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This conference, jointly organised by OECD's Department for Science, Technology and Industry and the Italian Ministry for Innovation and Technology, was attended by approximately 350 representatives from industry, academia and government. Rapporteurs presented summaries in terms of issues and areas where there was agreement and/or convergence among presentations and participant interventions and areas where there was disagreement and/or divergence. Points of agreement include: (1) Today's participatory culture is of users rather than consumers with increased generational differences in usage; (2) Goal of business-model neutrality; and (3) There is a high speed of change in the sector, led by the availability of broad-band enabling digital content provision with a significant decline of (access) prices. Points of divergence include: (1) Balance of intellectual property rights (IPR); (2) Role of governments versus markets; (3) Digital Rights Management (DRM); and (4) Policy challenges and need for international harmonisation. (Contains 2 footnotes, 8 figures, 1 box and 1 table.)

This paper discusses the most relevant issues concerning teacher evaluation in primary and secondary education by reviewing the recent literature and analysing current practices within the OECD countries. First, it provides a conceptual framework highlighting key features of teacher evaluation schemes. In particular, it emphasises the importance of clarifying the purposes of teacher appraisal, whether summative when designed to assure that the practices enhancing student learning are undertaken or formative when conducted for further professional development objectives. It also encompasses the diverse criteria and instruments commonly used to assess teachers as well as the actors generally involved in the process and potential consequences for teachers' professional life. Second, it deals with a number of contentious points, including the question of the use of student outcomes to measure teaching performance, the advantages and drawbacks of different approaches given the purpose emphasised and resource restrictions, the implementation difficulties resulting from different stakeholders' interests and possible ways to overcome these obstacles. Finally, it provides an account of current empirical evidence, pointing out mixed results stemming from difficulties in assessing the effects of such evaluation schemes on teaching quality, teachers' motivation and student learning. It concludes by considering the circumstances under which teacher evaluation systems seem to be more effective, fair and reliable. Developing a comprehensive approach to evaluate teachers is critical to make demands for educational best practice compatible with teachers' appropriation of the process as well as to enhance the decisive attractiveness and recognition of the teaching profession. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper reviews recent measurement work on User-Created Content (UCC) undertaken in OECD countries. It shows that UCC is emerging as a significant area of economic and social activity worthy of consideration for official measurement and discusses the implications for the OECD Model Survey on ICT Access and Use by Households and Individuals. (Study summary and questionnaires are annexed. Contains 10 footnotes, 6 figures and 1 table.)

This paper presents composite indicators of the institutional and policy characteristics of educational systems, collated from the questionnaire responses of 26 Member countries. These indicators provide an overview of the institutional framework in the primary and secondary education sector and are constructed so as to be used for the analysis of international differences in spending efficiency. The key features of the institutional setting in the non-tertiary education sector are grouped under three headings: (1) the ability to prioritise and allocate resources efficiently (through decentralisation and mechanisms matching resources to specific needs); (2) the efficiency in managing spending at the local level (through outcome-focused policies and managerial autonomy), and (3) the efficiency in service provision (through benchmarking and user choice). For each country, an intermediate indicator is computed for each of these six institutional properties. Composite indicators then combine the six intermediate indicators of spending efficiency into a single, aggregate measure. Results are presented and some of their implications are discussed. Overall, the characteristics of the institutional framework in the non-tertiary public education sector seem to be very favourable, compared to OECD average, in the United Kingdom, Australia, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, whereas results are less favourable for the Czech Republic, Greece, Luxembourg, Japan, Turkey, Hungary, Belgium (French speaking community), Switzerland and Austria. (Contains 3 tables, 15 figures and 14 endnotes.) (Abstract altered to meet ERIC guidelines.)

This literature review on school choice analyses the impact of choice schemes on students and on school systems focusing on equity. Reviewing the evidence can be difficult, as the literature is often fragmented and inconclusive, and the political importance of this research often results in high-profile attention given to individual studies rather than systemically understanding collected from a larger empirical base (Berends, Cannata and Goldring, 2011). Different political groups use evidence that supports their positions in favour or against school choice, and their positions relative to school choice are largely based on their ideologies, rather than on empirical work and evidence of effectiveness (Levin and Belfield, 2004). This report steps away from the ideological debate and provides research-based evidence on the impact of choice on disadvantaged students and schools. As "only with data on the consequences of different plans for school choice will we be able to reach sensible judgements rooted in experience (Fuller and Elmore, 1996, p. 8)". It uses analysis and statements that are supported empirically and attempts to cover the widest possible scope of research, and provide responses to the key question of how to balance choice with equity considerations. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures, 5 boxes and 13 footnotes.)

