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Why would you be thinking about quantum computing? Yes, it may be two years or more before quantum computing will be widely available, but there are already quite a few organizations that are pressing ahead. I'll get into those use cases, but first - Lets start with the basics:

Classical computers require built-in fans and other ways to dissipate heat, and quantum computers are no different. Instead of working with bits of information that can be either 0 or 1, as in a classical machine, a quantum computer relies on "qubits," which can be in both states simultaneously called a superposition thanks to the quirks of quantum mechanics. Those qubits must be shielded from all external noise, since the slightest interference will destroy the superposition, resulting in calculation errors. Well-isolated qubits heat up quickly, so keeping them cool is a challenge.

The current operating temperature of quantum computers is 0.015 Kelvin or -273C or -460F. That is the only way to slow down the movement of atoms, so a "qubit" can hold a value.

There have been some creative solutions proposed for this problem, such as the nanofridge," which builds a circuit with an energy gap dividing two channels: a superconducting fast lane, where electrons can zip along with zero resistance, and a slow resistive (non-superconducting) lane. Only electrons with sufficient energy to jump across that gap can get to the superconductor highway; the rest are stuck in the slow lane. This has a cooling effect.

Just one problem though: The inventor, MikkoMttnen, is confident enough in the eventual success that he has applied for a patent for the device. However, "Maybe in 10 to 15 years, this might be commercially useful, he said. Its going to take some time, but Im pretty sure well get there."

Ten to fifteen years? It may be two years or more before quantum computing will be widely available, but there are already quite a few organizations that are pressing ahead in the following sectors:

An excellent, detailed report on the quantum computing ecosystem is: The Next Decade in Quantum Computingand How to Play.

But the cooling problem must get sorted. It may be diamonds that finally solve some of the commercial and operational/cost issues in quantum computing: synthetic, also known as lab-grown diamonds.

The first synthetic diamond was grown by GE in 1954. It was an ugly little brown thing. By the '70s, GE and others were growing up to 1-carat off-color diamonds for industrial use. By the '90s, a company called Gemesis (renamed Pure Grown Diamonds) successfully created one-carat flawless diamonds graded ILA, meaning perfect. Today designer diamonds come in all sizes and colors: adding Boron to make them pink or nitrogen to make them yellow.

Diamonds have unique properties. They have high thermal conductivity (meaning they don't melt like silicon). The thermal conductivity of a pure diamond is the highest of any known solid. They are also an excellent electrical insulator. In its center, it has an impurity called an N-V center, where a carbon atom is replaced by a nitrogen atom leaving a gap where an unpaired electron circles the nitrogen gap and can be excited or polarized by a laser. When excited, the electron gives off a single photon leaving it in a reduced energy state. Somehow, and I admit I dont completely understand this, the particle is placed into a quantum superposition. In quantum-speak, that means it can be two things, two values, two places at once, where it has both spin up and spin down. That is the essence of quantum computing, the creation of a "qubit," something that can be both 0 and 1 at the same time.

If that isnt weird enough, there is the issue of entanglement. A microwave pulse can be directed at a pair of qubits, placing them both in the same state. But you can "entangle" them so that they are always in the same state. In other words, if you change the state of one of them, the other also changes, even if great distances separate them, a phenomenon Einstein dubbed, spooky action at a distance. Entangled photons don't need bulky equipment to keep them in their quantum state, and they can transmit quantum information across long distances.

At least in the theory of the predictive nature of entanglement, adding qubits explodes a quantum computer's computing power. In telecommunications, for example, entangled photons that span the traditional telecommunications spectrum have enormous potential for multi-channel quantum communication.

News Flash: Physicists have just demonstrated a 3-particle entanglement. This increases the capacity of quantum computing geometrically.

The cooling of qubits is the stumbling block. Diamonds seem to offer a solution, one that could quantum computing into the mainstream. The impurities in synthetic diamonds can be manipulated, and the state of od qubit can held at room temperature, unlike other potential quantum computing systems, and NV-center qubits (described above) are long-lived. There are still many issues to unravel to make quantum computers feasible, but today, unless you have a refrigerator at home that can operate at near absolute-zero, hang on to that laptop.

