First defining and tracing the historical background of home schooling in the United States, this paper then researches how home schooling families are using computers and online technologies. Two separate surveys were conducted. The first was a voice-to-voice survey to determine a computer usage baseline from a population of 103 home schooling…

In this paper the chairman of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century reviewed commission discussions on education in the 21st century. The growing interdependence of the modern world is discussed including the results of the U.S. economic ideology of the Ronald Reagan era on the world economy, and the collapse of…

This paper reviews research and evaluates information gathered on disabilities and service development in South Asia, especially India and Pakistan. The concept of "community-based rehabilitation" (CBR), which stresses the need for rehabilitation efforts rooted in the context of local cultural concepts, is discussed. The paper emphasizes…

Communications media have long been acknowledged as the site of intense political struggle over issues of access to, control over, and representations in these media. That communications research is likewise the site of struggle between the various paradigms of the discipline is, however, troubling to the neophyte communication scholar. For well…

The university can be understood as having three main roles related to the creation of knowledge, the preservation of information, and the transmission of this information to others. While advances in information technology have created new tools to strengthen and enrich the academic and research environment, these same tools may contain the seeds…

For the last 58 years, automation has helped to enhance the library system; library operations such as circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, and serials have changed significantly due to technology. Circulation control is often the first activity a library considers automating. In addition to loan transactions, an automated circulation system can…

This paper discusses the consequences of open learning for professional development of Australian teachers, highlighting the negative consequences of having an instrumental view of open learning predicated on forms of electronic information technology which to all intents and purposes appear central to the learning process. The paper points out…

This paper examines five key trends impacting higher education administration: (1) traditional funding sources are flat or decreasing; (2) public expectations and state mandates are calling for more reporting requirements and accountability; (3) consumer expectations demand more sophisticated services requiring greater access to date; (4) evolving…

The roles of libraries in providing access to the Internet are still evolving, but such roles raise policy issues that are both significant and complex. A flexible and dynamic policy is needed to respond to the different access needs of various users. Market forces alone will not provide equal access to the Internet, and many public institutions…

The Universal Dataflow and Telecommunications (UDT) Occasional Papers distribute information on the use of networking, information technology and telecommunications by and of interest to the international library community. This occasional paper is comprised of three papers related to technologies in Russian libraries: (1) "The First Russian…

Designed to update "The Institute Bibliography 1990" and its 1991 supplement, this bibliography includes all items submitted by members of the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) that are relevant to the area of educational technology. Although this is an update to the 1990 edition, it contains some new entries from 1989 onwards.…

This annex to the main report, the third volume in a three volume set, is based on a study performed by the DELTA (Developing European Learning through Technological Advance) unit in parallel with the projects underway in the research and development Exploratory Action. It provides an assessment of the world situation in flexible and distance…

Noting that the merging of various types of media with the computer has presented the field of education with a hybrid technology called interactive multimedia (also referred to as hypermedia), this digest begins by defining this technology as "the integration of text, audio, graphics, still image, and moving pictures into a single,…

This paper reports on a study that analyses the questions asked and services offered at the information desk in the reference department at the Kent State University main library. A total of 460 questions asked during 52 hours of scheduled time at the information desk in Spring 1997 were categorized. The main types of questions were directional;…

This paper presents a procedure for teaching Management Information Science (MIS) courses called the "Current Reality Tree" (a tool of the Theory of Constraints used to determine the major problem of a system) and proposes a methodology to use it to aid in instruction. The first part of the model (business problems) suggests initiating a session…