This overview of federal dissemination efforts introduces six articles intended to stimulate thinking about certain basic issues of dissemination of education research knowledge and the roles that the federal government can play in that dissemination. Some of the history of federal dissemination efforts in education are traced, especially the main…

This article describes how the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension Service (CES) might serve as a model for improving the dissemination of education research and development results. After reviewing the distinctive aspects of each dissemination system, various features of CES are listed that might be replicated and others that…

Describes and explores the District Education Agent program, a community-based program proposed by the Subcommittee on Select Education of the U.S. House of Representatives, which is comparable to the agricultural extension service. Ways in which it might incorporate new technological capabilities are suggested. (12 references) (DB)

This article reviews lessons learned from the agricultural extension model that may apply to the proposed cooperative extension service in education. The agricultural extension model is a user-oriented system linking knowledge producers with other knowledge users. In education, the adopters of innovations may be organizations as well as…

This article argues that the U.S. dissemination system in education is unresponsive to organizational improvement needs, and that development of this bias is exacerbated by political, organizational, and programmatic thrusts in federal agencies. It is suggested that systems in the Netherlands and Denmark could provide useful models for adapting…