But doesnt diamonds in computers sound expensive, flagrant, excessive? It begs the question, What is anything worth? Synthetic diamonds for jewelry are not as expensive as mined gems, but the price one pays at retail s burdened by the effect of monopoly, and so many intermediaries, distributors, jewelry companies, and retailers.

A recent book explored the value of fine things and explains the perceived value which only has a psychological basis.In the 1930s, De Beers, which had a monopoly on the world diamond market and too many for the weak demand, engaged the N. W. Ayers advertising agency realizing that diamonds were only sold to the very rich, while everyone else was buying cars and appliances. They created a market for diamond engagement rings and introduced the idea that a man should spend at least three months salary on a diamond for his betrothed.

And in classic selling of an idea, not a brand, they used their earworm taglines like diamonds are forever. These four iconic words have appeared in every single De Beers advertisement since 1948, and AdAge named it the #1 slogan of the century in 1999. Incidentally, diamonds arent forever. That diamond on your finger is slowly evaporating.

The worldwide outrage over the Blood Diamond scandal is increasing supply and demand for fine jewelry applications of synthetic diamonds. If quantum computers take off, and a diamond-based architecture becomes a standard, it will spawn a synthetic diamond production boom, increasing supply and drastically lowering the cost, making it feasible.

Many thanks to my daughter, Aja Raden, an author, jeweler, and behavioral economist for her insights about the diamond trade.

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Quantum computing is right around the corner, but cooling is a problem. What are the options? - Diginomica

Qubits are exponentially faster than bits in several computing problems, such as database searches and factoring (which, as we will discuss soon, may break your Internet encryption).

An important thing to realize is that qubits can hold much more information than a bit can. One bit holds the same amount of information as one qubit they can both only hold one value. However, four bits must be used to store the same amount of information as two qubits. A two-qubit system in equal superposition holds values for four states, which on a classical computer, would need at least four bits to hold. Eight bits are needed to store the same amount of information as three qubits, since a three-qubit system can store eight states 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111. This pattern continues.

The below graph provides a visual for the computing power of qubits. The x-axis represents the number of qubits used to hold a certain amount of information. The blue lines y represents the number of bits needed to hold the same amount of information as the number of qubits (x-axis), or 2 to the power of x. The red lines y represents the number of qubits needed to hold the same amount of information as the number of qubits in the x-axis (y=x).

Imagine the exponential speedup quantum computing can provide! A gigabyte (8E+09 bits) worth of information can be represented with log(8E+09)/log(2) = 33 (rounded up from 32.9) qubits.

Quantum computers are also great at factoring numbers which leads us to RSA encryption. The security protocol that secures Medium and probably any other website youve been on is known as RSA encryption. It relies on the fact that with current computing resources, it would take a very, very long time to factor a 30+-digit number m that has only one solution namely, p times q, where both p and q are large prime numbers. However, dividing m by p or q is computationally much easier, and since m divided by q returns p and vice versa, it provides a quick key verification system.

A quantum algorithm called Shors algorithm has shown exponential speedup in factoring numbers, which could one day break RSA encryption. But dont buy into the hype yet as of this writing, the largest number factored by quantum computers is 21 (into 3 and 7). The hardware has not been developed yet for quantum computers to factor 30-digit numbers or even 10-digit numbers. Even if quantum computers one day do break RSA encryption, a new security protocol called BB84 that relies on quantum properties is verified safe from quantum computers.

So will quantum computers ever completely replace the classical PC? Not in the forseeable future.

Quantum computing, while developing very rapidly, is still in an infantile stage, with research only being conducted semi-competitively by large corporations like Google, Microsoft, and IBM. Much of the hardware to accelerate quantum computing is not currently available. There are several obstacles to a quantum future, of which a major one is addressing gate errors and maintaining integrity of a qubits state.

However, given the amount of innovation that has happened in the past few years, it seems inevitable during our lifetimes that quantum computing will make huge strides. In addition, complexity theory has shown that there are several cases where classical computers perform better than quantum computers. IBM quantum computer developers state that quantum computing will probably never completely eliminate classical computers. Instead, in the future we may see a hybrid chip that relies on quantum transistors for certain tasks and classical transistors for others, depending on which one is more appropriate.

