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This report presents a holistic approach to understanding and comparing vocational education and training (VET) systems. The approach has been developed jointly by a group of interdisciplinary VET researchers over a 5-year period as part of Cedefop's research on the future of VET and has been reviewed several times. The framework introduces 50 dimensions for analysing VET systems, as well as parts of them, structured according to three overlapping main perspectives: epistemological and pedagogical, education system, and socioeconomic or labour market. The framework is particularly suited to 'clearing the ground' for policy work and provides a model for how research can support policy. This model can be flexibly adapted and applied in any comparative research or international policy learning activity related to VET. [The research was carried out by a consortium led by 3s Unternehmungsberatung (Austria). The consortium includes Ockham IPS (the Netherlands) and the Fondazione Giacomo Brodolino (Italy). The German Federal Institute of Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) supports the project as sub-contractor. For "The Changing Nature and Role of Vocational Education and Training in Europe. Volume 1: Conceptions of Vocational Education and Training--An Analytical Framework. Cedefop Research Paper. No 63," see ED586251.]

Protecting all people from the harmful effects of environmental exposures relies on the coordinated efforts of scientific researchers, regulatory agencies, legislators, and the public. Environmental justice addresses the disproportionate impact that harmful environmental exposures have on individuals and communities who are minoritized and marginalized. It has long been known that environmental problems disproportionately impact these groups; however, addressing these problems has been impeded by structural racism and other biases. Developing effective interventions to eliminate these disparities requires a more diverse and inclusive modern workforce produced by a bottom-up approach beginning with education and professional development of the next generation of researchers. The most effective approaches to addressing inequities rely on active input from impacted populations to ensure cultural and social acceptance and adoption of interventions. Credibly pursuing these efforts in a sustainable, inclusive manner will require a concerted shift in workforce demography. One potential strategy to address these workforce disparities features academic-industry partnerships with targeted professional development programs aimed at minoritized and underserved populations. [This paper was supported by strategic funds from the University Collaboration Office at RTI International and North Carolina Central University.]

This occasional paper is the fourth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). This paper offers detailed insights into education and care service quality ratings for Quality Area 3 (physical environment) of the National Quality Standard (NQS). The focus is on ensuring the physical environment of a service is safe, suitable and provides a rich and diverse range of experiences that promote children's learning and development. This paper begins with an overview of the physical environment standards and what these aim to achieve, highlighting contemporary research and theory behind sustainable environments promoting children's learning. It then outlines the operational requirements of the National Law and National Regulations for the physical environment, with a particular focus on the requirements specific to different service types. The paper also describes how service approval requirements in the National Law apply to the physical environment, and how providers may seek waivers for certain legislated requirements. The paper is intended to be of interest to people who deliver education and care services, families, people who provide training and professional development services to the sector, and to officers in the state and territory regulatory authorities that regulate education and care services.

Capitalizing on the findings in our preceding study of a purely theoretical model, this paper aims to empirically examine whether and to what extent public universities' institutional missions have transformed in recent years in the States of California and New York by quantifying a degree of functional diversification of universities. We focus on research funding and productivity, and public service activities, and have developed a Concentration Equality Index (CEI) to help in this analysis. We then apply the CEI over time to a selected group of public university-system campuses within the State University of New York (SUNY) system, the City University of New York (CUNY), and the California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC) systems. Among our findings: a select group of CSU campuses which all have roles at teaching-intensive schools, have gained increasingly versatile roles with rapidly expanded spending capacity in research and public service. These focal shifts resulted in some CSU campuses transforming into "UC-like universities", that is, a trend toward an institution with multi-functional operations of equally weighted instruction, research, and public service. In contrast, several campuses of both SUNY and CUNY systems have come to place varied weights on chosen missions rather than evening out their roles in instruction, research, and public service.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Strategic planning plays an important but sometimes controversial role in higher education. This paper examines how strategic planning works in Chinese universities, using Peking University as a case study. This essay discusses the rationale for why Peking University (PKU) decided to pursue status as a world-class university along with objectives and value of its various strategic plans beginning in the 1990s. These plans have had four main roles at Peking University: as a means to periodically alter the development path or "roadmap" of the university; as a method to gain or "accelerate resources" largely from government; as a way to communicate with the business community, alumni and other stakeholders regarding the aspirations and needs of the university; and as a tool to engage central government leaders in the future of the university.

