This chapter describes techniques and projects that most institutions need if they are to be viable in an increasingly competitive labor market. The authors assert that institutional researchers who increase their involvement in workforce development initiatives can become more valuable to their institution.

In this column, the author discusses the four key questions related to the National LambdaRail (NLR) networking technology. NLR uses Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) to enable multiple networks to coexist on a national fiber footprint, and is owned and operated not by carriers, but by the research and education community. The NLR Board…

Much current educational research shows the influence of two powerful but potentially pernicious lines of thought. The first, which can be traced at least as far back as Francis Bacon, is the ambition to formulate precise techniques of research, or "research methods", which can be applied reliably irrespective of the talent of the researcher. The…

The teacher-researchers have made digital portfolios and blogging the centerpieces of their group as ways to share their research and get input from their peers. The effect of this collaborative project, the digital portfolio, on their teaching is discussed.

Driven by the needs of college/university researchers and guided by a blue-ribbon advisory panel chaired by Daniel E. Atkins, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has initiated a broad, multi-directorate activity to create modern cyberinfrastructure and to apply it to transforming the effectiveness of the scientific research enterprise in higher…

This paper reports the results of a study conducted within the context of a school-university partnership. Researchers investigated the degree to which clinical teachers regularly use and model proficiently the skills and knowledge required of teacher candidates to successfully move towards initial licensure. Results were encouraging for most…

All evaluators face the challenge of striving to adhere to the highest possible standards of ethical conduct. Translating the AEA's Guiding Principles and the Joint Committee's Program Evaluation Standards into everyday practice, however, can be a complex, uncertain, and frustrating endeavor. Moreover, acting in an ethical fashion can require…

This article describes a simple way to explain the limitations of statistics to scientists and students to avoid the publication of misleading conclusions. Biologists examine their results extremely critically and carefully choose the appropriate analytic methods depending on their scientific objectives. However, no such close attention is usually…

A number of researchers in computer-mediated communication have pointed towards its potential to stimulate learner participation and engagement in the classroom. However, in many cases only anecdotal reports were provided. In addition, it is unclear whether the pedagogical set-up or the technology involved is responsible for changes in learner…

This commentary commends the authors of Scientific Research in Education for addressing important questions for the field of education research and identifies six areas that might profit from further attention: 1) explicit factors that compromise the building of scholarly community, 2) introspective conversation on the role of the researcher in…

As the exceptional scholars presented here note, in addition to their attraction to intellectual matters, the academy affords them the opportunity to teach, which some describe as their calling, their mission and their life's work. In concert with the value of their research, publications, awards, fellowships and civic service, these scholars…

Interviewing is key to many forms of qualitative educational research; we interview respondents for oral histories, life histories, ethnographies, and case studies (see Tierney & Dilley, 2002, for an overview of interviewing in education). Despite the primacy of verbal data in qualitative research, basic introductions to qualitative research…

This paper raises methodological issues about the challenges and dilemmas of inclusive research practices reflecting on the work of an advisory group carrying out research on using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance community participation. The interests of three parties can be identified--the commissioning agent, the…

The question of what counts as good education research has received a great deal of attention, but too often it is conceived principally as a methodological question rather than an ethical one. Good education research is a matter not only of sound procedures but also of beneficial aims and results; our ultimate aim as researchers and educators is…

Johns Hopkins researchers at the Wilmer Eye Institute have discovered what appears to be the first human gene mutation that causes extreme farsightedness. The researchers report that nanophthalmos, Greek for "dwarf eye," is a rare, potentially blinding disorder caused by an alteration in a gene called MFRP that helps control eye growth and…