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62 BizEd JULY | AUGUST 2015 ideas in action ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES YANG tools of the trade MANAGING A FUNDRAISING ARMY Volunteers can play a substantial role in fund- raising at many higher education institutions. Called "class agents," these volunteers commit to leading fundraising eŽorts among alumni in their own graduating class. Fundraising platform Reeher recently announced a new module in its portfolio, called the Class Agent Fundraising Solution, to help colleges and universities better manage, monitor, and communicate with this core group of volunteers—who at some higher education institutions can number in the hun- dreds or thousands. Within the module's dashboard, volunteers can access the contact information of prospects and record their progress. Schools can communi- cate with large groups of volunteers and collect data on volunteers and constituents; with that data, they also can generate predictive scores that they can use to assign and track activities, prioritize prospects, manage results, and deter- mine which volunteers are struggling. Visit info. reeher.com/Class-Agent-Fundraising.html. NEW GAME SIMULATES THE VALUE OF HUMANS The Human Capital Challenge (HCC) is a new strategic business simulation game designed by HEC Paris in France and MEGA Learning, a simulation design firm based in Belgium. The game's defining feature is its focus on helping players understand the impact of human capital on value creation. Within the simulation, teams lead a virtual company with 2,720 employees that produces and sells four types of products and services. Each team must choose a strategy and assign the right people for the right jobs to get the results they expect. They also must choose approaches to training, promotion, hiring, compensation, and team assignments, as well as cope with conflicts between employees. To win, teams must deliver the best results in terms of financial performance (revenue, pre-tax earnings, and gains) and human resource management (revenue per employee, employee engagement, and overall attractiveness of the business). Visit www.humancapitalchallenge.com. TROVE FOR E-SHIP EDUCATORS The Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence (CFEE) at the George Washington School of Business in Washington, D.C., has created the National Survey of Entrepreneurship Education website to serve as a resource to entrepre- neurship educators. The CFEE created the site with help from the Ewing Marion KauŽman Foundation and the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. The site features data from more than 200 entrepreneurship education programs at two- and four-year colleges and universities from across the United States, as well as a bibliogra- phy with citations to more than 400 studies on entrepreneurship education. It also includes a database of the more than 3,400 higher educa- tion institutions that have responded to surveys conducted since 1979 by George Solomon, the CFEE's co-director; Karl Vesper of the University of Washington; and the KauŽman Foundation. Visit www.nationalsurvey.org. ASSESS UNIVERSITY- BUSINESS COLLABORATIONS The European University Association has created an online self-assessment tool to help partners assess their collaborative research process. The eŽort is part of its European Universities Imple- menting their Modernization Agenda (EUIMA). The EUIMA U-B Tool assesses the effective- ness of university-business research according to 47 indicators. These include quantifiable outputs such as the number of patents, publications, and staff involved in collaborative projects, as well as qualitative measures of stakeholder perceptions. Stakeholders answer questions focused on four areas: strategy, struc- ture, support, and outcomes. In addition, the tool asks users to compare their expectations at the start of a partnership to the progress the partners actually achieved. At the end of the survey, users receive a personalized, confidential report with the results. Visit ubtool.eua.be. FIELD NOTES This spring, Babson College of Bab- son Park, Massachusetts, hosted free workshops for Boston Public School teachers, each worth 2.5 professional development points in their continu- ing education system. The workshops help teachers learn how to introduce entrepreneurship, basic business skills, and financial literacy to their students through discussions, projects, and field trips. Babson plans to continue to o•er the workshops to public school teachers on request. The workshops were deliv- ered as part of Lemonade Day, an annual e•ort in cities across the U.S. to create programs that empower youth through entrepreneurial and life skills training. To learn more, visit www.lemonadeday.org. On specially equipped airplanes flown by JetBlue Airways and Virgin Amer- ica, passengers now have access to a selection of MOOCs. As part of JetBlue's new Fly-Fi platform, pas- sengers flying on its Airbus fleet can access ten MOOCs from Coursera, including "Introduction to Market- ing" from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Phila- delphia. Virgin America has partnered with the online learning platform Great Courses to o•er passengers access to 13 audio and video lectures. These include "Thinking Like an Economist: A Guide to Rational Decision-Making" taught by Randall Bartlett, a profes- sor of economics at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. LinkedIn has announced its acquisition of lynda.com, a subscription-based online learning platform based in Carpinteria, California. Lynda.com of- fers professional development courses in business, technology, and creative fields in English, German, French, Span- ish, and Japanese.