In search of increased support for graduate students in plant science and upgraded laboratories, the College of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California Berkeley, offered the college's expertise in exchange for major financial backing from the single company making the best offer. The resulting five-year, $25-million alliance with one…

Four key reasons underlie the push for teacher union solidarity in 1998: desire to fulfill Al Shanker's dream of a unified mission, to end union competition, to bolster Democratic Party weaknesses, and to stop privatization. The NEA/AFT merger failed because of conflicting organizational cultures and teachers' gradualist, localist, and…

Canadian universities now have the fastest research network backbone in the world, CA*Net 3, claiming it can transmit the contents of the Library of Congress in one second. In the United States, network officials feel that their competing Internet2 project supports more research into new network applications than the Canadian project. CA*Net 3…

Describes the Jerusalem Film Center and the background, history, and organization of the Wim Van Leer Competition which was established for young filmmakers in high school. Describes the Jerusalem Film Festival, film studies programs at Israeli high schools, and future possibilities. (Author/LRW)

Comparison of national policies in South Korea, Singapore, and Britain to respond to low-skills equilibria (self-reinforcing institutions that stifle demand for skill improvements) shows that different responses stem from national differences in supply/demand and the differential impact of globalization due to the individual economic and social…

Examines how research universities are responding to the complex challenge of revenue generation and budgeted expenditures in a market-driven age, and concludes that institutions adapt by incorporating market-like behavior into their business plans. The study found differences between institutions experiencing and not experiencing enrollment…

Outlines a model of factors critical to establishing and maintaining sustainable competitive advantage for education-services enterprises in international markets. The model, which combines industrial economics, management theory, and services marketing, seeks to explain the strategic decision-making environment in which the education exporter…

Reviews the research on competition in classrooms for gifted students. It finds that competitive classroom structures involving extrinsic rewards may undermine the task commitment and involvement characteristic of intrinsic motivation and that this relationship is stronger for gifted students than for other students. Some short-term benefits of…

Explains how a competition-based connectionist model for diagnostic problem-solving is adapted to information retrieval. Topics include probabilistic causal networks; Bayesian networks; the neural network model; empirical studies of test collections that evaluated retrieval performance; precision results; and the use of a thesaurus to provide…

Presents excerpt from Kohn's 1990 book, asserting that parents are most important to children and need to project a positive view of life. Argues that caring, the absence of physical punishment, guiding and explaining, cooperating, and taking children seriously are required to offset the pressure and negative values that a competitive culture…

Issues addressed at the University Continuing Education Association conference included the following: student services for distant learners, intellectual property and distance learning materials, the ethical challenges of technology, competition among higher education institutions, and corporate expectations. (SK)

Describes how interaction with several polymer manufacturing companies through industrial short courses and research projects has led to the development of dynamic and up-to-date undergraduate and graduate curriculums in polymer science and engineering technology. (DDR)

Discusses how the relationship between governments and higher education has been changing in Europe over the last few decades, with governments using an array of market and market-like mechanisms instead of traditional regulation mechanisms. Suggests that despite the changes, institutional autonomy is still facing significant government…

Explaining that grade inflation may result from the professor's competition for favorable student evaluations, asserts that the Theory of Games could be useful for analyzing interactions among professors and their impact on the number of students attracted to their courses. Presents a model based on these assumptions and analyzes policy-relevant…

Past payment by results schemes have failed miserably. Britain's modified 150-year-old system was disdained by teachers, school managers, and inspectors; schools became learning-impoverished environments with test-driven curricula. In modern-day America, accountability concerns and mistrust are corrupting or crippling genuine improvement efforts.…