This fourth edition of the New Media Consortium's (NMC) annual "Horizon Report" describes the continuing work of the Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education. Drawing on ongoing…

High school dropout rates in many major urban settings in the United States have remained above 50% for more than three decades. This dropout crisis should now be considered evidence of an endemic lack of appreciation for formal education in city locales. United States federal policy initiatives have concentrated the nation on notions of teacher…

Shadow netWorkspace (SNS) is a web application system that allows a school or any type of community to establish an intranet with network workspaces for all members and groups. The goal of SNS has been to make it easy for schools and other educational organizations to provide network services in support of implementing a learning community. SNS is…

This report documents the Annie E. Casey Foundation's effort to learn from families, communities and organizations around the country about their experiences with social network strategies and approaches. Using the voices and experiences of the families and organizations visited, the report summarizes findings from these visits and helps lay the…

Purpose: This study examined the professional and research needs of distance learning librarians in higher education in order to inform program development by the Association of College Libraries Distance Learning Section. Methodology: 270 members of the section completed a 23 item online questionnaire on distance learning librarians' work…

U.S. federal policies do not provide a universal social safety net of economic support for women during pregnancy or the immediate postpartum period but assume that employment and/or marriage will protect families from poverty. Yet even mothers with considerable human and marital capital may experience disruptions in employment, earnings, and…

This article reports findings from a study exploring the roles of peer influences in cultivating urban high school students' academic success in mathematics. While the literature describing family/school influences on the academic achievement of students of color is compelling, much of it suggests that urban students' peer groups do not support…

In this article, the author discusses issues involving women in higher education related to the promotion and tenure process. Institutions of higher education have always had the freedom to decide who may teach, what may be taught, and how it will be taught. As a result, courts have been reluctant to become involved in academic matters. One…

In Vietnam, agricultural extension has contributed to rural development and poverty alleviation over the past two decades of agricultural decollectivization, but it was not very effective in reducing disparities within farmer communities. The study examined how better interactions of extension services with other agencies and information sources…

In 1991, Lawrence Grossman wrote that "a new political system is taking shape in the United States. As we approach the twenty-first century, America is turning into an electronic republic, a democratic system that is vastly increasing the people's day-to-day influence on decisions of state." Grossman's forecast implied a sea change in the way…

This paper explores the social use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the city of Tampere, Finland. It focuses on two essential elements: the city (as the location with national context) and citizens (as members of the "local" information society). The paper also examines the question of building social networks via…

This document presents three essays which challenge the image of women librarians as passive and subservient; reexamine the feminine ethic of caring; and document the power of a pervasive women's network that was generational as well as hierarchical and social. The first paper, "Invisible, Indestructible Network: Women and the Diffusion of…

The 13 articles in this serial issue are as follows (with all titles translated into English); "Swiss Sociolinguistics--Sociolinguistics in Switzerland" (Iwar Werlen); "Public Space, Medias, and Identities of Language. Reference Points for an Analysis of the Swiss Imaginary Collective"; (Jean Widmer); "Anthropological and…

Although an underrepresentation of women in educational administration persists, the reasons for the disparity have changed over the past 30 years. This book presents findings of a study that examined successful women administrators' insights and viewpoints regarding career achievement and leadership. Phase 1 of the study surveyed 151 women…

A qualitative case study of Freshman Interest Groups (FIGs) (in which freshmen enroll in specific thematically linked courses their first semester) was carried out at a large, public, research university. The intent of the study was to understand how participation in a FIG influenced students' learning experiences, and how those experiences fit in…