This article aims to share experience from a Swedish project on the introduction and implementation of Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education with both national and international perspectives. The project, "OER--resources for learning", was part of the National Library of Sweden Open Access initiative and aimed at exploring, raising…

As universities become more involved in real-world problems that affect racial and ethnic communities, university members are identifying strategies to effectively work with culturally diverse community partners. The Communities and Health Disparities Project described in this article is an example of collaborative scholarship that engages the…

Agile development has received increasing interest both in industry and academia due to its benefits in developing software quickly, meeting customer needs, and keeping pace with the rapidly changing requirements. However, agile practices and scrum in particular have been mainly tested in mid- to large-size projects. In this paper, we present…

In the opening paper in this Special Edition I outlined the major issues that led to the establishment of "project e-scape". The project was intended to develop systems and approaches that enabled learners to build real-time web-based portfolios of their performance (initially) in design & technology and additionally to build systems…

Most innovations have contextual pre-cursors that prompt new ways of thinking and in their turn help to give form to the new reality. This was the case with the e-scape software development process. The origins of the system existed in software components and ideas that we had developed through previous projects, but the ultimate direction we took…

Field trips are effective because they situate learning and facilitate knowledge transfer, thereby influencing students learning attitudes, interests, and motivation. Variations in field trip configurations and the subsequent affective and cognitive influences provided the motivation for this study of Outside Day--an environmental education field…

Many school districts in the United States have developed special schools or programs designed to meet the specific language, academic, and social needs of recent immigrant students. In this article, we examine the experiences of six immigrant students who were enrolled in a U.S. high school designed specifically for adolescent immigrants. Using a…

To better understand the influence of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) competencies on practice since their formation, six community college chief executive officers (five presidents and one chancellor) were asked to reflect upon the enduring relevance of the competencies. They were also asked specifically how they acquired…

This article describes the steps involved in the development and implementation of a parent nutrition education workshop series for a low-income, primarily Spanish-speaking population in an urban school district setting. Overall, those parents who participated in the nutrition education workshops showed positive changes in their knowledge,…

This paper presents an original approach to designing social media that support informal learning in the digital workplace. It adapts design-based research to take into account the embeddedness of interactions within digitally mediated work-based contexts. The approach is demonstrated through the design, implementation, and evaluation of software…

Formalized mentoring programs have found a place as both a preventative measure and as a direct intervention in the lives of youth. Previous literature and studies of mentoring programs show mixed support for positive outcomes for participants. Literature also suggests that positive outcomes are most likely to occur in relationships that foster…

The titles of professional books on the topic of coaching are numerous, coaching professional development offerings are widespread and schools across the country are hiring teachers to serve in coaching roles. There is great interest around the topic of coaching and much is being written about the support that is needed for coaches as well.…

Alternative teacher certification programs have become a prominent policy option to address teacher quality issues. Despite recent headway in the analysis of alternative teacher preparation graduates and programs (e.g., Weschler, et al., 2009; Boyd, et al., 2007), the literature has been plagued by incomplete program descriptions, limited research…

This qualitative study examines the influence of a grant from the Lilly Endowment to recruit and retain intellectual capital of part-time faculty in a community college system. Through the use of grant funds, the college used in this study developed and implemented nine college-wide initiatives. This study examined adjunct faculty members'…

This article describes the relevance of an army-university partnership in view of the cultures of both public higher education and the military graduate education system. The article also outlines the planning model used to navigate through the various issues that should be considered when a university partners with a federal or military agency to…