Student services are a challenge in an online environment

From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Distance-Learning Survey Shows Growing Concern for Student Services

"...student services, like library services, student orientation, tutoring, and counseling are needed to provide a well-rounded education.”

Indicators of financial inclusion

From The World Bank: Measuring Financial Inclusion

 by Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Leora Klapper

"... presents the first round of the Global Findex database, a new set of
indicators that measure how adults in 148 economies save, borrow, make payments,
and manage risk."

New Survey of Household Spending

From Statistics Canada: Survey of Household Spending, 2010
"Provincially, the highest average spending on goods and services was by households in Alberta ($61,134), followed by households in British Columbia ($56,812)."

Students are tasked with finding information that ISN'T online

From The Note on my Door: Counterintuitive digital media assignments

"students are asked to turn their digital expertise and expectations upside-down: to use online search tools specifically for the purpose of figuring out what's not available to them with the click of a mouse... most students turned to human assistance for this assignment, or what one student referred to as the old fashioned technique, or search engine, if you will, of asking a librarian."

Latest issue of EDUCAUSE Review Magazine available

EDUCAUSE Review Magazine, Volume 47, Number 2, March/April 2012

Contents include:

• Connecting Two Worlds: Collaboration between Higher Education and Corporate Learning
• Harnessing the Power of Information Technology: Open Business Models in Higher Education

Snow cover trends in Canada

New from Statistics Canada: Study: Snow cover trends in Canada, 1972 to 2010

 
Highlights:

• mean annual area of snow cover in Canada has declined by 5.1% from 1972 to 2010
• lowest average snow cover occurred in 1998

Where is Google's Advanced Search?

From Online (March/April 2012): Advanced Search in Retreat, by Greg R. Notess

"Google has been making many interface changes over the past few months, and advanced search has been bounced around to various locations. For years, the advanced search link had been near the main search box. With design changes in 2011, the direct link to the advanced search was moved to be a drop-down choice when clicking the gear icon for options in the upper right-hand corner. Many of Google’s databases have separate advanced searches. Not all are linked in the same way."