate alumna, Felicia earned her law degree from the University of Virginia. She has been an attorney with what is now K&L Gates LLP in Charlotte for 23 years, and a partner for the last 15. There, she worked extensively with senior legal counsel and human resources professionals, advising them on an array of employment, compliance and discrimination issues. Her work included developing personnel policies and employment and separation agreements, developing the strategy for and conducting investigations, and representing clients before regulatory agencies and in federal and state courts. She has been instrumental in many diversity-related organizations within the legal profession. Felicia recently concluded four years of service as a member of the University’s Board of Trustees, where she chaired the Conflicts of Interest and Legal Affairs Committees, and served on Student Affairs, University Affairs and the 21st Century Visioning: Access and Affordability committees.
In her new role, she will collaborate with senior administrators, faculty and staff to implement strategies for supporting and enriching Carolina’s workforce and enhancing diversity across all parts of our campus. As part of this restructuring, an associate vice chancellor will have day-to-day responsibilities in each of the offices in this new division, and will report directly to Felicia. Matt Brody will continue as associate vice chancellor of Human Resources, and Taffye Clayton as associate vice chancellor of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs. Jayne Grandes, interim director of the Equal Opportunity/ADA Office, will continue in that role until our search for an associate vice chancellor for Equal Opportunity/ADA has concluded.
Please join me in welcoming Felicia to campus next month. Carolina is privileged to have such a talented person join our community.
Memo submitted by:
Carol L. Folt, Chancellor
State Law Changes SPA Employee Probationary Periods
March 22, 2014 | In Employment
Last August, the state legislature made significant changes to the State Personnel Act (now “State Human Resources Act”), which included several major updates to the laws governing the state’s human resources system. As a result, University policy for SPA staff employees’ probationary periods has changed. SPA employees hired after Aug. 21, 2013, will now retain their probationary status for 24 months.
This aligns with the designation of when State employees achieve “career status,” which occurs when they have been continuously employed in a permanent position for 24 months from the date of hire.
During the probationary period, employees continue to earn leave and total state service credit. They are also eligible for retirement and health benefits, as well as other benefits such as tuition waivers and tuition assistance (after three months of employment). They will still receive a work plan and performance feedback, and can receive salary adjustments as allowed by policy.
However, probationary employees are not eligible for layoff benefits including severance pay, health insurance continuation and priority reemployment consideration, and have limited grievance rights.
If you have questions regarding any of these changes, please contact your School/Division Human Resources Office.
Carolina Blood Drive Coming in June
March 20, 2014 | In Benefits & Work/Life, HR Events
Help those in need of lifesaving transfusions keep on Living the Carolina Way! Once again, UNC is partnering with the American Red Cross to help increase blood supplies on Tuesday, June 3 for the annual Carolina Blood Drive.
This year’s 26th annual Carolina Blood Drive will be held on Tuesday, June 3, from 7 a.m. – 6 p.m. at the Dean E. Smith Center. UNC faculty and staff have been coming out every summer to make this drive a success. Your support helps the Red Cross increase their blood supply during the summer months when donations are typically low.
Making it even easier to participate, volunteering and/or donating is considered work time with supervisor approval. Also, parking at the Smith Center is free that day. All participating donors will receive a free t-shirt.
Please help ensure the blood supply doesn’t take a summer break. Spread the word throughout the UNC community to make this the most successful drive yet.
To make your donation appointment or to volunteer, visit the Carolina Blood Drive website.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
OHR Spring Course Catalog Available
January 21, 2014 | In Training
The Office of Human Resources is pleased to announce the release of our spring course catalog, which includes classes through July 2014. This release contains new classes, interesting conversation groups and introduces the convenience of webinars on several topics! Sign up now to participate in a class that will enhance your professional development needs. Classes are free and open to faculty and staff.
To register online, please visit the Training & Talent Development registration website, or contact Training & Talent Development at 962-2550 for more information.
Adverse Weather Reminders
January 21, 2014 | In Policies
As there may be some severe weather events this year, here is a timely reminder to the campus community about the adverse weather policy. The policy and other information are available here.
The adverse weather policy is always in effect. Any time you cannot attend work due to a weather related event, the policy applies. This includes having to stay home to care for a child who could not attend school due to adverse weather.
However, adverse weather leave is not intended for incidental use due to slightly inclement weather (for example, delays on arriving to work due to scraping ice off the windshield in the morning or slow traffic due to rainy conditions). It is intended for significant weather-related conditions that result in late arrivals, early departures, or other absences.
The University’s adverse weather status is designated by three condition levels:
Condition I: Classes are being held, Offices are open.
“Normal” weather conditions up to moderate snow accumulations, power outages, etc. Staff can navigate the campus and local areas safely; classes are in session and University offices are open. Unless otherwise stated, the University always functions at a Condition Level I for adverse weather.
Condition II: Classes are canceled, Offices are open.
