The question addressed in this article and one that has been the focus of the author's research is: how can colleges and universities have greater success with collaborative work? The author argues that to foster group and cross-divisional activities that have trouble succeeding in a context structured to support solo work, academic organizations…

Editor-in-chief James L. Morrison talks with David Macquart, co-founder of the Global Nomads Group (GNG), a group dedicated to improving children's cultural understanding by bringing the world into the classroom using videoconferencing technology. GNG moderates video conferences between K-12 classes in different countries, organizes virtual…

In little more than a decade, the Web has become an essential medium for information, entertainment, and commerce, making its adoption among consumers quicker than any other medium before it. The majority of American classrooms have become connected to the Internet in the same short time span. Previously, science or mathematics students might have…

Change, ambiguity and shifting relationships are recurrent themes in contemporary career development. In turn, personal success in the unfolding knowledge economy calls for self-awareness, adaptability and the ability to work with others. A challenge in career coaching is to help people better develop these kinds of skills, and in turn to help…

Although some evidence suggests that providing treatment via service coordination teams is related to improved outcomes among youth in a system of care, the aspects of team structure that contribute to treatment effectiveness are not well understood. This study draws on team membership and attendance data to identify and describe the structure of…

In the years following German reunification, East and West German parents (282 mothers and 207 fathers) were interviewed about attitudes to the rearing of their 7- to 13-year-old children and about their social networks. Path analyses show that East German parents engage in more protective and less permissive parenting, and that East German…

The "development of individual capacities", in addition to the "education of responsible citizens" and the "preparation for work", constitutes one of the most important objectives to be achieved by education systems and, in this sense, makes up one of the main planks of that which Dale terms "mandates for the…

Wenger's theory of communities of practice (CoPs) helps explain how a group of Ph.D. students in the Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato in New Zealand met a need for emotional and academic support and reduced isolation as they developed regular opportunities for face-to-face and virtual discussions on theory and…

In December 2005, the Ford Foundation awarded Hollins University and the American Association of University Professors $10,000 to participate in the foundation's Difficult Dialogues initiative. The project supported by this grant brings together a consortium of academics, including the author, from three separate institutions in Virginia and the…

This paper draws on a part of the doctoral research study that investigates the potential impacts of Internet café use on Turkish college students' social capital. In this study, Internet café usage was portrayed by the amount of time spent and the frequency of online activities engaged at the cafés. Social capital, on the other hand, was…

Describing the results of an e-portfolio contest and attendant research conducted at the University of Washington (UW), Cara Lane discusses student attitudes toward e-portfolios and argues for the usefulness of e-portfolios as a means for students to develop professional and academic presentation skills as well as basic technology skills. Lane…

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to analyse knowledge flows within a transnational educational partnership and to use social network analysis to map out structural differences between the two partners and the evolution of these differences over time. Design/methodology/approach: A single longitudinal case study social network analysis is…

The focus of this study is to explore the advances that Social Network Analysis (SNA) can bring, in combination with other methods, when studying Networked Learning/Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (NL/CSCL). We present a general overview of how SNA is applied in NL/CSCL research; we then go on to illustrate how this research method can…

This article presents a preliminary analysis of a rural junior high school. This school is situated in S town, J county, Shandong province, and, in keeping with the procedure followed for naming the majority of schools in China by location of school + type of school, this school is called S Junior High. J county is one of Shandong's poor counties,…

This qualitative study of a community college--university partnership employs network embeddedness theory to examine the processes involved in creating and sustaining partnerships to enhance transfer and baccalaureate attainment. In particular, this article describes the challenges inherent in partnership management and governance, the importance…