Public release date: 3-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Emma Knott emma.knott@kaizo.co.uk 020-317-64715 European Science Foundation

The aim of the study was to assess the applicability across Europe of a generic framework for the professional development of researchers based on the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF). The RDF is a UK-context framework set up with the purpose to better define researcher's professional profiles and to develop guidance for the continuous professional development of researchers. The report reveals that there is a real demand among researchers for a more structured approach towards researchers professional development and active career planning.

This new ESF-co-funded study, with its members from the ESF MO Forum on Research Career Development, has applied the existing Vitae Researcher Development Framework in Europe. The RDF has been designed for:

The testing of the RDF in different European settings gave encouraging results in overcoming some of the identified deficiencies and in progressing towards a shared understanding of the skills and attributes that characterise modern researchers. Furthermore, the RDF proved to be a solid basis for making researchers reflect on their skills and attributes and on their career aspirations in general. It provides an important potential to support the professional development of researchers in any national or institutional environment.

The report detailed that there are big differences between countries in their overall awareness and readiness to engage and invest into the general development and career development of researchers. However, there is a real demand among researchers for a more structured approach towards researchers professional development and active career planning.

The report contains five key recommendations:

Commenting on the study, Martin Hynes, CEO, European Science Foundation said: "The continued progress of the European Research Area and more acutely the development of researchers has always been top priority for us. This new study has revealed that within Europe there is a clear need for a European Researcher Development Framework which can aid researchers professional development. The adoption of the RDF, adapted as recommended in the report, would also be a great tool for supporting intersectoral mobility".

Martin continued: "This project has been an important first step in identifying the potential opportunity of creating a pan-European professional development framework"

Janet Metcalfe, Chair and Head of Vitae commented "The adoption of the Vitae Researcher Development Framework across Europe would support the aims of the European Charter and Code, specifically the principles relating to continuous professional development, career development, access to research training and continuous development and access to careers advice. It would also provide a common language for researchers to talk about their expertise and professional development."

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New ESF-cofunded feasibility study calls for a single European researcher development framework

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Personal Communications Devices, LLC (PCD) (http://www.pcdphones.com), a leading provider of wireless devices to service providers in the Americas, Africa and the Pacific for more than 25 years, has elected George Appling as its new President and CEO. The selection of Mr. Appling, who brings 20 years of broad wireless industry experience, covering every aspect of PCD's business, provides PCD with a clear path into its next chapter in the wireless industry.

"George is the ideal person to take PCD into the future, focusing on the value-added services PCD provides like inventory management, forward and reverse logistics and product life cycle management and marketing," the PCD Board of Directors said in a statement. "Our customers and manufacturing partners will continue to experience the exceptional level of service they have come to expect from PCD."

In his new role, Appling will lead PCD's existing team of longtime industry executives

"This team has played an integral role in PCD's success in recent years," added the Board in a statement. "We're proud of their accomplishments and ability to help lead the company. Mr. Appling is joining a strong team and we are confident that under his leadership, the organization will continue to provide value to both our carrier and device manufacturer partners, while bringing to market the newest technologies to meet our customers' needs."

Mr. Appling comes to PCD from Booz & Company where he has been a Partner since 2009. Prior to that, he was a Principal at Katzenbach Partners and had served as both President of Global Solutions and Chief Operating Officer of Brightstar Corp. While at Brightstar, Appling was responsible for the operation of more than 60 distribution centers, global IT, human resources, indirect procurement and the division that marketed device management and supply chain services to mobile operators and retailers. Earlier in his career, Mr. Appling was founder and President of Xelibri the fashion phone business unit of Siemens Mobile, and an Associate Principal with McKinsey & Company in its Houston, Moscow, and Munich offices.

"I'm excited to join PCD and continue the company's unique place in the wireless industry as the only company to provide the right devices to fill the right needs with the right features to sell at maximum volumes," said Mr. Appling. "I want to assure our customers and partners that they can continue to expect the same high level of attention from the same PCD professionals with whom they are accustomed to dealing. This transition will be seamless as we look forward to building on a legacy of service and innovation."

