Marketing Plan BrothersForChange Organization

Promoting Plan BrothersForChange Organization Acquaintance In request with set up an effective business, it is critical to build up an extensive key arrangement which is the essential outline for realization of a marketable strategy. Brilliantly, the key arrangement is comprehensive of the SWOT of the business condition, entrance methodologies, and achievement estimation boundaries at smaller scale and full scale business environment.Advertising We will compose a custom report test on Marketing Plan: BrothersForChange Organization explicitly for you for just $16.05 $11/page Learn More Thus, this scientific treatise endeavors to expressly create and survey a vital arrangement for the BrothersForChange association situated in San Francisco. The treatise thinks about the components of promoting from smaller scale and full scale condition, crucial, association esteem. Crucial the BrothersForChange Organization For an association to prevail with regards to showcasing, it must have both vision and crucial its promoting techniques. The y go about as the rule and reference point. The business alludes to the vision and objectives to decide whether it is gaining positive ground. The business’s vision for the BrothersForChange is to make positive change in the lives of African American men and their families that have been affected by imprisonment and destitution. Then again, the advertising objective will be to secure further financing for development of help administrations to poor people and destitute African American families in San Francisco. Moreover, the association will have a strategic increasing the value of the life of its objective people by offering crisis administrations and otherworldly sustenance. Through its showcasing, the association will endeavor to guarantee that it gathers enough assets to help its foundation exercises for the following three years. Estimations of the BrothersForChange To have the option to accomplish the crucial the set objectives, the BrothersForChange association will r equire having a dazzling position esteem explanation and predominant item system. For this situation, the organization’s situating articulation will be as per the following; We do what everybody needs, helping poor people. We don’t separate our help to any gathering or race. We intend to contact more lives and help reestablish destitution stricken families. One of the item procedures that the association ought to use is to ensure that it ascribes the foundation administrations to comfort and free. In arranging technique, culture characterizes all parts of a business, both inner and outside connections. It is crucial to consider the objective patrons which comprise of strict gatherings, government offices, private people, and other altruistic organization.Advertising Looking for report on business financial matters? How about we check whether we can support you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Since the association is situated in San Francisco, it is import ant to audit the business condition to build up the qualities, shortcomings, dangers, and openings accessible in the midst of restricted financing for the altruistic exercises focusing on poor people and destitute African American families. This will be reachable through proactive centering of the above qualities for the association. Anticipating is vital since it empowers appropriate arranging through spending creation and readies the association for the monetary period ahead. Data innovation has empowered appropriate anticipating by empowering quick effective information investigation, information stockpiling and information mining activities incredibly depend on this figure to have the option to design themselves through formation of explicit departmental targets, departmental expenses and complete income allotments. Small scale Environment Analysis Strategy The primary component of the vital arrangement puts the estimations of adaptability and dynamism. This infers the BrothersF orChange association should concentrate on the interior procedures for progress. The inward report channel for correspondence with the potential backers should then be fell down to the remainder of the structures since the current channel isn't adaptable. The chart beneath sums up the two component of finishing esteems system proposed for the BrothersForChange association. Innovation The BrothersForChange association should put out the vast majority of the records, for example, advertising handouts in the nearby every day. This spares the organization costs identifying with printing, keeping up and circling such records. In view of the main element of the contending esteems structure, the BrothersForChange association as of now has the upside of adaptable association model, it is conceivable to change the size of the association or wipe out notice that don't arrive at the gathering pledges objective. Mechanical changes and market specialty grouping are the two main considerations th at will characterize changes that occur in the BrothersForChange association. Consequently, there is requirement for the association proprietor to adjust rapidly to change, work more brilliant, increment support base and do obligations that are outside their expected set of responsibilities to stay pertinent in the foundation fragment. In any case, the business may not profit by this since constrained assets may make utilization of innovation troublesome notwithstanding boundless open door for expansion.Advertising We will compose a custom report test on Marketing Plan: BrothersForChange Organization explicitly for you for just $16.05 $11/page Learn More Organization SWOT Strengths The BrothersForChange association has just settled itself in the San Francisco area. It is now into the cause fragment and has past involvement with the magnanimous exercises. The association has great terms with the nearby altruistic associations and private contributors and can convey administrations at no charge to the individuals who need these administrations most. The association has amassed in the little families portion in offering beneficent administrations that have been disregarded by the enormous cause players. Shortcomings The association has not worked in the United States for a considerable length of time henceforth might not have precise projections on the assets and their utilization. The association relies upon just individual as the workforce thus may not boost its exercises in the market. The association has the weakness of shakiness in good cause administration conveyance since the single director needs to accomplish all the work. Clearly, he can't stay aware of the interest regardless of working for extended periods of time. Dangers Too numerous altruistic associations are in the market of San Francisco, particularly the large players with greater validity in offering noble cause administrations. The accomplishment of the association will rely upon the gatherin g of their intrigue for giver subsidizing in the market of San Francisco. On the off chance that the projections don’t include, at that point the association may take more time to raise reserves or may wind up falling. Openings The association has an open door for boundless extension in the market of San Francisco with in excess of 100,000 little African American families needing its administrations. The association has the chance of drawing in more givers through referrals since its nearby system is entrenched. The association has the chance of differentiating beneficent administrations past convenience to advising and social wellbeing support. Market power Strength Weakness Threat Opportunity Strategy Customized benefits Small market specialty Changed inclinations Business development Technology Local magazine effectively available Target contributors who are generally conventional Changing media structures Online advertising Political and financial similarity Free market U nstable plan of action Economic swings Establishment of more branches inside the city of San Francisco Legal congruity Limited congruity prerequisites Sensitive business condition Tax system Structured activities Cultural perspectives Conformity to the San Francisco culture Challenge of winning givers Changed benefactor inclinations Opportunity for extension Process and frameworks Simple however viable framework Limited extent of the framework Limited staff because of low store turn over Opportunity for extension Macro Environment Analysis Competitive Advantage Sustainability Operation proficiency and market specialty give a sign of how well the association deals with its assets, that is, the means by which well it utilizes its resources for create deals and pay. It additionally shows the degree of movement of the company as demonstrated by the turnover proportions. In particular, a high income proportion in an association recommends that it is expecting stable high profit in the en tirety of its significant market specialties as an open door for future extension. Financial swings represent a danger to this association since a significant number of the store contributors are probably going to be influenced by the swings. The fundamental shortcomings incorporate absence of broadening and development administrations. Political and Economic Aspects Essentials of political activity in the San Francisco advertise have restricted effect on business tasks because of its soundness and approaches on financial progression. The US is a law based country with restricted social or strict burdens. There are no contentions that can be believed to emerge with the advertising of such associations like the BrothersForChange foundation. This part of the countrys political and monetary strength energizes smooth activities and consistency of things to come activity patterns. With the full help of political specialists to the foundation network, the general development and improveme nt of different advertising systems is additionally supported. The administration ventures monetary approaches that are slanted towards expansion and advancing the pretended by benefactors in the foundation business. Legitimate congruity likewise, the business laws in the US accommodate trademark rights and licenses which dispense with the danger of financial specialists and shield new businesses from fraudsters and copyright infringers. This is a confirmation of security against illicit

Ratio Analysis of Next Plc

Business Accounts †Assignment I Introduction Next plc is a retailer established 1864 in the United Kingdom, that sells men’s, women’s and children’s wear yet additionally has a home product division. Their garments wear are in vogue however reasonable. All through the United Kingdom and Ireland there are more than 550 Next stores in addition to 50 establishments working in Asia, Europe and The Middle East. This report will break down and diagram the company’s productivity, liquidity, dissolvability and speculation possibilities dependent on 15 ratios.All data is taken from the Next plc 2011 articulation. Benefit and Performance The gross benefit proportion demonstrates that Next plc had the option to keep up their gross benefit. It has diminished inconsequential by 0. 05%. In 2011 the income has expanded by approximately 47 Million, consequently the deals of costs expanded relatively to this. The purpose behind the expansion could be either a presenta tion of a more costly product offering or just an acquisition of more merchandise. One explanation could be that because of greater levels of popularity they needed to load up their inventories.This proportion demonstrates that the organization had the option to support a similar degree of expenses in year 2011, yet in addition that the exchanging office effectively haggled better costs with providers. The working edge has encountered an expansion in numbers from 15. 55% to 16. 64%. It appears that Next plc figured out how to control their costs all the more proficiently. On the pay explanation one can see that the organization expenses and dispersion costs have diminished. This could be because of cuts in wages or lease. As a rule, nonetheless, it very well may be said that Next plc improved their expense accounting.This could be a clarification for the expansion in the working edge proportion. The benefit turnover proportion has fallen somewhat by 0. 05. An explanation behind this could be marginally higher interests in fixed resources like plant or gear. All things considered however, they have figured out how to keep up utilizing their advantages, yet in future they should attempt to utilize their current resources all the more adequately. One can see that the arrival on capital utilized proportion has encountered a development of 3. 28%. Similarly with respect to the working edge, a potential purpose behind this could be significant cuts in organization costs and dispersion costs.This proportion demonstrates that the organization has expanded its effectiveness at making benefits out of the cash they have put resources into and essentially demonstrates that Next plc realizes how to utilize their assets effectively and control their expenses successfully. When all is said in done, these proportions demonstrate that the productivity and execution of Next plc is exceptionally positive. Liquidity and Efficiency Liquidity proportions show how effectively an org anization can take care of its present moment and long haul commitments. The stock days have expanded by 8 days. This shows they save hold of their stock for a more drawn out time of time.It appears that the interest for their items has diminished. Exchange receivables have expanded by 2 days, which implies that Next plc gets cash from their clients marginally later than in year 2010. A potential purpose behind this is a general ascent in joblessness and henceforth â€Å"limited developments of shopper credit† (Next Plc, 2011). Be that as it may, getting cash from their clients later than previously, the organization has figured out how to take care of their loan bosses quicker in 2011 than in 2010 (exchange payable days have diminished by 2 days). This is probably going to demonstrate a higher effectiveness of adjusting expenses and incomes on the company’s part.In a more extensive setting around 80 days are a moderately prolonged stretch of time to reimburse credits. This could from one viewpoint exhibit the creditors’ trust in Next plc and their capacity to take care of, however it is likewise conceivable that the organization basically battles to take care of credits any prior. For this situation however the exchange payable days are most likely high because of good dealings of the buy office with their providers. This supposition that depends on the way that Next Plc has a high measure of money. The present and snappy proportions have somewhat fallen.The current proportion is still over 1, which means the organization doesn't have any issues meeting their momentary commitments. A purpose behind this slight decay could be that there has been an expansion in their momentary obligation. For this situation their present liabilities did really increment. For whatever length of time that the present proportion, which considers, is higher than 1, they don't encounter any issues reimbursing their momentary liabilities. Notwithstanding, the sn appy proportion is littler than 1 and has imperceptibly diminished in 2011. Because of this Next Plc may have issues taking care of their momentary liabilities if deals diminishes in the following years.In general however, they appear to have a fairly decent capacity to create money and pay off their commitments. Dissolvability The outfitting proportion is by all accounts colossally high. This could be expected their significant investment funds. It appears that they are repurchasing their own offers maybe so as to set something aside for ventures like rearrangements or speculations. It has diminished significantly from 2010 to 2011 most likely on the grounds that they decreased their non-current liabilities. High equipping should be dangerous and furthermore brings about paying higher interests. Their advantage spread has ascended by 2, conceivably because of the way that the intrigue figure has fallen by 1.This methods they can take care of their advantage about multiple times mor e than in the earlier year. A potential purpose behind this could be a decrease in intrigue. By and large, Next’s intrigue installments appear to be extremely sheltered. They are creating enough incomes to meet intrigue costs. Financial specialists Ratios Investor proportions are typically utilized by speculators so as to inspect in the event that it merits putting their cash in an organization. They screen these figures over years so as to settle on a â€Å"right† choice. The profit per share proportion has expanded from 188. 5p to 221. 9p.The purpose behind this is the benefit after expense has expanded in 2011 and the quantity of common offers declined by 33. 4. This negligently brings about the gaining per share being higher. A purpose behind the decrease in quantities of standard offers could be that Next Plc repurchased shares. The profit yield has encountered a development by 0. 46. This implies speculators get more cash than in year 2010. A purpose behind this is the present market has not changed more than two years, the cost stayed stable. In 2011 the profit spread has fallen somewhat by 0. 26.A conceivable explanation could be that they have chosen to expand the profits per share comparable to benefit after assessment. The cost/acquiring proportion has encountered a decrease by 0. 021. This shows in 2011 financial specialists get their cash back somewhat snappier contrasted with 2010. This could be expected the decrease in quantities of offers; which means Next Plc could stand to give out profits quicker. Practical position Debenhams plc is one of Next’s fundamental contenders. It very well may be shrewd to look at the efficient condition of significant rivals so as to pass judgment on a company’s achievement. Debenhams’ ROCE-proportion shows amazingly lower figures than Next Plc. 010 the ROCE was 13. 94% and 2011 12. 34%. As a matter of first importance, one can see that it has diminished in 2011 and contrasted wi th Next plc it is generally 45% lower in the two years. It is urgent to note here that Next plc expanded their ROCE while Debenhams Plc’s diminished. This shows Next plc is incredibly increasingly proficient in making benefits out of the cash they have put resources into. In view of the present proportion one can say that Debenhams plc would be battling to take care of their momentary commitments since it is under 1 while Next Plc would have no issues since theirs is above 1.The intrigue spread is additionally much lower contrasted with Next plc. Be that as it may, Debenhams plc’s intrigue spread has expanded by around 3% it is as yet 17% lower than Next Plc’s. This demonstrates Next plc either has more noteworthy benefits or Debenhams plc has higher interests. With everything taken into account, it appears that Next plc was not gravely influenced by the downturn contrasted with Debenhams plc. All in all, it tends to be said that Next plc effectively figured out how to keep up and even lessen their expenses and amplify their benefit particularly because of Next Directory, which has expanded by 7. 1%.Although the efficient condition is fairly feeble they could yet beaten these hindrances and make a beneficial year in 2010 and even increment their benefit in 2011. The general monetary circumstance is probably going to experience the ill effects of the overall outcomes of the money related emergency just as the European Euro emergency specifically. This implies Next plc needs to figure out how to turn out to be progressively serious in order to keep up their high benefits. For example, they could put resources into advertising to pull in more clients and subsequently increment and support deals. The main proportion that they may need to stress somewhat over is the snappy ratio.But as long as they keep their deals up the present proportion doesn't appear to be any issue whatsoever. All things considered, the greater part of the proportions sho w that Next plc is by and large an effective development organization. They demonstrated its intensity regardless of the prudent decrease in retail and in the customer value file, which has diminished to 4. 2% from 5. 2%. Particularly, when contrasting Next plc with its fundamental rival one can see that they effectively kept their deals up. By and large, the proportions demonstrate that Next plc has a generally solid and stable monetary achievement, while controlling their expenses effectively.All proportions, particularly the profit yield, demonstrate that the organization is an exceptionally beneficial organization to put resources into. Reference List http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/business-15344297 https://fame2. bvdep. com/rendition 2012113/Report. serv? _CID=63&context=2A6M7EI864H8BPQ&SeqNr=0 http://www. nextplc. co. uk/~/media/Files/N/Next-PLC/pdfs/reports-and-results/2010/2011-03-24a. pdf http://www. nextplc. co. uk/about-next/our-history. aspx http://www. nextplc. co . uk/about-next/business-outline. aspx http://www. retai

