The purpose of this article is to examine Universal Design (UD) applied to instruction as a means of promoting educational access to higher education, not only for students with disabilities but also for a broad range of diverse learners now very much a part of the fabric of higher education. A brief overview of UD is provided. Seminal literature…

Designed to guide those who want to replicate a similar program at their institutions, this article examines Xavier University's experience with The Business Profession, a required, noncredit series of career-related events that business majors take over a 4-year period. This program was developed in response to research indicating that early…

This article focuses on an extended, interactive, collaborative project in a junior/senior-level business communication class. The main goal of the project is to address a difficult task central to many college-level writing courses: teaching students to consider and to write for specific audiences other than the teacher. A second goal is to focus…

The authors report on the planning, execution, and future of Northwestern University's Introduction to Electronic Resources/Humanities Computing Training Day, a mandatory one-day set of classes for first-year doctoral students in humanities disciplines. The project is a collaborative effort among the Office of the Dean of the Weinberg College of…

Purpose: To describe an approach to course redesign that may provide others in the field with a "template" to follow or modify when course redesign is necessary. Design/methodology/approach: Action research implies making a change and then observing and responding to the consequences of that change. Making the change in this course involved:…

This paper reports the development of an international Masters in Information Studies between the Universities of Parma (Italy) and Northumbria (United Kingdom). Rather than concentrating on a detailed discussion of course content, it considers the strengths of an international collaborative course development and delivery and the issues involved…

This article details the work of the Birmingham Initiative, a Methodist inspired, ecumenical research project that operated in Birmingham, in the West Midlands of the United Kingdom between 1995 and 1999. As the Christian Education Development Officer employed by this project, the author undertook doctoral research among twenty-six inner-city,…

The purpose of this article is to provide a critical review of the motivating factors, processes and outcomes pertaining to learning-centred curriculum reform in higher education. A case study example is provided from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Although academic units on university campuses tend…

This article presents findings from a case study on the National College of School Leadership (NCSL) in Nottingham, England, an exemplary program that bridges the theory-to-practice gap using distributed leadership philosophies to develop leadership among school administrators and has manifested a positive impact on school leadership in England.…

Authentic learning designs have been explored for some time now and have frequently been shown to provide learning settings that provide many meaningful contexts for learning. These meaningful contexts provide not only encouragement for students to learn but also a raft of learning enhancements including higher-order learning and forms of learning…

Practical guidelines are offered for the use of synchronous online conferencing software by session administrators and moderators. The configuration of the software prior to conferencing sessions is discussed, and the planning and implementation of useful collaborative activities such as "synchronised browsing." The combination of these…

Library involvement with Campus Reading Experiences (CRE) at two community colleges and two 4-year institutions are described. Each chosen case study reflects a strong library presence in institutional level program planning and instructional development for deeper student learning related to the CRE. In particular, the case studies highlight the…

Several studies have analysed the impact of competency-based methodologies on human resource management, with special emphasis on their applications to management education and development. As concerns management education, however, these studies have usually focused on one or few separate aspects, never proposing a consistent application of…

Effective writing is a typical goal in undergraduate education, especially in general education program. In a survey recently conducted at the University of South Florida, one faculty member said, "I responded [to this survey] because I strongly believe that writing skills are essential for all college students regardless of their major field…

A peer tutoring scheme has been introduced into the Department of Engineering at the University of Liverpool to help 2nd year undergraduate students tackle conceptual design problems. Conceptual design is an iterative process consisting of a series of generative and evaluative stages, which gradually converge on a preferred conceptual solution.…