For almost 30 years, PCD has built its reputation on the knowledge, experience and consistency of its management team by providing end-to-end product lifecycle services and support to both device manufacturers and carriers. Under Mr. Appling's stewardship, PCD will continue to focus on its core array of services, including:

Personal Communications Devices, LLC (PCD), formerly known as Audiovox Communications until 2004 and then UTStarcom Personal Communications Division, has been a leader in the wireless industry since 1984. Relying on a unique business model, PCD works closely with strategic design and manufacturing partners in Japan, Korea and China to bring innovative products to all of the major wireless carriers throughout the world.

Mr. Appling succeeds former President and CEO Philip Christopher, who was with the company for 28 years and shepherded it through its transitions from Audiovox to UTStarcom to PCD. He joined Audiovox Corporation in 1970 and was instrumental in launching Audiovox Communications Corp. (ACC) in 1984, where he served as President and CEO. In 2000, ACC formed a joint venture with Toshiba and was then acquired by UTStarcom in 2004. With this acquisition, UTStarcom Personal Communications Division was formed where, as president and CEO, Mr. Christopher is credited with growing the division's revenues and profits to record levels. In July 2008, Mr. Christopher spearheaded a management buyout of UTStarcom Personal Communications Division and created Personal Communications Devices.

In the 28 years Mr. Christopher has been involved in the wireless industry, he has worked with every top carrier in North and South America including Verizon Wireless, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and carriers in Canada and Latin America. He is responsible for bringing many recognizable brand manufacturers to the Americas, including Toshiba, LG, HTC, Pantech, Casio and Sharp. Additionally, he has served on both the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of CTIA The Wireless Association since 1999.

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Personal Communications Devices Announces New President and CEO

TORONTO, Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --The EvoLLLution, an online newspaper for and by those who know higher education best, today announced the results of a study conducted to shed light on the growing need for continuing education within today's workforce. The research paper, entitled Lifelong Education and Labor Market Needs, suggests that continuing education increases both employee income and corporate productivity.

A third party research firm surveyed employers across North America to get their viewpoints on continuing education and professional development. The results showed that 96% of employers said continuing education improves job performance and 87% said it has a positive impact on pay scale, with many citing a direct correlation, especially in the healthcare field.

The research also showed that education allows employees to manage the skills gap between entry-level and mid-level positions, thus facilitating advancement with 78% of employers factoring continuing education into promotions. Furthermore, companies that support employee education for advancement can mitigate turnover costs associated with outside hires, thereby saving money and increasing efficiency.

"Education gives corporations a way to improve their productivity and reduce costs, while also giving employees a way to increase their income and advance within the company," said Amrit Ahluwalia, Managing Editor of The EvoLLLution. "The question that remains is how to increase corporate and individual participation in professional development education."

In an effort to answer this question, The EvoLLLution has dedicated September to fully exploring corporate training and professional development in a month-long special feature, kicked off with the release of this research paper. The month will consist of articles by top education experts including Chris Proulx, Executive Director at eCornell, and Dan Pontefract, Senior Director of Learning and Collaboration at TELUS, and will investigate topics ranging from how higher education institutions need to change to better serve corporations to whether the corporate training market is an effective strategy to combat shrinking higher education budgets.

To read the full research paper or view the results in an inforgraphic, please visit: http://www.evolllution.com/research

About The EvoLLLution

A grassroots online newspaper exclusively for, and by, those who understand higher education best, The EvoLLLution is the only place where you can find detailed opinions, news and research about the impact of non-traditional programs on the higher education industry and society-at-large. The EvoLLLution was crafted in recognition of the fact that there are innovators at every level of everyinstitution. From the college dean, to the state system president to the professional student, individuals everywhere are retooling, reorganizing and rethinking their way into the 21st century. These are the people writing articles on The Evolllution and shaping the future of lifelong learning.

