2012 Grantmakers Information Technology Survey Report

Together the Technology Affinity Group (TAG) and Grants Managers Network (GMN) conducted an information technology survey of grantmaking organizations in July 2012. This survey serves as a follow?up to similar surveys TAG has conducted in collaboration with the Council on Foundation (The Council) in April 2003, July 2005, and June 2007, and then independently in 2010

Making the technology fit the pedagogy

In this paper we explore whether technology provides the teaching profession with a new form of pedagogy, often referred to as ‘e-learning’, or is merely an attempt to ‘reinvent the wheel’. Salmon’s e-tivities, Laurillard’s conversational framework and others have helped to further the case in favour of a new pedagogy. Distance learning particularly has been has able to derive considerable benefit from the opportunities involved. However, is ‘the Internet’ nothing more than an all-embracing metaphor for a multitude of traditional teaching locations, for example the classroom, campus and the lecture theatre? We find these ‘learning environments’ can exist wherever we want them, as virtual, mobile, personal or even real locations. Has the online world bridged the gap for distance teaching, drawing it closer to traditional forms of teaching, and therefore traditional pedagogy? Does it mean that there are more opportunities for HEIs to move into distance learning provision

Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Adjustments to Information Technology (IT) in Trade Facilitation: The South Korean Experience

This report examines how IT was incorporated into cargo clearance procedures in Korea, and what its implications are for traders, SMEs in particular. After a short introduction in Section I, Section II examines the definition of SMEs in Korea, and SMEs’ role in Korean trade. In Section III, we describe the history of the adoption of IT in Korean cargo clearance. The introduction of IT to cargo clearance procedures in Korea can be roughly divided into two stages. The first stage includes the implementation of: Preparation for Customs Clearance Automation (1980s-1992), EDI Customs Clearance Automation Six Year Plan (1992-1997), Establishment of Paperless Customs Clearance System (1997-2001); and the Plan for Establishment of Infrastructure for Information Technology and Knowledge Management (2001-2003). The main accomplishment of the first stage was a Value Added Network / Electronic Data Interchange (VAN/EDI) which linked KCS and traders in 1996. The system was subsequently expanded so that traders could access the system through the Internet.. The second stage begun in 2003, and has nearly reached completion in 2008. The goal of the second stage is to build an e-trade system where IT is used at every stage of trade, encompassing not only government-business (traders) transactions such as cargo clearance, but all trade-related transactions including business-business transactions as well. This second stage involves the establishment of an e-trade network and “uTradeHub,” which ties not only government with traders, but other trade-related organizations and private agencies such as shippers, insurers, banks and financial institutions. These projects were carried out with considerations for SMEs in mind. Section IV describes the results of the adoption of IT into cargo clearance. We find that IT has significantly lowered costs and sped up the cargo clearance process. Section V includes some case examples of individual firms which use the e-trade network for cargo clearance. Lastly, section VI tries to draw some lessons for other countries which seek to adopt IT into cargo clearance. These lessons include: 1) Adopting IT to cargo clearance must be a part of a comprehensive customs procedure reform. 2) Legal framework must accompany the adoption of IT and e-trade 3) Single network and single standard may be more useful than variety 4) Keep It Simple 5) The e-trade system and paperless trade system is meant to be used by the widest number of people. 6) Trust must be built between SMEs and government agencies. 7) Usefulness of e-trade will increase exponentially when more countries join.SME, Information Technology, Trade Facilitation, Korea

Studies in Trade and Investment: The Development Impact of Information Technology in Trade Facilitation

International trade has been, and continues to be, one of the most important factors in the growth and development of the Republic of Korea. Because of the importance of trade, the Republic of Korea has always been interested in ways of making trade easier and faster. By the late 1990s, the Republic of Korea was one of the most "wired" countries in the world. Given the rapid pace of IT adoption, it made sense for the Republic of Korea to utilize IT for customs procedures and trade facilitation. The Government of the Republic of Korea vigorously pursued extensive use of IT for cargo clearance in order to reduce transaction costs and regulatory burden for traders, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Trade facilitation, ICT, IT, SMEs, international trade, customs, the Republic of Korea

Physicists Thriving with Paperless Publishing

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) libraries have been comprehensively cataloguing the High Energy Particle Physics (HEP) literature online since 1974. The core database, SPIRES-HEP, now indexes over 400,000 research articles, with almost 50% linked to fulltext electronic versions (this site now has over 15 000 hits per day). This database motivated the creation of the first site in the United States for the World Wide Web at SLAC. With this database and the invention of the Los Alamos E-print archives in 1991, the HEP community pioneered the trend to "paperless publishing" and the trend to paperless access; in other words, the "virtual library." We examine the impact this has had both on the way scientists research and on paper-based publishing. The standard of work archived at Los Alamos is very high. 70% of papers are eventually published in journals and another 20% are in conference proceedings. As a service to authors, the SPIRES-HEP collaboration has been ensuring that as much information as possible is included with each bibliographic entry for a paper. Such meta-data can include tables of the experimental data that researchers can easily use to perform their own analyses as well as detailed descriptions of the experiment, citation tracking, and links to full-text documents.Comment: 17 pages, Invited talk at the AAAS Meeting, February 2000 in Washington, D

Facilitating change: tablet PC trials across two distance education focused universities

This paper reports on initial findings in comparing two distance universities’ approaches to trialling tablet technology to enhance communication between instructors and students. There were different reasons for initiating the trials and different approaches to each of the trials, but there were also some striking similarities. For instance both trials were led from the bottom up, however they were each conducted with no knowledge of the other. Funding for each of these trials was resourced from a university learning and teaching grant/fellowship and both projects used an action research approach. The emphasis for both trials was on pedagogical and technological staff development facilitated and administered through each project leader. The paper gives an overview of how the trials were conducted, what did and did not succeed and what could be improved. Longer lasting outcomes that have been achieved through these projects are described. This comparison is meant to guide and inform change agents and identify good practice in the management of technology trials

Trade Facilitation in Regional Trade Agreements: Recent Trends in Asia and the Pacific

The coverage of trade facilitation is found to have become very extensive, with the details of provisions in some agreements matching that in the draft WTO agreement on trade facilitation. Trade facilitation provisions and principles are increasingly seen to apply not only to Customs procedures but more generally, as reflected in the number of recent agreements featuring separate Trade Facilitation and/or Transparency chapters (or equivalent). Other trade facilitation measures that seem to be increasingly common include those on Automation/Use of ICT, Risk Management, Advance Ruling and Single Window. The ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) and its detailed commitment to implement a Trade Facilitation Work Programme stands out as it provides a concrete and specific way forward to ensure that progress is made towards actual implementation of the many trade facilitation measures mentioned in it.trade facilitation, regional trade agreements, RTA, bilateral, free trade agreements, FTA, free trade areas, customs, WTO, Asia, Pacific, paperless, single window, ICT