School districts at times need to implement structural and programmatic changes requiring students to attend a different school, which tends to elicit strong parental emotions. This qualitative study analyzes how parents in one suburban Rhode Island district responded to a large-scale redistricting at the elementary level in order to (a) attain a…

This qualitative exploratory single-case study was designed to examine and understand the use of volunteer community participants as software developers and other project related roles, such as testers, in completing a web-based application project by a non-profit organization. This study analyzed the strategic decision to engage crowd…

Open courseware and other open educational resources are beginning to draw the attention of higher education policymakers and other leaders. These web-based educational tools hold the promise of both reducing the cost of higher education and helping learners to complete their degrees by providing access to top quality course materials and…

The unanimous passing of the Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2011 highlights the need to create a cost-effective pathway to baccalaureate degree growth. Using an exploratory case study design, this study compared the cost-effectiveness of two baccalaureate degree programs offered by institutions in the State University System of…

In Rhode Island, unless costs for education are controlled, taxpayers could face increased property taxes, increased sales tax on goods and services, and tax increases to existing fees to raise revenue (NEEP, 2010). Reducing the number of school districts was cited as the number two solution by the New England Economic Partnership in 2010 to…

Over the past decade, as states and localities began feel the effects of rising gas prices and a crumbling economy, more districts have begun to regard online education as a way to save money. Nearly every state has some form of virtual high school program. Online education is a favorable alternative to firing personnel or cutting programs, but…

"Rent or buy?" is a question people ask about everything from housing to textbooks. It is also a question universities must consider when it comes to high-performance computing (HPC). With the advent of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Microsoft Windows HPC Server, Rackspace's OpenStack, and other cloud-based services, researchers now have…

In recent years, schools have been forced by rising costs and shrinking budgets to stretch their resources further than ever before in order to meet the educational needs of today's students. EPA's ENERGY STAR program helps K-12 schools and districts improve energy efficiency, reduce operating costs and redirect critical resources into the…

A year ago, only a handful of K-12 schools and universities had integrated tablets into their curricula. Today, not one week passes with out another iPad rollout announcement. The reasons that schools use tablets are as varied as the schools themselves. Hawaii Preparatory Academy uses iPads to encourage budding physicists, linguists, and…

This article discusses the story behind American University's brand campaign. Colleagues and peers are asking how American University developed a brand strategy--"KNOW/WONK" campaign that launched in fall 2010--that's original, authentic, and representative of AU's distinctive personality. What they really want to know is how AU got it through the…

Gum chewing has been shown to improve cognitive performance in adults; however, gum chewing has not been evaluated in children. This study examined the effects of gum chewing on standardized test scores and class grades of eighth grade math students. Math classes were randomized to a gum chewing (GC) condition that provided students with gum…

Purpose: This paper aims to present a case study illustrating the issues involved in the tacit knowledge conversion process and to determine whether such conversion delivers value to the organisation in terms of business value and return on investment (ROI). Design/methodology/approach: A single-case multiple baseline participants experimental…

To improve the U.S. education system through more-effective classroom teaching, in school year 2009-2010, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching sites. The Intensive Partnerships Initiative is based on the premise that efforts to improve instruction can benefit from high-quality measures…

Can districts and charter management organizations (CMOs) use contemporary ideas about teacher evaluation, management, and support to spark big improvements in student outcomes? To answer this question, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative with seven sites across the country…

This document provides the final two appendixes for "Improving Teaching Effectiveness: Implementation. The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching through 2013-2014" (ED580306). Appendix D provides detailed discussions of lever implementation for each site along with the detailed coded lever tables. Appendix E summarizes the…