For more information, please visit http://www.evolllution.com

Contact: Rachel Kuper media@destinysolutions.com(416) 480-0500 x214

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New Research Shows Continuing Education Increases Employee Income and Corporate Efficiency

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX--(Marketwire -09/04/12)- Nixon University being one of the pioneers of online education has always shown its dedication towards bringing and delivering excellence into its online educational processes. To facilitate this purpose it has officially unveiled its alliance with the world's best universities to provide quality education and up to date curriculum to all the working individuals who aspire to achieve career growth.

Nixon University has launched its partnership program; it is the learning link program which will enable students of either university to choose a major or module of their choice that is not being currently offered in their university. Being an online university gives them an opportunity to exchange and share video lectures on special modules. The second part of the program consists of shared researches, where faculty members and students from partner universities will be involved in research projects, this will result in increased efficiency and innovation.

The Dean at Nixon University commented on this occasion and said, "Nixon University's alliance with the world's renowned online universities has allowed Nixon to change the dynamics of online education and widen the scope and opportunities for students, it will not only benefit and create more flexibility for the learners but also the faculty will be benefited through shared resources and shared expertise. We are looking forward to providing our students the competitive advantage in the industry that we have always aimed for."

Furthermore, by combining the lectures and expertise of other universities with Nixon University will result in mutual collaboration between online universities to further bring advancement and responsiveness in the research fields as well as the online education itself according to the changing trends.

About Nixon University:

Nixon University is an accredited online university that stands to make quality education accessible to each and every student of the world. Nixon University is completely accredited by a globally renowned accreditation body Q.O.E.C.B (Quality Online Education Certification Bureau), which is an independent and self governing accreditation body that provides the status of accreditation after evaluating the applicant on tough educational standards. To know complete details about the program offerings and admission criteria, log on to http://www.Nixonuniversity.com.

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Nixon University Forms Strategic Partnerships and Alliances With Universities Across the Globe

By Hugo Miller - 2012-09-04T13:39:50Z

Desire2Learn Inc., an online- education startup from Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM)s birthplace of Waterloo, Ontario, raised $80 million in venture funding, aiming to prove that the area is more than just a BlackBerry town.

New Enterprise Associates Inc., a venture firm with offices in Menlo Park, California, and Omers Ventures, the investing arm of the Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement System, led the financing, according to a statement today.

Desire2Learn plans to use the money to hire more staff and step up its marketing and research spending. The company already delivers online teaching tools to 700 customers and 8 million students, John Baker, Desire2Learns founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview.

The partners were working with are believers in helping to transform the educational experience in the U.S., he said.

Desire2Learn joins OpenText Corp. (OTEX) in providing a second act for Waterloo, which is suffering through thousands of job cuts at RIM. The BlackBerry maker has been paring its operations as sales plunge and its market share shrinks. CEO Thorsten Heins is counting on a new lineup of phones, due next year, to reverse the companys fortunes.

OpenText, a 20-year-old maker of business software, saw revenue grow 17 percent to $1.21 billion in its most recent fiscal year and employs more than 4,500 workers worldwide. Desire2Learn has about 560 employees, up from 350 at the beginning of this year. It plans to add at least 150 more by the end of the year, Baker said.

For NEA, which recently completed a $2.6 billion fund, the deal continues its focus on the online-education market. Desire2Learn works with elementary schools, colleges and adult- continuing education across the U.S., including New York.

Desire2Learn is already profitable, Baker said. The cash injection, its first round of funding, will allow the company to ramp up its expansion, he said.

We didnt raise the money because we needed it but because we wanted to accelerate our growth, Baker said. We were a profitable high-growth company prior, and were hoping to remain a profitable high-growth company going forward.

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Desire2Learn, Startup From RIM’s Hometown, Gets Funding

Infographic by Kath Xu and connor kirschbaumThe Tech

Major players in online education market

Comparing Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, & edX missions, offerings

STAFF REPORTER

September 4, 2012

With most new markets comes competition, as is the case with online education. Today, there are four major platforms that produce content specifically for online instruction: Coursera, Udacity, and edX, which provide university-level content, and Khan Academy, which largely targets K-12 education. While they all offer content designed specifically for web-based instruction, they differ slightly in missions, delivery, and focus.

