In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is an international comparative learning assessment measuring young people's knowledge and skills, Finland has been ranked at the top in the two rounds conducted and reported so far. In this article, the authors examine the discourses within which Finland's PISA results have been…

Discussion of experience gained by the Finnish central library for technology in off-line use of computer-based services, both selective dissemination of information and retrospective searches offered by the Royal Institute of Technology Library and the Biomedical Documentation Centre in Stockholm, as well as the Technological Library of Denmark…

Describes the Bologna Process (a European-wide project to create a European Higher Education Area and harmonize degree structures), examining how educational policy has reached a stage for considering a European Higher Education Area that examines concepts of harmonization and the Bologna Process. Discusses future scenarios, highlighting why…

An international comparison study investigated the organisation and management of continuing higher education (CHE) in Germany, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Austria and the United States of America. CHE is compared on the system level (boundaries between traditional study programmes and CHE, linking of CHE and vocational training,…

This study clarifies whether secondary school students develop their argumentation skills through reading and collaboration. The students first constructed an individual argument diagram on genetically modified organisms, read three articles, and improved their diagrams. Next, they engaged in a chat debate, reflected on their debate by…

The turbulent business environment requires business expertise from ever-larger personnel groups. The required business know-how is a combination of knowledge and several different skills, and it should provide the learners with an overall view of the functioning of a business organization as a whole. Moreover, while work is increasingly becoming…

The aim of this study was to identify social patterns in mobile technology mediated collaboration among distributed members of the professional distance education community. Ten participants worked for 12 weeks designing a master's programme in information sciences. The participants' mobile technology usage activity and interview data were first…

The Masters level Opportunities and Technological Innovation in Vocational Teacher Education project (project site: http://motivate.tmpk.bmf.hu/) aims to develop the use and management of virtual learning environments in the area of vocational teacher training, drawing on a well established international partnership of institutions providing both…

Brief summary of recent trends and emerging problems. (SP)

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Conference on Education and New Developments 2013, taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 1 to 3 of June. Education, in a global sense, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the human being, in the way one thinks, feels and acts. One of the…

The theoretical premise of this article is that policy is constructed and presented discursively. The Bologna process presents us with an example of such a policy construction process where the quality policy goals are set jointly in transnational settings, requiring different kinds of negotiations and discursive strategies. Discourse analysis of…

Economic-crime investigation in Finland is in transition from hierarchically organized, sequential collaboration between authorities toward parallel, interorganizational collaboration. This article describes the tools used and developed for managing the new collaborative economic-crime-investigation process. The challenge is to find…

The effects of cooperation between day care personnel and parents were assessed in two stages. First, action research in three experimental day care centers and two control groups created and evaluated a cooperative program. Second, the results of the research were implemented as an intervention program supporting home education in family day care…

The Nordic University in Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine--the NOVA University-was established in 1995 to increase the cooperation between the Nordic agricultural universities. The NOVA libraries of the seven institutions and facilities involved wanted to show that they are a very useful partner in launching new ideas. They have the…