More severe weather including heavy snow or ice with heavy accumulations; public transportation and parking are limited and sidewalks are in poor condition. Classes are canceled, but University offices are open. Emergency employees must report to work, and other employees are strongly urged to consider conditions on campus and in their residential areas, plus law enforcement reports of road conditions, before deciding whether to come to work.
Condition III: Classes are canceled, Offices are closed.
Extremely bad weather with unusually large accumulations of snow, ice or sleet. Roads are impassable, public transportation is canceled, and parking lots and sidewalks cannot be navigated. Law enforcement advises people not to travel except in an emergency. The University is closed because of the weather or other hazardous conditions; classes are canceled and offices are closed. Emergency employees must report for work, and other employees must not attempt to come to their work sites.
Unless otherwise stated, the University is always at Condition I (normal operations, everything open). During conditions I and II, you must use your own judgment in deciding whether it is safe to come to work. If the University is closed (Condition III) and your department has not required you to work, you must not report to work!
Only the Chancellor or her designee can officially close the University (Condition III). Individual Schools/Divisions do not have this authority.
Some University operations require employees to report for work in order to provide emergency services during periods of adverse weather. The department head identifies these emergency employees, and must provide them with advance written notice of this status. Please refer to the adverse weather policy for more information regarding emergency employees.
• Adverse Weather Hotline: Call 919-843-1234 for a recorded message on the adverse weather status for the University.
• Website: Adverse weather condition levels during hazardous conditions can be found at the top of the University homepage at http://www.unc.edu. Current status is available on the Alert Carolina homepage at http://www.alertcarolina.unc.edu.
• Radio: Regarding University operations and Chapel Hill buses, tune into Radio Station WNJW, 1610 am, the Travelers Information System. WUNC (91.5 FM) will also broadcast regular announcements regarding any weather-related closings.
• Television: Most local television stations will report weather-related closings during severe weather events.
Any announcement indicating the closing of State government offices due to adverse weather does not apply to the University. Be sure to watch for the difference between classes canceled (Condition II) and University closed (Condition III).
Adverse Weather Leave is not “free time” — the program is designed to assist employees in receiving pay now for time that they could not work due to adverse weather conditions. Any possible adverse weather leave is “offset” by the number of hours physically worked in a work week. You cannot code adverse weather leave if coding the leave would result in you being paid for more than your regularly scheduled number of work hours. This is true even if the University is closed.
For Condition I or Condition II events, any adverse weather leave must be made up within 12 months. For Condition III events, adverse weather leave does not need to be made up.
For more information on recording adverse weather leave, go to the TIM website.
If you have questions regarding the Adverse Weather policy, contact Employee & Management Relations in the Office of Human Resources at 919-843-3444 or emr@unc.edu.
2014 Benefits Reminders
January 21, 2014 | In Benefits & Work/Life
With the start of the New Year upon us, here are a few tips and reminders to help you start 2014 off right.
Annual enrollment changes: Any benefit elections made during the annual fall enrollment for NCFlex, the State Health Plan and the University benefit programs took effect on Jan. 1. Remember to check your January paystubs to ensure that the programs you elected are reflected, with the corresponding deductions. We actually began taking your 2014 health enrollment elections in December because those benefits are paid a month in advance. With this year’s changes to the State Health Plan design, it is important to review your check stub to confirm the correct premium amount. FY14 leave: You have until June 30, 2014, to use any leave you have remaining from the five days of FY14 leave issued to state employees last summer. You must now use FY14 leave prior to any vacation or bonus leave. Supplemental retirement limits for 2014: 403(b), 401k, and 457 limits for 2014 remain the same as 2013 at $17,500, with an additional $5,500 catch-up limit for employees age 50 or older.MetLife Group Term Life Insurance: If you are enrolled in this University plan, you may see a change in your deductions beginning with your January paychecks. Adjustments to your premiums are made based on your age and salary as of Dec. 31 of each year.ING (ReliaStar) Group Term Life Insurance: If you are enrolled in this NCFlex plan, you may see a change in your deductions beginning with your January paychecks. Adjustments to your premiums are made based on your age and salary as of Jan. 1 of each year.MetLife Critical Illness: If you are enrolled in this NCFlex plan, you may see a change in your deductions beginning with your January paychecks. Adjustments to your premiums are made based on your age and salary as of Jan. 1 of each year.Health Care and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs): Claims for limits elected for the 2013 plan year must be filed with P&A Administrative Services by April 30, 2014. Services must have been rendered by March 15, 2014. You can check the balance of your FSA for both plan year 2013 and 2014, the status of claims you have submitted, and any pending reimbursements by registering with P&A Administrative Services online at https://www.padmin.com/ncflex/.If you participated in the health care flexible spending account in 2013, you will not receive a new debit card. If you enrolled in the FSA for the first time for 2014, a new card will be mailed to your home address.
Review your paycheck to verify that the correct per-pay period deductions are taken out for your 2014 NCFlex FSA account(s).
