Immigrant Students, Urban High Schools: The Challenge Continues

Uses examples from New York, Houston, and North Carolina to explore some of the innovative programs that are helping immigrants become educated citizens and productive workers, and highlights issues related to establishing a new educational framework

Tests show that aluminum welds are improved by bead removal

Tests with 2218-T87 aluminum alloy plate indicate improvements in strength, ductility, fatigue properties, and burst pressure result when one or both of the top and bottom weld beads are removed. There is, however, a drop in yield strength. The consistency of test data is considerably improved by weld bead removal

HOW WILL PRODUCTION, MARKETING, AND CONSUMPTION BE COORDINATED? FROM A FARM ORGANIZATION VIEWPOINT

Marketing,

Malaysian capital controls

Malaysian authorities implemented controls on international capital flows late in the Asian crisis, when most of the portfolio outflows had already occurred. The exchange rate had depreciated sharply and was fixed at an undervalued level, making further capital flight unlikely. The turnaround in the stock market, the return of positive GDP growth, the building of reserves, and the relaxation of interest rates all coincided with the imposition of controls. But the same changes took place in other crisis countries that did not follow the same control policies. However, the controls provided insurance against the consequences of possible further disturbances. They created a breathing space for making needed reforms, and the authorities made good use of this time, stabilizing the financial system and pushing ahead with regulatory and supervisory reform for the financial sector and capital markets - a prerequisite for fully liberalizing the capital account. Malaysia incurred a cost: an additional 300 basis point spread paid on floating rate debt for a period after the controls were instituted. But the exit strategy has so far not resulted in lasting flight of portfolio capital. Foreign direct investment remains below precrisis levels, but it is not possible at this stage to attribute this to the effect of controls. On balance, it appears that both the benefits from and the costs of the controls have been modest.Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism

Quality in MOOCs: Surveying the Terrain

The purpose of this review is to identify quality measures and to highlight some of the tensions surrounding notions of quality, as well as the need for new ways of thinking about and approaching quality in MOOCs. It draws on the literature on both MOOCs and quality in education more generally in order to provide a framework for thinking about quality and the different variables and questions that must be considered when conceptualising quality in MOOCs. The review adopts a relativist approach, positioning quality as a measure for a specific purpose. The review draws upon Biggs’s (1993) 3P model to explore notions and dimensions of quality in relation to MOOCs — presage, process and product variables — which correspond to an input–environment–output model. The review brings together literature examining how quality should be interpreted and assessed in MOOCs at a more general and theoretical level, as well as empirical research studies that explore how these ideas about quality can be operationalised, including the measures and instruments that can be employed. What emerges from the literature are the complexities involved in interpreting and measuring quality in MOOCs and the importance of both context and perspective to discussions of quality

Guidelines for structuring learning and teaching opportunities relevant to educators’ open educational resource (OER) engagement

Six guidelines for structuring learning and teaching opportunities relevant to educators’ open educational resource (OER) engagement are proposed in this document. The guidelines are designed to provide information and guidance to facilitate the design and construction of professional learning opportunities to support educators in building new learning practices around OER. In determining how best to support educators’ learning with and from OER, it is necessary to consider not only the nature and structure of learning opportunities they require but also the knowledge and content these opportunities should encompass. Six areas of knowledge that need to be targeted are proposed by these guidelines