Great article from MIT posted this morning in the Chronicle of Higher Education. ….and do I dare say…finally….MIT is saying what I have been saying for several years!

The article discusses how student preferences for a mix and match education, tailor made for student needs….perhaps even taking classes from multiple institutions …is leading us down a path of modularization of courses. True, this may be difficult with face-to-face classes, but it makes perfect sense with online formal education and Extension. It may however open the floodgates on an administrative nightmare to track student/clientele progress.  I did see that Auburn University is working on a comprehensive database, ACES, to track Extension objectives/impacts.  It wasn’t as “pretty” as digital measures, but it did collect aggregate data for all of Extension at Auburn University.  There is power in aggregate data!  If Auburn could just add clientele served/contact information to their ACES database…it would be SOOO GREAT!

Anyway…great Chronicle article….well worth the read.