In this paper the author explores how colleges whose primary mission is undergraduate education can strategically allocate resources in a way that reduces costs and prioritizes teaching and learning. He starts from a provocative thought-experiment--what would it cost to educate undergraduates at a hypothetical college built from scratch?--and uses the exercise to identify areas that are ripe for cost savings. Rather than focusing only on the conspicuous, big-ticket items that tend to dominate debates about college costs, the author argues that the real levers for increasing efficiency include rethinking student-faculty ratios, eliminating under-enrolled programs, and trimming unnecessary administrative positions. This paper also outlines how policymakers can create incentives for undergraduate colleges to pursue reforms that will make them more cost-effective. (Contains 6 tables and 19 endnotes.)

This paper examines strategies for interpreting and reporting estimates of intervention effects for subgroups of a study sample. Specifically, the paper considers: why and how subgroup findings are important for applied research, the importance of pre-specifying sub- groups before analyses are conducted, the importance of using existing theory and prior research to distinguish between subgroups for whom study findings are confirmatory (hypothesis testing), as opposed to exploratory (hypothesis generating), and the conditions under which study findings should be considered confirmatory based on their pre-specification and pattern of statistical significance for the full sample, its subgroups, and their differences. These issues are illustrated by empirical examples from past work by the authors. (Contains 5 footnotes and 5 tables.) [This paper was also supported by funding from Judith Hispanic Fund for Methodological Innovation in Social Policy Research at MDRC.]

This discussion paper is part of a larger Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) project entitled "Linkages: Connecting Literacy and English as a Second Language" (ESL). The goal of the overall project is for MCL to work with national organizations that support the ESL/Settlement and literacy fields to identify common issues and concerns and to document areas for mutual cooperation in the future. The purpose of the discussion paper is to highlight and summarize current Canadian research over the last five to seven years in terms of key themes, issues, gaps and needed strategies on connections between literacy and ESL. The paper will also reflect the perspectives of a small number of key informants from the literacy, ESL, and settlement fields on key themes. Appendices include: (1) Key Informants; and (2) Interview Questions. (Contains 2 tables and 41 footnotes.)

This research sought to determine which factors relate to higher and lower production of papers, citations and impacts (citations divided by papers), because this is one of the AAU Phase I Indicators and to serve as guiding principles as The University of South Florida (USF) works toward becoming an AAU institution. The time period under consideration regarding citations was from 1981 through 2005. In order to assess the relationship between various possible causal factors and citation productivity, comparisons among AAU and non-AAU institutions were conducted. All institutions investigated were classified as Research Extensive under the 2000 Carnegie system, which produced a sample of 150 schools. The following points emerge from these analyses: (1) It appears to require between 11 and 16 years for the average article to mature regarding citations impact. (2) The best simple predictors of citation productivity are post doctorates, federal research expenditures, national academy members, total research expenditures and core revenues. (3) The strongest influence on citations is the percent of research conducted in biological and health sciences disciplines. The broad discipline areas of biological and health sciences, and other physical sciences and mathematics generate 80.5% of all U.S. papers, and 89.7% of all U.S. citations. (4) Over time, USF exhibits generally upward trends relative to all other institutions on citation productivity, however, the gap between USF and AAU institutions has not lessened during the time under consideration, except with regards to paper impact, where USF reached AAU levels by 1993. However, USF produces far fewer papers than the average AAU institution. (5) Carnegie rankings exhibit a one-to-one relationship with funding, which associates with larger faculty numbers and greater research productivity in the form of published papers and citations. (6) AAU institutions average between two times and five times as many National Academy Members and Faculty Award winners as non-AAU Very High research institutions. (7) AAU institutions exhibit a 54% advantage over non-AAU Very High public research institutions for research expenditures per faculty member. (8) Both AAU and non-AAU Very High research institutions have about 30% of their expenditures coming from undependable grant-based funding. However, for USF this percentage was 42%. (9) Compared to Big East, SUS and Strategic Plan Peers, USF and other SUS institutions have lower tuition than other peer groups. To summarize, during the past 25 years, USF has generally been moving in the direction of AAU institutions, however, as Birnbaum (2007) notes: "...'world-class' has increasingly come to be synonymous with 'Western.' That means science, research, and lots of money..." The basic factor influencing citation productivity appears to be funding, with AAU institutions having a substantial advantage over non-AAU Very High and High Research institutions. The following are appended: (1) AAU Membership Indicators and Definitions; and (2) Tables 5 and 6. (Contains 9 figures, 6 tables, and 6 footnotes.) [This report represents an Internal Technical Report, Office of Planning and Analysis, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida]