Do some forms of student (and school) assessment hinder the introduction of innovative educational practices and the development of innovation skills in education systems? This report focuses on the impact of high-stake summative assessment on innovation and argues that it is possible to reconcile high-stakes assessments and examinations through innovative approaches to testing. While necessary, assessment based on high-stake examinations often acts as an incentive to teach or study "to the test". It may thus limit risk-taking by teachers, students and parents, for instance. The problem may be amplified if a system of accountability and incentives uses the results of these examinations and tests to assess teachers and schools. What should be done to ensure that the systems used to assess education systems do not stifle the risk-taking inherent to innovation--and that they foster innovation skills in students? This study proposes three main ways of combining assessment and innovation: 1) developing a wide range of performance measurements for both students and schools; 2) rethinking the alignment of standards and assessment; 3) measuring the impact of assessments on teaching and learning. One way of influencing teaching and learning might be to modify high-stake testing. Systems will adapt to this, and both teaching and learning will focus on acquiring the right skills. Rather than testing the content of learning, standards could relate to cognitive skills such as problem-solving, communicating and reasoning--with test/examination developers adapting those skills to subjects such as mathematics, science or literary analysis. Similarly, more use might be made of innovative assessment methods based on information and communication technologies, inasmuch as these may feature simulation or interactivity, for instance, at a reasonable cost. Focusing the assessment on cognitive processes rather than content would leave more scope for teachers to put in place innovative teaching/learning strategies. This does, however, assume a high standard of professionalism in teachers and an adequate system of continuing training and knowledge management. As a single type of assessment cannot fully capture student learning, one effective strategy might also be to multiply the number of measurements and thus relieve the pressure on students and teachers to perform well in a single, high-visibility, high-stake test. At the same time, this larger number of measurements could provide the necessary input for systems based on accountability, diagnosis and assessment of the effectiveness of innovative practice. Finally, assessing the technical standard of tests and examinations is an integral part of their development, but it is less common to address the impact they have on teaching/learning or the validity of how their results are used. Since assessment is an integral part of the education process, it is just as important to assess tests and examinations as it is other educational practices in order to achieve improvements and innovation in educational assessment, but also in educational practice. (Contains 12 notes.)

School systems aspire to provide equal opportunity for all, irrespective of socio-economic status (SES). Much of the criticism of recent school reforms that introduce accountability, autonomy, and choice emphasizes their potentially negative consequences for equity. This report provides new evidence on how national features of accountability, autonomy, and choice are related to the equality of opportunity across countries. We estimate whether student achievement depends more or less on SES in school systems employing these institutional features. The rigorous micro-econometric analyses are based on the PISA 2003 data for more than 180,000 students from 27 OECD countries. The main empirical result is that rather than harming disadvantaged students, accountability, autonomy, and choice appear to be tides that lift all boats. The additional choice created by public funding for private schools in particular is associated with a strong reduction in the dependence of student achievement on SES. External exit exams have a strong positive effect for all students that is slightly smaller for low-SES students. The positive effect of regularly using subjective teacher ratings to assess students is substantially larger for low-SES students. The effect of many other accountability devices does not differ significantly by student SES. School autonomy in determining course content is associated with higher equality of opportunity, while equality of opportunity is lower in countries where more schools have autonomy in hiring teachers. Autonomy in formulating the budget and in establishing starting salaries is not associated with the equity of student outcomes. Inequality of opportunity is substantially higher in school systems that track students at early ages. (Contains 19 footnotes, 6 figures and 9 tables.)

This analysis aims at capturing current inventive activities in nanotechnologies based on the analysis of patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO). Reported findings include: (1) Nanotechnology is a multifaceted technology, currently consisting of a set of technologies on the nanometre scale rather than a single technological field; (2) Most nanotechnologies, especially those related to Electronics and Optoelectronics, are seemingly realised by a top-down process, where nano-structures are developed through the improvement or advancement of existing technologies; (3) Another group of nanotechnologies, developed by a bottom-up process, has been particularly intense in the past decade, fuelled by scientific discoveries such as carbon nanotubes and fullerenes; and (4) Nanotechnology not only covers a wide range of technologies, but also underpins the development of many fields. Apart from a temporary stagnation in the early 1990s, nanotechnology patent applications to the EPO have been increasing since the 1980s, with the United States, the European Union and Japan having almost equal shares. Higher education and government sectors are an important source of knowledge in nanotechnology. The current development of nanotechnology relies strongly on existing technologies and accumulated scientific knowledge. (Contains 21 footnotes, 26 figures, 1 box and 6 tables.)