Troubles of Freshmen in College

Troubles of Freshmen in College Is It Typical for Freshmen in College to Have Troubles? Home›Consideration Posts›Is It Typical for Freshmen in College to Have Troubles? Consideration PostsSometimes, if a first-year student is not academically and mentally ready for studying, he or she might even fail classes. Usually, the process of transition is easy; but if you have some troubles, we can analyze their possible causes.First Year Seminar Classes for College FreshmenThere are classes that teach first year students how to improve their academic skills and to make the most of their life in college. These classes might be of great help for the struggling freshmen. Educational research proves that the first year seminars are one of the most effective academic retention methods.Keeping Work and College Life in BalanceIf students work a lot and do not have enough time to study, they will definitely face some academic troubles. First-year learners are usually surprised by the amount of time that is needed for studies. If a student wants to be successful, he or she needs to make academia and not a job the first priority. Learners can work a lot during holidays, but it is better for them to work no more than 20 hours during a normal studying week.Academic Preparation for Successful FreshmenSome first-year students need to work harder than their peers do to achieve academic success. If the student did not work hard enough in high school, college life might be rather challenging. In this case, it is advisable to look for assistance in order not to drop out. For example, a student might find a good tutor or find helpful websites online (we can recommend qualitycustomessays.com) to avoid freshmen troubles.College Freshmen InvolvementIn order to enjoy their freshmen life to the fullest, it is advisable for students to engage in various on-campus activities. Students that participate in extracurricular activities tend to be more successful and content with their academic life than those who do not.

Trends And Patterns Of Asian North American - 1634 Words

Trends and Patterns in Asian-North American Representation in Hollywood Momo S. Tanaka University of Saskatchewan Trends and Patterns in Asian-North American Representation in Hollywood I saw the highly promoted movie adaptation of The Hunger Games in spring of 2012, and I left the theatre wondering one thing: where were all the Asians? This is not an uncommon occurrence: as a second generation Japanese-Canadian, I have grown up surrounded by American and Canadian media that lacks representation of Asians to the point that seeing an Asian on my television is an thrilling. This is the sad reality of the state of representation of Asians on television. I have learned and experienced first hand that the lack of†¦show more content†¦Stereotypes like these are often utilized in representation. All types of media — movies, television shows, advertising, and the like — use representations â€Å"to express reality† (Viruega, 2011, p. 3). To paraphrase Benshoff Griffin and Taylor Willis, representation is a the process of combining signs to present an image of complex abstract concepts to communicate a story. In other words, representati on is involved in the communication and the determination of meaning and interpretation. Media uses representation and becomes an extremely influential element of the creation, acceptance, and perpetuation of stereotypes around Asians (as well as all other ethnic groups). According to cognitive-transactional model of media priming â€Å"repeated exposure to media stereotypes makes the stereotypes highly automatic, requiring little cognitive effort† (Zhang, 2010, p. 22), and this influences media consumers’ judgments and actions in interactions with Asians (Zhang, 2010). Because American media is extremely prevalent in Canada, as a consequence of globalization, cognitive-transactional model of media priming dictates that the reinforcement of racial stereotypes and views through representation has become very similar

Gm591 - Organizational Culture Inventory (Oci) Results

Keller Graduate School of Management [pic] GM 591: Organizational Culture Inventory Results for ABC IT – Business Solutions Group. Instructor: Rick Lochner Prepared by: Venkata Kumaran Date: 20-JAN-2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 3 2.0 Current Culture 3 2.1 Cultural Type 5 2.2 Behaviors Associated with the Current Cultural Type 5 3.0 Targets for Cultural Change 6 4.0 Potential Benefits Risks of Cultural Change 8 4.1 Benefits 8 4.2 Risks 8 5.0 Conclusion and Reflection 9 6.0 References 9 Introduction â€Å"Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture is the behavior†¦show more content†¦I believe the power style is apparent by fact that members (especially managers/ leaders) in the organization always liked to maintain unquestioned authority and wanted to personally run everything. As an example, some of the mundane day-to-day decisions have to taken at the highest level. Most of the members would like to maintain the image of perfection at all times. I have seen members don’t like to bring up issues they face in completing activities which actually results missing milestones. They also like to blame others for their failures to escape criticism or punishment. The actual purpose of the BSG is to work closely with the core IT team to help business focus on the company’s strategic goals. Some of the BSG members treat job as a contest and would rather like to compete tha n to co-operate. Another behavior I have observed is that most of the members do not think ahead and plan their activities. This behavior when analyzed further points to fact that the members are expected never to challenge their superiors. This results in relatively frequent priority changes. Even though they know the business and the functionalities around the business they tend not to look at alternative solutions before working with the business. Finally some of the members have been with ABC for long time, they accept the status quo. Every idea for improvement is looked upon as â€Å"Will this affect theShow MoreRelatedGm591 Walmart -Project Paper3562 Words   |  15 PagesImproving Wal-Mart’s Employee Relations GM591: Leadership and Organizational Behavior April 20, 2010 INTRODUCTION The Organization that we selected as our topic of discussion in our Project Paper is the Wal-Mart Corporation. Sam Walton is the founder of Wal-Mart. He opened his first store called Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas in July of 1962. Their corporate office is currently located in Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. incorporated its stores onRead MoreCourse Project Paper Gm5913925 Words   |  16 PagesOvercoming Communication Shortfalls John R. South, Jr. 8736 Lock 17 Road Bessemer, AL 35023 Phone (205) 914-1480 jrsouth5358@bellsouth.net Keller Graduate School GM591 - Leadership and Organizational Behavior Professor Patrick Kinane April 18, 2010 Overcoming Communication Shortfalls Introduction The organization that will be used as the topic of my course project will be my current employer, Cullum Detuners, Ltd. (CDL). CDL is a design-build company that provides acoustic support

Changing American Family Free Essays

Changing of the American Family Throughout the years we have seen families change from time to time. Not just in the actual household, but also in the media. From the nineteen fifties to present time, we can relate to the families in the media. We will write a custom essay sample on Changing American Family or any similar topic only for you Order Now In the nineteen fifties everything seemed to be more relaxed but strict at the same time. However, through the changes in time families have become a bit more chaotic at times and less strict. The families within the media have changed in many ways in whether it being as simple as becoming less strict or whether or not the father being in total control of the household. In the television sitcom Father Knows Best, everything seemed like a perfect family. The mother would stay at home and take care of the house and clean, while father would be at work and while the kids would be at school. The house would always be very clean and organized when the father and children would come home. The kids would never curse or back talk their parents due to respect. Every morning the family would sit together and eat a healthy breakfast and every evening the father and kids would come home to a dinner prepared for the family to eat together. The ideal of the American family in the nineteen fifties was more conservative. The family actually did stuff together and bonded. A few decades later, the media is still changing in time. In the television sitcom The Cosby Show, everything still seems like the perfect family to live in just a little more laid back and less strict. The family would still do stuff together, just not as often. The children would go to school during the day while both parents had to be at their jobs to provide for their family. When the kids would get home from school they would do their homework and then do what they wanted to do. Unlike in the sitcom Father Knows Best, the family did not always have breakfast together; it was more of a find what you want to eat and eat it ordeal. Each night the family would not necessarily have dinner together. In an episode we watched during class, a few of the children ruined a book of the fathers and so they made him dinner to try to make up for their wrong doing. The family had then eaten dinner without the mother and their brother. While comparing both shows and watching them both, you can see how the relationship between two American families have changed over a period of time even though it is in the media. In present time, we can still see much growth in the media. The American family is not so conservative. In the television sitcom George Lopez, many things have changed in the media from Father Knows Best and The Cosby Show. The family in George Lopez was a more chaotic family. The children misbehaved often and the mother and father would tend to get into arguments at times. George would always try to catch his children getting in trouble when they misbehave, whether it is by confronting them straight on, or trying to be sneaky by investigating the situation and then punishing them later. Usually at the end of every episode, it is always shown that George loves and cares deeply for his family. The article I am using to support with this essay is The American Family on Television: From Molly Goldberg to Bill Cosby written by Muriel G. Cantor. I felt most connected with this article because it relates to Bill Cosby and I am using The Cosby Show in my essay. This article is about the families within the media in comedy which all three television sitcoms I am using in this essay conduct with comedy. Comedy is one of the most popular choices to watch on television. The first section of the article concentrates on the background for the family life as portrayed in televisions comedies. The second section concentrates more on Molly Goldberg from the television series in the nineteen forties and then relates to Bill Cosby. The primary focus is on how gender, race, and class have been portrayed over time and whether the messages, issues, and themes about love and sex have changed and in what ways. After analyzing television from the nineteen fifties to present time period, the article concludes by noting that the family is not always presented as the perfect family. Family members often make fun of each other; sometimes they deceive each other to get their way; and often interact by putting each other down† (Canter, 1991). Like in the sitcom George Lopez, the family is basically the place where one goes for support and when you need someone to be there for you. Your family will always be there to support and help solve your problems and care for you. Throughout the media we have seen in most television shows how much families can be supporting. We have also seen how the American families have changed over the decades. In the nineteen fifties, the â€Å"father role† was being head of the household and the mother was to back him up with his every choice. If we were now to watch a television sitcom that was in the comedy genre, we would see how the mother does not sit back and let the father be head of the household. Most of the time the parenting role is equal between the mother and father now days. Sometimes the mother may be in charge of the household more than the father would be. I think if you were to watch television sitcoms throughout the decades then you will be able to identify how the American family has changed in time within the media. References James, E. (Producer). (1954, October 3). Father Knows Best. [Television broadcast]. Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers Burbank Studios. Cosby, B. (Producer). (1984, September 20). The Cosby Show. [Television broadcast]. New York City, NY: Carsey – Warner Company. Lopez, G. (Producer). (2002, March 27). George Lopez. [Television broadcast]. Los Angeles, CA: Warner Bros. Television. Cantor, Muriel G. (1991). The american family on television: from molly goldberg to bill cosby. 22(2), Retrieved from http://proxy. library. iue. edu:2359/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? sid=a6b2c5f6-1784-4b50-a2da-9bfef4ad923f%40sessionmgr104vid=6hid=107 How to cite Changing American Family, Papers

