Compatibility, profitability, and leadership : successful innovation and the culture of higher education.

This case study focuses on the culture of one selective liberal arts college. The host institution\u27s culture provides the context for explaining the persistence and success of an innovative adult degree program. The research design is rooted in the naturalistic paradigm which takes a holistic, process-oriented view. The research took place over a full academic year at the site, utilizing a hybrid methodology which included a gamut of qualitative techniques as well as a quantitatively-scored questionnaire to elicit both an historical and current perspective of key participants. An initial reading of the literature on innovation in higher education pointed to the hypothesis that compatibility with the host institution\u27s values and norms and profitability for that institution are necessary and sufficient factors in insuring the success of an innovation (Levine, 1980). Findings from this dissertation corroborate the importance of these factors but suggest that they are not sufficient to account for the success of this particular innovation. The additional feature which emerges from this research is the crucial role of leadership in shaping positive perceptions that an innovation meets the criteria of compatibility and profitability. The critical leadership is two-dimensional: first, there must be an innovative policy entrepreneur who initiates the innovation, then skillful managers must lead it from early stages of development through maturation. In this case, the host institution\u27s core values centered on the faculty\u27s sense of their college as primarily a teaching institution at which serious, self-motivated students, exemplified by the adult students, are highly valued. Moreover, the centrality of the teacher-student interaction was affirmed as a key norm; therefore, features of the innovation which differed from these values were not sustained over time. The value of collegiality between the faculty and the program director and significant administrative autonomy which characterized the program\u27s governance also emerged as central. These findings point to a model for the successful persistence of an innovation in higher education which can be utilized for subsequent comparative case studies. This study should be of interest both to practitioners in adult higher education as well as to theorists concerned with innovation and institutional culture

Optimizing Learner Accessibility: Adding American Sign Language (ASL) and Text-to-Speech to Online Trainings

The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) Training Program is located at the Eunice K. Shriver Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA. The CANS Training Program provides training and certification services for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), MassHealth, Children\u27s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI). Massachusetts behavioral health providers are required to be CANS certified in order to see Medicaid insured children and youth under the age of 21. The CANS Training Program has trained and certified over 26,000 behavioral health providers throughout Massachusetts in the use of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) tool. The Mass CANS on-line training and certification program is designed for clinicians who provide behavioral health services to Massachusetts children and youth under the age of 21. The abilities, learning styles, and primary language spoken among providers is quite diverse. The CANS Training program, committed to providing content accessible to people of all abilities, and has added American Sign Language (ASL) and Text-to-Speech capabilities throughout the online training. These additions to the CANS accessibility toolbox help clinicians of all abilities get the most out of their online training and certification experience. Users may use American Sign Language (ASL) insets or closed captions while using the training videos. We will discuss the recent addition of ASL interpretation and Text-To-Speech functionality to the web-based training; discuss important considerations when improving accessibility; demonstrate the features and discuss our results

Energy-Efficient Downlink Power Control And Scheduling For CDMA Non-Real Time Data

The performance of CDMA systems highly depends on the success in managing interference arising from both inter-cell and intra-cell transmissions. Interference management in terms of power control has been widely studied. In this paper we consider non-real time data services, where in addition to power control, there is the possibility of scheduling intra-cell transmissions. One such schedule is to use time division so that users transmit in a one-by-one fashion within each cell. We combine this form of scheduling with a suggested distributed power control algorithm for the inter-cell interference management. We show that the algorithm converges to a power allocation that supports the non-real time data users with the minimum power while meeting requirements on average data rate. The second author acknowledges that this work was performed while he was with the Radio Communication Systems Group at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) as an Assistant Professor. 1 2 1. INTRODUCTI..

Complexities of Holistic Community-Based Participatory Research for a Low Income, Multi-Ethnic Population Exposed to Multiple Built-Environment Stressors in Worcester, Massachusetts

Low income, multi-ethnic communities in Main South/Piedmont neighborhoods of Worcester, Massachusetts are exposed to cumulative, chronic built-environment stressors, and have limited capacity to respond, magnifying their vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. Neighborhood STRENGTH , our community-based participatory research (CBPR) project, comprised four partners: a youth center; an environmental non-profit; a community-based health center; and a university. Unlike most CBPR projects that are single topic-focused, our \u27holistic\u27, systems-based project targeted five priorities. The three research-focused/action-oriented components were: (1) participatory monitoring of indoor and outdoor pollution; (2) learning about health needs and concerns of residents through community-based listening sessions; (3) engaging in collaborative survey work, including a household vulnerability survey and an asthma prevalence survey for schoolchildren. The two action-focused/research-informed components were: (4) tackling persistent street trash and illegal dumping strategically; and (5) educating and empowering youth to promote environmental justice. We used a coupled CBPR-capacity building approach to design, vulnerability theory to frame, and mixed methods: quantitative environmental testing and qualitative surveys. Process and outcomes yielded important lessons: vulnerability theory helps frame issues holistically; having several topic-based projects yielded useful information, but was hard to manage and articulate to the public; access to, and engagement with, the target population was very difficult and would have benefited greatly from having representative residents who were paid at the partners\u27 table. Engagement with residents and conflict burden varied highly across components. Notwithstanding, we built enabling capacity, strengthened our understanding of vulnerability, and are able to share valuable experiential knowledge

Energy-efficient wireless networking for multimedia applications

In this paper we identify the most prominent problems of wireless multimedia networking and present several state-of-the-art solutions with a focus on energy efficiency. Three key problems in networked wireless multimedia systems are: (1) the need to maintain a minimum quality of service over time-varying channels; (2) to operate with limited energy resources; and (3) to operate in a heterogeneous environment. We identify two main principles to solve these problems. The first principle is that energy efficiency should involve all layers of the system. Second, Quality of Service is an essential mechanism for mobile multimedia systems not only to give users an adequate level of service, but also as a tool to achieve an energy-efficient system. Owing to the dynamic wireless environment, adaptability of the system will be a key issue in achieving this