As higher education has grown and state funding has been constrained, the financial sustainability of institutions of higher education (HE) has become an issue for policy makers and for those who govern and manage these institutions. The challenge for governments is to ensure that increasingly autonomous institutions respond to public interest agendas while taking a greater responsibility for their own financial sustainability. The challenge for institutions is to manage an increasingly complex portfolio of aims and funding. This report examines the conditions needed to secure financial sustainability for the future from the national (policy) and institutional (management) perspectives. (Two appendices are included: (1) Key Features of the HE Systems in Participating Countries; and (2) Characteristics of National Systems of Governance. Contains 4 footnotes and 3 tables.)

Public bodies hold a range of information and content ranging from demographic, economic and meteorological data to art works, historical documents and books. Given the availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs) public sector information can play an important role in producing innovative value-added services and goods. Furthermore, these technologies also provide a wider population better access to educational and cultural knowledge. Both commercial opportunities and the wider spread of information have positive economic and social benefits. Knowledge is a source of competitive advantage in the "information economy", for this reason it is economically important that there is wide diffusion of public information. Governments also have a basic commitment that citizens have to access national cultural heritage such as paintings, monuments and books; and this is also important for social inclusion. To contribute to better conditions for learning, the digitisation of cultural and educational resources is fundamental. New communication tools, such as interactive Web sites and games, often also reach groups of people with no previous interest, notably if they allow personal participation. OECD countries have recently initiated many programmes which use these tools for cultural and educational content. The main emphasis of policies has shifted to improving access to available resources, and preservation of content created digitally ("digitally-born") receives increasing attention. Public Sector information (PSI) constitutes the "raw material" for a variety of products and services in applications across a wide range of industries, and analysis has concluded that it is an important economic asset. This study gives an overview of the main areas of PSI and their commercial applications. Currently geographic and meteorological information have the greatest economic potential; and so far their use has had positive impacts on employment and growth. Specifically combining various types of PSI has led to the development of innovative products such as location-based services. Technological innovation including the development of mobile networks open up further markets for PSI-based services, and better data quality and e.g. increased interoperability open up cross-border services. Industry structure has also been affected by ICTs; often higher value added producers have taken the place of previous intermediary distributors in the production value chain. Further, the roles of public and private firms are changing and the growth of mobile services markets stimulates the development of PSI business re-use further. To develop competitive PSI markets, most OECD countries have attempted to ensure private service providers face the same conditions as public institutions, enabled private sector access to public data and clarified conditions under which these data can be used. For example portals have been developed that provide an overview of available PSI and conditions for use. Important questions are: which access regimes and re-use arrangements maximise the positive economic and other benefits of PSI, and which may for example develop commercial activities based on government-created content/data. In some OECD countries access regimes allow commercial re-users have cheap and readily available access to PSI. They then add value to the public data and re-sell it to firms and consumers. Some studies argue that such open access regimes improve competitive market conditions for PSI re-use, stimulate economic growth and create jobs. However there are also arguments that commercial re-users may have low-cost access to data which was costly to create for the government, and that taxpayers may pay twice for the PSI content (once for creation of government content, and the second time when purchasing the content from a commercial re-user, although provided re-use is non-exclusive, users can also go to the original source for the original information, presumably at lower cost, but without value-added services). On the other hand, in other OECD countries, there are access regimes where the public sector holds public sector information for its own use or employs cost-recovery strategies that allow only limited and potentially expensive access. In this scenario there are arguments that potential consumers of this data may have only restricted access to it, and that this approach is more costly to the consumer and for the taxpayer. Moreover, the potential economic gains from development of new commercial activities based on PSI reuse may be foregone. The economic and equity arguments surrounding commercial re-use of public sector information and content are complex and deserve considerably more analysis and policy attention. If public sector content is to be more widely available through ICTs, it is crucial that cultural institutions have adequate in-house capacities and sustainable financial resources for digitisation. In many countries the cultural sector has faced cuts in public funding, and efficient digitisation has been a challenge for small and regional institutions. While public resources will remain important, private-public partnerships and the development of e-learning markets provide alternatives to finance content digitisation. Public sector information can also be sold and monetized to develop self-sustaining revenue streams helping data creation and digitisation efforts. Networks and interactive communities are also important because they allow cost reductions along the lines of open software development. With respect to copyright many challenges for content preservation and diffusion arise. This study addresses challenges and related policy issues with respect to both PSI and public sector content. It is a first review of the area of public sector information and content and it is proposed that follow-up work be carried out in this area, particularly on the economic and distributional aspects of different access, cost, pricing and distribution models for public sector information and content. (A bibliography is included. Selected examples of digital education institutions/projects, recommendations for online cultural content, and related abbreviations are annexed. Contains 7 figures, 17 boxes and 6 tables.)