Remembering Mike Essay Example For Students

Remembering Mike Essay Remembering MikeThe death of my friend Mike Walker taught me the true meaning of the clich, Life does not last forever, so live each day like it is the last. I treasure my friends and family more than anything in the world. A good friend is hard to find. I thought this was true until the first day I met Mike. I remember the day perfectly and I will always remember it for as long as I live. To me Mike was a great person. He was always laughing and telling jokes. Of course he had his down times like everyone else, but he did not allow himself to stay down for long. He was the type of guy to just walk up to anybody and say, Hi, I am Mike Walker. The first time I met him, I was sitting down to lunch with my friend, Andrew. We were not there long when another guy sat down. He immediately looked at me and said, Hi, I am Mike Walker. I was so surprised by his welcoming smile that I was left speechless. After a slight nudge from Andrew, I responded with my name and was greeted by yet another charming smile. It was not long before I realized I had sat down to lunch with the golf team. They were all talking and goofing off while I quietly ate my lunch. When I looked up, Mike was staring at me. He looked right at me, as if he were reading my mind. He looked around the table before saying, All right guys, subject change. What do you want to talk about, Stacy? I never got the chance to answer because lunch was over. As we left the cafeteria Mike turned to me and said, Dont worry we will talk about what you want next time. With a smile on his face (as well as mine), he was gone. From then on Mike and I had a friendship. We talked in the halls and after school. Mike was a great person and could always make me happy. One day I was talking to Mike before school let out. We were laughing and joking as usual. He told me he was going to be around after school and to find him later. So, I went happily to band practice. The next thing I knew, my teacher was telling us practice was cancelled. So I got up ready to find Mike. When I walked out of the school, I saw nothing but people and an ambulance. It was so quiet; I never thought there could be so many people in one place and not a single sound. I could not hear anyone move, cough, or even breathe. It was as if the world was holding its breath. I started walking and asking people what was going on. At first they said someone had hit their head, but they were ok. The farther down the hill I got, the more the story changed. They said it was Mike who fell off his four-wheeler and hit his head. I started walking faster and faster in a panic to see Mike. Someone then suddenly stopped me. It took me a minute to realize it was my best friend Mat. I knew as so on as I saw him Mike was dead. His eyes said it all. I stayed a little while staring at the ambulance hoping that maybe Mike would get up and the ambulance would drive away. But it did not happen. That night I cried so hard. I could not sleep due to the tragic sight I had just seen. I had awful mental pictures in my mind. I called Mat for comfort. I was so upset that words just flew out of my mouth. I said, Why did I even have to know Mike. This would be easy if I had not ever met him. Mat put me on hold and when he came back a song was playing. It was Garth Brooks The Dance. I never really listened to the message of the song. It is about the dance of life. It says that he wished he could have missed the pain, but then he would have missed the dance. This is how I felt. I wished that I was not in so much pain, but then I would have missed all the fun and great times with Mike. .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 , .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .postImageUrl , .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 , .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432:hover , .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432:visited , .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432:active { border:0!important; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432:active , .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432 .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u979df3af7abdf6460fc953897d043432:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleleyev Was Born In The Town Of Tobolsk, Siberia EssayMike left a lot of people behind. When everyone left the school for the funeral, only 100 people stayed behind. Mike died doing what he loved most, having fun. He was not wearing a helmet, but in a way that was a blessing. When he fell off of his four-wheeler, a metal pole went through his head. Then the four-wheeler landed on his head. If he had been wearing a helmet, he would have ended up with serious head injuries. He died instantly. They said he did not feel any pain, but the pain that everyone else felt was unbelievable. Mikes death made me realize how important life is. It also made me realize how important friends are. For years I fought with my neighbors. They were some of Mikes best friends. After his death we apologized to each other. Now I care about them a lot. I also took the time to make friends with Jeff Walker, Mikes identical twin brother. I would not trade these friendships for anything. I grew a lot from this experience. I always thought clichs were kind of stupid, but then I learned from one. Life doesnt last forever. Even though you always think it will never happen to you, it could be you next time. This experience made me realize how important friends are. I learned not to take friends for granted because you dont know if they will always be there. It may sound sappy or boring and you may have heard this a million times, but live each day like it is the last. Do not let a day go by where you dont let the people in your life know how much you care. I make sure to tell my parents that I love them at least once a day. I would hate for something to happen to them and have to wonder everyday if they knew how much I cared. I also make sure to check in with my best friends often, just to say hey and make sure they are doing ok. Some people would call this just being paranoid, but I call it caring about the people in my life. Sometimes it is that one person who cares th at changes everything. You never know when a tragedy like this will happen to one of your friends, or even yourself. I will always remember this day for the rest of my life. I will also always regret not saying the things I should have said before it was too late. Social Issues Essays

Calleeta Corporation Essay Example

Calleeta Corporation Essay The Calleeta Corporation May 15, 2011 HRM 520 Identify three key business issues facing Jan, Calletta’s CEO. As Calletta’s CEO, Jan is facing a number of problems such as: lack of support from board members/investors, increasing employee costs, and protests against Calletta’s offshore facilities due to the growing concern of working conditions. Jan key issue on hand is the lack of support from board members and investors. Board Members and investors right now are not supporting Jan or her proposal due to a poor return on investments. Board Members are concerned about the rapid increase of employee cost the company is incurring. Calletta is incurring a 12% cost increase annually compared to an industry average rate of just 4% in the U. S. It seems that until Jan is able to reduce employee cost along with increasing the company’s revenue and return on investments she will continue to lack the support needed for her future plans for Calleeta. Another key business issue Jan is facing at Calletta is the rapid increase in employee cost. Board Members are furious that Calletta is paying a well higher annual rate of 12% versus the industry average 4% that their competitors are paying. Board Members are demanding that Jan seek ways to decrease employee cost before approving any future plans. As a result Jan is forced to choose between HR Vice-President John Nosmas practices or the board who affects her maneuvering power for future plans. John Nosmas defends his practice of paying higher wages along with providing expensive benefit programs because he believe in hiring the best employees and believes that his practice also keep employees along with products innovated. We will write a custom essay sample on Calleeta Corporation specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Calleeta Corporation specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Calleeta Corporation specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer This key business issue kind of puts Jan in a hard place because both parties play a vital role in her success as CEO. Finally, as CEO Jan is faced with the growing concerns over working conditions in their foreign facilities which are being targeted by activists on behalf of humane working conditions. This issue not only affects Calletta from a publicity stand point but from a production standpoint also. If this concern is not contained Calleta can be labeled as an inhumane place to work and may lose investors resulting in a loss of business and profit. Another concern this issue presents is eventually it could affect production due to the protesting by activists. If activists intervene in the daily operation of Calleta such as blocking supplies from coming in, it could affect production and in return revenue causing an uproar with investors in which Calleta don’t need. Therefore, it is critical that Jan resolves this issue before it before it becomes detrimental to the organization. Discuss the ways that Calleta’s HR operations are contributing to the company’s success. Calleta’s HR department is the backbone of the company’s success. Due to HR Vice-President John Nosmas and Jan’s human capital talent acquisition and retention plan Calleta was able obtained the most highly skilled individuals in their industry giving the organization a competitive advantage. John and Jan’s plan focused on matching the company’s core competences to recruits that possess the skills within Calleta’s strategy. John and Jan believed that their strong recruiting and retaining plan would give the organization a competitive edge along with innovating the company’s products. Without a strong recruiting and retention plan a company will constantly incur a high turnover rate along with inconsistency with the quality of their products. â€Å"A company that implements an effective recruitment process is likely to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace, improve returns, and achieve economies of scale. This is possible only through the recruitment of quality candidates in to the organizational workforce (Sangeetha, K, 2010)†. Therefore, Calleta’s HR operations are key to the company’s success because it thrive to find the right people to fuel the company’s products. Identify three changes that can be made at Calleta to meet the Board of Directors demands. After reading the case study it seems that the Board of Directors main demands and concerns are with the rapid increase in employee cost. Therefore to meet the Board of Directors demands Calleta would have to focus on cutting employee costs in the area of employee benefits. The first area Calleta can cut cost is in employee’s personal benefits. Calleta can cut employee cost by only paying a percentage of employee’s healthcare, dental, and life insurance versus providing these benefits at no cost to the mployee. This approach along should reduce Calleta’s cost tremendously considering the increasing cost of healthcare. This method would not hurt Calleta recruiting shceme because it’s a method most U. S. companies are adopting. According the Los Angeles Times, â€Å"in 2010 nearly a third of employers reported that they either reduced the scope of benefits they are of fering this year or increased the amount that workers must pay out of pocket for their medical care†. This approach will share the liability of cost with employees instead of Calleta taking on the full incurred cost. By sharing the cost for healthcare and insurance benefits Calleta will be able to cut employee cost drastically. Another change that Calleta can make to meet the Board of Directors demand is reducing the 401k match from 10% to 5%. Calleta currently offers a very generous 401k plan that exceeds most competitors’ plans within the industry. With the current 401k plan Calleta is losing a massive amount of money in matching employee’s contributions. Calleta is basically giving money away on top of all the other great benefits they offer. Even with reducing Calleta’s contribution amount this still leaves Calleata in a competitive position in terms of recruiting due to their other generous benefits. By reducing their 401K plan matching scheme from 10% to 5% this will reduce the amount of money Calleta was previously spending on 401K matching by half making the Board of Directors incredibly happy. Another change Calleta can make to meet the Board of Directors demands is by reducing some of their paid programs such as pet boarding. If Calleta eliminates this program as a whole they can save on paid wages, benefits, and vacation earned by employees. Programs such as pet boarding are offered outside the workplace and are considered luxury services. This type of service should not be at the cost of Calleta unless they have the revenue to support it. However, in Calleta’s case they do not have revenue to support this luxury service to employees. By eliminating this program is it helps provides some relief to the drastic increase in employee cost. Discuss how a balanced scorecard can help the CEO explain the value of her HR talent management approach. A balanced scorecard can help the CEO explain the value of her HR talent management approach by measuring the visions and goals of her approach against the various categories of the balanced scorecard to show how they performed. For instance, since Jan’s talent management approach focuses on innovation she could measure the performance of her approach against the learning and growth component to show how her approach faired against the metrics in place. In the learning and growth component metrics are generally setup to guide managers in ensuring employees receive training/mentoring to promote employee development and growth. Jan can use the results of a balanced scorecard to persuade Board Members into embracing her approach. Jan can use a balanced scorecard to show how the additional training given to employees has increased motivation and productivity to reduce product time-to-market. By illustrating how her talent management approach has increased production and morale Jan is able to defend her approach and show the value of her approach to Board Members. As a result of being able to demonstrate how her approach has benefited the company Board Members will more than likely embrace Jan’s approach because of the positive results. Identify three sample measurements in each of the four balanced scorecard categories that would support the CEO’s presentation to the Board of Directors. Three sample measurements in the learning and growth category that would support the CEO’s presentation to the Board of Directors would be: competency development expense per employee (cost control), number of employees with development plans (cost control), and number of special projects for employee development (value creation). Three sample measurements in the financial category that would support the CEO’s presentation to the Board of Directors would be: HR recruitment expense/ RD hires (cost control), HR training expense/ $ of sales revenue (value creation), and HR departmental expense/$ of sales revenue (cost control). Finally, for the customer category three sample measurements in the learning and growth category that would support the CEO’s presentation to the Board of Directors would be: number of delivers on-time, numbers of customers satisfied, and rating of quality of service. References Sangeetha, K. K. (2010). Effective Recruitment: Strategy, 7 (1/2), 93-107. Retrieve from EBSCC on May 9, 2011. Leavy, N. N. (2010). U. S. employers push increase in cost of healthcare onto workers. Retrieved from http://articles. latimes. com/2010/sep/02/business/la-fi-healthcare-costs-20100903

