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Education

US Issues Clarification On Higher Education H-1B Exemption Criteria

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

H-1B visas are most popular among the Indian IT professionals.

H-1B visas are most popular among the Indian IT professionals.
Washington: The US said today that in order to qualify for an H-1B numerical cap exemption based upon a master’s or higher degree, the conferring institution must have qualified as a “United States institution of higher education” at the time the beneficiary’s degree was earned.

As mandated by the Congress, the US Citizenship and immigration Services (USCIS) can issue up to 65,000 H-1B visas, the most sought-after by Indian IT professionals, every year.

In addition to this, another 20,000 foreign students having masters or higher degree from a US institute of higher education are exempted from the 65,000 Congressional limit.

A clarification memorandum from the USCIS came in response to a petition in this regard by Leena R Kamat from California who temporarily sought to employee people under H-1B visas having higher education.

The Director of the California Service Center denied the H-1B petition, concluding that the beneficiary did not qualify for the claimed master’s cap exemption.

More specifically, the Director determined that the degree-conferring institution was not accredited at the time it awarded the beneficiary’s master’s degree, and thus the beneficiary had not earned his degree, as required, from a “United States institution of higher education”.

As per the US memorandum dated May 23, which was released to the press today, the USCIS ruled that the H-1B applicant had earned his degree from the International Technological University (ITU), in California, on December 31, 2010, before the university obtained its pre-accreditation or accreditation status.

The record contains a letter from ITU, stating that the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) granted ITU “Candidacy status” in 2011.

In April, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to stop “visa abuses”.

Trump said his administration is going to enforce ‘Hire American’ rules that are designed to protect jobs and wages of workers in the US.

The executive order also called upon the Departments of Labour, Justice, Homeland Security, and the state to take action against fraud and abuse of our visa programmes.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Story first published on: June 02, 2017 09:24 (IST)

[“Source-ndtv”]

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Education

Britain’s universities must change to survive. Higher education reform is the way forward

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

The Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, from a high angle

Ten years ago, none of the following existed: the iPhone, Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook had not made it to the UK, and Twitter had just been founded. The change to our lives made by these innovations has been truly profound. The next 10 years will undoubtedly see as much technological change, if not more.

So what does the likely direction of the change – especially to greater forms of automation – mean for British universities? Many of the jobs that universities currently prepare students for will be done by intelligent machines in the future. The students who remain interested in a university experience will rely increasingly on online search engines, online lecture notes and recorded lectures for their information.

What about the research that most universities rely on? In the not-so-distant future, machines will be able to sift ever-greater data sets and offer conclusions that hitherto would have been visible only to researchers who had spent years trawling through archives or decades making various different kinds of experiments. The growth in online courses, virtual reality and augmented reality will mean that learning will look and feel nothing like it does today.

A sparsely populated lecture theatre
Traditional lectures may not be around much longer CREDIT: MARION BUKK/ALAMY

If universities fade and other organisations take their place, the transition will be painful – and not just for the staff, students, alumni and communities that benefit directly from universities. The UK’s higher education sector contributes more than 750,000 full-time roles and about 3 per cent of gross domestic product. This represents a crucial export service – the UK has about 13 per cent of the international market.

We must also support British universities because of the role they play in the labour market and for UK growth. Almost 90 per cent of young people with an undergraduate degree are employed, compared with just 60 per cent of young people who have only studied up to A-level or below. A recent Skills and Employment Survey found that 26 per cent of jobs in the economy explicitly require a degree – or, put another way, if you do not go to university, more than a quarter of jobs are inaccessible to you. If you do go, you are likely to earn more and stay employed for longer, over your lifetime, than someone who does not.

First, universities have to improve the teaching experience to ensure that they deliver what computers cannot – the parting of knowledge through human contact. Adelaide University in Australia, for example, is already offering considerably fewer live lectures and much more small‑group teaching in order to offer what machines cannot. Doing so requires a greater attention to the quality of the classroom experience than is usual for universities.