Khan Academy is an educational nonprofit founded in September 2008 by Salman A. Khan 98. According to its website, its mission is to change education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

Khan conceived the idea after making a website to help tutor his niece in 2004, and two years later he would post the first public video. The website has since grown to contain over 3,300 videos, most of which were made by Khan himself. There are also over 400 million interactive problems, grouped loosely into 47 courses, ranging from addition to linear algebra and macroeconomics. Khan Academy receives over six million unique users each month, has around 380,000 YouTube subscribers, and has had 179 million video views so far. The organization is supported by donors such as Google Inc. and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Most of the videos, which tend to be around 1015 minutes long, are on YouTube, with the exception of the Computer Science section, which contains integrated coding.

The instruction is oriented toward the casual learner as a supplement to traditional classroom learning. The videos have practice problems with hints and solutions, and there are no exams like in edX or Udacity. Users can earn badges based on their time spent on the site and how many assignments they have completed. Students have individual profiles, which allows teachers, coaches, and the students themselves to view summarized performance and achievement data. There are also forums that foster collaboration between students.

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Major players in online education market

Desire2Learn, a Canadian online education startup that offers an increasingly popular cloud learning platform for higher education, K-12 and Fortune 1000 companies, just announced that it has raised a $80 million Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and OMERS Ventures. The company, which is based in RIMs hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, says that it plans to use this investment to bolster its customer service and cloud infrastructure, support global growth and to accelerate the development of its platform.

Todays $80 million financing marks the first time the company has taken an outside investment and is actually the largest-ever VC investment in a Canadian software company.

For NEA, this is also one of the companys largest investments. The global venture capital firm just closed on its new $2.6 billion fund in July and todays investment was made out of this fund. According to NEA, $1 trillion is spent on K-12 and higher education globally and technology is starting to transform how education works. Desire2Learn, NEAs Jon Sakoda and Ravi Viswanathan write today, is at the forefront of this shift with its leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) learning platform.

Desire2Learns platform, which competes with incumbents like Blackboard, currently has about 700 clients and 8 million learners have used its tools. The company was founded all the way back in 1999.

Desire2Learns platform aims to cover virtually every angle of the online education experience. Here is a short list of what the companys services capabilities:

Founded in 1999, Desire2Learn Incorporated is a leader in providing innovative eLearning solutions to academic and other leading organizations around the world. Desire2Learns focus is on research and development and service and support for their clients, and their products lead the market in innovation and client satisfaction.

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Online Education Platform Desire2Learn Raises Massive $80M Round From NEA & OMERS Ventures

On the plus side, MOOCs are free, open to anyone and taught by professors at prestigious universities. On the downside, they have low completion rates, and critics questions the utility of students being graded by their peers. TIME is enrolling in several of these classes to see what all the fuss is about

Johannes Simon / Getty Images

Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University speaks during the Digital Life Design conference (DLD) at HVB Forum on January 23, 2012 in Munich, Germany.

MOOC may be a silly-sounding acronym, but this new breed of online classes is shaking up the higher education world in ways that could be good for cash-strapped students and terrible for cash-strapped colleges. Taking a class online might not sound revolutionaryafter all, in the fall of 2010, 6.1 million students were enrolled inat least one online course. But those classes were pretty similar to the bricks-and-mortar kind, in that students paid fees to enroll in classes taught and graded by a professor and some teaching assistants. But MOOCs, short for massive open online courses, are a different animal. They can be taken by hundreds of thousands of students at the same time. And perhaps the most striking thing about MOOCs, many of which are being taught by professors at prestigious universities, is that theyre free.