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Quantum Computing for Everyone - The Startup - Medium

Remote work can be much safer with the right cyberhygiene practices in place multifactorauthentication is one of them

If you happen to be working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you should beef up your logins with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), or sometimes called Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). That way, you dont have to entrust your security to a password alone. Easy to hack, steal, leak, rinse and repeat, passwords have become pass in the security world; its time to dial in your MFA.

That means you have something besides just a password. You may have seen MFA in action when you try to log into your bank and you receive an access code on your smartphone that you must also enter to verify its really you who is logging in. While its an extra step, it becomes exponentially more difficult for bad guys to get access to your account, even if they have a password that was compromised in a breach or otherwise.

The good news is that MFA is no longer super-tough to use. Here, we look at a few different popular ways to use it. If you need to work remotely now and log into a central office to collaborate with co-workers, this is a nice way to beef up the security of those connections.

This means you have something like a key fob, security USB key or the like, which can be used to generate a very secure passcode thats all-but-impossible to break (unless you have a quantum computer handy). Nowadays, things like YubiKey or Thetis are available for less than US$50 and are very widely supported if youre logging into your own corporate office technology, online office applications and a host of other cloud applications. It means your normal login will ask for a password, but also the code generated by your device, which is often physically small enough to get lost in a pants pocket, so some folks hang them on their keychain for safekeeping.

Nowadays you probably carry a mobile device around most of the time, which is a good argument for using it to boost your MFA security stance. For example, you can download an authentication app such as Authy, Google Authenticator, or ESET Secure Authentication. Whatever you choose, make sure it has a solid history, security-wise, since it needs to reside on your smartphone, which we now know can become compromised as well, thereby undermining your other security efforts.

RELATED READING: Work from home: How to set up a VPN

Its worth noting that spam SMS messages on your smartphone can trick some users into voluntarily compromising their own accounts, so stay on the lookout if you use this. Of course, reputable mobile security software can help if youre concerned with security problems on the platform itself.

Its very hard to fake a fingerprint or retinal scan and make sure it offers a solid factor in MFA. Nowadays, lots of devices have built-in biometric readers that can get an image of your face from your smartphone taking your picture, or scan your fingerprint, so its not hard to implement this on a device you probably already have. Some folks steer away due to privacy concerns, which promises to be an ongoing conversation. Also, while you can reset a password, if a provider gets hacked it is notoriously difficult to reset your face (old spy movie plots, anyone?).

The important thing with MFA is that you pick one that suits your goals and one that is easy for you to include in your routine. I have a very good lock on my front door, but its very hard to use, so often my wife catches me leaving it open, which isnt very secure, is it? Good security you dont use cant protect you.

In the event of a breach, MFA can offer side benefits as well. If you are notified that your password is compromised, theres a very good chance they dont also have one of your other factors, so successful hack attacks should drop precipitously if MFA is correctly implemented. Use an MFA solution and enjoy technology more safely.

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Work from home: Improve your security with MFA - We Live Security

Radi Shafiq | Published: March 19, 2020 11:02:35

In 2009, for aspiring engineering students, electrical engineering was the best subject to study. By the end of 2014, it seemed to be computer science, now it seems to be data science / statistics. There is no way of telling someone about what is to come in five years. Maybe it is quantum computing, or maybe a new era emphasising mental well-being, maybe biochemistry, or philosophy suddenly takes the centre stage at every endeavour.

Today, the market is shifting in an ever-increasing pace. It is easy to feel lost while navigating a career, looking for the best path to climb the ladder. Young professionals are essentially trying to be good enough to be relevant and even vital in 20-30 years. However, most of the buzz-worthy careers today were not even around 10 years ago, and so how can one be preparing for something 20 years down the line?

Here the author found a framework of thinking very helpful. It can be called "Be at the core or be at the edge" framework of thinking about jobs. Every company has some core functions that are time tested and relatively stable - maybe for some it is manufacturing, for some it is the sales, for others it is field management. These functions have well defined roles, hierarchy, and history to go alongside it. If someone is good at this core work, the job is more secured for him or her with little probability of unpredictable troubles. A clear hierarchy means the career will also have defined progression, although at a predictable pace, with only seniors' moving out or up and company growth ending upcreating new spaces.