Secondly, the whole sector should be much more open to new providers . The Higher Education and Research Bill, which returned to the Lords yesterday, makes it easier for high-quality newcomers – perhaps companies such as Google DeepMind – to enter the sector and award degrees, giving students more choice, driving innovation and boosting competition. The Bill will replace a system of regulation that was built for a bygone era with a new framework that will allow the sector to respond effectively to the challenges of the 21st century.

And it entrenches a new Teaching Excellence Framework to ensure that universities focus on graduate employability and, for the first time, link teaching funding to quality and not just quantity – a principle long‑established for research funding.

It’s easy to walk through the cobbled streets of Oxford or Cambridge and think that what defines the university is a timeless constancy. But the story of Oxbridge and all British universities is one of constant evolution to improve research and teaching. It is that kind of zeal for change that British universities must now rekindle as they prepare for a world that will look as different to future generations as 2006 looks to us now, a mere decade later.

[Source:- telegraph]

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Education

Higher fees allowed for current students

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

graduation

The watchdog for university access has given the green light to universities to increase tuition fees in England to £9,250.

Almost all universities have been approved to charge the higher fees from 2017-18 as the new upper limit.

But more than 30 have this as a minimum – raising the prospect the increase will also be applied to current students or those starting this year.

Exeter has already announced it is raising fees for continuing students.

Liberal Democrat education spokesman John Pugh said students were being treated as “cash cows” and the access watchdog was “utterly toothless”.

“Time and again, the universities, backed by government, ask for more,” said Mr Pugh.

The admissions process for university entry for autumn 2017 has opened to applicants on Tuesday.

The Office for Fair Access (Offa) has published the agreements that show how much universities will be able charge these students in 2017-18 and how much universities will contribute to support disadvantaged students.

Widening access

Universities will spend £834m on schemes to widen access to higher education, an increase of 10% on 2016-17.

This will include £171m on outreach projects such as summer schools and events to encourage applications and £408m on bursaries and fee waivers.

Oxford University, which last week reported the highest level of state school students for decades, will spend more than £13m on outreach and scholarships.

But the Offa agreements also show that the extra spending will come alongside higher tuition fees.

The government wants to allow universities to increase fees to £9,250 if they can show they have high-quality teaching.

This will depend on Parliament approving the removal of the maximum limit of £9,000 – which both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are committed to opposing.

The Liberal Democrats have said they will timetable an amendment to the Higher Education and Research Bill that would outlaw increases for students who have already begun courses, saying such attempts were “outrageous”.

The agreements published by Offa show that almost every university has been given permission to set a new maximum of £9,250 from 2017, assuming that MPs support raising the current cap.

But a further group of 36 universities and colleges have been given approval for fees of £9,250 as a minimum, rather than a maximum.

This raises the more controversial prospect of all students paying the higher fees and not only those who are starting from 2017.

Offa says that these universities with a minimum of £9,250 will be able to apply the increase to current students.

Exeter has already told its existing students that it will increase fees to £9,250 from 2017, and Surrey intends to apply the increase to those students starting this autumn.

The Offa agreements show Sussex, Derby, Royal Holloway and Southampton among those that have set a £9,250 minimum.

The London School of Economics also has a £9,250 minimum, but says that this will not apply to current students.

Nottingham has ruled out an increase for current students and has set its minimum fee at the current £9,000.

Les Ebdon, director of Offa, said: “There are already more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds entering higher education than ever before, which shows the impact that previous access agreements have had.

“But there is still a long way to go, and the government has clearly indicated that fair access is a priority, so we must all keep pushing forwards.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Record university offers now 3% higher than last year

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

A-level day at Westminster Kingsway College

The number of people offered places at UK universities has now hit a record 442,900 – 3% up on 2015, official figures show.

Around 19,000 of those have had their university and college places confirmed since midnight on A-level day, says the admissions service Ucas.

So far, over 14,000 have been accepted through clearing – 52% up on last year.

Association of Colleges Chief Executive Martin Doel urged people to take time to choose the right course for them.

A decline in the number of 18-year-olds and the removal of the cap which limits university places in England have contributed to “a buyer’s market” in university applications.