For the past decade there has been a surge of international interest in Japanese education in the wake of its economic and technological successes. This paper discusses eight distinctive features of Japanese education, identifying their advantages and disadvantages and how they have been brought about. These eight features of Japanese schooling include: (1) childhood and adolescence often completely occupied with schooling; (2) privatized development of pre- and post-compulsory education; (3) preference for general education under the single-track system; (4) automatic promotion of classmates by seniority; (5) low enrollment of non-Japanese and adults in schools; (6) high educational achievement with little variation; (7) unique screening function of entrance examinations; and (8) autonomous school management. Japan is likely to experience certain difficulties in correcting the weaknesses and defects in its education system, or in adopting the virtues of foreign education systems. As a rule, foreign practices which are in harmony with Japanese culture, values, or ideas have been more successful in Japan than in their countries of origin. Those practices which are not in harmony have not been successful at all. (61 references) (LAP)

The literature on employment growth in the United States and selected industrialized countries and the wage, benefits, and job security characteristics of new and existing jobs were analyzed to determine how job growth and quality in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s compares to that in other industrialized countries. Among the study's main findings were the following: (1) although job growth has been greater in the United States than in most other industrialized countries, only 20-30% of the differential in employment rates between the United States and European countries during the 1980s is accounted for by cross-country differences in unemployment rate trends; (2) not all groups benefited from the strong job growth in the United States in the 1980s (for example, rates of unemployment/labor force nonparticipation among less-educated prime-age men have increased significantly); (3) although a disproportionate number of new jobs were added in high-paying occupations in 1988-93, 20% of net new jobs were added in occupations at the bottom of the earnings distribution; and (4) the biggest deterioration in job quality in the United States has been due to deteriorating wages and benefits across a broad spectrum of new and existing jobs. (Contains 39 references.) (MN)

Part of a series of studies on higher education in different countries, this paper examines internal differentiation of Japanese higher education and the problem of coordination, using a comparative perspective. The crucial difference in the division of universities by subjects among different nations has been between chair and department organization. In Japan, both kinds of organization are found, but the chair structure has been the more important of the two. The Japanese tier structure has been more like the European mode than the American; there is no sharp distinction between undergraduate and graduate study as in the United States. Both Japan and the United States have a range of institutional types that have developed under private sponsorship as well as state authority. Japan has numerous sectors and subsectors among its large population of 1,000 institutions. Japan has much institutional hierarchy in higher education; there is a vertical ladder of prestige ranking among the many sectors. For over a century, Japan has provided bureaucratic coordination of higher education in the form of a national ministry of education, and professors are also involved in coordination nationally as well as locally. Political influences on higher education have been exerted by political officials and to some extent by external groups, and the consumer market is extremely active in Japanese higher education. (SW)

The use of connectives in 41 academic papers written for an English writing course by Japanese students ranging from university sophomores to graduate students was examined. Connectives were categorized as additive, adversative, causal, and temporal. Each connective type was subject to certain types of error. Additive connectives tended to be overused, possibly because of the influence of oral discourse. In contrast, adversative connectives were omitted; this may be explained by the Japanese students' lack of awareness that the adversative connection is usually marked and requires a connective. Causal connectives are the most difficult for Japanese writers of English. Due to first language transfer, causal connection may be left "bare," while connections that are unrelated to cause and effect may be marked with a causal connective. Results showed no conspicuous error in temporal connection. (JP)

The study undertook to teach and fix the reading of meaningful symbols (hiragana, the Japanese syllabary alphabet, and kanji, Chinese characters) to a mildly retarded 7 year old Japanese boy. The phonological method was used to teach hiragana and pictures were used to teach kanji. Behavior modification using reinforcement and time out was employed. Results showed that the boy retained 90% of the letters taught by the phonological approach but was unable to retain the kanji numbers because his concept of numbers was as yet unformed. All reinforcement techniques and the time out procedure enhanced learning. Following treatment the boy's behavior changed; he correctly wrote the letters he had acquired, stopped getting out of his seat during class, and stopped crying so easily. (PHR)

