• Data: The Long View

    WICHE’s Multistate Longitudinal Data Exchange project held its first meeting in late October in Portland, OR. The goal of the pilot project, supported by a $1.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and involving four states (Idaho, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington), is to build a “human capital development data system” that would provide policy-relevant information for how states acquire human capital through importation, as well as through education, including insights into the characteristics of individuals who are the most and least mobile. This first working meeting focused on determining the policy questions the exchange would ask, the data needed to answer those questions, how to share data, and how the exchange will be governed and operate. Representatives from the other three regional compacts (the Southern Regional Education Board, Midwestern Higher Education Compact, and New England Board of Higher Education) attended to learn how they might work with their own states on similar initiatives, as did representatives from the National Student Clearinghouse.

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  • Student exchange programs grow

    WICHE’s Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE), the nation’s largest tuition reciprocity program, continues to grow. WUE enables students from WICHE states to enroll in participating two- and four-year public institutions at 150 percent of the enrolling institution’s resident tuition. This fall 145 participating institutions reported record enrollment of 26,711 students, an increase of more than 2,000 students over last year, with much of the increase coming from enrollments of California residents. Students enrolled for the 2010-11 academic year are projected to save almost $211 million, an increase of more than $37 million from last year’s savings.

    The Western Regional Graduate Program (WRGP) allows master’s, graduate certificate, and Ph.D. students who are residents of the 15 WICHE states to enroll in some 220 high-quality programs at 45 participating institutions on a resident tuition basis. Every two years, WICHE invites nominations of qualified graduate programs to be considered for the WRGP network. WICHE received over 30 nominations in its most recent round, including those for programs in health informatics, audiology and speech pathology, climate science, international affairs and global enterprise, and community planning. New programs will be announced next spring.

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  • Online Education News

    WCET and The Campus Computing Project conducted the second annual Managing Online Education survey to gather data on the management and administration of online education programs in the U.S. Kenneth Green, founding director of The Campus Computing Project, presented initial survey findings at the WCET annual conference in November. Survey data indicate that faculty training is a major investment for online education programs, with half of the respondents reporting that faculty members are required to complete specialized training for teaching online. Institutions also report that faculty resistance is the most significant impediment to the growth of their online programs.

    In November the U.S. Department of Education released new regulations for online ed in its “Program Integrity Issues” document, including one that has the potential to create significant red tape for legitimate distance education program providers: “If an institution is offering postsecondary education through distance or correspondence education in a State in which it is not physically located, the institution must meet any State requirements for it to be legally offering distance or correspondence education in that State.” WCET hosted a Webcast on December 7 with Fred Sellers, senior policy analyst with the U.S. Department of Education and the author of the regulations, to clarify expectations for state agencies and institutions and discuss timelines for implementation.
     

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  • WOW Awards

    WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2010 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) awards, a competition that recognizes innovative uses of educational technologies in higher education. Since 2004 the WCET WOW awards have been presented to higher education institutions and organizations for exceptionally creative, technology-based solutions to a significant problem. In 2010 the awards go to four ambitious projects, each addressing a challenging issue with a unique solution: Foothill-De Anza Community College District’s College Open Textbooks Collaborative (for increasing the adoption of open textbooks to lower student costs); Kentucky Virtual Campus’s KCTCS Online – Learn on Demand (for providing adult learners with on-demand programs and services to encourage degree completion); Rio Salado College’s Peer-to-Peer Plagiarism Project (for promoting the integrity of academic online programs); and Winona State University’s Winona360 Civic Media Project (for changing the role of journalism and new media to promote civic engagement).

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  • Mixed Media

    In November, WICHE’s Policy unit released two of its regularly updated data resources: Tuition and Fees in Public Higher Education in the West and Benchmarks. The redesigned, streamlined Tuition and Fees features the addition of enrollment-weighted averages for states and institutional types, as well as a wealth of other data, now available online in Excel. Benchmarks presents information on the West’s progress in improving access to, success in, and financing of higher education.

    As part of WICHE’s partnership with the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California, Policy staff also prepared the first analyses of student progression and graduation, using data from Nevada’s student information system. The analyses look at differences by race/ethnicity in the achievement of milestones on the path to postsecondary success (completion of remediation, 15 credits, 30 credits, postsecondary credential, etc.).
     

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  • Forum Meeting

    The Western Academic Leadership Forum will hold its annual meeting, themed “The Politics of Student Success: Meeting the Challenges — from Readiness to Completion,” in Fort Collins, CO, on April 13 to 15. Cohosted by Colorado State University, the meeting will provide an opportunity for provosts, vice presidents of academic affairs, chief executives, and chief academic officers of related systems and statewide agencies in the WICHE region to learn more about new assessments for the Common Core Standards; discuss two completion initiatives (Complete to Compete and Complete College America); and focus on how performance-based funding is being used to incentivize change. Because these topics are also of concern to those at two-year institutions, the Forum has invited the members of the Western Alliance for Community College Academic Leaders to attend. WICHE serves as the secretariat for both the Forum and the Alliance.

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Contacts

David Longanecker, President - Phone: (303) 541-0201, email dlonganecker@wiche.edu

Jere Mock, Vice President, Programs and Services - Phone: (303) 541-0222, email jmock@wiche.edu