Ucas says clearing, the system which matches unfilled places with would-be-undergraduates without offers, opened two hours earlier than usual on results day with more places on offer.

‘Inundated’

And some leading Russell Group universities have been making greater use of the system.

Bristol University said places were being filled very quickly, adding that the newly competitive environment meant that “like all universities, we make use of clearing in ways that we wouldn’t have a few years ago”.

Birmingham University, which filled all its places on Thursday, said it had been “inundated” – with more than 6,000 calls for the small number of places available.

Ucas says high numbers are likely to be accepted through clearing over the weekend – with the majority of applicants using this route expected to find places by the end of Monday.

More than 153,000 people are still eligible to apply through clearing, says Ucas.

Mr Doel said young people should also consider “more affordable education and training routes available that can lead directly to a career” including higher level technical and professional courses and apprenticeships at further education colleges.

“Not only are tuition fees less at a college, living and travelling costs are also much lower because it’s possible to stay at home,” said Mr Doel.

The final date for university applications this year is 20 September.

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

HRD minister to interact with VCs on higher education post-COVID-19 era

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

(Twitter@DrRPNishank)

Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank will discuss Higher Education post-COVID-19 era with the vice-chancellors in a live session on Facebook at 4pm on Monday, May 11.

Minister Pokhriyal retweeted the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) tweet regarding the webinar on the microblogging site, Twitter.

Meanwhile, the HRD Ministry will also be conducting a webinar with teachers on May 14. Teachers who wish to interact or raise concerns can tweet the minister with the #EducationMinisterGoesLive.

In the last webinar with students conducted on May 5, the Education Minister had announced that the JEE main exams will be conducted from July 18 to 23 and the NEET-UG exam will be conducted on July 26.

source: hindustantimes

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Education

The budget’s neglect of higher education

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

JNU students protesting against the fee hike by the institution. Photo: Mohd Zakir/Hindustan Times

The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) campaign for the forthcoming Delhi election has focused on its delivery of services in the past five years, especially on improvements in school infrastructure and examination scores. AAP has consistently dedicated about 24% of Delhi’s annual budgeted expenditure to education, by far the highest percentage outlay in the country. Its efforts are already being emulated in places like Maharashtra, and will become an attractive model across India should the party repeat its astonishing electoral success of 2014.

The Central government, meanwhile, appears headed in the other direction. The share of the Union budget allotted to education, approximately 40% of which goes to higher learning and research, has fallen from 4.14% in 2014-15 to 3.4% in 2019-20. Last December, having provided a tax cut to corporations that will cost it an estimated ₹1.45 trillion annually, the government slashed ₹3,000 crore from its education outlay for the current financial year. I would be happy if the forthcoming budget were to reverse the decline, but the past five years inspire little confidence.

As the Centre curtails provisions, universities have sought to bolster other sources of income. A sharp increase in room rents and mess charges in late October sparked an agitation in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) which culminated in a ghastly attack on the campus by masked activists on 5 January. Opponents of the fee hike pointed out that nearly 40% of students admitted to JNU had a monthly family income below ₹12,000, and would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pay the rates enumerated in the new hostel manual, especially a new monthly service charge of ₹1,700.

In December, five students from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune and six from its sister institution, Kolkata’s Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), sat on a hunger strike protesting a huge hike in fees for the Joint Entrance Test (JET) taken by all applicants to those institutions. The protesting students, having already passed JET, had no personal gain in mind, but were concerned that prospective candidates from lower income groups would be discouraged from applying in the future.

Both the JNU fees and JET charges were partially rolled back last month. On 24 January, Justice Rajiv Shakdher of the Delhi high court ordered the JNU administration to allow admissions based on the older hostel manual, without any fine for late payment, saying, “The burden of paying contractual employees’ salary cannot be put on students in government-run institutions….The government has to fund public education. It cannot get out of it.”