How to Get a Student Loan Step-by-Step Guide

How to Get a Student Loan Step-by-Step Guide SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips For many students, loans are vital to being able to afford an education. The cost of a college education in the US is cost-prohibitive for many families, and loans help to close the gap between what school costs and what families can actually afford. As of last year, over 40 million Americans are working to pay off student debt. Learning how to get student loans sounds daunting and burdensome, but if you’re smart about how and where you get your loans, taking on debt can be a manageable option. Here, I’ll walk you through all the steps to getting student loans, including calculating your own need, finding loans, applying for loans, and managing repayment. First, though, I'll talk a little bit about how student loans work. How Loans Work This explanation is a bit simplified, but you should come away with a good general idea of how loans function. If you know how loans work, you'll be better able to find and apply for loans that are good fits for your needs. By definition, a loan is a sum of money that you (the borrower) is given by a person or entity (the lender) with the expectation that you'll pay it back with extra charges tacked on (the interest). When you repay student loans, you'll usually make monthly payments on the sum you borrowed (the principle) plus interest that has built up, or accrued. The bigger the principle, the higher the interest rate, and the longer you take to pay off your loan = more money that you have to pay back in interest. Details like length of repayment and interest rates will vary widely among loan options. Some loans come with extra perks (like the Direct Subsidized loan). There isn't anything particularly complicated about most loans, but some of the financial jargon can be confusing if you're new to it. If you're clear on the basics of how loans work, you can move on to the next step of getting a loan: calculating how much you need. How Much Do You Need? Before you actually apply for loans, you should have a general idea of how much funding you'll need. Follow these steps to get an estimate of how much loan money you should get to pay for college. Step 1: Determine How Much Your School Will Cost The total amount of money it costs to attend a particular school for one year is called its Cost of Attendance, or CoA. The CoA is an average (so your own unique cost might be more or less), and includes expenses like tuition, room, board, books, fees, transportation, and personal expenditures. You can check out a particular school’s CoA by Googlingâ€Å"[school name] cost of attendance.† You can get more info about college expenses and costs here. Step 2: Use Your Family's Financial Information to Determine What You Can Afford to Pay If there's a gap between your school's CoA and what your family can afford to pay,don’t panic! Not every school will be an affordable option for all students, federal and institutional grants and scholarships can really help fill that gap, especially for low income students. If a gap remains after grants and scholarships, you can then consider whether student loans are a good option for you. One way to "officially" calculate how much your family can afford is by using the FAFSA4caster. A major source of student aid is the federal government, and an important number that they use to calculate aid eligibility is called the Expected Family Contribution, or EFC. By using the FAFSA4caster, you can estimate your EFC, which schools will also use to award aid.You can get step-by-step instructions for calculating your EFC here. After you’ve completed the FAFSA4caster estimate, you’ll have an idea of your EFC. Additionally, you’ll know if you’re eligible for any federal grants, which will fill the gap between what you can afford and what your school costs. Finally, when you finish your estimate, you’ll know if you’re eligible for any Direct Subsidized or Direct Unsubsidized federal loans. Once you're informed about much money you may need to take out in loans, you can start searching for loans that are good fits for you and your family. Where to Get Student Loans There are so many options when it comes to student loan lenders. It would be impossible to provide an exhaustive list, but I'll outline a few great places to start. There are two main types of student loans - federal and private - and I'll discuss both. Student loan lenders are everywhere - the following tips will help you start finding your own student loans. Federal Loans Federal loans are loans backed by the federal government. Many federal loan programs are meant to assist low-income students and their families, although some don't require you to demonstrate any financial eligibility requirements to be considered eligible. Interest rates are generally competitive, and don't vary based on your or your parents' credit history. To get any federal aid, including loans, you need to meet basic federal eligibility requirements. Certain loans, like the Perkins and the Direct Subsidized, have other requirements as well. You can read more about basic federal eligibility requirements here. If you’re eligible for federal loans, they’ll be included in schools’ financial aid packages, along with any grants and scholarships. You get to decide what parts of the financial aid package you accept, and what parts you’ll reject;you don’t have to take on any loans if you have other ways of paying for school (e.g. an outside scholarship). Other federal loans worth checking out include Direct Unsubsidized, Stafford, and PLUS loans. Private Loans Quite a few banks offer private student loans, many of which require a cosigner (e.g. an adult with a solid credit history who signs the loan with you). If your parents are clients of a particular bank, you might start by looking for student loans at that institution. Make sure to shop around, though; check with other lenders to see if they offer you better terms, including lower interest rates. If your parents havea financial adviser, it would be ideal if you could check with him or herabout good student loan terms based on your family’s financial situation. How to Apply for Student Loans The loan application process and timeline will vary depending on what type of loans you plan on taking out. I'll talk generally about how to apply for both federal and private loans, although you should confirm the details with your lender, especially if you're taking out private loans; each lending institution will have its own protocols. Applying for Federal Student Loans You can apply for all federal financial aid, including student loans, by submitting one application: the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. You submit the FAFSA every year that you'd like to be considered for aid. The federal FAFSA deadline for the 2015-2016 academic year is June 30, 2016. Generally, it's wise to submit your FAFSA much earlier than the federal deadline so that you don't miss out on opportunities for funding that tends to run out (the Perkins loan, for example, usually has limited funds available). Students usually submit their FAFSAs in the early spring; you can even submit your application as early as January 1 for the upcoming academic year. To optimize your federal aid eligibility, you'll want to submit your FAFSA even before you hear back from schools if you're a first-year student - say, early spring. You'll then receive notice from schools regarding your acceptance. Schools will put together financial aid packages based on information generated from your FASFA. At that point, you would decide what parts of the financial aid package you would accept, and what parts you would reject. Applying for Private Student Loans Unlike for federal loans, there's no singular application for private student loans. You would have to submit a separate application at each institution (usually a bank) that offers a student loan you're interested in. Many private loans require a cosigner - someone who has more established credit (e.g. a parent) who signs the loan with you. This person is like your lender’s loan insurance - students typically have little to no income or credit history, so if you don’t make payments, this cosigner is held responsible. The better your credit history or your cosigner’s credit history, the better the loans that are available to you. If the financial aid package provided by your school doesn't offer enough in grants, scholarships, or federal loans, you would then consider applying to private loans. How to Get Your Loan Money Once you’ve found a loan that’s a good fit for you, you’ll sign a promissory note. This is a written promise that you’ll pay back the money you owe by a specific date (e.g. 10 years after your loan grace period ends). Federal loans will probably be disbursed, or paid out, to your school directly. The money will be applied to any charges on your school account. If there’s any left over, your school will provide it to you in the form of a refund. If you don't need that refund money, it’s smart to just use the refund to make a payment on the loan Private student loans are also often disbursed directly to your school. Same as with federal loans, you’ll be awarded a refund if there’s any money left over. Caveats: What to Look Out For Before you go ahead and sign that promissory note, there are a few things you should consider. Student debt can very very rarely be discharged in bankruptcy, unlike many other types of debt. If you take on student loans, you’re stuck with them forever. If someone cosigns on your student loans with you, they’re stuck with the debt if you can’t afford to make your minimum monthly payments. Basically, don't take out more in loans than you're comfortable with, if you can help it. Anticipate your realistic career trajectory and earning potential for the 10 years or so after you graduate - this will help you decide whether the debt is manageable. For special types of loans, like the Perkins, consider that you may be able to arrange for loan cancellation. When it comes to student debt, it's important that you don't bite off more than you can chew. If you find that you're uncomfortable with the amount of debt that you would need to take on in order to attend a particular school, there are a few things you can do. Try researching scholarship opportunities, and bring your concerns to the school's financial aid office. If you're still uncomfortable with the loan amounts, consider whether it would be a better financial decision to attend a less expensive school. How to Pay Off Your Loans So you've taken out student loans - you won't have to worry about paying that money back until after you've graduated, right? Although that's technically true, there are steps you can take while you're still in school to reduce your total loan payment amount. If you can, make payments during school/grace/deferment, especially if interest is accruing. You’ll save money in the long run. The following charts demonstrates the long-term financial outcomes of two hypothetical students - they've taken out the exact same loan, but one student makes payments on her interest while in school whereas the other doesn't. Their interest capitalizes, or is added to their principle, at graduation. Take a look: Student A Student B Principle $5,000 $5,000 Interest Rate 10% 10% Interest accrued during 4 years of school $2,000 $2,000 Interest paid during 4 years of school $2,000 $0 Balance due at graduation $5,000 $7,000 Monthly payment (for a standard 10-year repayment plan) $66.08 $92.51 Total amount paid $9,930 $,100 By paying off her interest while she was still in school, Student A saves almost $1,200 in the long run. You won't be obligated to make any payments as a student, but it doesn'thurt to throw some money at your loans every now and again if you have some to spare. Another strategy to make the repayment process a bit easier is to set up automatic payments to avoid late fees. If you're consistently making at least your minimum payments on time every month, you'll also give your credit score a boost. Speaking of payments: if you have multiple loans with different interest rates, make larger payments on your high-interest loans to pay them off first. As you might have deduced from taking a look at the chart above, the faster you kill interest, the more money you'll save in the long run. You won't always be expected to make monthly payments on your loans, however. If you go back to school and won’t have an income, you can often get your loan deferred. If you lose your job, or aren't able to make payments for some other reason, you can look into other repayment plan options, like income-based or graduated repayment plans. Above all, keep your loan servicer in the loop; they'd rather reduce interest or monthly payments than not get their money back at all, so it's in their best interest to work with you if you're struggling. What's Next? Want to get a head start on those loan interest payments? You might want to think about getting a job before you leave for college - read our guide on the best jobs for teens.If you're already in college, you should check out the federal work study program for job opportunities. If you're still knee-deep in student loan research, read our guides on the Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, and Perkins loan programs. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Transition Plans for Special Education Students Essay

Transition Plans for Special Education Students - Essay Example 288) and identified a gap in collaboration between parents and students and a variation between reported and actual levels of collaboration. Importance of collaboration, self determination, person-specific planning, and empirical studies for effective transition planning are explored with recommendations for empirical studies on collaboration based person-centered planning for planning and implementation of transition process (Michaels and Ferrara, 2005). The article is explorative of its objectives and its reliance on external sources and scope as a peer-reviewed article identifies its credibility and reliability to inform a new study. Its theme is also consistent with my topic on transition plans in special education and this makes it a suitable source for developing background information into my study (Michaels and Ferrara, 2005). The article is based on an empirical study towards a model for improving transition planning for students with disability. The authors note that while self-determination concept is recommended for effective transition plans, students are seldom involved in meetings for developing transition plans. The students’ interest that would facilitate development and implementation of transition plans is therefore not captured and teachers’ failure to include instruction on self-determination in their course materials is a factor. Barely 50% of the study’s participants reported inclusion of instruction on self-determination in their lectures and they regarded importance of the instructions (Thoma, Baker and Saddler, 2002). The study’s small sample size threatens reliability of its results but its empirical approach and reliance on other author’s knowledge resolves this weakness and develops its validity. It also relates to my proposed study and will therefore offer significant background hypothesis for development of problem statement and research questions (Thoma, Baker and Saddler, 2002). Trach identifies inefficiency in

A strategy for managing change process Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

A strategy for managing change process - Essay Example This study looks into organizational culture as the experience which the hotel is supposed to bring to its customers. However, this is largely reflected through the behaviour of the associates of the hotel towards them. Therefore it is important that the present must try to build a strong culture along with insuring its core values such that it serves to contribute towards the continuous growth of the organization and accounts for the satisfaction of employees too. The first step towards a strong culture would be to establish core values of the organization. The hotel must seem to build core values which aims to provide the best services to customers, associates and the community at large. The basic culture is to provide the company associates with the maximum opportunities as well as providing superior quality of services towards customers. The next step towards initiating the change would be to attain the participation and involvement of company executives in the change process. Ex ecutives and employees in the organization must show their active participation in the change process and just in words. For example, in this case since a continuous change in behaviour towards customers is called for. Thus leaders must actually show their behavioural change in order to act as examples for remaining employees on their conduct with customers of the hotel. The management must practice effective communication. It is important that all employees in the organization are informed about the specific changes in order to make the process successful. This would necessarily ensure their commitment and success. Every employee must be told what exactly is expected of them. The organizational structure might also require changes. This would include changing the job description, roles and responsibilities for each employee and redesigning the same in order to bring about changes in their performance levels. Performance targets could be reset for each employee to bring about suffic ient changes in the overall productivity and performance level of the organization. This must also be coupled with the reviewing and redesigning of approaches towards rewards structures and recognition. It is very crucial to change the

Earthquake in Chile

Earthquake in Chile Earthquakes The movement of the earths tectonic plates causes earthquakes. Earthquakes occur where plates meet along plate boundaries. F.e when two plates move towards each other, one plate can be pushed down beneath the other plate, into the mantle: this is a subduction zone. If this plate gets stuck under the other one, it causes a lot of pressure on the surrounding rocks. When this pressure will be released it will produce shock waves. These shock waves are called seismic waves. This is what we call an earthquake. Plate boundaries The place where two or more plates meet, is known as a plate boundary. There are four types of plate boundaries: constructive, destructive, conservative and collision plate boundaries. Almost all earthquakes occur near to plate boundaries. Earthquake in Chile The earthquake in Chile was caused by subduction. At the west coast of Chile, three tectonic plates meet: Antarctic plate, South American plate and the Nazca plate. Chile is located at a convergent plate boundary (a destructive plate boundary). The Peru-Chile trench is caused by the subduction of the oceanic Nazca plate under the continental South American Plate. This movement causes seismicity and volcanism in Chile, producing amazing earthquakes. This is a typical example of a continental-oceanic subduction zone. This earthquake was the biggest one that hit Chile in over 50 years. Measuring earthquakes The magnitude of an earthquake is measured with a seismometer. This machine measures movements in the surface of the earth. The Richter scale measures earthquakes on a logarithmic scale. This means that an earthquake of 5 is ten times more powerful than one of 6 on the scale of Richter. Most people express the magnitude with this scale. The 2010 Haiti earthquake had a catastrophic magnitude of 7.0.The Chile earthquake was measured 8.8, this means there is almost a widespread destruction. It was one of the strongest earthquakes that were ever recorded. If we must believe Chilean authorities, over 300 people have been killed. Richter Scale: Magnitude Damage 4 This magnitude earthquake is widely felt and is strong enough to crack plaster. 5 A strong vibration shakes the earth, damaging chimneys and weak buildings. 6 This earthquake is strong enough to badly damage average buildings. 7 This earthquake is strong enough to destroy even well built structures. 8 Even special, earthquake-resistant buildings will be badly damaged. 9 There is widespread destruction. History of earthquakes Chile is a very active plate boundary, so its a perfect place for earthquakes. Chile is located in the so-called Ring of fire, an area in the Pacific where there are a lot of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The names of the plates are in white. You can see the Nazca plate is causing subduction (blue line with triangles), because it goes under the South American plate (Amà ©rique du Sud). Tsunami Yes, there is a chance on a tsunami The earthquake happened near a plate boundary. Because of plate tectonics, one plate can sink deeper, so there becomes a difference in sea level. Bibliography http://andrevandelft.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/earthquake_depth.png http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8540289.stm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Chile ttp://s.ngeo.com/wpf/media-live/photologue/photos/2010/03/02/cache/23047_600x450-cb1267561459.jpg http://www.stratfor.com/files/mmf/1/2/12b92bbe141fcccef515d7d9f927de8434bf3a50.jpg http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/03/02/4961912.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/7331231/Chile-earthquake-tsunami-warnings-trigger-evacuations-across-Pacific.html

