Internationally educated professionals (IEPs) encounter significant barriers to entry to their professions upon immigrating. Obtaining education in the new country is an effective means of improving their positions. While universities emphasize the need to attract and serve adult learners and a more diverse clientele, the specific needs of…

Purpose: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Next Generation Courseware Challenge (NGCC) in 2014 to address the limited availability of affordable, high-quality adaptive courseware to postsecondary students. SRI International was retained to evaluate the NGCC initiative as a whole and to conduct impact studies for the NGCC…

In 2008, the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation created the Saint Paul Early Childhood Scholarship Program, a pilot program to provide families with scholarships to cover the cost of high-quality early childhood education (ECE) programs. Although there is a large body of research about the benefits of preschool specifically and early learning…

This paper describes an informal component that we added to an online formal language learning environment in order to help the learners reach relevant Internet pages they can freely use to complement their learning activity. Thanks to this facility, each lesson is enriched, at run time, with a number of links automatically retrieved from social…

Many people have considered purchasing a tablet device, such as an iPad, Kindle, or Nook, for personal use, yet how many have considered adopting this new technology as a pedagogical tool in the classroom? This article reports on the adoption and use of Kindle eBooks on the campus during the Spring 2010 semester. The authors report on how the…

A college degree is not what it used to be in respect to securing future employment. Constantly changing technologies in a struggling economy make it necessary for organizations to carefully balance recruitment staffing, particularly with regards to new hires. Organizations want to know that each new hire can add value immediately. In order to add…

This paper evaluates a United Kingdom pilot study designed to test whether a means-tested conditional cash transfer paid to 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in full-time education is an effective way of reducing the proportion of school dropouts. The transfer's impact is substantial: In the first year, full-time education participation rates…

In late 2007, Jobs for the Future (JFF), working with the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, launched "Investing in Student Success", a one-year pilot program. The pilot, conceived of as part of the "Making Opportunity Affordable" initiative and funded by Walmart Foundation and Lumina Foundation for Education,…

Despite a number of organizational limitations and shortcomings, a pilot project in Pakistan designed to make adults functionally literate with the help of television has been demonstrated viable. Three references are listed. (Author/LLS)

The evaluation of the Texas Rural Technology (R-Tech) Pilot sought to understand how districts implemented R-Tech grants, the effects of implementation on student and teacher outcomes, as well as the cost effectiveness and sustainability of R-Tech. The Texas legislature (80th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, 2007) authorized the creation of…

The 2005 Washington State Legislature authorized, through Substitute House Bill 1345, a two-year pilot project allowing eligible students, who enroll for four or five credits in a term, to receive the State Need Grant (SNG). Several important policy considerations emerged during the pilot project. Board staff explored these issues with financial…

Describes a pilot project in automated storage and retrieval of library materials which uses miniload cranes to retrieve bins of materials, and an interface with an online catalog that patrons use to request materials. Savings in space and money and potential problems with the system are discussed. (CLB)

The 21-member Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information was formed in December 1994 and spent a year studying what is needed to make digital libraries stable, accessible, and valid. Their final report is divided into the following sections: (1) "Introduction," which examines the fragility of cultural memory in a digital age and the…

Reviews the copyright problems involved in interlibrary loans using photocopies of journal articles and describes the development of a document delivery system, in which materials are stored on optical disks, printed on demand, and a copyright fee is included in pricing. Technical and practical aspects of the system are discussed. (CLB)

This project explored the possible applications of new technology to standardized testing. Because the multimedia approach is particularly promising for music, the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) music test was chosen as the context for this project. The basic system for administering the test and recording the results was written using…