This article traces the development of the OpenCourseWare movement, including the origin of the concept at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the implementation of the MIT OpenCourseWare project, and the idea's spread into the global educational community, ultimately resulting in the formation of the OpenCourseWare Consortium. The…

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a unit within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, is the world's largest social science data archive. The data sets in the ICPRS database give the social sciences librarian/subject specialist an opportunity of providing value-added bibliographic…

People do not want to know the history, minutiae of policy, or operations, or even the political intrigues of a virtual consortium. People want to know if the consortium has value, whether it can help them, and if it is a threat. In this article, the author focuses on the operating principles and policies that have proven successful in the…

An understanding of organisational structure can provide guidance for organisations that want to change and innovate. Many writers agree that this understanding allows organisations to shape how their work is done to ultimately achieve their business goals--and that too often structure is given little consideration in business strategy and…

The focus on quantitative literacy has been increasingly outside the realm of mathematics. The social sciences are well suited to including quantitative elements throughout the curriculum but doing so can mean challenges in preparation and presentation of material for instructors and increased anxiety for students. This paper describes tools and…

The process of innovation-development to scaling is varied and complex. Various actors are involved in every stage of the process. In scaling the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)-led integrated watershed management projects in India and South Asia, three drivers were identified--islanding approach,…

A collaborative team of faculty from The University of Akron (UA) in Akron, Ohio, and Kent State University (KSU) in Kent, Ohio, were awarded a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop a specialty area in the graduate speech-language pathology (SLP) programs of UA and KSU that would train a total of 32 SLP students (trainees)…

Higher education institutions are confronted with increasing demand for electronic access to educational opportunities, improved academic quality and accountability, and new academic programs that address societal workforce and economic development needs. Collaboration allows institutions to combine resources to respond efficiently and effectively…

Trainers from different organizations who share ideas and strategies benefit from the experiences of their colleagues. Creative trainers are discovering a cooperative approach to the development and delivery of training. (JOW)

Describes consortia formed by college and university administrators to buy, manage, and maintain their own fiber-optic networks with the goals of cutting costs of leasing fiber-optic cable and planning for the future. Growth capacity is the real advantage of owning fiber-optic systems. (SLD)

Almost non-existent five years ago, the use of online courses has grown dramatically in Maryland, with more than 25 courses now available. Online course enrollments have also increased from 31 students in 2003 to more than 600 in 2006. A major reason for this remarkable growth has been the Maryland Students Online Consortium (MSOC), a state-local…

The Annual Report of the North Dakota Higher Education Consortium for Substance Abuse Prevention (NDHECSAP) indicates the extent to which prevention services on North Dakota (ND) campuses assist in harm reduction and student retention. Recently a number of national studies have indicated increased attention to collegiate high-risk drinking and the…

The Colleges of Worcester Consortium has created a broad array of statewide, higher education access services over several decades by leveraging federal, state, local, and foundation resources. The consortium comprises thirteen diverse colleges and universities in central Massachusetts and is a nonprofit regional association of these institutions:…

APPEAL (Asia Pacific Programme of Education for All) Resource and Training Consortium (ARTC) was initiated in May 1997 at the Technical Working Group Meeting organized by APPEAL in cooperation with the Indian Institute of Education (IIE) to provide technical support and assistance to the work of APPEAL among the Member States. This booklet is a…

Creating programs and curricular offerings that are standards-based is a worthwhile goal that can best be achieved by using the many and varied resources available to educators and others. This article describes several such resources, including the ITEA Annual Conference, ITEA-CATTS Standards Specialists, ITEA-CATTS Engineering byDesign[TM]…