Notwithstanding occasional interventions from progressive voices and the half-victories of partial fee rollbacks, the government appears determined to distance itself from higher education. The Union budget of 2018-19 scrapped grants for creating new infrastructure within institutions like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and Central universities. In its place, we now have the Higher Education Financing Agency (Hefa), a joint venture between the human resources ministry and Canara Bank, which aims to “enable India’s premier educational institutions to excel and reach the top in global rankings by financing building world class infrastructure including R&D Infra”. According to Hefa’s website, it will provide loans to approved projects, which will be “serviced through internal accruals”.

What kind of internal accruals could possibly pay for the establishment of world-class research and development infrastructure? According to the data-driven non-profit IndiaSpend, 37% of all corporate social responsibility (CSR) money was funnelled into education in 2016-17, yet this amounted to less than 0.5% of what the Central government spent, and less than 0.1% of the combined spending on education by the Centre and states. It is unlikely that private firms and philanthropists will fill the gaping hole left by the withdrawal of Central support.

With aid from the University Grants Commission drying up, colleges and universities are focusing on courses that can pay for themselves, usually in areas like management, media and computer programming. Core humanities curricula can only suffer in the rush to self-finance, and research in the sciences is also bound to be hit, considering the cost of setting up and running good laboratories.

As Hefa loans come due, all institutes of higher education are likely to follow the path of JNU and FTII, hiking fees for entrance tests, courses, hostels and canteens. It might take a strike at an IIT for the public at large to come round to the students’ point of view, because the current dispensation has successfully sold the image of JNU as a hotbed of freeloaders and malcontents.

The data paints a very different picture of JNU. The institution scores excellently in the government’s own measures of academic excellence. Of the 32 candidates who passed the latest Union Public Service Commission’s Indian Economic Services Examination, 18 were JNU alumni. For anybody not blinded by bias, it is evident that activists who have emerged from JNU in recent years, like Kavita Krishnan, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and the current president of the students’ union, Aishe Ghosh, combine a high level of intelligence and historical comprehension with eloquence and passion. The institution produces both individuals who will administer the country and those who seek to change it fundamentally.

JNU and FTII are far from being ideal academies, but we must avoid making the perfect an enemy of the good, and instead recognize an institution’s strengths even as we highlight its defects. We need also to resist setting up false binaries. It serves no useful purpose to compare subsidized food in film schools with malnourishment in the countryside, for instance. Not only does the government have enough money to run good universities while also feeding all citizens, slashing funding to colleges will do nothing to improve the efficiency of our public distribution system.

India created strong schools in the humanities, sciences, design, management, cinema and a variety of other disciplines in an era when the government had few funds at its disposal. More recently, AAP has demonstrated that a commitment to education can greatly improve outcomes in government-run schools. We need an administration at the Centre that invests more in higher learning, and in expanding opportunities to all segments of the population. This may seem like a no-brainer, for it is what all successful nations do, but the government has chosen, instead, to demonize its universities and cut back on outlays for research and infrastructure augmentation. The country will pay heavily for this short-sightedness.

[“source=livemint”]

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Education

Why Skills Training Can’t Replace Higher Education

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Much of the current media-reported posturing by policy makers and pundits about the failure of U.S. colleges and universities to adequately prepare people for the 21st workplace is either ill informed or misguided, in my opinion.

One of the dominant narratives in the media is that we need to produce more workers now who can do whatever is needed now, using short-term postsecondary certification programs. The focus is typically on “vocational” skills, contrasted with what too often are characterized as relatively useless liberal education outcomes, including knowledge of world history and cultures and other “indulgences” such as crafting understandable prose and judging the veracity and utility of information.

To make it easier for employers to identify competent workers, a litany of badges, certificates, and the like will purportedly signal proficiency. In some yet-to-be-demonstrated manner, these proxies will then be stacked and sewn together by a trusted entity to warrant conferral of what traditionally has been considered a college degree. Along the way, it’s assumed that learners of any age will independently bring coherence to and cultivate depth of understanding from these various experiences.

