EDUCATION LEVEL: University
CLASS: Economics of money, banking, and financial markets
Topic: Give an analysis of current economic conditions as of the current day.

Must use precise detailed information. The current state of the economy must have graphs to reflect the data being specified. Use graphs to help state the economic conditions. I have attached a powerpoint file that has 3 graphs that may be useful in order to do this however feel free to use other data if needed. Just need it to be informed. Do whatever you must! This is part of a project I am currently working on called "the fed challenge". I will later be developing a powerpoint from the information derived from here. Thank You

Nursing Education Level and Negative Patient Outcomes

please identify one specific study (an original quantitative research article published in a scientific, scholarly journal; not from lay media)

Please give the study title, authors, the publishing journal and date. Describe why this study is important.

Address the following questions in your review of the chosen article.

1. What was the hypothesis?

2. What study design was implemented (cohort, case control, cross-sectional etc.)?

3. What were the variables of interest?

4. How were the variables operationalized?

5. What are the types/classification of the variables?

6. Were the instruments validated (i.e. against measures obtained using a different instrument)?

Use the six questions as subheadings when addressing the assignment.

You may use the below article or you may find a different one that meets the above criteria

Source: Linda H. Aiken, PhD, RN; Sean P. Clarke, PhD, RN; Robyn B. Cheung, PhD, RN; Douglas M. Sloane, PhD; Jeffrey H.
Silber, MD, PhD. Educational Levels of Hospital Nurses and Surgical Patient Mortality. JAMA. 2003; 290(12), 1617-1623.

please regard that i want you to write about 2 pages as introduction of my article and only one page as conclusion and add them to the attached article below.
Studying the Impacts of Globalization... on Tools and Facilities in Iranian Education System
Abstract
Globalization has deeply changed indicators of education system; including important indicators such as educational tools and facilities. Educational technologies make teachers able to learn various styles of learning and make learning interesting for learners and have converted teachers role from provider of knowledge to a guide. The main goal of this research is to realize the degree of globalization in Tools and Facilities of Iranian education system.. Findings suggest that Tools and Facilities of Iranian education system is far from globalized, post modern education Tools and Facilities , actually matches traditional, stagnant and modernity Tools and Facilities
By analyzing the reasons for weaknesses of this indicator in Iranian education system, one can outline factors like the high population sheltered by this education system that caused the high budget needed to equip those schools with technology. From the other side, aged instructors and principals resist due to their own incapability to utilize technology. Based on the essence and mission, education system should coordinate itself in different aspects of transformation, so that does not become an expired institute.
Keywords: Education Tools and Facilities, Globalization, Postmodernism, Iran, tradition

