Digital Learning in 'Inside Higher Ed' This Week

The following developments received coverage in Inside Higher Ed this week:

• The National University System is adding a new institution to its constellation of professional education providers: Northcentral University, which specializes in online master's and doctoral-level programs.
• A new report examines three institutions -- the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, California State University Fresno and Montgomery County Community College -- that are working to update their advising practices with technology, and sharing their progress. The report, by the Community College Research Center, outlined how the institutions are reaching out to students that might need help, as well as working to more effectively use data in students’ one-on-one sessions with advisers.
• A new book says colleges and businesses can do better to bolster the share of women in computer science, some technology fields and in the businesses where many of the graduates of those programs aspire to work. Failing to improve, argues The Future of Tech Is Female: How to Achieve Gender Diversity (New York University Press), means wasting talent that could promote innovation in both academe and industry. An interview with Douglas M. Branson, the book's author and the W. Edward Sell Chair in Law at the University of Pittsburgh.
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation this week released details of a fraud scheme that bilked more than $24 million in Post-9/11 GI Bill funds, affecting more than 2,500 student veterans. The scam, which the FBI called a "basic bait-and-switch," involved officials with Ed4Mil, an online correspondence course provider, and a now former dean of Caldwell University, a private institution located in New Jersey.