The authors analysed school performance data to review how well disadvantaged pupils achieve in academy chains. They included chains only if they had at least three academies in 2013, and two sponsored secondary academies for the whole period from September 2010 to July 2013. This means that academies are included in our analysis only when there…

This article features the University Forum for Human Resource Development (UFHRD), a voluntary network or an informal association stemming from two separate initiatives in the UK in the late 1980s. The first of these was at national government level and was the introduction of national competence based vocational qualifications (NVQs) following…

The COLT (Community and Lesser Taught Languages) project is a consortium of five UK universities, working with various other regional organisations to set up replicable projects and structures to promote languages in North West England. It received funding under the UK's national "Routes into Languages" initiative. One objective was to…

Social and mobile technologies offer users unprecedented opportunities for communicating, interacting, sharing, meaning-making, content and context generation. And, these affordances are in constant flux driven by a powerful interplay between technological innovation and emerging cultural practices. Significantly, also, they are starting to…

The European intTT project "An Integral Teacher Training for Developing Digital and Communicative Competences and Subject Content Learning at Schools" deals with initial teacher training in primary and secondary School. The general objective of the project is to train future school teachers in order to improve the development of…

The Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE), was established with DFID [the UK Department for International Development] support in 2006. It is a partnership between research institutions in the UK, Bangladesh, India, Ghana and South Africa. This paper is the first in a series of CREATE publications which…

This paper reflects a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the JISC Innovation Support Centres, CETIS and UKOLN. The research underpinning the report makes use of the NMC's Delphi-based process for bringing groups of experts to a consensus viewpoint, in this case around the impact of emerging technologies on teaching,…

The Foundation Degree was introduced into the United Kingdom awards system by the Government in 2000 as part of a wider strategy to widen participation and to enhance the development of vocational awards at higher education level. The award was controversially called a "degree," despite the fact it was of only 2 years duration and not at…

Defines and discusses strategies for digital preservation. Describes the United Kingdom's CURL (Consortium of University Research Libraries) exemplars in digital archives project "Cedars" led by the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Leeds to address strategic, methodological, and practical issues, and to provide guidance in best…

Describes a research project that focused on the evaluation and promotion of electronic journals in academic libraries in the United Kingdom and in North America. Topics include changing role of the serials librarian; costs; consortia purchasing; relationship between libraries and publishers; and collaboration to ensure interoperability.…

Describes the CALM (Computer Aided Learning in Mathematics) Project developed at the Heriot-Watt University (Scotland) for teaching calculus; reports on the next phase of CALM following further funding from British industry; and discusses future possibilities through the work of the United Kingdom Mathematics Courseware Consortium. (Contains eight…

This paper examines the emerging practice and issues surrounding consortia of educational institutions, formed in Scotland, in order to widen access to higher education for underrepresented groups, and suggests some key strategies for assuring quality in the interests of students. The paper describes the Scottish Wider Access Programme, its…

Describes the development and operation of a program which develops and presents training materials to school laboratory technicians through distance education techniques. Coordinated at Canterbury College of Technology, where it originated, the project has become a consortium with four additional members. (MBR)

Drawing on a current study, funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre, the context of higher education libraries is discussed, including funding and costs and recent major official reports on education and libraries. Future trends and imperatives are outlined. Models of library purchasing consortia are presented. The operation…

Describes Mathwise, a courseware delivery environment developed by the United Kingdom Mathematics Courseware Consortium, whose Courseware Manager provides a protocol for integrating courseware materials from a variety of authors using a variety of software authoring tools. Modules, leaflets and cross-referencing, comparisons with other hypertext…