On the other hand, there are the functions at the edge of the company. These are new things, maybe a new data section, maybe a digital marketing wing, or a small research team that is yet to make an impact on the work. At the edge there are people who are often keeping a low profile, but being flexible to take initiatives in creative and new directions. They are introducing new programmes, exploring sudden new flow of value or revenue. They can often be deemed unnecessary by more of the core people in the organisation.

However, since this is a time with the maximum pace of change in market landscape, the people at the edge have the best chance of adapting to a new reality and introduce the necessary function that take the company to the next level. This can suddenly make the edge people become the core people - or at least become a vital support function for the core to survive and thrive. Think of the way that Adobe stopped regular software sales in favour of subscription services, or how newspapers more and more emphasise on web version over print, how all the TV shows now work overtime on YouTube clips.

The people who are overstretched into their core function and their way of doing things, can become stiff and slow to look into the new avenues, as looking into anything outside - can understandably feel like a waste of time. Why would anyone need to stop doing what makes the most money and instead dabble into stuff that has no proven market? This thinking binds them away from dynamic learning possibilities. And then sudden changes are brought about by one company, and in the aftermath - the whole market begins to adapt, and quickly changes the old core people's position in the market hierarchy. Suddenly market demands one to learn new tricks to stay relevant in the secure place of years.

Very often though, there is no harm in digging deep into the core of the company. It can be a very safe bet, as most businesses may not change so dramatically.

But, to reduce the risk of suddenly being left irrelevant at the market, it is best that everyone needs to invest a portion of their time working on projects at the edge of their organisation, or at the edge of their skill set -- all throughout their career. This flexibility will keep them in touch with the changing tides, and make sure that they can ride the wave, or at least not be taken by surprise when the change finally comes.

This thinking works at any stage of life, when the author was a student, he did digital art for just fun, but ultimately it helped him land the first three part time jobs, having those skills was a bonus on top of the studies. He had friends whose outside interests into videography while studying computer science ended up shaping some of their whole career. In the author's office, he has seen a colleague's occasional contribution to a new initiative becoming 50 per cent of her duty in a year's time - leading to a promotion and recognition.

So, think again, at the office, are you at the core or at the edge? Why not both? Keep learning. Keep creating.

Radi Shafiq is a development professional and artist. He can be reached at radi.iba@gmail.com

Continued here:

Career navigation Be at the core or be at the edge - The Financial Express BD

The post-2016 meltdown of former Republican consultant Rick Wilson would be insignificant, were it not for the fact that CNN and MSNBC routinely lend him their credibility.

That is, if you go so far as to call it credibility.

Wilson, on Wednesday, tweeted #BeInfected in response to a public service announcement on the coronavirus featuring first lady Melania Trump. Some people thought Wilson, who also often appears on HBOs Real Time, was suggesting that he hopes the first lady contracts the deadly virus. I don't think thats what he was doing, but no serious person whos familiar with Wilson doubts that its something he would do.

Wilson is a disreputable person. He says distasteful things all the time. Why do CNN and MSNBC let him do it on their airtime?

Just a few weeks ago, Wilson was invited on Don Lemons CNN program, during which he proceeded to mock President Trump voters using a Southern accent as the credulous boom rube demo repulsed by your geography and your maps and your spelling.

In August 2019, he accused Trump of inspiring gun violence. When he triggers somebody, they pull a trigger," Wilson said. The only recent shooting demonstrably related to partisan politics was the one in 2017, in which a Bernie Sanders supporter nearly killed Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and tried to kill a score of other Republican lawmakers.

The 2016 presidential campaign was an especially ripe time for Wilsons brand of commentary. On Twitter, he asked conservative author Ann Coulter, Does Trump pay you more for anal? He also actively fanned a rumor about some video recording that would have implicated one of the Republican presidential candidates in a scandal. (Wilson vehemently opposed Ted Cruz's presidential campaign).

This is the person whom MSNBC and CNN so value as to make him a regular guest, raising his profile and all of the gross things about him.

Dont waste the outrage on Wilson. Instead, ask CNN and MSNBC why they further ruin their reputations by having him on.