The report describes regulation of philanthropic organizations by federal, state, and self-regulatory groups within the organizations. It is the final volume in a five volume series examining the relationship between nonprofit institutions and their donors. Topics discussed in the first part of this volume are regulation of the philanthropic sector, accountability with respect to financial reporting, solicitation and fund raising, and lobbying activities. Detailed procedures and pending legislation are reviewed concerning federal and state regulations. Section two examines tax incentives, matching grant programs, and regulation of charities in foreign countries. Special emphasis is on Canada and Great Britain. Other countries reviewed are Australia, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. (Author/AV)

A 9-year-old autistic boy with language comprehension skills but minimal meaningful expressive language was exposed to a language training program. The program began with imitation of sounds and progressed to discrimination training, responding to his name, and partial verbalization. Positive reinforcement (including food and a revolving light) was supplied throughout the program. The S's spontaneous verbalizations to picture card stimuli increased dramatically during treatment, with additional evidence of improved verbal clarity. Difficulties with misbehavior and use of food reinforcement were noted. Training effects did not generalize to other settings. (CL)

A study was conducted to test the proposition that intensive formation of human capital on the job is the basic reason for the strong degree of worker attachment to the firm in Japan. The greater emphasis on training and retraining, much of it specific to the firm, results also in steeper wage trajectories, because of growth of skills in the firm, according to this hypothesis. The study measured wage profiles and turnover in age groups, and it tested the inverse relation between the two on industry sectors in Japan and the United States. Numerical estimates of this relation led to the conclusion that as much as two-thirds of the differential in turnover between the two countries is explainable by the differences in the steepness of the profiles. The study determined that the emphasis on human capital formation on the job is so much greater in Japan than in the United States because such emphasis is conditioned by rapid economic growth. Using productivity growth indexes for industries in the United States and Japan confirms the hypothesis that rapid technical change that induces greater and continuous training is in part responsible for steeper profiles and for less turnover. The study concluded that differences in productivity growth between the United States and Japan account for up to 80 percent of the differences in the steepness of wage profiles, and indirectly for the differences in turnover. The hypothesis also holds up for Japanese plants in the United States, where the steeper tenure-wage slopes and lower turnover are much closer to Japan than to the United States. (Author/KC)

With reference to Fenson's (1984) study of American children's pretend actions and utterances, this study examined the development of pretend actions and utterances in the play of 16 Japanese firstborn children. Subjects, whose cognitive and language development had been followed experimentally since the age of 6 months, were nonretarded 30-month-olds from middle class families. Videotapes were made of the children's spontaneous behavior with dolls and a stuffed toy, miniature toys, and junk materials. Pretend actions and utterances were grouped into the categories of decentration, decontextualization, and integration. Findings indicated that a majority of children reached the levels of active other-directed, substitutive, and multischeme expressions in both actions and utterances. However, it was suggested that the combination of modeling and feeding utensils would significantly increase the proportion of children showing inventive expressions. Developing skills such as active other-directed actions toward lifelike objects, substitutive actions for physical dissimilarity between the signifier and the signified, substitutive utterances other than naming, and inventive actions of object use were also interpreted to be facilitated by modeling. Since the roles of actions and utterances were not always the same in pretend play, it was suggested that further studies on multimodal aspects of pretend play are needed. (RH)

Many work-bound youths have poor work habits and poor basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. Many work-bound youths, especially minorities and females, spend their first years after school unemployed or job hopping, with consequent loss of training and productivity. These problems are becoming more serious because minorities and females are becoming an increasing portion of the labor force and the youth labor force is shrinking while demand is projected to increase. Achievement cannot be improved without student incentives and teacher authority. The school-work transition and employers' hiring practices undermine student incentives and teacher authority. Lacking authority, teachers make "bad bargains" with youths. Japan, West Germany, and Boston use alternative models. To improve the situation of noncollege-bound students, (1) employers should hire youths based on grades, test scores, and school recommendations; (2) employers must show youths how basic skills lead to desirable jobs; (3) employers must tell school counselors about job openings and hiring criteria, trust counselors' recommendations, and make hiring selections while youths are still in school; (4) schools must make grades meaningful to employers, especially recruiters and supervisors; (5) schools should rate students for "effort" and for "improved skills"; (6) teachers should write references for work-bound students, as they do for the college bound; (7) schools must make grades and teacher recommendations available to employers and make transcripts easily understood and compared; and (8) schools must restructure the general track to offer preparation for youths' future goals. (80 references) (CML)