As described in "Go8 Backgrounder 24: Answering the Global Challenge--Experiences from European Excellence Initiatives," Germany began a debate about how to strengthen its position as an excellent location for science and research in 2004. This debate focussed in particular on the competitiveness of the country's universities and…

The wellbeing of young children is of national and international concern. Urgent action is therefore required to address issues of children's wellbeing, and failure to do so will have adverse consequences for children today and in generations to come. This paper addresses issues arising from recently published literature in the areas of Early…

Initially emerged in 1978, higher education research institutes (HERIs) in Mainland China have experienced rapid expansion and have become a major force in higher education reform in the last three decades. The development of these research institutes is closely related to the substantive growth of the higher education system itself as well as…

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is one of the world's leading educational research centres. ACER's mission is to create and promote research-based knowledge, products and services that can be used to improve learning across the life span. This annual report describes ACER's milestones and accomplishments for the 2016-2017…

The "Personnel Development Program to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities" is authorized under Section 662 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and is known as the Personnel Development Program (PDP). The PDP is administered by the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) Office of Special…

This paper describes an innovative approach to retaining happy and healthy faculty members in a collegial, productive teaching and learning environment. A major portion of the paper shares how the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning plays a significant role in the faculty interview process, new faculty orientation, and subsequent mentoring of…

Examines 10 major conclusions summarizing the experience of one regional educational laboratory director and pertaining to the potential of educational research and development as a means of improving education. (RAO)

This report is concerned with the relationship of professors and undergraduates at Stanford University. Its purpose is to create the substance for a debate about the quality of teaching and learning at the undergraduate level. The major themes of the report are: (1) Stanford's rise to national excellence as a major research university over the…

Using aggregated data from each of four classical rankings of graduate programs in U.S. universities, it was found that the rankings of institutions in separate studies correlate significantly with each other and the results from the SDR model correlate significantly with the objective measures of academic honors, basic research, and research and…

Reviews the objectives and activities of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning (City Colleges of Chicago). Presents initial findings from studies of the characteristics of effective teachers, effects of course placement on student success, student involvement in instruction, and altering teaching methods to increase…

The development of human resources is discussed, with its long history in British Columbia noted. In January 1988, a feasibility study was undertaken to investigate establishing an independent center for human resources development (HRD). The six terms of reference for the study were: to determine the degree of interest in and support for a…

Author warns how Canada's research and development effort is dangerously underdeveloped and suggests some essentials for an efficient and dynamic educational system to help today's educational crisis. (Author/MM)

The development of a National Framework for Quality in early childhood care and education in Ireland is the main focus of the work of the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education. A central element of the brief for this groundbreaking initiative is that it must have relevance for all settings where children aged birth to six are…

The Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education was appointed in October 1983 by the director of the National Institute of Education (NIE) to: (1) review relevant background materials from the archives of the National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE); (2) review other background materials in other recent…

The Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) attempts to advance the understanding of educational quality by research and development on the design, implementation, analysis, and use of assessment information. CRESST's research programs are directed at five major goals: (1) provide leadership to improve assessment…