United States Of America

Nearly 50 years ago, Schon (1971) urged universities to become aware of life ‘beyond the stable state’ and Toffler (1970) predicted that the information age would force academia to accommodate an ‘accelerating pace of change.’ Their prescient observations about the future have characterized American higher education for nearly 50 years, perhaps best exemplified by the role distance education (DE) has played in this process. DE’s remarkable progression in the US arena began well before the electronic era, extending over a 225-year period. It is a phenomenon that perhaps represents the most significant transformation within academe in a millennium, presenting exciting opportunities and formidable challenges. This chapter offers a descriptive analysis and commentary of key aspects of DE at the post-secondary level in the US, with perspectives gained from the author’s 35 years of scholarship and practice in the field

On line clinical reasoning assessment with Script Concordance test in urology: results of a French pilot study

BACKGROUND: The Script Concordance test (SC) test is an assessment tool that measures the capacity to solve ill-defined problems, that is, reasoning in a context of uncertainty. This study assesses the feasibility, reliability and validity of the SC test made available on the Web to French urologists. METHODS: A 97 items SC test was developed based on major educational objectives of French urology training programmes. A secure Web site was created with two sequential modules: a) The first one for the reference panel to elaborate the scoring system; b) The second for candidates with different levels of experience in urology: Board certified urologists, chief-residents, residents, medical students. All participants were recruited on a voluntary basis. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics of the participants' scores and factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) to study differences between groups' means. Reliability was evaluated with Cronbach's alpha coefficient. RESULTS: The on line SC test has been operational since June 2004. Twenty-six faculty members constituted the reference panel. During the following 10 months, 207 participants took the test online (124 urologists, 29 chief-residents, 38 residents, 16 students). No technical problem was encountered. Forty-five percent of the participants completed the test partially only. Differences between the means scores for the 4 groups were statistically significant (P = 0.0123). The Bonferroni post-hoc correction indicated that significant differences were present between students and chief-residents, between students and urologists. There were no differences between chief-residents and urologists. Reliability coefficient was 0.734 for the total group of participants. CONCLUSION: Feasibility of Web-based SC test was proved successful by the large number of participants who participated in a few months. This Web site has permitted to quickly confirm reliability of the SC test and develop strategy to improve construct validity of the test when applied in the field of urology. Nevertheless, optimisation of the SC test content, with a smaller number of items will be necessary. Virtual medical education initiative such as this SC test delivered on the Internet warrants consideration in the current context of national pre-residency certification examination in France

Sociocultural Learning: A Perspective on GSS-Enabled Global Education

Virtual teams are rapidly developing in organisations of the new economy. As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure that our students are appropriately prepared for work in the virtual workspace, where teams may cross time, geographical, and cultural boundaries. In this article, the culturally sensitive theory of sociocultural learning is combined with GSS (Group Support Systems) in an illustration of how cross-cultural, globally distributed virtual teams of students located in The Netherlands, Greece, and Hong Kong work on vested interest projects. Finally, a set of critical success factors that inform virtual learning contexts is derived from our findings and recommendations are made for operational practice in the virtual work space

The Impact of the Workforce Investment Act on Technical School and Community College Enrollment in Louisiana

Abstract. Rural Louisiana has many of the same problems as other rural states: population decline, unemployment, poverty. At the same time, Louisiana has an extensive array of community colleges, universities and technical schools through which workers can get an education. Workforce development -employee training, linking schools and employers, curriculum to match desired skills -has emerged as a popular tool for rural economic growth. Critics say that the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and welfare reform have made training for the unemployed and economically disadvantaged more difficult to acquire and more difficult to provide

Open and Distance Education in Australia, Europe and the Americas

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. It discusses how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of national higher education systems in these countries, and explores the similarities and differences between the ways in which they are organized and structured. It is the first book to make such comparisons and draw conclusions about the nature of open and distance education in the context of various national higher education systems. In a digital era with growing use of online education as well as open and distance education, this book is particularly useful for policy-makers and senior administrators who want to learn about organizing and expanding open and distance education provision. It is also a valuable reference for researchers, academics and students interested in understanding the different approaches to open and distance education

Strategic planning for information systems: A sociotechnical view of boundary and stakeholder insufficiencies

