International academic and professional groups and associations

National Center for Research in Vocational Education

Educational Technology and On-line Learning

Education - General

AAHE: The American Association for Higher Education

The American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) envisions a higher education enterprise that helps all Americans achieve the deep, lifelong learning they need to grow as individuals, participate in the democratic process, and succeed in a global economy.

AAHE is the individual membership organization that promotes the changes higher education must make to ensure its effectiveness in a complex, interconnected world. The association equips individuals and institutions committed to such changes with the knowledge they need to bring those changes about. To pursue these aims, AAHE:

• Envisions and articulates agendas for change.
• Contributes to the knowledge of a diverse group of leaders committed to the systemic, long-term, cost-effective improvement of American higher education.
• Provides forums in which individuals from a variety of positions and institutions, within and outside higher education, can engage in constructive conversations about difficult issues.
• Identifies and advocates practices that help individuals benefit from their differences and succeed in learning.
• Documents and promotes new concepts of scholarship, with particular emphasis on the nature of learning and the results of teaching.
• Helps institutions develop their capacities to make the organizational, pedagogical, and other changes needed to achieve their evolving missions.
• Collaborates with individuals and organizations engaged in similar work.

American Educational Research Association

The American Educational Research Association is concerned with improving the educational process by encouraging scholarly inquiry related to education and by promoting the dissemination and practical application of research results.

AERA is the most prominent international professional organization with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application. Its more than 22,000 members are educators; administrators; directors of research, testing or evaluation in federal, state and local agencies; counselors; evaluators; graduate students; and behavioral scientists.

National Center for Postsecondary Improvement

Through research and policy analysis, the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement (NCPI) is dedicated to helping institutions, policymakers, students, parents, and the business community adapt to a growing set of pressures facing postsecondary education.

National Center for Research in Vocational Education

NCRVE is the nation's largest center engaged in research, development, dissemination and outreach in work-related education, and is funded by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education of the U.S. Department of Education. Headquartered at the University of California, Berkeley since 1988, NCRVE has played a key role in developing a new concept of workforce development. The Center's mission is to strengthen school-based and work-based learning to prepare all individuals for lasting and rewarding employment, further education, and lifelong learning.

National Postsecondary Education Cooperative

In 1994, Congress authorized the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to establish the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative. Its mission is "to identify and communicate on-going and emerging issues germane to postsecondary education, and to promote the quality, comparability and utility of postsecondary data and information that support policy development, implementation, and evaluation." The Cooperative is composed of individuals representing all levels of postsecondary education including public and independent institutions, statewide governing and coordinating agencies, federal government and national associations.

The National Society for Experiential Education

The National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) is a membership association and national resource center that promotes experienced-based approaches to teaching and learning. For over 25 years, NSEE has developed best practices for effectively integrating experience into educational programs. NSEE works with educators, businesses, and community leaders in the shared belief that students' full learning potential can most effectively be tapped through experience-based education programs. Experiential education encompasses a wide range of teaching and learning methods that engage the learner actively in whatever is being learned.

As a philosophy, experiential education asserts that the development of knowledge and the acquisition of skills belong as partners in education, where each can transform the other. NSEE's membership includes faculty, administrators, and directors of experiential education programs at colleges, universities, schools, businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) is a national association of academics interested in the improvement of teaching and learning in higher education. The Society sponsors an annual conference, a series of workshops, an electronic bulletin board and the 3M Teaching Fellowships. The Society also publishes a bi-annual newsletter, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, as well as a membership directory and a number of other directories. Its members mainly comprise faculty and teaching and learning resource professionals from institutions of post-secondary education across Canada and beyond.

Educational Technology and Online Learning

Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education

The Association (founded in 1981) is an international, educational, and professional organization dedicated to the advancement of the knowledge, theory, and quality of learning and teaching at all levels with information technology. This purpose of AACE is accomplished through the encouragement of scholarly inquiry related to information technology in education and the dissemination of research results and their applications through: Publications Conferences Divisions/Societies/Chapters Inter-Organizational Projects.

Association for Educational Communications and Technology

The mission of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology is to provide leadership in educational communications and technology by linking professionals holding a common interest in the use of educational technology and its application to the learning process. The goal of AECT is to facilitate humane learning through the systematic development, utilization, and management of learning resources, which include people, processes, and media in educational settings.

Association for Learning Technology

ALT was launched in April 1993 at the CAL'93 conference in York. ALT is a membership organisation which seeks to bring together all those with an interest in the use of learning technology in higher and further education. ALT aims to:

• promote good practice in the use and development of learning technologies in higher and further education
• facilitate interchange between practitioners, developers, researchers and policy makers in education and industry
• represent the membership in areas of policy such as infrastructure provision and resource allocation

Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada

The Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC) is Canada's national association for educational media and technology professionals. As an organization, AMTEC provides national leadership through annual conferences, publications, workshops, media festivals, and awards. AMTEC responds to media and technology issues at the international, national, provincial, and local levels. AMTEC also maintains linkages with other organizations with similar interest.

The general purposes and objectives of the Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada shall be the improvement of education and public welfare through the use of educational media and technology.

