Discusses a multidisciplinary workshop that addressed issues concerning internationally distributed information networks. Highlights include multilingual information access in media other than character-coded text; cross-language information retrieval and multilingual metadata; and evaluation of multilingual systems. (LRW)

For the last four years the author has been involved with the design, administration and writing up of the results of competency tests which have been conducted for Grades 3 (ages 8-9)and 6 (ages 11-12) in his home province of the Western Cape, South Africa. In the course of this work, he and some of his colleagues working on this project have had…

This article examines the schooling that is provided in the world's refugee camps. The limitations provided both by the nature of schooling itself and by the international refugee relief system are explored. It is concluded that there are actually three separate paradoxes making problematic the development of refugee education programs. The first…

In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) the items are organised in small clusters relating to the same stimulus material (called 'units'). Homogeneity analysis (HA) is used to develop a detailed description of the relationship between all the items in one unit, using the categorical information available in the PISA data. The…

A Working Group on Medical Passports was established in 2002 by the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities. The goal of this group was to develop a fast-track registration process for highly qualified medical practitioners wishing to move from one jurisdiction to another. A "medical passport" would be available only to…

The issue of school non-completion continues to be a matter of concern for policy makers and practitioners in Australia today. Despite the efforts of governments and school systems to improve participation and retention rates, often one in three students drop out of school before completing Year 12. Major factors influence non-completion and…

The development of various national and supra-national accreditation systems is currently being discussed as a possible response to an increasingly internationalized and deregulated higher education sector. However, the establishment of such procedures may have unintended consequences, not least with respect to limiting the diversity of higher…

During the last few years, a national quality assessment system for evaluation of the core activities of universities has been established in Sweden. Beyond participating in these national efforts, Lund University has also participated in the European benchmarking programme managed by ESMU (European Centre for Strategic Management of…

This article discusses the regional experience for the readiness to become part of the Bologna Process. The Bologna Process, whose purpose is to create an education space covering all of Europe, has gone beyond the framework of the EU [European Union], and in a comparatively short period of time it has expanded its scope considerably and brought…

The Junior G8 competition allows groups of young people from each of the G8 countries to have their voices heard on a global stage--the annual G8 summit. An international essay competition results in the selection of teams of students who travel to the G8 summit to provide a youth perspective on global issues. The 2006 competition focused on four…

This survey examined linkages between U.S. and southern African academic institutions, focusing on programs in southern African countries other than South Africa. It is based on a survey of over 500 U.S. colleges and universities in the Southern African Information Exchange (SAIE) database, as well as surveys of southern African institutions and…

Andrews University (Michigan), which is sponsored by the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, extends its academic program to 14 other institutions, three in the United States and abroad. The program permits students in other countries to obtain a recognized, quality tertiary or graduate education. Andrews' research library, the James…

The Internet is a worldwide network of computer networks. In the United States, the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet) serves as the Internet "backbone" (a very high speed network that connects key regions across the country). The NSFNet will likely evolve into the National Research and Education Network (NREN) as defined in…

An ad hoc working group of the International Standards Organization met twice to study the feasibility of establishing an international standard on library performance measures. Having determined that library development in many countries could be significantly advanced through the availability of an international performance standard, the working…

Information is presented in recognition of the United Nations General Assembly proclamation of 1990 as International Literacy Year (ILY). It is shown that, in 1985, there were an estimated 889 million adult illiterates in the world (more than 25% of the adult population), and more than 100 million children of primary school age in developing…