To what extent does Soyinka present Jeroboam and his gullible congregation firstly as victims of social forces

To what extent does Soyinka present Jeroboam and his gullible congregation firstly as victims of social forces and secondly, as victims of their own greed and opportunism in The Trials of Brother Jero? â€Å"Human life cannot be represented in a fully or truthful manner without taking account of the pressures brought to bear upon the individual by his milieu, by the particularity of social situation and historical circumstance† John Cruickshank (1969) I have chosen the quote above as a starting point for my essay because I believe that Africa as a continent has seen such extremes of political and social upheaval that to overlook the importance of history, and its affects down the evolutionary scale on the people of Africa, in African literature and particularly in Soyinka's The Trials of Brother Jero would be very wrong. But how far can you make allowances for greed, selfishness and opportunism (which almost every character in the play attributes to) under the assumption that they are just products of the greed, selfishness and opportunism inflicted on the people when colonisation reared its ugly head? by the same token I feel that it is easy for an audience or reader of a play to put characters good or bad points purely down to their ‘character'. When a play write presents you with characters that are so easy to interpret then you have to ask yourself, why? Jero is a prophet, â€Å"by birth and inclination† and this is indeed the first thing we learn about him. The way Soyinka presents him to us is initially set out in the stage directions where Jero is described as â€Å"suave†. Jero's opening line â€Å"I am a prophet†, I feel, encourages the audience to think that maybe a real prophet would be more modest. Jero's direct speech to the audience employs a traditional African style of address that forces an audience to actively analyse Jero's speeches. That said Soyinka does not make it difficult for us to see that Jero is far from being a religious man as he informs us of his betrayal of his previous master for his own personal gain. So why would Soyinka use such a style of address if he did not want to us to analyse something more in the apparent openness of his characters speech? I feel that Soyinka has used this literary tool in order to encourage an audience not to see the truth in the characters (as this is very easy to see) but to think about why they have come to be the way they are. G. N. Ofor (1991) in his essay entitled The Urban Novel: A Historical Experience tells us about social realities of the time prior to colonisation: â€Å"African villagers were noted for their homogeneity and were guided by traditional beliefs and values. Members of the community were very closely bound together and the primacy of the community over the individual was emphasised† I think it is very important that G. N. Ofor chooses to specify that this state was what Africa was like before colonisation as this suggests that things have changed because of colonisation. Certainly in The Trials of Brother Jero the people are guided by traditional beliefs with the characters attending church regularly and Jero being something of an advisor (certainly to Chume anyway) but Jero himself is not guided by the hope of enlightenment or saviour after death, nor is he compelled to help people for the sake of being a kind and generous person. Everything he does, in some way, contributes to his own personal gain, gain of money or respect or personal favours. In the quotation below which is an excerpt from the play Jero finds out that Chume's wife is in fact also his creditor who he has been trying to avoid, and so allows him finally to beat her despite forbidding him not to up until this point. Jero says â€Å"he wants to beat his wife, but I won't let him. If I do, he will become contented, and then that's another of my flock gone for ever. Jero: Ah. That is the only way. But er†¦ I wonder really what the will of god would be in this matter. After all, Christ himself was not averse to using the whip when occasion demanded it. Chume (eagerly. ): No. He did not hesitate. Jero: In that case, since, brother Chume, your wife seems such a wicked, wilful sinner, I think†¦ Chume: Yes, Holy One†¦? Jero: You must take her home tonight†¦ Chume: Yes†¦ Jero: And beat her. You could easily conclude from this that Jero is presented as a victim of his own opportunism or that Jero is an opportunist, I suppose that to consider a character as a victim of anything suggests that we cannot or do not blame them for it; that, from a humanitarian point of view we can empathise with Jero's course of action. But Soyinka does not present to us any signal that Jero has suffered any sort of moral dilemma as he recurrently exploits his congregation. So we need to consider the social forces that might shape the attitudes of the characters in The Trials of Brother Jero The ideological view points detailed in the quotation by G. N. Ofer. Do not apply to the character Jero so Maybe Soyinka chooses not to present Jero in this idyllic image as a remark against such opinions saying that he does not agree that Colonisation is a reason that people in Africa have become more of a capitalist nation like in European society and is making the point that the image of Africans as a tight knit, un-selfish communism never completely existed. In the same essay I quoted from earlier and on the subject of the effects of colonisation, G. N. Ofer goes on to say that: Factors like taxation, a common portable currency, the desire for European goods, the need and the opportunity to make profits contributed immensely to the historic shift from a subsistence economy to a monetary economy. This loosened the co-operative ties binding the individual to his clan and lineage members. † If you read the above quote with reference to Soyinka's character Jero you could certainly see how, perhaps, Soyinka's character Jeroboam is presented as a victim of this new found ethic, catalysed by the influence of Africa's capitalist colonisers. In fact in Soyinka's own words, from an essay entitled from a common backcloth: A reassessment of the African literary Image he writes of â€Å"the European observer† that: â€Å"He still fights a rearguard today. It has grown subtler. Accommodation is his new weapon, not dictation† Soyinka (1988) Accommodation of the African continent or of the minds of the African masses perchance? Chume is another of Soyinka's main characters in the play, an un-educated, naive, gullible, hen-pecked man who relies completely on the ‘help' he gets from Jero. Looking at the play it is easy perceive that Soyinka has presented Chume as a victim. In the excerpt I have quoted below we can see how Chume goes to see brother Jero, desperate to find help for the mental torture he suffers by his nagging wife, Amope; Chume: My life is hell†¦ Jero: Forgive him, father, forgive him. Chume: This woman will kill me†¦ Jero: Forgive him, father, forgive him. Chume: Only this morning I†¦ Jero: Forgive him, father, forgive him. Chume: All the way on my bicycle†¦ Jero: Forgive†¦ Chume: And not a word of thanks†¦ Jero: Out Ashtoreth. Out Baal†¦ Chume: All she gave me was abuse, abuse, abuse†¦ All Chume wants is for Jero to allow him to beat her, just once, but Jero keeps him hanging on saying it is not the will of god. All Chume wants out of life is to have a peaceful relationship with his wife and to gain a better job. Chume is actually under a great deal of pressure to conform to the expectations of his wife and his peer. Amope says â€Å"A chief messenger in the local Government Office – do you call that work? Your old schools friends are now ministers, riding in long cars†¦ † while Jero mocks Chume for his â€Å"animal jabber† he goes on to say that he is â€Å"too crude, but then that is to my advantage. It means he would never set himself up as my equal. † you could argue that any characters desire for monetary gain or a materialistic attitude to life could be seen as a direct effect of the colonisation of Africa. As I have shown in earlier quotations and as I have read so far, it would seem that many of the people who write about the state of the African infrastructure have the opinion that colonisation has been a destructive factor because it imposed the materialistic, dog eat dog attitude of Europe. Many writers believe that the effect of Europe has caused a lack of solidarity between the African masses. It would seem, also that there have been many literary works which satirise this idea, Claude Wauthier (1978) in The literature and thought of modern Africa writes; The tone is just as sarcastic about Europe in the long free-verse poem by the Ugandan Okot p'Bitek, song of Lawino, the bitter-sweet lament of a black woman who is reproached by her husband for being illiterate and not knowing European social manners: My husband pours scorn On black people He behaves like a hen That eats its own eggs. Bearing this in mind it seems as though Soyinka has presented Chume as a victim of the social forces imposed by those around him. He fits perfectly into Eustace Palmer's view (quoted by G. N. Ofor in The essay The urban novel: a Historical Experience) of; â€Å"The rural innocent†¦ who is ignorant of the qualities needed to survive in the hot-house that is the city and who is quite often inadequately equipped, as far as education is concerned, to qualify for the lucrative jobs the city offers. † Palmer (1979) It is interesting to include that G. N. Ofor remarks on the above quote with: â€Å"However it is pertinent to note that without the creation of towns/cities by the colonial administration, there would have been no urban novel. † As for Chume's own greed and opportunism, I think it would be difficult for anyone to argue that a person could be said to be greedy for wanting to live harmoniously with their wife/husband or to want equality. All we know of the rest of brother Jero's congregation is the few people he mentions that he has convinced will become prime ministers of certain states, there is a woman who badly wants children and Jero tell us that the most popular of his prophesies is to tell people they will live until they are 80. As Jero says â€Å"if it doesn't come true, that man doesn't find out until he's on the other side. The last character we meet in the play is ‘member', who aptly becomes a member of Brother Jero's congregation by the end of the play. Jero, at first, attempts to speak to him by pretending he has prophesised the meeting between them. Shockingly the member turns away saying â€Å"Go and practise your fraudulences on another person of greater gullibility† and so for a second it seems as though there may be at least one character that will not fall for the charms of Brother Jeroboam – this is not the case. All it takes is for Jero to say what he wants to hear and he is hooked. Jero tempts him by saying â€Å"And at a desk, in a large gilt room, great men of the land awaited your decision. Emissaries of foreign nations hung on your word. And on the door leading into your office I read the words, minister for war†¦ † Asking god or brother Jero to help people become ministers or heads of state or merely to have a better job or more money seems to go against the true usages of religion, Which I had understood to be performing the will of God (of whichever denomination) and keeping unity between all the people within the culture. It seems to me that Soyinka may be trying to show that while every member of Jero's congregation is manipulated by him they themselves are not completely innocent in their reasons for their faith. Mineke Schipper (1982) in Oral Literature and Total Theatre says; â€Å"In traditional society the religious system determines the cultural unity of the people. Life forces bind man to his past, his present and his future and determine his relationships with gods, spirits, nature and natural phenomena. The unity tends to break down where western influence increases. † It is interesting that the subject of western influence is again considered to be the destructive factor in the lack of unity between the African people. The quotation above suggests that western influences have even meant a breaking down of the unity that religion brings. After having looked at The Trials of Brother Jero, and having discussed the idea of victimisation I can only conclude that human beings, from whatever culture or walk of life, all desire the same basic things – money and material possessions, respect, power and equality (though not necessarily in that order). The idea that has cropped up so often in my essay, that the social forces which work upon the individual and the nation as a whole are a direct effect of colonisation, is probably the most interesting point of all. You can indeed find reasoning within the text to assume that Soyinka may have intended for this theme to become apparent, whether or not you regard any of the characters as victims or even if you regard them as victims and perpetrators together at the same time. Below I have included a quotation from S. E. Ogude in his essay African Literature and the Burden of History: Some Reflections in which he talks about another African playwright, Chinua Achebe (1975) Saying: â€Å"He also reveals the weaknesses of the traditional society and the ease with which European capitalism and religion supported by gun powder and cannon balls successfully challenged the dominance of traditional culture. † If this is indeed true then it is a terrible, terrible shame.