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Rick Wilson is further damaging what's left of CNN's and MSNBC's credibility - Washington Examiner

One consequence of coronavirus: It will become more apparent that good online education is easier said than done.

Nobody planned for an abrupt mass migration of traditional college courses to the internet.

But because of coronavirus, thats where we are.

Hundreds of thousands of students have been told to clear out their belongings and head home, many through the end of the semester. In nearly every case, colleges have said that instruction will continue online.

Making it work will require much more than giving every professor a Zoom account and letting instruction take its course. Thats partly because not all students will be able to access or benefit from suddenly online courses equally.

Undergraduates at places like Harvard, Stanford and M.I.T. will largely have no problem getting online to complete their work. But one recent study found that roughly 20 percent of students have trouble with basic technology needs. Their data plans are capped, their computers break, or their connections fail. Those with technology challenges are disproportionately low-income and students of color, who are also more vulnerable to dropping out.

Those students need courses that are not just accessible, but also well designed.

In some ways, colleges have been building toward this moment for more than a decade. One-third of all undergraduates are enrolled in online classes now. Thirteen percent are learning exclusively online. Online course-taking has increased for 14 consecutive years, even as overall enrollment has declined.

Colleges have also adopted so-called learning management systems, virtual platforms that help faculty interact with students on campus and off. Like all modern institutions, college now exists in a state of constant electronic connectivity.

Ideally, online education accomplishes at least three distinct things: distance, scale and personalization. All of them will be hard for colleges to manage in the coming weeks.

Tools for communicating at a distance have steadily improved over time. But theyre not perfect, as anyone who has ever participated in a video conference call can attest.

(OK, now I can see you but I cant hear you theres a little microphone button at the bottom of the screen, did you click on that? There! Thats better. Can everyone who isnt talking put themselves on mute? One of you is apparently in a crowded bus terminal of some kind?)

It takes practice and skill to teach effectively at a distance. Colleges have largely let individual faculty members decide whether to participate in online learning, and some have gotten very good at it. Others havent. Now the most traditional and recalcitrant instructors will have to do something difficult theyve never done before.

It also takes practice to learn at a distance. Theres a structure inherent to learning on campus, a rhythm and tangibility that keeps students connected to the academic community. Some students easily adapt to a virtual environment. Others dont. Now students used to learning one way will have to adapt quickly. Research suggests that academically marginal undergraduates struggle the most in fully online classes.

One way to manage the problem of inexperienced online professors is to increase the number of students being taught by the most successful teachers. Scale is currently a big part of online college, because thats where all the profits are. Its why for-profit colleges got into the online game early, and why public and private institutions are rapidly growing their offerings now.

But scale requires time and money upfront. The only way for one professor to reach hundreds or even thousands of students is to embed the learning process in technology. The simplest example is recording a lecture that students can view online. But effective online courses require much more. Many campuses now employ full-time instructional designers who help faculty map out courses and degree programs. They also create learning modules, online exercises, virtual laboratories and assessments.

The designers are good at their jobs and getting better. But its an expensive and labor-intensive process. The reason that many colleges are signing away up to 70 percent of future online tuition revenue to private for-profit companies is that those firms offer the financial capital and expertise needed to convert traditional courses online.

Its impossible to transform a college course into the virtual world overnight. Which means the students currently boxing up their clothes and laptops also wont benefit from the advantages of technology-enabled personalization. Fully online courses are usually, in whole or in part, asynchronous, meaning that students can learn when they need to.

A parent with a job can log on after putting the kids to bed at night, rather than hunt for a parking spot to make a 10 a.m. on-campus lecture. Thats a simple but powerful kind of personalization, particularly if people are caring for loved ones who are sick.

While the popular idea of individual learning styles has been largely discredited by academic research, people still bring vastly different levels of knowledge, talent and context to the classroom, virtual or otherwise. The long-sought-after dream of technology-enabled education is to build machines that can assess these differences, react to them, and give students a better educational experience personalized to what they know and need.

There are decades of research in this field, and many promising theories and tools, but as of yet no breakthrough technologies in terms of cost and student learning.