Since MOOCs first made waves in the fall of 2011, when then-Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun opened his graduate-level artificial intelligence course up to any student anywhere and 160,000 students in more than 190 countries signed up, the free online classes have been heralded as revolutionary, the future, the single most important experimentthat will democratize higher educationand end the era of overpriced colleges. Thrun has even gone so far as to say he envisions a future in which there will only need to be 10 universities in the world. In January, he launched Udacity, a private educational organization, offering a dozen courses that anyone can sign up for and complete at his or her own pace; it now says it has more than 739,000 students. A similar company, created by two Stanford computer science professors, called Coursera, launched in April with four major university partnersStanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton. Since then, Coursera, which features humanities as well as science courses, has added more big-name partners, including Duke, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia, and saysit has one million registered students. The third major player in this space, edX, was launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in May. It has a more limited, high-level course catalog, but announcedin July that the University of California-Berkeley was joining.

There is a lot of excitement and fear and overblown rhetoric surrounding MOOCs. While some say free, online courses are a great way to increase minority enrollment, others have saidthey will leave many students behind. Some critics have saidthat MOOCs promote an unrealistic one-size-fits-all model of higher education and that there is no replacementfor true dialogue between a professor and his or her students. In a column for The New York Times in May, David Brooks said research has shown online education is only half as effective as in-person learning. A brain is not a computer, he wrote. We are not blank hard drives waiting to be filled with data. People learn from people they love and remember the things that arouse emotion. Some critics worry that onlinestudents will miss out on the social aspects of college.

Despite all the hype and the marquis players involved, the first few MOOCs have not been without issue. Of the thousands of students who have signed up for the classes, only about 10% complete them, and some professors have expressedconcern that its nearly impossible to grade a students work if you have no way to verify if the student is in fact the person completing the work. Indeed, in the first few courses taught over the summer at Coursera, dozens of studentsin at least three classes complained that their work was copied by students. (Coursera added an honor code in response to the reports ofplagiarism.) And even in this social-media savvy era, plenty of people are wondering how much students will learn in some MOOCs when it is their peers rather than their professors who are doing the grading.

To see what all the fuss is about, a handful of TIME editors and writers are signing up for MOOCs and will be blogging about the experience in order to give readers a sense of what its like to take a free, massive online course. Editor at Large Harry McCracken, a self-described gadget nerd who writes about consumer technology for the magazine and TIME.com, is enrolling in Courseras Gamification courseto learn how digital game elements and design techniques apply to non-game business and social problems. Brad Tuttle, who covers personal finance, travel and parenting for TIME.com, will be taking Courseras Introduction to Mathematical Thinking. Writer-Reporter Nate Rawlings has already started CourserasIntro to Sustainabilitycourse (and scored 100% on his first quiz). And photo editor Alexander Ho will learn the basics of computer programming in Udacitys Intro to Computer Science course.

As for me, Ill be taking Courseras Securing Digital Democracy coursea timely class given the upcoming electionthat will cover the risks and potential of electronic and Internet voting. This isnt my first encounter with online education, although my previous experience was of the traditional variety. As part of my bachelors degree at the University of Washington, I took a web-based environmental science course. I took the class because I needed a science credit, and rumor had it the class was a breeze. The rumor was true: I didnt watch a single lecture, but passed the class with an above-average grade by completing a group project and pulling an all-nighter before the final exam (which, by the way, was the only time I bothered to download the professors PowerPoint slides). Needless to say, Im hoping with a little added investment on my part, my latest foray into online education will be much different from my first one. Then again, my Coursera class started yesterday, so I already have some catching up to do.

Kayla Webley is a Staff Writer atTIME. Find her on Twitter at@kaylawebley, onFacebookor onGoogle+. You can also continue the discussion onTIMEs Facebookpageand on Twitter at@TIME.

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Will Open Online Courses Renew Higher Education?

From submitted report September 4, 2012 10:36AM

Yoga Aid Naperville invites the community to support the yogis who will complete 108 sun salutations Sept. 9 at Naper Settlement. | Sun file photo

storyidforme: 36398947 tmspicid: 4899000 fileheaderid: 2417021

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During Yoga Aid Naperville, yogis from all over the world will salute the sun for charity Sunday, Sept. 9. Sun salutations will be led by local yoga studios at Naper Settlement. To sign up, go to http://www.facebook.com/YogaAidNaperville. To learn more about Yoga Aid, visit http://yogaaid.com.

