California's three public higher education systems (University of California, California State University, the California Community College System) enroll nearly 3 million undergraduate students and employ almost 100 thousand faculty. In 2012, the California State Legislature directed the three systems to create an online library of open…

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…

Developed for members of the Virginia Community Colleges Association (VCCA), this handbook provides information on various aspects of the association's organization, activities, policies, and services. The handbook contains the association's 1988-89 annual report, which highlights activities related to professional development, member…

A consortium was formed to experiment in sharing instructional ideas and materials among the membership of the North Carolina community college system for the purpose of improving the quality and efficiency of instruction by increasing the availability of high quality instructional materials while at the same time decreasing the costly duplication…

Reports on a study conducted by the Northern Illinois Learning Resources Cooperative to determine requirements and develop recommendations for a statewide library telecommunications network. Covers the results of a statewide needs assessment, the current status of library and educational telecommunications, trends, functional design criteria, and…

Accountability has been a developing issue for community colleges for the past several years. Demands that two-year colleges provide evidence of the achievement of their goals has placed a heavy burden on institutional research offices. A number of organizational models have been used by community colleges in carrying out the research function,…

This report provides data on the goals and outcomes of a consortium established in 1994 by public and private safety agencies and community colleges in California. The opening sections describe the formation of the consortium, indicating that its main goals are to reduce duplication of public safety course offerings at adjacent locations; create…

While most community and technical colleges individually offer courses by distance learning, they are increasingly challenged to provide the full range of instructional and student support services needed for expanding distance education programs. To address this issue, Washington and Oregon community and technical colleges formed distance…

The community service/continuing education (CS/CE) departments at Michigan's 29 community colleges have developed a network of joint programming in order to share and duplicate successful programs across the state. This process has been sponsored through the Michigan Community College Community Services Association (MCCCSA), which was founded in…

This report describes a project designed to (1) develop models for use of vocational education data available from the Oregon Management Information System (MIS) to implement decision making at key points in program planning and curriculum development, and (2) design, develop, and test a system to improve the competencies of state and local…

Actions of the Maryland Council for Higher Education (MCHE) with respect to desegregation of public higher education, information concerning funds and personnel appropriated for the implementation of Maryland's desegregation plan, selected comparative data, and desegregation status by institution are reported. Among the MCHE desegregation…

These proceedings consist of papers presented at a conference devoted to educational resource sharing. Included in the volume are the following papers: "Educational Resource Sharing: The Challenge for Illinois" by Lewis D. Patterson; "Resource Sharing: The Test Is Yet to Come," by John W. Huther; "A Response to the…