What does all of this mean for colleges suddenly forced to move online because of the coronavirus pandemic? The only thing they can create right now is distance, which is important of course for health reasons. They do not have the time or resources necessary to map out the rest of their courses and build online versions on the fly that can accommodate large numbers of students. They will not be able to train their teachers how to teach or their learners how to learn. There will be little personalization.

College professors and administrators care deeply about the health and education of their students. In the coming weeks, they will rally around their responsibilities as teachers and develop many innovative solutions to the sudden challenge the pandemic has created. But in a sense, its a mistake to say that colleges will be moving to online education. All theyll really be doing is conducting traditional education at a distance. That will be hard enough.

Kevin Carey directs the education policy program at New America. You can follow him on Twitter at @kevincarey1. His book, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere, explores information technology and higher learning.

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Everybody Ready for the Big Migration to Online College? Actually, No - The New York Times

An unwavering commitment to this form of delivery prevented elite schools from using digital media to lower costs for all of their students, or investing in the pedagogical expertise that might have rendered online learning options complementary in practice and commensurate in quality to face-to-face instruction. This is why tens of thousands of students and faculty at some of the wealthiest and most esteemed universities in the world are finishing their coursework in video chat rooms this spring, instead of having the opportunity to take advantage of high quality interactive and pedagogically sound online options. We can only speculate how things might have been different if residential schools had invested as much in online learning platforms as they have in recruiting star researchers, renovating dormitories or upgrading athletics facilities over the last 20 years.

We recognize that residential programs provide a great deal more to students than mere coursework. They are relationship machines, generating countless friendships, intimate partnerships and professional network ties. That machinery doesnt translate easily to digital life, which is why residential-campus students, when told to complete their coursework on computers, feel cheated out of much of the value associated with residential college attendance.

We also recognize that online formats bring their own risks. When poorly designed and bereft of genuine human attentiveness, online delivery can be disastrous for students who are not well prepared for college-level coursework. Inequitable outcomes will almost surely result if the makeshift approaches being used to weather the current crisis continue indefinitely.

Going forward, educators will need to study and compare learning outcomes for different kinds of students in a variety of instructional formats. With prudent investment, careful observation and a commitment to ongoing improvement in both physical classrooms and online, quality instruction can be provided irrespective of delivery mode.

Well-resourced institutions should use their capital and scientific endowments to create and model best practices: building best-in-class online learning platforms and then adopting and promoting research-based approaches to iterate and improve on instructional design. Here the nations esteemed research universities are ideally positioned to serve the entire sector: they have the scale, expertise, and research infrastructure to make signal advances in applied learning science.

Additionally, administrators, faculty and alumni should recognize the costliness of requiring students to leave their homes and physically cohabit with one another for four years. How much of that is really necessary? Might two or three years of being on campus together suffice for four?

This is not a fanciful idea. For example, the University of California system now requires that one junior transfer student be admitted primarily from the states community college system for every two traditional entering freshmen students. Students admitted this way receive most of the benefits of a University of California education while enjoying substantial savings on tuition, room and board charges during their initial college years.

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What Is a College Education in the Time of Coronavirus? - The New York Times

The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox.

As U.S. colleges and universities are working to deal with the public health and logistical implications of the coronavirus in a global emergency, were seeing a rushed move to use online education tools, often from private, for-profit companies.

As someone who works in higher education, I am confident that most schools are doing the best they can in a tough situation, but I also have concerns about the possibility of dangerous precedents emerging for higher education.

The online courses were creating right now are ways to survive in uncertain times, not to thrive in online education.

I have taught online courses in introductory biology and in-person human anatomy and physiology courses, both for biology majors and non-majors. While having more options for students to access higher education is good, these hasty shifts to online teaching may become an excuse to further inject privatization into U.S. higher education.

Most American universities are run by a process of shared governance, or the practice of recognizing faculty, administrators, staff and students as integral stakeholders in a universitys success, and the success of the individual members of that university community.

Related: Already stretched universities now face tens of billions in endowment losses

Unfortunately, amid the rush to address public health concerns, many universities are functioning on a more top-down model of management than the shared governance that is standard in U.S. higher-education institutions.

Again, in times of emergencies, this model of strong, decisive leadership can be critical. It is not, however, the way that educational systems should ideally operate, and the coronavirus doesnt change the need for shared governance.

