Did you ever wonder if education has a role to play in stemming the obesity epidemic sweeping across all OECD countries? Or what the impact of increasing urbanisation might be on our schools, families, and communities? Or whether new technologies really are fundamentally changing the way our children think and learn? "Trends Shaping…

Japan's postwar research and development (R&D) efforts have passed through several phases to bring the nation to what may be called "relative parity" with the United States. This document examines the characteristics of Japanese and U.S. R&D efforts. Topics compared include: national science resource patterns; science and…

A pilot survey of institutional research and planning (IR/P) functions at 78 U.S. colleges and universities yielded data on common and diverse tasks, products, and services; broad staffing and related operating expense requirements for these tasks, products, and services; and specific staff "person days" required to perform/achieve each…

A three-step plan for colleges and universities to use in financing technology is presented: (1) establishing an effective asset management program; (2) developing a life-cycle budget process that annualizes total technology costs into streams of longer-term perpetuities; (3) identifying and matching funding sources to meet total annual costs.…

Limited financial resources of colleges and universities make it more important than ever to develop a coordinated, institution-wide process to link academic priorities and expenditures with the technological infrastructure necessary to support objectives. Trade-offs must be made across the institution rather than simply within the traditional…

This report presents a plan for improving higher education within Virginia focusing on controlling costs, improving educational quality, and increasing productivity. The report's three sections: (1) review the price higher education has paid in absorbing massive budgetary reductions and discuss Virginia's current standing among the states in…

This paper presents a complex, hybrid, method of cost analysis of online courses, which incorporates data on expenditures; student/course enrollment; departmental consumption/contribution; space utilization/opportunity costs; direct non-personnel costs; computing support; faculty/staff workload; administrative overhead at the department, dean, and…

The strategic indicators defined in this book, which builds on two earlier studies published by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, are intended to enable institutions to compare their position in key strategic areas with their peer institutions. Data for more than 100 key indicators was collected from nearly 1,000…