This paper provides an overview on ways of thinking about young children's respect for diversity. It maps sources of knowledge about four different sorts of diversity in young children's lives: cultural and racial diversity, developmental diversity (including "special needs'), gender diversity and socio-economic diversity. It sketches this knowledge base in terms of the extensively researched terrain (what we know with relative certainty), the inadequately explored terrain (promising directions), the theoretical terrain (conceptualising and informing practice), the methodological terrain (developing and validating the knowledge), researchers and research centres in the terrain, and regional nuances in the terrain. The literature review conducted for this paper has identified five broad schools of thought on issues of respect for diversity in the education of young children: the laissez-faire school, the special provisions school, the cultural understandings school, the equal opportunities school and the anti-discrimination school. The paper maps each school of thought in terms of its characteristic perspectives on the best methods for understanding and engaging with diversity in young children's lives. Appended are: (1) Emerging lines of inquiry; and (2) Centres of expertise: a beginning guide. (Contains 18 tables and 102 notes.)

Scholarly communication is a multi-relationship topic that is interconnected to various fields and disciplines. Efforts of faculty members, librarians, publishers, information specialists, information technologists and archivists have to be combined together in order to establish and create scholarly communication in any society. In addition of being a multi-relation topic, scholarly communication can be considered an important criterion in assessing and evaluating higher education systems in different countries. Excellent higher education systems have excellent scholarly communications systems, and fair or moderate higher education systems have moderate or fair scholarly communication systems and so on. Therefore, one can assume that there is a positive and a strong relationship between the level of scholarly communication in a certain country and the type of that country, where advanced countries have advanced scholarly communication systems, and poor or developing countries have poor or weak scholarly communication systems. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast higher education systems in technology-based societies and paper-based societies. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Until recently, Higher education (HE) in Brazil had been, identified with colleges and universities running traditional academic undergraduate programs, with expected graduation time of 4 years or more. The universities in the state of Sao Paulo are at the top of international rankings among Brazilian HEIs, accounting for about half of all indexed research done in Brazil and responsible for 40% of all PhD degrees granted in the country. They have a total enrolment of almost 200,000 students, about 1/3 of those in graduate programs. However, by 2000, with pressure for expansion of the HE system in Brazil and in Sao Paulo increasing, it became clear that the singular model of the research-oriented HE institution was no longer a viable one to meet enrollment demand and labor needs. In 2001, Sao Paulo's state government initiated its first attempt at a "Master Plan" focused on how to expand its network of Higher Education institutions. The main target was to achieve a net enrollment rate of 30% for the whole system (private sector included) by 2020, twice the 2005 figure of 15%. At first, plans were made to create a new 2-year college system similar to that of the United States. But that proved infeasible. By 2005 a new plan emerged to expand the existing system of public State Technological Colleges (FATECs) composed of local or regional, colleges which offer 3-year programs, usually related to the economic and development needs of a particular area. Thus far, this program of expansion been a success, while preserving the function of the universities as more selective and research oriented enterprises. A relatively quiet revolution is under way in Brazilian HE, reflecting a global trend in many emerging economy countries where institutional diversification, including the development of a strong system of HEIs offering vocational programs, has played a key role in expanding HE access. (Contains 3 figures and 4 footnotes.)