The British Association for Open Learning

The British Association for Open Learning exists to promote quality and best practice in open, flexible and distance forms of learning throughout the education and training sectors of the UK, Europe and internationally. It is the national, cross sector association for open learning drawing its membership from the key areas of open and flexible learning activity including: corporate users (e.g companies and other user organisations) education and training providers (e.g universities and colleges) TECs, LECs and business support organisations specialist open learning providers across all media consulting and research organisations government organisations public libraries Individual practitioners BAOL is a registered charity and operates on a non-profit making basis. The non-commercial nature of BAOL's activity means that the Association can offer an independent view without favour to any particular sector.

EDUCAUSE - Transforming Education through Education Technologies

The mission of EDUCAUSE is to help shape and enable transformational change in higher education through the introduction, use, and management of information resources and technologies in teaching, learning, scholarship, research, and institutional management. Recognizing a remarkable convergence of mission and goals, the members of CAUSE and Educom voted to create a new consolidated association to galvanize thought and action at the intersection of higher education and information technology. The new association, EDUCAUSE, was incorporated effective July 1, 1998, with offices in Washington, D.C. and Boulder, Colorado.

EDUCAUSE is an international, nonprofit association whose mission is to help shape and enable transformational change in higher education through the introduction, use, and management of information resources and technologies in teaching, learning, scholarship, research, and institutional management. EDUCAUSE membership is open to institutions of higher education, corporations serving the higher education information technology market, and other related associations and organizations.

EDUCAUSE programs include professional development activities, print and electronic publications, strategic/policy initiatives, research and development, and a wealth of online information services.

CTI (Computers in Teaching Initiative)

The current phase of the CTI (Computers in Teaching Initiative) was launched in 1989 with the mission 'to maintain and enhance the quality of learning and increase the effectiveness of teaching through the application of appropriate learning technologies' in UK universities. In order to promote and support change in teaching practices, a network of 24 discipline-specific support centres was established with a Support Service to provide coordination. Each Centre is hosted by a relevant university department, ensuring that the work of the CTI remains focused on the real priorities of teachers and learners.

The CTI (Computers in Teaching Initiative) comprises 24 subject-based Centres working to support the use of communication and information technologies in UK higher education. The CTI Support Service, which hosts this site, coordinates the work of the Centres and acts as a focal point for all CTI activities. This site enables you to find out who we are and what we do, contact one of the CTI Subject Centres, browse our online news service for events, announcements and feature articles, read full-text articles from our journal Active Learning and other academic publications, or browse an annotated collection of resources to help you use technology effectively in your own work. This site carries a wide range of resources to help you make the most of communication and information technologies for teaching and learning.

Technology- Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL)

Widening access to higher education has always been at the heart of the mission of the Department for Continuing Education. It is therefore natural that the Department should now be looking to technology to extend its reach. The Technology-Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL) programme was established in 1996 with the help of generous funding from the Esmèe Fairbairn Charitable Trust and the W K Kellogg Foundation.

Technology, as a learning enabling mechanism, allows students to study at a time and place of their choosing. In theory, at least, it does away with international barriers and will allow students to study "at Oxford" from anywhere in the world. Using technology to support distance learning is in its infancy. Initial attempts to do this have mainly concentrated on porting existing courses to an online environment. The TALL programme is attempting to do more than this - it is developing forms of Internet teaching that depart from the traditional taught course model. Our research and development activities focus on four areas:

1. Research and learning resources databases: Each database is designed to support research-based learning across a range of courses.
2. Tutorial teaching: Oxford University's approach to teaching relies heavily on one-to-one and very small group tutorials. We are exploring ways in which the richness of this intense form of interaction can be recreated in an online environment
3. Mixed media: Alternative ways of presenting live and broadcast events are under investigation. A pilot study based on a weekend conference on Jane Austen has been finished. Materials to support Italian teaching are nearing completion (see Italia 2000)
4. Curricula on demand: Perhaps the most exciting approach under consideration is to build lifelong learning systems composed of large numbers of very small learning components, each taking on average 15 minutes to work through. Students studying using this system would have their needs carefully analysed and, using these components as building blocks, would have a personal course tailored to their needs. We hope to start exploring this approach shortly.

Technology Based Learning and Research

Technology Based Learning and Research (TBL&R) is an independent research development entity founded by Dr. Gary G. Bitter at Arizona State University. TBL&R's main goal is to provide a unified structure to coordinate various technology-based research and development projects. As an integral part of the College of Education, TBL&R focuses on research and large-scale delivery of educational materials as well as technology training and integration using computers and other information and communication technologies. TBL&R projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S Department of Education, and major corporations such as Texas Instruments, Apple and IBM. As a leader in the development of interactive educational materials, TBL&R has completed several award-winning multimedia projects. Among these is the world's first accredited multimedia instructional design college-level course on CD-ROM (Instructional Media Design), which TBL&R developed in cooperation with Arizona State University and Intel.

World Association for On-line Education (WAOE)

The WAOE is an association facing new challenges of online organization and collaboration. Besides the issues of quality online education that draw us together in the first place, our very self-definition as an effective association hinge in part on how we manage to use (and shape) the tools at hand for online communication. We are in fact a "virtual association" in that our professionally based members may never meet one another face-to-face; our membership will be through online registration and participation; our meetings and decisionmaking will likewise be carried out online.

Are there other international associations dealing with tertiary teaching and learning which we have not included? For example, a discipline or professional group that has a tertiary education sub committee. Please send us the details so we can include them.