Another narrative is framed by a chorus of CEOs and managers who bemoan that too many job applicants with associate and baccalaureate degrees cannot write coherent paragraphs, clearly explain complex problems, or work effectively with people who differ from themselves. And this is after several years of postsecondary study, not the few weeks or months needed to earn a badge.  At the same time, many business leaders say that they prefer candidates who not only can do today’s work, but who will be able to continue to learn on their own in real time to do tomorrow’s work — jobs that have not yet been invented. Is there a badge or certificate to certify skills for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet?!

Of course, short-term vocational skills-based programs are critically important and well suited for many people. This has always been true and will continue to be so. But is this an acceptable policy choice for addressing the demands of the 21st century workplace and fixing the shortcomings of American higher education at this point?

No, and here’s why.

We’ve known for many decades that there are no short cuts to cultivating the habits of the mind and heart that, over time, enable people to deepen their learning, develop resilience, transfer information into action, and creatively juggle and evaluate competing ideas and approaches. These are the kinds of proficiencies and dispositions needed to discover alternative responses to challenges presented by the changing nature of today’s jobs or for work not yet invented. Workplaces, societal institutions, and the world order are only going to get more complicated and challenging to navigate and manage, increasing the need for people with accumulated wisdom, interpersonal and practical competence, and more than a splash of critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and altruism.

Intentionally shortening and fragmenting educational and personal development in the name of bolstering economic productivity now is shortsighted and does a catastrophic disservice to individuals, our national prosperity, and the long-term well-being of a civil, democratic society. What’s also troubling is the likelihood that learners from historically underserved groups — low income and ethnic minorities, for example — will be disproportionately represented among (or maybe even tracked into) short-term training programs. Students from these groups made up the majority of those who were duped by the misleading ROI promises of more than a few costly for-profit institutions, such as Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institutes, and Education Corporation for America.

There is no way to know for sure, but I suspect that many of those vigorously proposing short term vocational education steer their own children toward baccalaureate-granting colleges or universities. Attending such schools increases the odds that students will have to broaden their perspectives, read and write a fair amount, and devote significant effort over an extended period of time pondering difficult questions and generating alternative solutions to complicated problems — the stuff of which the future will be made.

We need business leaders to speak often and consistently with one voice about the perils of trying to do too much too fast on the cheap in education. The discourse about what the country needs from its postsecondary system needs re-balancing and grounding in what clear-minded captains of industry have learned from experience and what the educational research shows matters to preparing people for a self-sufficient, civically responsible, and personally satisfying life.

Granted, there is much room for improvement in American higher education. However, when a college or university intentionally designs and induces students to participate in high-impact learning activities inside and outside the classroom, the outcomes are much better contrasted with students who do not have such experiences. The benefits of participating in high-impact practices such as writing intensive courses, undergraduate research, community service projects and internships are especially promising for historically underserved students who will make up a large fraction of tomorrow’s workers and community leaders. Unfortunately, too few students participate in these activities, a problem that institutions such as California State University Dominguez Hills, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Springfield College and many others are addressing by modifying curricular offerings to require students to do them.

Abbreviating postsecondary preparation programs may well reduce short-term costs for students, institutions, and many employers. However, privileging short-term job training over demanding educational experiences associated with high-levels of intellectual, personal, and social development — a foundation for continuous life-long learning — is a bad idea for individuals, for the long-term vitality of the American economy, and for our democracy.

[“source=hbr”]

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Education

Three Things To Know About Joe Biden’s Higher Education Plan

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Presidential candidate Joe Biden proposes a higher education plan.

This morning, presidential candidate Joe Biden released his comprehensive plan for higher education. Before today, the former Vice President had only mentioned pieces of his proposal on the campaign trail. This plan is a more moderate proposal compared to those of Senators Warren and Sanders. There are many components of this plan, but below are three things to note from his release.

