Describes efforts of the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement (NCCI), which seeks to function as a catalyst for higher education institutions to come together in search of best practices. The organization presents an annual meeting and several workshops a year, hosts a Web site, distributes electronic bulletins, and is starting an…

Discussion of dictionaries as databases focuses on the digitizing of The Oxford English dictionary (OED) and the use of Standard Generalized Mark-Up Language (SGML). Topics include the creation of a consortium to digitize the OED, document structure, relational databases, text forms, sequence, and discourse. (LRW)

Provides an overview of a planned session to describe the work of the World Wide Web Consortium, including technical specifications for HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), XML (Extensible Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and over 20 other Web standards that address graphics, multimedia, privacy, metadata, and other technologies. (LRW)

Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) is fast emerging as a globally recognized initiative in the area of the monitoring and evaluation of educational quality, and the results of its research and training have not only been used within the member countries, but elsewhere too. SACMEQ has had a presence…

The Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley is an educational consortium with four members: Clarkson University, State University of New York at Potsdam, State University of New York at Canton, and St. Lawrence University. Access to higher education at the Associated Colleges has been a special ongoing interest and mirrors a national…

Purpose: To build awareness of an emergent global network of sustainability consortia, the network's Sustainability for the Americas (SFTA) regional cluster, its pilot US-Brazil Sustainability Consortium (USBSC), its subsequent North American Sustainability, Housing and Community Consortium (NASHCC), the process through which these consortia are…

When people once talked about culture, they meant knowledge, belief, art, morals, law and customs--the content of civilization. The word is still used in this way, for example, when referring to the cultures of different ethnic groups or nations. Today, when people talk about culture within organizations they often mean something more complicated.…

Like a number of other colleges and universities, Regis University in Denver, Colorado, has developed a wealth of online courses, offered since 1993 to students in the School for Professional Studies. As a pioneer in the field of online education, Regis often is approached by smaller schools looking for advice in developing their own distance…

The standard approach adopted in library networking or partnership models is neither developmental nor evolutionary, yet development and evolution are keys to robust, contextually responsive partnerships. Using a set of knowledge models first proposed by Owen and Wiercx, this paper argues for a new approach to the modeling of networks in which…

Notes the growing interest in instructional television (ITV) since the creation of a special mass media task force by the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges (AACJC). Describes the AACJC's newly created Instructional Telecommunications Consortium, which is designed to promote liaison between ITV producers and consumers. (JP)

States the case for the consortium in higher education and then examines a consortium with which the author is familiar--Monitoba's Inter-Universities North. Raises questions about the applicability of the consortium idea to the offering of academic programs and makes recommendations for institutions contemplating establishing a consortium.…

Describes STEP (Systems for Training, Evaluation, and Performance), a model consortium of senior training professionals for performance improvement. STEP activities are described, including networking and projects; costs, management, and replication of the model are also discussed. (LRW)

Discusses how collaboration among institutions of higher education in developing international programs and globalizing the curriculum is becoming an effective strategy in postsecondary education. Especially for small- and medium-sized institutions, collaboration can provide the scale and quality of resources needed to sustain cost-effective,…

A consortium of five nursing schools and a hospital established a clinical internship program that increased nurse recruitment and retention and eased orientation and transition. Strategies to overcome turf issues and member resistance emerged. (SK)

Examines the development of the Michigan Research Libraries Triangle, formed by the education librarians of Michigan State University at East Lansing, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and Wayne State University. Explores the unique qualities of each institution's history that have influenced cooperation and considers future possibilities. (LRW)