Faculty and staff are co-equal partners with the administration in the running of a university, and their experience, expertise and relationships with students shouldnt be discarded or downplayed. We all contribute to the mission of a university, and we all must continue to have seats at the table for the university to continue to thrive.

In-person classes facilitate an active learning atmosphere and participation in service-learning or other more interdisciplinary and holistic educational opportunities.

Online classes are great for non-traditional students, students with mobility issues and students who are geographically tied to family or jobs. While higher-education tools like online program managers (OPMs) have benefits to faculty and students, the contracts with for-profit companies raise concerns about the privatization of U.S. higher education. Buried in these contracts are problems for shared governance, academic freedom, educational quality, student privacy, and the reputation and sustainability of the institution.

Faculty should review carefully any contract their institution has with OPMs and revisit their institutions instructional Intellectual Property policy. They should make sure any contracts protect facultys intellectual property rights and instructional materials.

There are plenty of standard restrictive agreements in such contracts, such as mandatory arbitration clauses and nondisclosure agreements. The American Association of University Professors has created a model letter of agreement defining the scope of OPM contracts for faculty, as well as other material to help faculty watch out for numerous pitfalls in these contracts.

Related: COLUMN:Tears, confusion and financial woes as colleges abruptly end semesters and send students home

If these online tools are seen by university administrators as a way to justify less-autonomous classrooms, this will damage innovation in teaching and could lead to more homogeneity in classrooms across the United States, as well as an increased reliance on for-profit institutions.

A more uniform experience in higher education may sound like a good idea, but this is detrimental to the ideal of academic freedom, both for instructors to teach how they feel works best and for students to learn in ways that benefit them most. While there is nothing wrong with online education in general, such decisions including contracts with online education companies must have as much faculty oversight as classes taught on campus do.

At the same time, creating something in a rush to address a short-term and organically evolving situation is not ideal. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes, but those innovations may not be the best practices outside of that time of necessity. We must remember this.

Put another way, the coping mechanisms that we develop during a traumatic event, such as a pandemic, are not the ways we should cope under normal circumstances.

We are in unusual times right now, and that fact requires unusual measures to make it through. Our task once the acute conditions subside is to not let those unusual measures become business as usual.

This story about online instruction in uncertain timeswas produced byThe Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign upherefor Hechingers newsletter.

Lis Kenneth Regula is a lecturer in the Department of Biology at the University of Dayton in Ohio. Regula conducts research in zoology and ecology. His current project is LGBTQ+ concerns in early education and home-school-community partnerships.

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OPINION: What's different about online education tools in an emergency? - The Hechinger Report

Bay Path University and Elms College announced on Wednesday that their classes and instruction will be done online for the remainder of the semester, though Elms president Harry Dumay left open the possibility of reviewing the situation in upcoming weeks if an opportunity presents itself.

Bay Paths commitment was final. President Carol Leary said the transition caused by the coronavirus outbreak demands university staff and students to rise to the challenge of continuing their quality education by different means.

"Theres one point Id like to especially underscore: this is not a time for any of us to shy away from the work at hand. While we may not be conducting every aspect of our normal duties, this may give us a chance to work on projects that have been back-burnered, Leary wrote.

Working remotely will present opportunities to function in new, collaborative ways. You may even be asked to assist another area where additional resources are in demand. Embrace and learn from these opportunities.

The Longmeadow university initially set a tentative target date of April 5 to resume traditional classes, but that was dropped.

Similarly, Dumay said Elms, located in Chicopee, would go online for the remainder of the semester. He said if conditions drastically improve in the next few weeks, campus leadership may revisit the decision and could transition classes back to campus after ample notification to faculty, students and staff.

While that remains possible, it looks highly unlikely.

The health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff are our highest priorities. As this unprecedented crisis and state of emergency continues to unfold, campus leadership has determined that the best course of action to ensure the safety of Elms College constituents and the wider community will be to move all classes completely online for the rest of the spring semester. This change is for all programs and all locations, Dumay said.

At Bay Path, commencement is scheduled for May 17, and with university officials aware that state and federal guidelines for large gathering are currently extended through April, no change in the graduation schedule has yet been made. That could change, depending on the situation and developments, Leary indicated since, as she said, the coronavirus situation is changing hour by hour.