If you have questions about any of these items, contact Benefits Services in the Office of Human Resources at 962-3071 or benefits@unc.edu.
ULEAD Nominations Accepted Through April 3
March 20, 2014 | In Training
The Office of Human Resources, a unit of the Division of Workforce Strategy, Equity, and Engagement, has opened applications for the University Leadership Education and Development (ULEAD) program through April 3. ULEAD targets high-performing, high-potential managers and gives them the tools and skills they need to meet the challenges of the changing higher education landscape and take the next step in their careers. ULEAD emphasizes strategic thinking, communication, innovation, and negotiation.
Pre-program elements of ULEAD begin in late spring, and the program runs through the fall semester. The curriculum includes a series of classes, a 360 multi-rater assessment, peer coaching, and team projects designed to contribute in real and innovative ways to improving university effectiveness. Participants receive the benefit of learning from the world-renowned faculty of the Kenan-Flagler Business School, as well as other highly regarded professionals.
To provide the maximum opportunity for interaction and networking, ULEAD selects 15 representatives from UNC-Chapel Hill and 3 from NC Central University. Participants must be high-performing, highly motivated managers who are directly responsible for at least one supervisor or for a program of significant size and complexity. Applicants are nominated by their managers, and must receive approval from their Dean, Vice Chancellor, or designee.
If you have questions, please contact William Frey in the Office of Human Resources at 962-9685 or will_frey@unc.edu.
SPA Secondary Employment Reminder
January 21, 2014 | In Employment, Policies
This is a reminder that a Secondary Employment notification form must be completed for any SPA employee working a second job for an organization other than a state agency or university. In January each year, employees who are continuing secondary employment must submit an updated notification form to their supervisor. The policy and form can be found here.
The Secondary Employment policy applies to all permanent SPA employees regularly scheduled to work 30 hours or more per work week. State agency or university employees working full-time have primary employment responsibility to the State. Other employment outside of state agencies or universities is considered secondary employment. The Secondary Employment policy applies to all employment not covered by the Dual Employment or Additional Employment policies. Detailed information regarding these policies is available on the OHR website..
The purpose of the Secondary Employment policy is to ensure that an employee’s secondary employment does not have an adverse effect on the employee’s primary employment and does not create a conflict of interest. Secondary employment is not permitted when it would:
Create either directly or indirectly a conflict of interest with the employee’s primary employment; orHave an impact on, or create any possibility of conflict with, State operations; orImpair in any way the employee’s ability to perform all expected duties, or to make decisions and carry out in an objective fashion the responsibilities of the employee’s position.It is critical that an employee notify his/her supervisor and complete a Secondary Employment notification form before engaging in secondary employment. In addition, an employee must report any changes in secondary employment status as they occur by completing a new Secondary Employment notification form and submitting it to their supervisor.
Completed Secondary Employment Notification forms must be forwarded to the Office of Human Resources to the attention of the Employment Consultant assigned to work with the department. Secondary Employment notification forms will be retained in the employee’s departmental and Office of Human Resources personnel files.
Click here for more information on the Secondary Employment policy.
Benefits Statements Coming Soon
March 22, 2014 | In Benefits & Work/Life
University employees will receive their annual benefits statements soon in campus mail. The statements will be sent to all employees who were actively employed by Dec. 31, 2013, and include compensation and benefits information. The statements include annualized base salary and the amounts that UNC-Chapel Hill paid for your individual benefits. The value of the leave you earned in 2013 is also shown, as are the actual amounts you contributed towards your benefits elections.
Statements should begin to arrive around March 31, and the Office of Human Resources encourages you to take time to carefully review the information it includes. You will receive your statement in a sealed envelope marked confidential.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Employee Discounts Spotlight
January 21, 2014 | In Benefits & Work/Life, Work/Life
As a UNC employee, you are eligible to receive discounts on a variety of products and services that can be useful for day to day living. Discounted programs offer you access to some of the region’s best arts and entertainment, intercollegiate athletic activities, a new computer purchase program through payroll deduction, educational discounts and so much more.
Take a look at the newest discounts offered at Carolina:
Payroll Deduction Plan for UNC Employees
UNC Student Stores, in partnership with UNC Employee Benefits, Human Resources, and Payroll Services, is proud to offer full-time, permanent UNC employees a payroll deduction program for the purchase of computers, tablets and accessories from the RAM Shop. The UNC Employee Computer Purchase (UNC-ECP) Plan offers employees an opportunity to purchase eligible items from the RAM Shop through one initial down-payment and an interest-free payroll deduction loan spread over six months.
Entrance Exam Prep Discounts
The Princeton Review is offering University students, University employees, members of the immediate families of University students and University employees, and University alumni significant discounts for course preparation for the GRE, GMAT, and LSAT. To register visit: http://www.princetonreview.com/unc/
Each discount is available to University employees and their families. Click here to learn more about the other discounts at Carolina.
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