Investing In Community Colleges

The former Vice President has long been a champion for community colleges. His wife and former Second Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, has been a community college professor for years and advocated for them from the White House. As President, Biden would continue this advocacy by making some major investments in community college education. First, he would make two years of community college tuition-free—as proposed in the Obama Administration. Biden’s proposal would be a first-dollar program, meaning low-income students could then use their Pell Grants to cover living cost—a more significant expense. Biden also would create a new grant program to help implement evidence-based practices to improve student outcomes and provided needed supports, like advising. He also proposed investing $50 billion into workforce training. This would help create high-quality training programs and could be used to invest in apprenticeships. Biden’s plan mentions the possibility of short-term programs, but he should be cautious as these programs often do not lead to family-sustaining wages and have some unfortunate equity concerns.

Investing In Pell Grants

Biden properly recognizes that college costs have increased and that has significantly hurt low- and moderate-income students who receive Pell Grants. While the Pell Grant was meant to increase access to higher education and make it more affordable for those students with fewer resources, it hasn’t kept up with the cost of college. For that reason Biden says he will double the maximum Pell Grant award. Furthermore, he will automatically increase the grant based on inflation. Importantly, he will also allow DREAMers access if they are eligible. Biden also says he will restore eligibility for Pell Grants to formerly incarcerated individuals. It’s unclear what is meant by this because most formerly incarcerated people can already access Pell Grants. Many advocates will question why he does not go as far as allowing currently incarcerated individuals from receiving Pell, as proposals from Senators Schatz and Alexander would do. Even Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is supportive of this idea. Restoration of their eligibility for those currently incarcerated is a much needed fix since it was banned in the 1994 crime bill that Biden shepherded through Congress.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness Reform

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program—known as PSLF—has had a rocky roll-out at best. With strict rules and poor implementation, 99% of applicants have been rejected for forgiveness. Biden would reform this program for the future by allowing $10,000 of forgiveness for every year of working in public service—up to five years. He would also allow up to five years of prior service to qualify. Biden said he would also fix the existing program by passing the What You Can Do For Your Country Act from Senators Gillibrand and Kaine.

The former vice president proposed many more ideas including reformed income-based repayment, regulating for-profits, investing in HBCUs and MSIs, and a Title I for postsecondary education—which I have previously proposed. Some of these are policies the Obama Administration proposed while others are an expansion or a new program. It will be interesting to see how he uses this plan on the campaign trail and how voters are receptive of the more moderate approach.

[“source=forbes”]

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Blogging

Five Proven Blogging Tips To Earn Loyal Clients And Higher ROI

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

uncaptionedMultiple companies, from small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) to multimillion-dollar corporations, tend to put their blogs on the proverbial backburner as they spend — and often times waste — money on other forms of marketing.  One of the biggest culprits, in my experience, is Google Ads. This is a very valuable service when starting out, but once your spend is gone, that ad disappears. You have to continue fueling it for more leads, and I find it doesn’t do much for building brand awareness.

I believe this type of advertising is for a short-term mindset. As searchers steadily go against the status quo of advertising, they ignore these ads. Organic search results are more trusted and can provide endless lead generation. And this is where the blog rules. Creating a successful blog is not that simple, though.

First, you must have an SEO-friendly website with a strong technical platform — quick speed, mobile-friendly, image optimization, etc. You must also have a blogging strategy that’s built around target keywords.

The blog helps more than just increasing SEO value. It also builds what I call ART: a company’s authority, reputation and trust. When a business excels at ART, sustained growth will naturally follow.

I previously provided tips in “Starting A Business Blog Is A Must For Success: Eight Tips.” I’m going to take things a step deeper here, and provide additional tips that will help you garner ART, which leads to loyal clients and a higher return on investment (ROI).

Strike a 50/25/25 blend.

I once explained this by telling clients to create a blend of content that speaks to prospects in different phases of the traditional sales funnel. After reading Smash the Funnel by Eric Kieles and Mike Lieberman, I no longer refer to the sales funnel, but rather, as Smash the Funnel calls it, the “cyclonic buyer journey.”

This “journey” has eight cyclones, beginning with “pre-awareness” and ending with “ongoing delivery.” For success, you must create blog content that talks to each step of the cyclone.

I’ve had success creating blog calendar’s that feature a 50/25/25 blend of content:

• 50% for newbies seeking education about their problems and solutions.

