"iMOOC101: Mastering American e-Learning" is a Coursera-based, free, massive online course aimed at preparing non-U.S. students to succeed in regular, for-credit, online classes in American universities. The course is also intended to help foreign-born professionals integrate into virtual work environments in U.S.-based companies. The…

Based on student survey data from five East Asian countries, the paper contains an analysis of attitudes towards the use of personal connections in politics and towards personal morality among politicians. The first part of the analysis describes the extent and variations of these attitudes, which are viewed as of particular relevance within the…

Established in 2000-2001, the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) is the only master's level religious studies program at a non-religiously affiliated university in Indonesia. In many respects, the program is experimental, operating within the dynamic political and religious environment of the Muslim world's youngest and largest…

This paper will address the question of Islamic fatalism. Survey data will be used to assess Samuel P. Huntington's controversial "Clash of Civilizations" thesis and its emphasis on fatalism as an inherent characteristic of Islamic religion. The concept of fatalism is expanded and theorized as a function of both structural and…

Two studies are reported, comparing the browser loading times of webpages created using common Web development techniques. The loading speeds were estimated in 12 Asian countries by members of the "PANdora" network, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to conduct collaborative research in the development of…

This paper uses the first nationally representative survey of teacher absence collected through direct observation to determine the patterns of absence among full-time teachers in public primary schools in Indonesia. Based on the survey data, the authors found a national teacher absence rate of 19%, with almost half of the absences due to…

How sensitive is long-run individual well-being to environmental conditions early in life? This paper examines the effect of weather conditions around the time of birth on the health, education, and socioeconomic outcomes of Indonesian adults born between 1953 and 1974. We link historical rainfall for each individual's birth-year and…

The paper aims to assess the impacts of a dramatic decentralisation reform in Indonesia on access to and quality of primary and secondary education. The research draws on qualitative and quantitative data from interviews, focus group discussions and household surveys in four selected districts. The main conclusions are threefold; the…

Study abroad programmes for teacher education students are increasingly being evaluated to determine their effectiveness in achieving intended outcomes. There is a danger, however, that such evaluations will ignore valuable but unintended and serendipitous outcomes of such programmes. This paper investigates an example of such an outcome, the…

Multiple regression analysis of 11 home factors and 13 school factors indicated that home accounted for 8.8 percent of the total variance in achievement of sixth grade Indonesian pupils, while school accounted for 6.2 percent. Classroom climate, interpreted as an unmeasured effect of good teaching, accounted for 46 percent of the variance. (CP)

This study investigated the beliefs of tertiary teachers in Indonesia about internationally-published materials. In addition, it explored whether there were mismatches between the teachers' beliefs and what they claimed to be their classroom practices. This study learned that most respondents believed that internationally-published materials were…

The primary purpose of this project was to compile, translate, and publish educational media research material from the major Asian countries and to make that information available in the United States. Educational media research and experimentation is interpreted to include experimental programming, testing, evaluation, and use of all the newer…