Updated: September 4, 2012 2:49PM

Yoga Aid Naperville plans to complete 108 sun Salutations Sunday and the group hopes youll join them.

Community members can either support local yogis or join them at Naper Settlement. Money raised will go toward charities worldwide.

Yoga Aid began in 2006 when two yoga enthusiasts, Clive and Eriko, created the Yoga Aid Challenge, an international fundraising event with the dual purpose of raising funds for charity and sharing the benefits of yoga. Since the first Yoga Aid Challenge, the Yoga Aid events have raised more than $1.2 million for charities throughout the world.

This year, Clive and Eriko decided to expand the reach of Yoga Aid, resulting in the Yoga Aid World Challenge, which pledges to raise $1 million for charity by united yogis worldwide.

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Yoga Aid Naperville to complete 108 sun salutations for charity

NEW YORK, Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Gaiam, Inc., the leading distributor of lifestyle media, announced the DVD release of Intro to CorePower Yoga, based on the classes taught at CorePower Yoga Studios the largest individual network of yoga studios across the country. A truly unique practice, Intro to CorePower Yoga brings a fresh perspective on yoga by offering a more fitness-focused practice.

Through the combination of movement, music and energy, Intro to CorePower Yoga tones the entire body while increasing strength, balance, and flexibility. Led by CorePower Yoga CEO and Founder, Trevor Tice, the DVD is designed to be focused and time efficient so that it can be easily incorporated into anyone's daily routine.

"CorePower Yoga has generated an overwhelming fan base across the country due to its modern approach to the practice that is attractive to so many people especially the younger demographic," says Tice. "By partnering with Gaiam to bring the CorePower Yoga practice to DVD, everyone will be able to take advantage of this unique, results-driven style of yoga regardless of whether or not they live near a CorePower Yoga Studio."

Intro to CorePower Yoga features three workouts plus a pose breakdown section to increase strength and flexibility, as well as lose weight and manage stress:

"We are thrilled to partner with the renowned yoga chain CorePower Yoga," says Bill Sondheim, President of Gaiam. "At Gaiam, it is our mission to bring our consumers the best in yoga and the CorePower brand truly offers a fresh, contemporary spin on the traditional practice. We are confident that this DVD will appeal to a broad audience of those just getting started, as well as those that are already devotees of CorePower Yoga."

Intro to CorePower Yoga has an approximate runtime of 65 minutes and a suggested retail price of $14.98. The DVD will be available beginning September 4, 2012 at Target, Amazon, and wherever DVDs are sold.

About CorePower YogaTrevor Tice opened the first CorePower Yoga Studio in Denver, Colorado in 2002, filling a niche in an emerging yoga market with the goal of creating an empowering and health-focused environment where individuals are not bound by conventional ideas about the limits of body and mind. By the end of 2012, there will be 78 CorePower Yoga Studios nationwide, including Hawaii. Learn more at http://www.corepoweryoga.com.

About GAIAMGaiam, Inc. (GAIA) is a leading producer and marketer of lifestyle media and fitness accessories. With a wide distribution network that consists of 62,000 retail doors, 14,400 store within stores, 5,600 media category management locations, a digital distribution platform and more than 10 million direct customers, Gaiam is dedicated to providing solutions for healthy and eco-conscious living. The company dominates the health and wellness category and releases non-theatrical programming focused on family entertainment and conscious media. In addition, Gaiam has an exclusive licensing agreement with Discovery Communications and other licensing partners. For more information about Gaiam, please visit http://www.gaiam.com or call 1.800.869.3603.

Media Contact:Lauren Aboulessan Krupp Kommunications (212) 886-6710 LAboulessan@kruppnyc.com

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Gaiam Partners With Leading Yoga Studio Chain To Launch Intro To CorePower Yoga DVD