The high rate of drop out is still a problem in the distance learning system, including at the Universitas Terbuka (UT). At UT, the term dropout is better known as the status of non-active students. The study aims was to determine the median time and determinant of non-active student in distance learning in Indonesia. This study used a cohort…

Social media platforms like Twitter offer benefits for promoting and sharing scientific research. Each user becomes an instant news source for their work, and are able to report lab updates, news, and discoveries in near real time, increasing the visibility and citations of one's research and allowing for direct and public engagement with the…

There is a pressing need to improve the sustainability of educational improvement efforts, but sustainability remains undertheorized in science education. In this article, we draw upon frameworks from organizational culture and sustainability to characterize change within a single undergraduate science department. This in-depth longitudinal case…

In response to the need for a scalable, institutionally supported model of educational change, the Science Education Initiative (SEI) was created as an experiment in transforming course materials and faculty practices at two institutions--University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and University of British Columbia. We find that this departmentally…

The PULSE Vision & Change Rubrics, version 1.0, assess life sciences departments' progress toward implementation of the principles of the "Vision and Change report." This paper reports on the development of the rubrics, their validation, and their reliability in measuring departmental change aligned with the "Vision and…

Women of color are deeply underrepresented in physics. Between 2002 and 2012, only 1% of graduating physics majors were Black women and another 1% were Latinas; only 61 American Indian women total completed degrees in physics in those years (out of 48,000 physics majors). This isolation can lead to additional obstacles that women of color majoring…

Some soil and crop science university programs undergo curricula revision to maintain relevancy with their profession and/or to attract the best students to such programs. The Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University completed a thorough data gathering process as part of its revision of the undergraduate curriculum and…

Between March 20 and July 8, 2008 (the spring semester of 2008), the authors contacted each of the 763 departments in the US that award at least a bachelor's degree in physics by e-mail, mail, and certified mail. They received responses from 713 departments (93%). This report describes their findings. (Contains 3 tables and 3 figures.)

There has been much recent interest in the extent to which the teaching in higher education delivered by non-academic staff has increased in the recent past. Within the Biosciences there has always been a tradition of engaging postgraduate students to support the delivery of some forms of teaching. In this paper we report on the findings of a…

In 1991, a survey questionnaire concerning undergraduate education in physics was sent to a nationally representative sample of 597 four-year colleges and universities. Of these, 475 had an undergraduate physics department or a department with a physics program, and met the criteria for inclusion in the study. Responses were received from 450 of…

The purpose of this study was to explore and discover classroom management problems encountered by undergraduate science teaching assistants (TAs). Information about TA perceptions of classroom management problems was obtained to better understand how gender, teaching experience, and academic discipline affected their classroom management…

In 1991, a survey questionnaire concerning undergraduate education in geology was sent to a nationally representative sample of 597 four-year colleges and universities. Of these, 275 had an undergraduate geology department or a department with a geology program, and met the criteria for inclusion in the study. Responses were received from 262 of…

A new, objective measure of departmental performance--rate of publication in key journals--is described and shown to be highly correlated with the American Council on Education (ACE) ratings of quality. Updated rankings of mathematics, physics, and chemistry departments based on this index are presented. The analyses indicate that the ACE rankings…

Reports of a survey of 36 Southeastern United States geoscience departments on policy, faculty size, salaries, teaching, and research. Departments are classified into five categories by university enrollment. (Author/MA)

Reports on the flow of faculty members to and from academic institutions. Compares data between public and private institutions and between predominantly Ph.D. versus B.S. degree producing institutions. Discusses the problems of maintaining the quality of education offered by engineering and engineering technology administrators. (YP)