• 25% for intermediate readers who know the problems, but want better solutions

• 25% for experts (think CMOs) who are fully educated and seeking better solutions. This 25% also talks to existing customers to further create loyalty.

It’s all about appealing and building ART from a large but targeted audience. Speak to all. The reason to put half of the focus on the newbies is simple — you want to be, as John Hall says in his book of the same name, “Top of Mind” for readers throughout their buyer’s journey, from awareness to post-client/customer status.

Blog from different company perspectives.

Another way to build ART within readers in various cyclones of the buyer’s journey? Create blogs from different perspectives throughout the company: CEO, marketing, sales, technicians, finance, etc.

Each perspective will offer a unique perspective that will naturally attract those in similar positions. Due to my position, I love reading inspiring pieces from fellow CEOs or heads of marketing departments. Well before I launched my own business, most of my time was spent reading content from people of similar stature — writers on writing, SEOs on SEO, etc.

The following is a quick example of diverse authorship from an investing firm:

• CEO blogs to inspire prospects and current customers to invest, projecting a long-term overall vision view.

• CMO blogs about finance project management advice.

• Finance team blogs about various tools that ease the investing process.

• Technician team blogs about investing techniques. They get super granular on details.

Create a quarterly calendar loaded with evergreen content.

Blogging without a strategy is like riding a motorcycle with bald tires. You’ll get somewhere, but it’ll be a horrible and dangerous ride. Same for blogging, though that horrible ride equates to lack of authority, reputation and trust. And this equates to zero readership and zero ROI.

A plan is needed, and the most successful route I’ve witnessed is through a blogging calendar that is, at minimum, a quarter out. This calendar should also feature mostly evergreen content — education that will stick around for years to come. Build out your calendar using the points above, and also remember the importance of keyword research that I talked about in my last article.

Post consistently and frequently.

Posting consistently and frequently is crucial for success from both the search engine and user perspectives. In regards to users, this type of posting shows how dedicated your company is to providing valuable information in an orderly manner. And if an internal team can get it organized, imagine how organized they will be with clients. This fact will even weigh on some prospects from a subconscious level.

It also shows search engines that you care about constantly creating new content, which aids in SEO.

Review quarterly.

Stale content gets noticed. What if a prospect landed on a blog and it was loaded with outdated resources and dead hyperlinks? This will show that the business doesn’t put quality first — even if this occurs on a subconscious level.

My agency recommends quarterly reviews when the team freshens the content (tweak headlines, newer factual info/statistics), and updates the blog with hyperlinks that point to newer blog posts or service pages. This process is relatively easy within the 12-18 months, depending on how much content is created, but can get laborious afterward. The results are worth every effort, and your prospects and current clients/customers will put higher levels of ART on your business.

If you’re using an agency, ask about this. Many agencies pump out content and forget about it. This is not optimal for long-term results.

Blogging with the goal of establishing authority, reputation and trust (ART) will help your business achieve long-term success. Again, this is no short-term play. Sometimes it can take up to a year for results to be observed. If you’re dedicated to the long-term vision of your company, the ROI will arrive. And once things start rolling, this ROI compounds over time. Who thought ART could be this cool in the business world?

[“source=forbes”]

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Education

UGC recognizes 14 new higher education institutes for open and distance learning

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

University Grants Commission has recognised 14 new Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) for providing courses through distance education. This list is in addition to 82 such institutes that were recognised by the UGC in May this year.

In December 2012, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Higher Education, dissolved the Distance Education Council which was the erstwhile regulator of Distance Education programmes and transferred regulatory functions to the University Grants Commission.

UGC recognizes 14 new higher education institutes for open and distance learning

Representative image.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development in a gazette notification published earlier recognised all the degrees awarded through open and distance mode of education by the universities established by an Act of Parliament or State Legislature, Deemed Universities, Institutes of National Importance are eligible for posts and services under the central government, provided they have been approved by the UGC and wherever necessary, by All India Council for Technical Education for the programme for which it is the regulatory authority.

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