The Impact of Ict on Tertiary Education

The impact of ICT on tertiary education : advances and promises Kurt Larsen and Stephan Vincent-Lancrin Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Directorate for Education / Centre for Educational Research and Innovation* DRAFT OECD/NSF/U. Michigan Conference â€Å"Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy† 10-11 January 2005 Washington DC ABSTRACT: The promises of e-learning for transforming tertiary education and thereby advancing the knowledge economy have rested on three arguments: E-learning could expand and widen access to tertiary education and training; improve the quality of education; and reduce its cost.The paper evaluates these three promises with the sparse existing data and evidence and concludes that the reality has not been up to the promises so far in terms of pedagogic innovation, while it has already probably significantly improved the overall learning (and teaching) experience. Reflecting on the ways that would help develop e-learnin g further, it then identifies a few challenges and highlights open educational resource initiatives as an example of way forward.The first section of the paper recalls some of the promises of e-learning; the second compares these promises and the real achievements to date and suggests that e-learning could be at an early stage of its innovation cycle; the third section highlights the challenges for a further and more radically innovative development of e-learning. Knowledge, innovation and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have had strong repercussions on many economic sectors, e. g. the informatics and communication, finance, and transportation sectors (Foray, 2004; Boyer, 2002).What about education? The knowledge-based economy sets a new scene for education and new challenges and promises for the education sector. Firstly, education is a prerequisite of the knowledge-based economy: the production and use of new knowledge both require a more (lifelong) educated popu lation and workforce. Secondly, ICTs are a very powerful tool for diffusing knowledge and information, a fundamental aspect of the education process: in that sense, they can play a pedagogic role that could in principle complement (or even compete with) the traditional practices of the education sector.These are the two challenges for the education sector: continue to expand with the help (or under the pressure) of new forms of learning. Thirdly, ICTs sometimes induce innovations in the ways of doing things: for example, navigation does not involve the same cognitive processes since the Global Positioning System (GPS) was invented (e. g. Hutchins, 1995); scientific research in many fields has also been revolutionised by the new possibilities offered by ICTs, from digitisation of information to new recording, simulation and data processing possibilities (Atkins and al. , 2003).Could ICTs similarly revolutionise education, especially as education deals directly with the codification a nd transmission of knowledge and information – two activities which power has been decupled by the ICT revolution? The education sector has so far been characterised by rather slow progress in terms of innovation development which impact on teaching activities. Educational research and development does not play a strong role as a factor of enabling the direct production of systematic knowledge which translates into â€Å"programmes that works† in the classroom or lecture hall (OECD, 2003).As a matter of fact, education is not a field that lends itself easily to experimentation, partly because experimental approaches in education are often impossible to describe in precisely enough to be sure that they are really being replicated (Nelson, 2000). There is little codified knowledge in the realm of education and only weak developed mechanisms whereby communities of faculty collectively can capture and benefit from the discoveries made by their colleagues.Moreover, learning typically depends on other learning inputs than those received in the class or formal education process: the success of learning depends on many social and family aspects that are actually beyond the control of educators. Information and communication technologies potentially offer increased possibilities for codification of knowledge about teaching and for innovation in teaching activities through being able to deliver learning and cognitive activities anywhere at any time.Learning at a distance can furthermore be more learner-centred, self-paced, and problem solving-based than face-to-face teaching. It is also true, however, that many learning activities cannot be coordinated by virtual means only. The emulation and spontaneity generated by physical presence and social groupings often remain crucial. Likewise, face-to-face exchanges are important when they enable other forms of sensory perception to be stimulated apart from these used within the framework of electronic interactio n.However, the influence of distance and time is waning now that the technological capacity is available for knowledge-sharing, remote access and teamwork, and organising and coordinating tasks over wide areas (OECD, 2004a). Focusing on tertiary education, this paper examines the promises of ICTs in the education sector, first as a way to better participate in the advancement of the knowledge economy, second as a way to introduce innovations. Leaving aside the impact of ICTs on the research or e-science performed by tertiary education institutions (see Atkins and al. 2003; David, 2004), we concentrate on e-learning, broadly understood as the use of ICTs to enhance or support learning and teaching in (tertiary) education. E-learning is thus a generic term referring to different uses and intensities of uses of ICTs, from wholly online education to campus-based education through other forms of distance education supplemented with ICTs in some way. The supplementary model would encompas s activities ranging from the most basic use of ICTs (e. g. use of PCs for word processing of assignments) through to more advanced adoption (e. g. pecialist disciplinary software, handheld devices, learning management systems etc. ). However, we keep a presiding interest in more advanced applications including some use of online facilities. Drawing on the scarce existing evidence, including a recent survey on e-learning in post-secondary institutions carried out by the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), it shows that e-learning has not yet lived up to its promises, which were overstated in the hype of the new economy. ICT have nonetheless had a real impact on the education sector, inducing a quiet rather than radical revolution.Finally, it shows some possible directions to further stimulate its development. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: the first section recalls some of the promises of e-learning; the second compares these promises and the real achievements to date and suggests that e-learning could be at an early stage of its adoption cycle; the third section highlights the challenges for a further development of e-learning and shows what directions might be the most promising for its further development. I.Advancing knowledge and the (knowledge) economy: the promises of e-learning The emergence of ICTs represents high promises for the tertiary education sector (and, more broadly, the post-secondary education sector if one takes into account their impact on non-formal education). ICTs could indeed play a role on three fundamental aspects of education policy: access, quality and cost. ICTs could possibly advance knowledge by expanding and widening access to education, by improving the quality of education and reducing its cost.All this would build more capacity for the advancement of knowledge economies. This section summarises the main arguments backing the promises. E-learning is a promising tool for expanding and widening access to tertiary education. Because they relax space and time constraints, ICTs can allow new people to participate in tertiary education by increasing the flexibility of participation compared to the traditional face-to-face model: working students and adults, people living in remote areas (e. . rural), non-mobile students and even foreign students could now more easily participate in education. Thanks to ICT, learners can indeed study where and/or when they have time to do so–rather than where and/or when classes are planned. While traditional correspondence-based distance learning has long played this role, ICT have enhanced traditional distance education enabled the rise of a continuum of practices between fully campus-based education and fully distance education.More specifically, fully online learning can allow large numbers of students to access education. The constraints of the face-to-face learning experience, that is, the size of the rooms and buildin gs and the students/teacher ratio, represents another form of relaxation of space constraints. ICTs indeed allow a very cheap cost of reproduction and communication of a lesson, via different means like the digital recording and its (ulterior or simultaneous) diffusion on TV, radio or the Internet.The learning process or content can also be codified, and at least some parts be standardised in learning objects, for example a multimedia software, that can in principle be used by millions of learners, either in a synchronous or asynchronous way. Although both forms might induce some loss in terms of teachers-learners interactivity compared to face to face teaching, they can reach a scale of participation that would be unfeasible via face-to-face learning.When the needs are huge, fully online learning can be crucial and possibly the only realistic means to increase and widen rapidly access to tertiary education. Some developing countries have huge cohorts of young people and too small a n academic workforce to meet their large unmet demand: given training new teachers would take too much time, notwithstanding resources, e-learning might represent for many potential students and learners the only chance to study (rather than an alternative to full face-to-face learning) (World Bank, 2003).E-learning can also be seen as a promising way for improving the quality of tertiary education and the effectiveness of learning. These promises can be derived from different characteristics of ICTs: the increased flexibility of the learning experience it can give to students; the enhanced access to information resources for more students; the potential to drive innovative and effective ways of learning and/or teaching, including learning tools, easier use of multimedia or simulation tools; finally, the possibility to diffuse these innovations at very low marginal cost among the teachers and learners.Distance E-learning has not only the virtue to be inclusive for students that cann ot participate in tertiary education because of time, space or capacity constraints, as it was shown above. It can also in principle offer to students more personalised ways of learning than collective face-to-face learning, even in small groups.Although learning is often personalised to some extent in higher education through the modularity of paths, ICTs allow institutions to give students to choose a wider variety of learning paths than in non-ICT supplemented institutions – not the least because of the administrative burden this would represent in large institutions. This means that students can experiment learning paths that best suit them. Moreover, e-learning can potentially allow students to take courses from several institutions, e. . some campus-based and others fully online. This possible flexibility of individual curricula can be seen as an improvement of the overall student experience, regardless of pedagogical changes. In one word, e-learning could render educat ion more learner-centred compared to the traditional model. A prestigious university generally has a sizeable library gathering tons of codified information and knowledge.One of the most visible impact of ICTs is to give easier and almost instant access to data and information in a digital form that allows manipulations that are sometimes not otherwise possible. The digitisation of information, from academic journals through to books and class notes, can change (and has changed) the life of students by giving them easy access to educational resources, information and knowledge, as well as new data processing possibilities.But e-learning could also lead to the enhancement of quality in tertiary education by leading to innovative pedagogic methods, new ways of learning and interacting, by the easy sharing of these new practices among learners and teachers communities, as well as by more transparency and easier comparisons and cross-fertilisation of teaching materials and methods. Fina lly, e-learning can be seen as a promising way to reduce the cost of tertiary education, which is critical for expanding and widening its access worldwide. It might thus represent new opportunities for students having ifficulties with this traditional format. Although ICT investments are expensive, they can then generally be used at near-zero marginal cost. Where would this cost-efficiency come from: the replacement of expensive brick and mortar campuses by virtual campuses; the digitisation of library materials that would save the cost of keeping huge paper collections; the improvement of efficiency of institutional management; the automation of some of the traditional on-campus activities, including some teaching. II. Living up to the promises: a quiet rather than radical revolutionHas e-learning (and especially online learning) lived up to the promises outlined in the previous section? It has to some extent. The reality of e-learning has never matched its most radical promises (Z emsky and Massy, 2004): while experiments are still underway, the initial stage of over-enthusiasm has ended when new economy bubble burst about 2002. In this respect, e-learning has followed the ups and down of the new economy and given rise to the same caveats as in other sectors: irrational beliefs about its market value, over-investment, over-capacity, and more announces than services really launched (Boyer, 2002).Like other activities, e-learning has not proven yet its ability to generate high profits or to replace the old economy of learning. However, interpreting this as a failure of e-learning would however over-simplify the reality and could be seen as â€Å"throwing the baby with the bath water†. While, perhaps unsurprisingly, e-learning has not led to the radical revolution in tertiary education that was sometimes prophesised, some of its forms are already pervasive in tertiary education and have already led to a quiet revolution.Its modesty should not lead to over look it. This section gives a overiew of the limited evidence we have about the adoption of e-learning in tertiary education. E-learning adoption The radical innovation view was that fully online learning would progressively supersede traditional face-to-face learning and represent a competitive threat for traditional tertiary educational institutions. To some extent, this belief has been a reason for the creation of new ventures and for established institutions to enter this new market: early adopters ould indeed possibly gain a brand name and a serious competitive advantage in the new market. The reality is that, while sometimes successfully experimented, fully online learning has remained a marginal form of e-learning and often not even the ultimate goal or rationale for e-learning adoption. However, this does not mean that e-learning in other forms has not gained significant ground over the past decade in tertiary education: there is indeed some evidence of a noticeable growth o f e-learning adoption both on demand and supply sides.One must bear in mind that e-learning encompasses a wide range of activities. Following the terminology used in the CERI survey (OECD, 2005), we distinguish between different levels of online learning adoption as follows, from the less to the most intensive form of e-learning: ?None or trivial online presence; ?Web supplemented: the Web is used but not for key â€Å"active† elements of the programme (e. g. course outline and lecture notes online, use of email, links to external online resources) without any reduction in classroom time; ?Web dependent: Students are required to use the Internet for key â€Å"active† elements of the programme—e. g. online discussions, assessment, online project/ collaborative work—but without significant reduction in classroom time. ?Mixed mode: Students are required to participate in online activities, e. g. online discussions, assessment, online project/collaborative wo rk, as part of course work, which replace part of face-to-face teaching/learning. Significant campus attendance remains. Fully online: the vast bulk of the programme is delivered online with typically no (or not significant) campus attendance or through â€Å"learning objects†. What do we know about the major trends in the adoption of e-learning by institutions and students? First, e-learning has grown steadily in the last decade, at a relatively rapid pace, but from a very low starting point—and for some activities: from scratch. The lack of comprehensive data renders these trends difficult to document, but existing surveys all point to the same direction of an increasing activity/supply.A significant share of tertiary education institutions have developed some e-learning activities and strategies and believe in the critical importance of e-learning for their long term strategy. The 2003 Sloan Survey of Online Learning based on a sample of 1 000 US institutions shows that only 19% of US institutions have no advanced e-learning activities – that is web dependent, mixed mode or fully online courses (Allen and Seman, 2003). The remainding 81% offer at least one course based on those advanced e-learning activities.Second, this growth of e-learning under all its forms should continue in the near future. There is indeed a converging evidence that tertiary education institutions consider as part of their future development strategy. In the Sloan survey, less than 20% of the US tertiary education institutions considered online education as not critical to their long term strategy. Similarly, data from the first international survey by the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE) revealed that of the 42 UK institutions that responded (out of a total population of ca. 06), 62% had developed or were developing an online learning strategy and most had done so since 2000 (OBHE, 2002). The second survey undertaken in 2004, 79% of the 122 unive rsities from the Commonwealth countries responding to the survey had an institution-wide â€Å"online learning† strategy as such or integrated into other strategies (46%) or under development (33%). Only 9% of these institutions had no e-learning strategy in place or under development in 2004 .While these figures