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The �鶹��ý (USM) has entered into a groundbreaking partnership with , the nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012 to increase global access to high-quality education. The agreement is designed to further increase student success, as well as the access, affordability, and quality of higher education in Maryland and around the world.

Ithaka S+R worked with five campuses in the �鶹��ý to explore whether an adaptive learning product provided by Pearson could be used to offer more accessible, lower-cost summer programs. The Pearson product, MyFoundationsLab, enhanced with Knewton’s adaptive learning engine, aims to personalize study paths for students. Adaptive technologies enable students to identify specific skill gaps and work independently online to address those gaps with interactive instructional materials and assessments.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs (CAST, 2012). UDL is included in COMAR and Maryland’s Teacher Technology Standards.

To shed light on how institutions of higher education can make sustainable improvements in who can learn what they learn by the time they graduate, we have studied a series of initiatives by the �鶹��ý (USM) to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of selected courses.  These redesigns incorporated a variety of learning-­centered practices, that is, teaching practices that were chosen and applied using evidence of student learning.

Academic change is the term being used increasingly to describe universities’ efforts to improve student success by creating optimally effective learning environments that simultaneously increase access, affordability, and quality of higher education for all those who want a postsecondary degree. Institutions are starting to see the vast potential of hybrid classrooms, shared courseware initiatives, open educational resources, competency-based education, learning analytics, and adaptive learning environments and they are seeking ways to scale and sustain these innovations.

�ճ����,��, and  at the University of Maryland, College Park have published a new website for faculty and students about OER at UMD. 

The site provides an overview of OER, resources for students and faculty, and a great article on the top five myths about OER. 

The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) has completed a process to match all course learning outcomes and competencies with open educational resources for undergraduates.

 joined nine educational institutions in Washington D.C., July 28-31 to reinvent higher learning and the student experience as part of the EDUCAUSE - Next Generation Learning Challenges 2015 Breakthrough Models Incubator funded by the .

The Leading Academic Change Summit provides a rare and exciting opportunity for transformation leaders to meet with peers and learn about the portfolios of work underway.  During the highly interactive 2-day conference, participants share insights into how people learn and how that knowledge can be combined with emerging technologies to truly transform and improve the student experience.

UMCP is in their second year of partnership with Coursera to offer MOOCs ranging from Quantum Physics to Women and Civil Rights. With over 800,000 students registered and ~13,000 signed up for the verified “signature track” option (for a fee), they are not only showing our educational leadership, but also directly improving their on-campus classes.