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 12/11/2002.The thesis proposes that Strategic Planning for Information Systems (SPIS) has become ineffective through a tendency to focus on the information technologies involved. The thesis argues that the dominant rational, reductionist epistemology of SPIS methods, tools and techniques limits the effectiveness of SPIS through methodological impoverishment. The thesis proposes that a humanistic, sociotechnical perspective of SPIS accommodates the use of complementary tools and techniques that improve the process. This thesis advances a new Framework to improve the process of SPIS based on the propositions; first that the lack of sufficient knowledge of both the internal and external environment is a root cause of many of these insufficiencies, and second that this knowledge is held within the stakeholders of this process. An ernancipatory information systems research programme (Klein and Hirschheim, 1987) is used to advance a framework that overcomes the insufficiency and inadequacy of the process of strategic planning for information systems in organisations that permits information systems to fail. The framework is tested on two organisations and shows that the proposed Framework has significant potential to improve the SPIS process. The case research investigates the role of stakeholders, knowledge, and boundaries in the process of SPIS in order to develop more sufficient methods for the process of SPIS that address the perceived inadequacies in current processes, and thus provide an improved strategic planning process for information systems. Two novel tools are introduced: the Stakeholder Web and the Interaction Matrix. Their evolution is a major contribution of this research. The collection of tools presents a practical research contribution for the SPIS process and as generic (methodological) research tools. A new definition for the term 'stakeholder' is formulated and used to supply clarity in understanding for this study - and would prove useful for the field of IS

Virtual learning for health care managers

The health industry in Canada, as well as in other industrial countries, has been in the process of reform for many years. While such reform has been attributed to fiscal necessity due to increased health costs, the underlying causes are far more complex. Demographic changes, new technologies, expanded health care procedures and medications, increased demand and the globalization of health services have all contributed to the change and complexity of the industry. Health reform varies from country to country. In Canada, with a publicly funded health industry, the main reform method has been regionalization. This decentralized reform method arranges health services under a regional corporate management structure. The primary objective of this study was to assess the effects of health reform on the educational development of health-care managers in British Columbia, a western province of Canada. The study had a two-fold approach; to ascertain how health reform had changed the skill needs of health-care managers, and whether e-learning could benefit health management education. The key research questions that guided the study were: How might recent changes in the health industry have affected the learning needs and priorities of health-care managers? What factors might hinder attempts to meet any learning needs and priorities of health-care managers? and What benefits might e-learning provide in overcoming hindrances to effective health management education?A combination of quantitative (survey closed questions) and qualitative (survey open-ended questions, interviews and stakeholder feedback) methods was employed in this study. Overall, this study is described as productive social theory research, in that it addressed a recognized change in learning needs for health-care managers following a period of health reform, a socially significant phenomenon in the health industry. Relying on such tools as a survey, interviews, and stakeholder discussions, data was collected from over five hundred health-care managers. The data collected in this study provided valuable insight into the paradigm shift occurring in the educational needs of these managers. The study found that health reform had expanded the management responsibilities of healthcare managers and increased the complexity of service delivery. Restructuring of the health industry decreased the number of managers, support systems, and career opportunities for managers and increased the manager’s workload, communication problems and the need for new knowledge and skills. In addressing the learning needs of health-care managers, the study found there were limitations in health management educational opportunities available to health-care managers. The findings also show that current health management education was focused on senior managers leaving the majority of industry leaders with limited learning opportunities to upgrade their knowledge and skills at a time of great organizational change.In addition, a classroom format dominated the learning delivery options for many managers. A list of fourteen management skills was used in the survey instrument to ascertain what new skills were needed by health-care managers following thirteen years of health reform. The findings show that of the fourteen skills, twenty-nine percent of health-care managers had no training and fifty-seven percent received their training through in-service, workshops and seminars. Irrespective of gender, age, working location and education the data showed that healthcare managers were mainly receiving training in change and complexity and people skills with less training occurring in planning and finances. Using the same fourteen skills, health-care managers priorized their immediate learning needs, listing the top three, as: evidence-based management, change and complexity and financial analysis. While evidence-based management and financial analysis could be attributed to the introduction of a corporate management structure in the health industry, change and complexity was an anomaly as managers were already receiving training in this skill. Health industry stakeholders believed this anomaly was due to continued uncertainties with ongoing health reform and/or a need for increased social interaction during a time of organizational change. In addressing the many learning needs of health-care managers a new health management education strategy was proposed for the province which included the need for an e-learning strategy.The e-learning approach being proposed in this study is an integration of skill training and knowledge sharing directly blended into the workflow of the managers, using a variety of learning technologies. To support this idea, the study found that the majority of health-care managers were not only familiar with e-learning, they also felt they had the computer and Internet skills for more learning delivered in this manner. While a strong need for face-to-face learning still remained, a blended e-learning strategy was proposed for skill training, one that would accommodate the learning needs of managers in rural and remote areas of the province. Knowledge sharing technologies were also proposed to improve the flow of information and learning in small units to both newcomers and experts in the industry. Since this would be a new strategy for the province, attention to quality and costs were identified as essential in the planning. The study found that after years of health reform a new health management educational strategy was needed for the health industry of British Columbia, one that would incorporate a number of learning technologies. Such a change in educational direction is needed if the health industry wishes to provide their leaders with a responsive learning environment to adapt to ongoing organizational change