may reflect some self-selection in the respondents, they unambiguously show a significant adoption or willingness to adopt some form of e-learning in the coming future. Although reflecting different levels of adoption of e-learning, all post-secondary institutions participating in the CERI survey on e-learning point to the same direction and report plans to increase their level of online delivery or to maintain their already high levels (OECD, 2005). Third, virtual universities are not likely to become the paradigm of tertiary education institutions.While it will most likely continue to grow, especially in distance institutions (see below), no evidence point towards a predominance of this form of e-learning in the near future in tertiary education. While the mixed mode of learning blending online and on-campus courses now clearly appears as a better candidate, institutions head towards the simultaneous offer of a variety of learning models. For understandable reasons, only few campus-based institutions (that is the bulk of post-secondary institutions) seem to aim at delivering a large share of their courses fully online or at becoming virtual.While some institutions participating in the CERI survey are at the avant-garde of e-learning, no campus-based institution predicted to deliver more than 10% of its total programmes fully online within three years (OECD, 2005). In the US, rather than offering only fully online courses (16%) or only mixed mode courses (10%), most institutions offer both fully online and blended courses; moreover, the majority (67%) of academic leaders believe that mixed mode and web dependent courses hold more promise than fully online, against only 14% having the opposite view (Allen and Seaman, 2003).This clearly reflects what we know about the main rationales for undertaking e-learning. The OBHE surveys show that on-campus enhancement of teaching and learning (1st) and improved flexibility of delivery for on-campus students (2nd) are the two key rationales in institutional strategies of e-learning. Only 10% of the institutions considered the enhancement of distance learning as more important than on-campus enhancement.Interestingly, the level of importance granted to distance or fully online learning decreased between 2002 and 2004 among returning respondents. Distance or fully online learning remains the fifth most important rationale though (OBHE, 2002, p. 4). Finally, while a generalisation of the fully online model is not probable for tertiary education overall, at least in the medium run, this does not mean that fully online activities are not growing rapidly nor that the fully online learning model gains ground at distance education institutions (Bates, 1995).To our knowledge, no data on fully online enrolments are available for other countries than the United States. According to the 2003 Sloan survey, more than 1. 6 million students (i. e. 11% of all US tertiary-level students) took at least one fully online course during the Fall 2002 and about one third of them, that is 578 000 students, took all their courses online. For example, the University of Phoenix, the largest university in the United States in terms of enrolments, has for example 60 000 of its 140 000 students online.The enrolments of fully online students in the United States were forecasted to increase by about 20% between 2002 and 2003, to 1. 9 million students—a projection that proved to be accurate according to the 2004 Sloan survey (Allen and Seaman, 2003, 2004). This growth rate, which is projected estimated at 25% for 2005 is much higher than the growth rate of total tertiary enrolments in t he United States. From a low starting point, fully online learning is growing at a rapid pace, even if it is merely as a complement to face-to-face or mixed mode learning.Moreover, fully online learning is clearly very important for distance institutions. In the CERI survey, the institutions willing to embrace fully online learning to the greatest extent were all virtual/distance learning only institutions (or branches) (OECD, 2005). In conclusion, e-learning seems to live up to its promises in terms of flexibility and possibly access. It is a growing activity that has for example significantly widened the participation in tertiary education of foreign students (OECD, 2004).Does e-learning improve the quality of tertiary education? The real impact of e-learning on the quality of education is difficult to measure. E-learning largely embodies two promises: improving education thanks to improved learning and teaching facilities; inventing and sharing new ways of learning thanks to ICTs , that is a new specific pedagogic techniques. While the first promise is by and large becoming a reality, at least in OECD countries, the second appears further from reach.Viewed mainly as an enhancement of on-campus education, and thus matching the reality depicted in the previous section, there is some evidence that e-learning has improved the quality of the educational experience on both faculty and students sides (not to mention enhancement of administrative management). All institutions participating in the CERI survey reported a â€Å"positive impact† of greater use of e-learning in all its forms on teaching and learning. The quality of education (with or without e-learning) is very difficult to measure, not the least because learning depends on students’ motivation, abilities and other conditions (e. g. amily, social, economic, health backgrounds) as much as on the quality of teaching. However, the reasons explaining this positive impact on quality largely live s up to the promises of e-learning to offer more flexibility of access to learners, better facilities and resources to study, and new opportunities thanks to the relaxation of space and time constraints. Basically, they do not correspond to a significant change in class pedagogy, but to a change in the overall learning experience. According to the institutions, the main drivers or components of this positive impact come from: †¢facilitated access to international faculty/peers, e. . with the possibility of online lectures or joint classes with remote students; †¢flexible access to materials and other resources, allowing students to revise a particular aspect of a class, giving more access flexibility to part-time students, or giving remote and easy access to the library materials; †¢enhancement of face-to-face sessions, as the availability of archived lectures online frees up faculty time to focus on difficult points and application and because the introduction of e-l earning has sometimes led to a debate on pedagogy; †¢improved communication between faculty and students and increase of peer learning;This â€Å"positive impact† on the overall learning experience is, alone, a significant achievement of e-learning, even though it has not radically transformed the learning and teaching processes. The quality of fully online learning is a more controversial question, possibly because online learning was once viewed as possibly become of higher quality than on-campus education (possibly including e-learning as already mentioned).Comparing the quality (or the beliefs about the quality) of fully online learning against traditional distance learning, traditional face-to-face learning or other mixed modes of e-learning might not yield the same results: fully online learning is indeed more readily comparable to distance learning than to on-campus education. While institutions having adopted e-learning have generally a positive view of its possi ble impact on quality, there is little convincing evidence about the superior or inferior quality of fully online learning compared to other modes of tertiary education.Another question is whether fully online learning has entailed innovation in pedagogy or just replicated with other means the face-to-face experience. As noted above, ICTs could indeed entail pedagogic innovations and help create a community of knowledge among faculty, students and learning object developers that would codify and capitalise over successful innovation in pedagogy. At this stage, there is no evidence that e-learning has yielded any radical pedagogic innovation.The most successful fully online courses generally replicate virtually the classroom experience via a mix of synchronous classes and asynchronous exchanges. Arguably, they have not represented a dramatic pedagogical change. We will see below that in spite of worthwhile experiments, learning objects and open educational resources are still in thei r infancy. They hold promises for educational innovation though. The cost of e-learning Has e-learning lived up its promises in terms of cost-efficiency?Here again, not if one looks at the most radical promises: as noted above, virtual universities have not replaced brick and mortars and saved the cost of expensive building investments and maintenance; digital libraries have supplemented rather than replaced physical ones; the codification and standardisation of teaching in a way that would allow less faculty or less qualified academics has not become the norm, nor have new online learning objects been invented to replace faculty altogether; finally, it has become clear that there was no once-for-all ICT investments and that the maintenance and upgrading costs of ICT facilities were actually important, contrary to the marginal cost of then replicating and diffusing information. Moreover, cost-efficiency has for many universities been a secondary goal compared to the challenge of dev eloping innovative and high quality e-learning courses at many tertiary education institutions. Although the anking of cost-efficiency has increased between 2002 and 2004 by 16%, 37% of respondents considered â€Å"cutting teaching costs long-term† as a key rationale in the OBHE survey (OBHE, 2004)—a small percentage compared to the two key rationales (over 90% of responses). Again, most universities consider e-learning materials and courses as a supplement to traditional class-room or lecture activities rather than a substitute. The predominance of web dependent and mixed modes of e-learning makes the assessment of the costs and benefits of e-learning investments more difficult to evaluate as they become part of the on-campus experience. It is striking that the institutions participating in the CERI survey on e-learning had no systematic data on their e-learning costs (OECD, 2005). In this context, and after the burst of the dot. om economy bubble that put out of busi ness many e-learning operations (many never really started their operations though), identifying sustainable cost-efficient models for e-learning investments in tertiary education has become critical. There are examples of cost-efficient models â€Å"outside† the traditional colleges and universities though. Virtual tertiary education institutions as e. g. the Catalonia Virtual University have a cost advantage as they are developing e-learning material from scratch and not â€Å"building onto† a physical camp. The Open University in the UK which is gradually moving from a traditional distance learning courses using books, video cassettes, and CD-ROMs to online courses has reported that their costs per student are one third of the average cost for similar on-campus programmes in the UK.Fixed capital costs are lower and it is easier to align staffing structures to e-learning processes than at â€Å"traditional† universities. The e-learning activities of Phoenix Un iversity, which is a private for-profit university mainly for adult students, is also seen as cost-effective. Its business model is based on â€Å"standardised teaching†, relatively small on-line class size, and use of proven low-tech e-learning technologies (inducing lower costs than more sophisticated technologies). Much of the faculty staff at Phoenix University is often hired part time and having jobs at other tertiary education institutions, which often implies that staff development costs are lower at Phoenix University than other tertiary education institutions.E-learning investments in tertiary education can be cost-effective, but it depends on the business model, the profile and number of students and topics (cost-effectiveness has been demonstrated in some cases in large undergraduate science classes (Harley, 2003), and initial development costs. The calculations also depend on whether student opportunity costs are taken into account. The initial costs for e-learnin g development are often high (e. g. infrastructure, creating course material from scratch, experimentation, new kind of staff/units, immature technologies, etc. ). In order to ensure that e-learning investments are cost efficient, e-learning activities may need to substitute parts of the on-campus teaching activities (rather than duplication).Educational innovations, like learning objects, could for example allow supporting the re-use and sharing of e-learning materials. Although data is lacking on cost-efficiency, at this stage there is little evidence that e-learning has led to more cost efficiency in tertiary education. Failures have been more numerous than success stories, although the latter document the possible sustainability of e-learning. The adoption of ICTs for administrating tertiary education institutions has probably been the main source of cost efficiency in the tertiary sector, like in other economic sectors. Conclusion: the e-learning adoption cycles So, has e-learn ing lived up to its promises?This is probably true as far as it holds promises for incremental improvement, including an increased access and quality of the learning experience—a kind of change whose importance should not be underestimated. As for radical innovation, the answer is rather: not yet. So far, e-learning has induced a quiet rather than a radical revolution of tertiary education. Perhaps e-learning will follow the same development path in tertiary education as other innovations that first begin with experiments, then expand to a group of early adopters before becoming commonplace. Zemsky and Massy (2004) have proposed a possible â€Å"e-learning innovation’s S-curve† divided into four distinctive but often overlapping adoption cycles that help understand the current development of e-learning, and, possibly, its future challenges. The cycles include: )Enhancements to traditional course/program configurations, which inject new materials into teaching an d learning processes without changing the basic mode of instruction. Examples include e-mail, student access to information on the Internet, and the use of multimedia (e. g. PowerPoint) and simple simulations; 2)Use of course management systems, which enable faculty and students to interact more efficiently (e. g. Blackboard or WebCT). They provide better communication with and among students, quick access to course materials, and support for administrating and grading examinations; 3)Imported course objects, which enable the faculty to embed a richer variety of materials into their courses than is possible with traditional â€Å"do it yourself† learning devices.Examples range from compressed video presentations to complex interactive simulations including the increased use of â€Å"learning objects† ; 4)New course/program configurations, which result when faculty and their institutions reengineer teaching and learning activities to take full advantage of new ICTs. The new configurations focus on active learning and combine face-to-face, virtual, synchronous, and asynchronous interaction and learning in novel ways. They also require faculty and students to adopt new roles – with each other and with the technology and support staff. The overview of current e-learning adoption shows that most tertiary education institutions in OECD countries can largely be located in cycles one and/or two. These first two cycles have largely built upon and reinforced one another. However, they have not fundamentally changed the way teaching and learning is pursued at the large majority of institutions.Their momentum has not automatically transferred to either increasing use and dissemination of learning objects or to the use of new course/program configurations (e-learning cycles three and four). Cycles 3 and 4 correspond to changes remodelling more radically teaching and learning. While some experimentations underway give us some idea of where they could he ad, they are still in their infancy. The third cycle corresponds to the creation of â€Å"learning objects† that can potentially offer an efficient approach to the development of e-learning materials (i. e. reduced faculty time, lower cost, higher quality materials), although many issues remain (e. g. opyright, lack of incentives for faculty to create, the range of actors in and ‘location’ of the creative process, lack of standardisation and interoperability of e-learning software). The learning objects model implies material/course development that departs from the â€Å"craft-model† where the individual professor is responsible for the majority of work. Instead it is a model where the course is assembled largely by or from third-party material. Besides the technical and organisational challenges of developing learning objects, there are also considerable pedagogical challenges using them. Some argue that learning is so contextually based that the breakin g up of the learning experience into defined objects is destructive for the learning process.Evidence from the Open Learning Initiative at the Carnegie Mellon University suggests that effective e-learning courses are often facilitated by having a ‘theme’ that runs throughout the course, which might be difficult to obtain with the notion of decontextualised learning objects (Smith and Thille, 2004). Therefore, much more research and development is needed to ensure pedagogical effectiveness of the learning objects model. For faculty members to rely on others for their material will also need a cultural change as it would probably often be considered today as demonstrating â€Å"inferiority†. Wide use of learning objects in tertiary education will therefore only occur if major changes in working habits and attitudes of faculty are possible. The development of learning objects is very much in its initial phase. This is illustrated by the use of the public available l earning objects repositories as e. g.MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching). The basic idea behind the MERLOT repository was to create a readily available, low-cost, web-based service to which experimenters could post their learning objects and from which interested practitioners could rate and download objects for use in their courses. While there has been a tremendous growth in the number of learning objects made available by MERLOT, there has been very little interest to use what other colleagues had made available and consequently little effort in terms of rating others’ learning objects. This can however be seen as the first steps towards the construction of knowledge communities in education.Despite the premature stage of learning objects and the