Leary said a final decision on commencement will be made by April 8, giving families and students adequate planning time. The Elms announcement did not address commencement.

Leary is one of three local university presidents who are retiring, and whose final academic year at their institutions is being tested by the COVID-19 outbreak. Westfield State president Ramon Torrecilha and Western New England president Anthony Caprio are also retiring.

In a message to students and staff, Leary emphasized that the challenge of the crisis does not detract from Bay Paths determination to provide quality education and services.

"We are being called upon more than at any other time in our history to work creatively, boldly, and with each other in mind. Lets show the world just how brightly the Bay Path community can shine,'' Leary said.

Some employees will work remotely, but others will be required on campus. A remote-working model is being put into place to cover procedures through Tuesday, April 7.

"We will, to the best of our abilities, keep all of our operations functioning ... "business continuity for the sake of our institution and especially for our students, is critical,'' Leary wrote.

Residential students will be contacted about the procedure for retrieving their belongings. Where applicable, students will receive a credit on their student account, based on the number of room and board days that are cancelled. A refund check will be issued prior to the end of the semester.

At Elms College, all academic, athletic, and co-curricular on-campus events have been cancelled for the rest of the academic year. Students who have off-campus educational activities, including nursing clinicals, student teaching, social work field placement, CSD practicum, internships, etc., will receive specific updates from their dean or division chair.

Students with campus employment as a graduate assistant or a student employee, are asked to contact their supervisor for further guidelines and instructions.

Residence halls will remain closed for the rest of the academic year. Students who have been allowed to remain on campus due to exceptional circumstances will continue to do so. Resident students will be expected to move out by April 1.

The college will transition most non-essential staff members to work remotely, with select staff members on campus. Access to the library will be made available to the Elms College community in a limited way.

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Coronavirus pushes Bay Path, Elms to online education - MassLive.com

The spread of COVID-19 has halted face-to-face lecture-style education for many universities. Students at Albion College began online classes on Monday (Photo by Connor Robertson).

COVID-19, commonly referred to as coronavirus, is undoubtedly the biggest issue in the world right now. Due to the virus, many organizations are halting operations across the United States. These organizations, ranging from professional sports leagues to universities, are reacting to the pandemic with great caution.

U.S. colleges and universities are taking caution by trading face-to-face lectures for online-based instruction. This week, Albion College announced their switch to online classes, officially starting this past Monday.

In a generation defined by technological innovation, it is important to analyze the effects that online instruction has on learning. These effects, which are controversial in the educational realm, must be understood in order to best serve students during the unusual and unfortunate circumstances of COVID-19.

An MIT study, completed in 2012 by David Pritchard, MITs Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, found that online learning may actually have benefits that exceed face-to-face learning. In this study, students who were taking an online physics course learned a greater amount than students who took the class in a traditional, lecture-based format. Furthermore, the study found that improvement among the online physics students was equal to or better than 65 previously studied traditional lecture-based classes.

While perhaps students learn more in online format, some educators are resistant to the change to online instruction.

I do think theres something very detrimental about taking a generation of students raised with a crippling technology addiction and putting them in a situation where the ability to resist that technology addiction drops to essentially zero, said assistant sociology professor Matthew Schoene.

For a generation born into the internet revolution, the effects of online instruction might be profoundly different.

I would predict that academic performance declines across the board, said Schoene.

While professors have some concerns, students have their own worries.

I dont think I am going to like online classes, and I feel like it will be harder to find motivation, said Cole Nelson, a first-year from Saline, Mich.

For students, finding this motivation may be key to success in online classes. Because COVID-19 is so dangerous, online classes are necessary. Motivation during this time will be imperative to the success of the online alternative.

Despite worries about the online format, Schoene is still optimistic that this is the best option going forward.

In the spirit of social distancing, it seems that online classes are a prudent option, and perhaps the only option available to us, said Schoene. If students trust that their professors will do their best, and professors trust their students to take the online environment seriously, I have faith that well make it through the semester together.

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The Effects of an Online Education The Albion College Pleiad Online - Albionpleiad