This report proposes a detailed plan that positions digital and media literacy as an essential life skill and outlines steps that policymakers, educators, and community advocates can take to help Americans thrive in the digital age. It offers a plan of action for how to bring digital and media literacy education into formal and informal settings through a community education movement. The plan of action includes 10 recommendations for local, regional, state and national initiatives aligned with the themes of community action, teacher education, research and assessment, parent outreach, national visibility and stakeholder engagement. These action steps do more than bring digital and media literacy into the public eye. Each step provides specific concrete programs and services to meet the diverse needs of our nation's citizens, young and old, and build the capacity for digital and media literacy to thrive as a community education movement. Appended are: (1) Portraits of Success; (2) About the Author; and (3) About the Communications and Society Program. (Contains 4 figures, references and a bibliography.)

Many leaders of public research universities worry about falling behind private research universities at a time when private university finances have improved dramatically and state support for higher education has declined. In this paper, I provide grounds for a more optimistic view of the competitive position of public research universities. I develop two "business models" for higher education: the public research university model is based on high volume of enrollments and low cost per student, while the private university model is based on low volume and high cost. I show that the private model, at its best, generates a high proportion of future leaders, stronger educational reputations, and leads to the accumulation of more institutional wealth. However, the public model remains viable and successful, principally because it typically generates larger faculties. The total societal contribution of public research universities, as measured by human capital development and research publication, is greater than that of private universities. (Contains 7 tables and 26 notes.)

Private higher education has surged in recent decades and now forms a major part of the world's total higher education. A fourth of total enrollment might be a reasonable guess, albeit a very rough one. Only Western Europe remains mostly marginal to the global trend. Whether new or continuing, contemporary private growth is notable, especially in developing regions. This working paper provides only an introductory, quite partial sketch of how private higher education tends to fit broader higher education patterns, particularly patterns of recent change. Since higher education, and even just private higher education, is very diverse and involves multiple tendencies, it would be far too simple to say merely that private higher education fits broad higher education tendencies. Yet we see reason to highlight private sector characteristics such as huge expansion, responses to rising student demand and changing economies, average smallness in institutional size, tuition dependence, commercial orientations, hierarchical governance, political order, and a certain global self-identification. On the other hand, comparatively limited on the private side are academic research, graduate education, full-time staff, government finance, and government control. (Contains 13 notes.)

This paper describes a study of the factors that motivate researchers toward particular topics as well as the obstacles that may keep them from pursuing these topics with passion and empathy. Interviews were conducted with 47 faulty members at 2 California research universities, 1 public and 1 private. In keeping with the grounded theory approach, an iterative process was used for data analysis. Although this was not intended to be a study of emotions in academic work, the open-ended protocol ensured that issues salient to the respondents would emerge. The passions and personal connections that motivated these educational researchers were unmistakable. Strong drives for social or educational change were tempered, however, by circumstance and process, especially the pressures of working in an organization in which individuals are expected to work toward promotion and tenure. The tenure process emerged as the strongest indicator of whether these researchers experienced constraints as they set their research agendas. Assistant and associate professors were more likely to think of their work with passion and resolve. The data reveal the complex way in which motivations and constraints interact as new faculty find their place in the academy. (Contains 54 references.) (SLD)

Issues of ethics and leadership are important, growing and intense in universities. Five examples are discussed, drawn from the personal experience of the author. These involve the selection of research, the collection and use of ethically sensitive materials, major relationships with industry and donors, access and admissions, and the content of education itself. Analyses of these cases are couched in terms of some of the major trends affecting public research universities, with one conclusion being that the most challenging situations are those where multiple ethical standards are pertinent, and conflict with one another. (Contains 1 table and 9 notes.)

This study examined differences in personality type for college freshmen and the effects of participation in undergraduate research on critical thinking and reflective judgment scores. Participants were 266 undergraduate students. While correlations between personality and the thinking measures were low and of little practical significance, a repeated measures analysis revealed a two-way interaction between research participation and major for change in critical thinking score. A second repeated measures analysis with simple contrasts revealed a two-way interaction between research participation and gender for change in reflective judgment score. Findings thus indicate that participation in undergraduate research affects critical thinking and reflective judgment for some students. The paper also discuses implications and limitations of the study. (Contains 5 figures, 4 tables, and 39 references.) (SLD)

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the variety of information and communication technology (ICT) applications at traditional universities and to integrate them into a holistic picture of the institution. Using the distinction of three key elements of scholarly activity (research, publication, education), it suggests a functional perspective of the organization as a way to raise questions for the assessment of ICT applications in universities. This may lead to a better understanding of the different rationales in research, publication, and education. Acknowledging these differences might enable finding ways for using ICTs to foster academic productivity in each of the different aspects separately and also for contributing to their integration in the organization of the university. (Contains 2 figures.)