large number of obstacles to overcome, some standard form of learning objects will probably emerge and gain importance in the development of e-learning in tertiary education as well as in othe r education sectors. Very few institutions have reached the fourth e-learning adoption cycle at an institution wide scale. There are however institutions which are clearly experimenting with new ways of using ICTs that change the traditional organisation and pedagogy of tertiary education. One such example is the previously mentioned Open Learning Initiative at the Carnegie Mellon University. The use of cognitive and learning sciences to produce high quality e-learning courses into online learning practices is at the core of this initiative (Smith and Thille, 2004).As there is no generic e-learning pedagogy, the aim is to design as â€Å"cognitive informed† e-learning courses as possible. The establishment and implementation procedures for routine evaluation of the courses and the use of formative assessment for corrections and iterative improvements are part of the e-learning course development. The development of the e-learning courses often rely on teamwork including facul ty from multiple disciplines, web designers, cognitive scientists, project managers, learning designers, and evaluators. The key question for any project like the Open Learning Initiative attempting a combination of open access to free content, and a fee-for-service model for students using the courses in a degree granting setting is its sustainability.This initiative could not have been realised without significant voluntary contributions from private foundations and a major research grant from the National Science Foundation to start the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. The next section will address the challenges for the adoption of these third and fourth adoption cycles. III. Challenges for the further development of e-learning in tertiary education: what sustainable innovation model? The aim of this final section is to identify and reflect on some of the key issues that would need to be considered in a systematic way for e-learning to develop further and become a deeper d river of innovation in tertiary education.If the vast majority of colleges and universities are to embrace the third and fourth e-learning adoption cycles, a sustainable innovation and investment model will have to be developed. A first challenge lies indeed in the development of sustainable e-learning innovation models which go beyond using e-learning as an add-on to traditional forms of teaching and learning in tertiary education but rather invent new, useful and better pedagogic innovations partly substituting traditional face-to-face teaching. This will require a broad willingness of these institutions to search for new combinations of input of faculty, facilities and technology and new ways of organising their teaching activities.A second challenge lies in the development of a realistic model for investment in e-learning that would stimulate the participation of faculty and other stakeholders and be financially sustainable, which is not straightforward given that there is littl e systematic knowledge on the real costs and benefits of e-learning investments in tertiary education. However, like for ICT investments in other sectors, the cost-effectiveness of e-learning investments will depend on whether new organisational and knowledge management practices are adopted. It might indeed be more difficult to provide the â€Å"softer† social, organisational and legal changes in tertiary education than the technological infrastructures necessary to fully embrace the advantages of e-learning.This section emphasises partnerships and networks as a possible way forward for further investment, product development and innovation diffusion in e-learning. There are many examples where tertiary education institutions seek to share the costs of e-learning development through partnerships and networking. Partnership and network building are also useful for having access to new knowledge, to learn from others experience and exchange information about the latest develop ments in e-learning and they can involve many different organisations as e. g. traditional colleges and universities, virtual universities, libraries, for-profit ICT and training companies from different sectors etc.These activities can range from sharing material, joint technology and software development, joint research and development, joint marketing, joint training, connectivity, etc. and can be sub-national, national and international (OECD, 2004b; Cunningham and al. , 2000). After showing the importance (and challenges) for universities to engaging their faculty in e-learning, we will turn to an innovative practice exemplifying the potential power of partnerships and networks: Open Educational Resources (OER). They will indeed most likely have significant implications for the way e-learning activities will develop over the coming years in tertiary education. Engaging universities and faculty in e-learningIn most OECD countries the question is no longer whether or not tertiary education institutions should invest in e-learning. Because of the competition between institutions and student demand for easy access to courseware material and flexible learning environments, most tertiary education institutions willing to deliver quality teaching are bound to invest in e-learning. As we have seen, the large majority of institutions are now embracing e-learning adoption cycles one and two, which are basically about providing the students with better access to learning and course material and facilitating the electronic communication between students and teachers.Again, only very few institutions and faculty are however systematically exploring and producing re-usable learning material and objects (third cycle) or have taken full advantage of new ICTs with focus on active learning that combines face-to-face, virtual, synchronous, and asynchronous interaction and learning in novel ways (fourth cycle). The latter approach would require faculty and students to adopt new roles – with each other and with the technology and support staff. While ICTs offer powerful new instruments for innovation, tertiary education institutions are generally decentralised institutions where individual faculty often has the sole responsibility for teaching courses and delivering course material. Adoption of the third and especially the fourth e-learning cycle would imply changing to more collaborative ways of organising and producing teaching material.Faculty members would in many cases have to collaborate with a whole range of new staff as e. g. course managers, web designers, instructional/pedagogical designers, cognitive scientist etc. to produce course material. This could lead to resistance from â€Å"traditional† faculty arguing that current teaching practices have proved its value for centuries and there is no need to change them to new pedagogical and teaching methods, which have hardly proven their efficiency yet. Moreover, promotion of facult y and funding allocations in universities are often linked to research activities rather than teaching activities, often seen as less prestigious.Faculty members have therefore often relatively few incentives to invest their time in e-learning activities. The adoption of new ways of teaching and learning at tertiary education institutions through ICTs can therefore create organisational conflicts and tensions. New organisational innovations, new knowledge management practices, and more team working are therefore necessary conditions for tertiary education institutions to be able to move to e-learning adoption cycles three and four. The CERI study on e-learning case studies in post-secondary education has identified a number of lessons learnt by institutions that are in the forefront of e-learning development (OECD, 2005): More strategic e-learning planning at the institutional or faculty level and to tie this to the overall goals of the institution is needed; †¢A paradigm shift in the way academics think of university teaching would be necessary, e. g. a shift away from ‘scepticism about the use of technologies in education’ and ‘teacher-centred culture’ towards ‘a role as a facilitator of learning processes’, ‘team worker’, and ‘learner-centred culture’; †¢Targeted e-learning training relevant for the faculty’s teaching programme as well as ownership of the development process of new e-learning material by academics is also necessary. There is no one-best-way or trajectory for e-learning development at tertiary education institutions.But it might prove more difficult to provide the â€Å"softer† social, organisational and legal changes in tertiary education than provide the technological infrastructures necessary to fully embrace the advantages of e-learning (David, 2004). It will depend on a whole range of factors not necessarily related to the development of e-learning including: †¢Changes in the funding of tertiary education and in particular e-learning funding; †¢Student demography; †¢Regulatory and legal frameworks; †¢Competition between traditional tertiary education institution themselves and with new private providers; †¢Internationalisation including the possibility of servicing foreign students living abroad; and not the least to the extent to which students will want to use the new opportunities for new and flexible ways of learning.Many tertiary education students would possibly prefer to have some kind of â€Å"mixed model† learning choice involving a whole range of different learning opportunities and forms combining face-to-face, virtual, synchronous, and asynchronous interaction and learning. A possible way forward: Open Educational Resources Open Educational Resources appear as a potentially innovative practice that gives a good example of the current opportunities and challenges offered by ICTs in or der to trigger radical pedagogic innovations. Digitalisation and the potential for instant, low-cost global communication have opened tremendous new opportunities for the dissemination and use of learning material.This has spurred an increased number of freely accessible OER initiatives on the Internet including 1) open courseware ; 2) open software tools (e. g. learning management systems); 3) open material for capacity building of faculty staff ; 4) repositories of learning objects ; 5) and free educational e-learning courses. At the same time, there are now more realistic expectations of the commercial e-learning opportunities in tertiary education. The OER initiatives are a relatively new phenomenon in tertiary education largely made possible by the use of ICTs. The open sharing of one’s educational resources implies that knowledge is made freely available on non-commercial terms sometimes in the framework of users and doers communities.In such communities the innovation impact is greater when it is shared: the users are freely revealing their knowledge and, thus work cooperatively. These communities are often not able to extract economic revenues directly from the knowledge and information goods they are producing and the â€Å"sharing† of these good are not steered by market mechanisms. Instead they have specific reward systems often designed to give some kind of credit to inventors without exclusivity rights. In the case of open science, the reward system is collegial reputation, where there is a need to be identified and recognised as â€Å"the one who discovered† which gives incentives for the faculty to publish new knowledge quickly and completely (Dasgupta and David, 1994).The main motivation or incentive for people to make OER material available freely is that the material might be adopted by others and maybe even is modified and improved. Reputation is therefore also a key motivation factor in â€Å"OER communities†. Be ing part of such a user community gives access to knowledge and information from others but it also implies that one has a â€Å"moral† obligation to share one’s own information. Inventors of OER can benefit from increased â€Å"free distribution† or from distribution at very low marginal costs. A direct result of free revealing is to increase the diffusion of that innovation relative to conditions in which it is licensed or kept secret.If an innovation is widely used it would initiate and develop standards which could be advantageously used even by rivals. The Sakai project has, for example, an interest in making their open software tools available for many colleges and universities and have therefore set a relatively low entry amount for additional colleges and universities wishing to have access to the software tools that they are developing. The financial sustainability of OER initiatives is a key issue. Many initiatives are sponsored by private foundations, public funding or paid by the institutions themselves. In general, the social value of knowledge and information tools increases to the degree that they can be shared with and used by others.The individual faculty member or institution providing social value might not be able to sustain the costs of providing OER material freely on the Internet in the long term. It is therefore important to find revenues to sustain these activities. It might e. g. be possible to charge and to take copyrights on part of the knowledge and information activities springing out of the OER initiatives. Finding better ways of sharing and re-using e-learning material (see the previous mentioned discussion on learning objects) might also trigger off revenues. It is also important to find new ways for the users of OER to be â€Å"advised† of the quality of the learning material stored in open repositories.The wealth of learning material is enormous on the Internet and if there is little or no guidance of the quality of the learning material, users will be tempted to look for existing brands and known quality. There is no golden standard or method of identifying quality of learning material in tertiary education on the Internet as is the case with quality identification within tertiary education as a whole. The intentions behind the MERLOT learning object repository was to have the user community rating the quality and usability of the learning objects made freely available. In reality very few users have taken the time and effort to evaluate other learning objects.There is little doubt that the generic lack of a review process or quality assessment system is a serious issue and is hindering increased uptake and usage of OER. User commentary, branding, peer reviews or user communities evaluating the quality and usefulness of the OER might be possible ways forward. Another important challenge is to adapt â€Å"global OER initiatives† to local needs and to provide a dialogue between the doers and users of the OER. Lack of cultural and language sensitivities might be an important barrier to the receptiveness of the users. Training initiatives for users to be able to apply course material and/or software might be a way to reach potential users.Also important will be the choice (using widely agreed standards), maintenance, and user access to the technologies chosen for the OER. There is a huge task in better understanding the users of OER. Only very few and hardly conclusive surveys on the users of OER are available . There is a high need to better understand the demand and the users of OER. A key issue is who owns the e-learning material developed by faculty. Is it the faculty or the institution? In many countries including the United States, the longstanding practice in tertiary education has been to allow the faculty the ownership of their lecture notes and classroom presentations. This practice has not always automatically been applied to e-learning c ourse material.Some universities have adopted policies that share revenues from e-learning material produced by faculty. Other universities have adopted policies that apply institutional ownership only when the use of university resources is substantial (American Council of Education and EDUCAUSE, 2003). In any case, institutions and faculty groups must strive to maintain a policy that provides for the university’s use of materials and simultaneously fosters and supports faculty innovation. It will be interesting to analyse how proprietary versus open e-learning initiatives will develop over the coming years in tertiary education. Their respective development will depend upon: How the copyright practices and rules for e-learning material will develop at tertiary education institutions; †¢The extent to which innovative user communities will be built around OER initiatives; †¢The extent to which learning objects models will prove to be successful; †¢The extent to which new organisational forms in teaching and learning at tertiary education institutions will crystallise; †¢The demand for free versus â€Å"fee-paid† e-learning material; †¢The role of private companies in promoting e-learning investments etc. It is however likely that proprietary e-learning initiatives will not dominate or take over open e-learning initiatives or vice versa.The two approaches will more likely develop side by side sometimes in competition but also being able to mutually reinforce each other through new innovations and market opportunities. Conclusion There are many critical issues surrounding e-learning in tertiary education that need to be addressed in order to fulfil objectives such as widening access to educational opportunities; enhancing the quality of learning; and reducing the cost of tertiary education. E-learning is, in all its forms, a relatively recent phenomenon in tertiary education that has largely not radically transformed teachi ng and learning practices nor significantly changed the access, costs, and quality of tertiary education. As we have shown, e-learning has grown at a rapid pace and has enhanced the overall learning and teaching experience.While it has not lived up to its most ambitious promises to stem radical innovations in the pedagogic and organisational models of the tertiary education, it has quietly enhanced and improved the traditional learning processes. Most institutions are thus currently in the early phase of e-learning adoption, characterised by important enhancements of the learning process but no radical change in learning and teaching. Like other innovations, they might however live up to their more radical promises in the future and really lead to the inventions of new ways of teaching, learning and interacting within a knowledge community constituted of learners and teachers. In order to head towards these advances innovation cycles, a sustainable innovation and investment model wi ll have to be developed.While a first challenge will be technical, this will also require a broad willingness of tertiary education institutions to search for new combinations of input of faculty, facilities and technology and new ways of organising their teaching activities. 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