This paper considers the viability and applicability of student learning outcomes used as a measure of professorial productivity. While student learning outcomes need to be assessed in order to evaluate faculty productivity, examination of student learning as a concept reveals the difficulty of finding consensus on how to define it. The issue is further complicated by the challenge of how to best educate a diverse student body, as well as by factors that affect the campus environment, such as alcohol abuse, violence, racism, and sexism. Another variable affecting learning outcomes is students' willingness to take responsibility for their own learning. And while faculty involvement in research and writing stimulates classroom intellectual climate, students learn as a result of all types of faculty activity--advising, new teaching technologies, or faculty involvement in campus concerns, and it is difficult to evaluate faculty on the basis of all these components. The paper concludes that appropriate assessment methods are needed, and that student learning outcomes should not be the only basis upon which colleges base faculty rank, tenure, or promotion. Student learning outcomes need to be institution-specific, and internal assessment mechanisms must be established to measure them. (Contains 27 references.) (SW)

This report results from an evaluation of the National Research Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship program. The study sought to determine: (1) whether NSF fellows show evidence of more timely degree completion and early career success; (2) whether graduate fellows and minority graduate fellows experience similar education and career success; and (3) whether the individual award aspect of the program enhanced the educational experience and career options of fellows. A 52-item survey questionnaire measured attendance patterns, completion rates, and time to degree of 9,035 NSF fellows who received first-year awards between 1979 and 1993. The study found positive effects on all three dimensions for female fellows and for recipients of minority graduate fellowships, suggesting a "signaling" effect both for individuals and their departments. The importance of the individual award aspect of the fellowships varied by discipline and by other sources of graduate funding support available in individual departments. Appended are seven data tables and illustrative graphics. (Contains 17 references.) (CH)

Two important sets of performance indicators for institutions of higher education have become established in the United Kingdom: research quality ratings and teaching quality ratings. The research quality ratings and, to a lesser extent, the teaching quality ratings influence the level of government funding provided to higher education institutions. This paper considers the correlations between the two ratings and the possible consequences of policies which reshape the higher education sector by concentrating research resources in a limited number of institutions. Comparisons are made between quality assurance/assessment approaches in the United Kingdom and the United States, finding that U.S. higher education is much larger, more heterogeneous and has less government control than U.K. higher education, While the U.S. system of colleges and universities is generally unranked (by those responsible for accreditation), the UK system includes rankings. Use of use various analytical approaches to compare teaching and research ratings for both systems concluded that it remains unclear whether the measurement standards will lead to improvements in teaching and research. (Contains 38 references.) (Author/DM)

"Creative business services" have grown rapidly in Great Britain and are important in terms of their impact on the economy, including their contribution to international trade. They have helped and been boosted by such business changes as privatization, spread of information technology (IT), and contracting out of services. The sectors of management consultancy, advertising, and market research are subject to considerable structural change and a blurring of boundaries between them. This generates pressure toward multi-skilling. The sectors contain major employers of highly skilled knowledge workers, and they address skills gaps by on-the-job training. Such training tends to be highly company-specific for consultancy, less so for advertising and market research. Consultancy and advertising firms attach relatively low importance to external accreditation of qualifications, but market research firms attach a higher importance. Growth in and professional take over of IT skills blurs boundaries between creative business services and IT. The Internet has a profound effect on the sectors, especially advertising. Market researchers increasingly use the Internet for fieldwork. The Internet revolution affects consultancy with an increasing market for specialist advice on how companies can use the Internet to transform their businesses. (Appendixes include lists of organizations and individuals contacted and 49 references.) (YLB)