Introduction

Nowadays, the role of Information and Communication Systems in simplifying the flow of information and preparing the path for decision making is clear to almost everyone. Development of the availability of communicating in the shortest time has conquered the time and has led to some new circumstances or so-called Globalization (Shahi et al., 2008).
According to Ginkel, these changes were rooted underground about half a century ago (Ginkel, 2002). One the other hand, Madison regards globalization as an advanced human dynamic (Madison, 2001). Alberto believes that modernity has come to an end and a new era has begun in which the world has completely changed and is approaching to become a whole unit (Alberto, 2001). Based on Charlton and Andreass beliefs, globalization is an aspect of a bigger phenomenon, i.e. modernism, which defines the society with increasingly growing properties of communication complexities (Charlton and Andreas, 2006). All these stand for a reality known as globalization. Globalization, which requires freedom of action, results in variations in factors including monitoring, hierarchical relations, and management-oriented in education management. This matter implies that although globalization does not belong to any doctrines, it is somehow aligned with post-modernity basics and principles. In the contemporary world, post modernism principles are becoming widespread and have led to new debates in political and cultural as well as literal aspects including learning and education (Farmihani, 2010). It seems that Jacques Derridas deconstructive attitudes have stimulated evolutions in education (Derrida, 1974). As evidence suggests, education system have also benefited from globalization consequences. Referring to the fact that the year 2002 was named as Human Globalization by UNESCO, Ginkel believes that the whole education system plays an important role in this matter (Ginkel, 2002). The globalization process is significantly affecting the economic and commercial life of nations. With increasing global competition and the rapidly advancing technologies, the business organizations and business models as well as management systems and practices are undergoing continuous change. To cope up with these changes, the management education is also being restructured and refocused (Mushtaq, 2004).
. The availability of accessing Internet networks for students has made classrooms walls more transparent and penetrable which brings along the possibility of infinite and multipurpose relationships to learners and has resulted in the notion of Global Village.
Besides, easy and flexible access to Internet and thereafter knowledge causes learners to select the desired method from the experience available to him and thereby, seek learning anywhere at any time. Yet, it seems that Iranian education system with the prospect of loyalty to employing traditional educational tools and facilities has withdrawn the possibility of exploiting the needed potentials. While using contemporary technologies and innovations for global education system leads to target meaningful learning and traditional approaches and those that are teacher-oriented are replaced with pervasive ones. Problem solving ability and high level skills of thinking, data analysis, time management and the capability to prioritize skills in information cyberspace and a globalized society based on information is developed and this is subject to the fact that students and teachers should be able to effectively utilize technologies. This research seeks analyzing the effects of globalization on educational tools and facilities in Iranian education system and find out its comparative globalization degree for the purpose of which, the researcher pays attention to the globalized educational tools and facilities.
Material and methods
In the current research, two methods of surveying and document analysis are utilized.
2.1 Statistical Society: The statistical society for the current survey is all the teachers and principals of primary, middle, and high schools for all the four districts of Ahwaz city, Iran during 2010, this includes 7465 individuals.
2.2 Sampling Method : The desired sample was chosen for the implementation of the survey with questionnaire, by the help of a sample size determination table (Morgan & Krejcie) with the help of a stratified random sampling proportional with the population of the society that is 357 individuals. The stratified number of sample was evaluated by this formula:

n: Total volume of the sample
N: Total number of statistical society of the research
Ni: Population of the class
ni: Volume of the sample
2.3 Research Tools: According to the topic of this research, and due to the novelty of the subject, no data collection tool was available. In order to compile the questionnaire, the researcher initially performed a qualitative study and then, using that, a proper questionnaire was compiled for the quantitative aspect of the survey.
Data collection tools include demographic information check list, the questionnaire made by the researcher for globalized education system and document analysis.
Reliability of Research Tools: According to Cronbach's alpha, the resulted coefficient for the questionnaire with 30 subjects and 71 indices is ?=90.
2.4 Data Analysis: Quantitative data were analyzed by the help of SPSS 16 application in the two descriptive and illative levels. In the descriptive part, frequency, mean value, percentage, and standard deviation were used whereas, from the illative aspect, mono-variable T-test and independent variable T-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and regression were utilized. Data obtained from the documents is analyzed by the help of inductive content analysis.
Result
From the attitudes of scientists like Foucault and Derrida, Farmahini, and Jiroux, one can perceive some features for the globalization of education Tools and Facilities in post modern system among which the most important are:

Audio and visual equipment in teaching particularly the Internet and computers and equipping schools with laboratories.
The availability of excursions.
The possibility of changing the decoration of the class.
Result from questionnaire:
As it is observed from the table (1), the average and the standard deviation of educational tools and facilities in Iran are 2.385 and 0.745 respectively. The results from the mono-group T-test demonstrate that there is a significant difference between the current situation of educational tols and facilities in Iran and its current optimal global situation (t356=-2.264; P=0.001) or in other words, the situation is lower than the optimal level.
In order to study the impacts of demographic characteristics of test subjects on their attitudes towards the level of globalization, we compare them according to these factors respectively.
A) Educational tools and facilities are different at various teaching age group.
The results from (table 2) the mono-variable analysis of variance illustrate that the impact of subjects teaching age group on their viewpoints is not significant regarding educational tools and facilities (P<0.05; F(2.535)=2.648).
B) The situation for the current educational tools and facilities is similar from the points of views of teacher and principals with different education degree.
The results from ( table 3 )the mono-variable analysis of variance illustrate that the impact of subjects education level is not significant on educational tools and facilities (P<0.05; F(3.345)=0.225).
C) Educational tools and facilities in Iran are different according to different subjects administrative position.
Table4: The influence of subjects administrative position on educational tools and facilities is not significant (P<0.05; F(3.354)=1.433).
D) Educational Tools and Facilities in Iran are Different Based on Gender Differences in Schools.
The results from the independent group T-test ( table 5) express that there is no significant difference between educational tools and facilities of two groups of men and women (t355=0.148; P=0.882).

Conclusion

Results of the analysis on educational tools and facilities in a globalized and postmodern education system indicated that using audio and visual equipment, specially computer and the Internet and laboratories play an important role in in-depth learning and availability of excursions and change of class formation pursuant to change of subject are of great significance.
Talking about Information Technology, Scrimshaw and McCormick in their article entitled Information and Communications Technology consider pervasive interactions which are unique to postmodernism. These interactions provide the availability of infinite, multi-purpose relations for learners whose continuity assists in the formation of small and numerous societies in a school (McCormick and Scrimshaw., 2001)
Communicational innovations affect both the process and consequences in schools and direct information freeways from universities to schools. Internet brings along unique opportunities for practicing a new type of democracy in which every culture and human units are able to advocate and disseminate their attitudes and critics and this makes schools as wide as the globe with every human being inside it; whereas, in modern era, information was handled by governments. In a globalized education system, governments possess little chance to refine tastes and by the help of the internet, frames of the classroom are becoming more and more transparent and permeable Farmihani, 2003).
Special features of modern classrooms such as particular position of instructors, blackboard, and row structure of students in the form of regular benches and desks implied that instructors are the owners of knowledge and students are learners and this was not aligned with globalization perspectives like deconstruction, creativity-oriented, etc. The formation and decoration of classrooms should be defined by the subject.

As it was observed from table 1, there is noticeable gap between the current situation of using educational tools and facilities with the desired situation of them in a globalized, post-modern, education system.
In other words, the situation is lower than the desired situation. These findings is compatible with Mahdi Azads(2010) findings by electronic government analysis of education system in Ahwaz which was placed as in the second step (full-fledged) among five stages offered by United Nations research. By analyzing the reasons for weaknesses of this indicator in Iranian education system, one can outline factors like the high population sheltered by this education system that caused the high budget needed to equip those schools with technology. From the other side, aged instructors and principals resist due to their own incapability to utilize technology, however, since young staff are keen to employ innovation and are indeed capable, and students are trained by out-of-school institutes, schools have become forced to employ technology. Budgets and actions have been undertaken in this regard, but weaknesses in strategic management have resulted in dissatisfactory results of this indicator. Factors such as employing inefficient staff as responsible for computer sites and laboratories even despite the investments have caused intense weaknesses.
Formation of classroom as row aligned was a big technical step from the traditional form. Each row simplified the process of controlling each student at a time and all students at the same time by giving a specific place to each student. This has led to bringing up obedient, norm-centered, and introvert individuals which is one of the other weakness indicators.
On the other hand, a globalized education system seeks developing extrovert and creative individuals. In this system, the formation of a classroom is flexible and changes according to the needs of each subject and avoids any form in which instructors stands at the peak and hierarchical relationship between students and instructors are evaded as well.
A proper general and formal education system requires an interdisciplinary, interactional, cultural-educational approach in building educational environments and formation and equipment supply and needs to abide by technical, engineering principles and standards, climate variations and urban planning principles and according to needs and following age, gender and physical requirements of educators; this provides a proper formal school. However, unfortunately, the existing education system is facing limitations in resources and facilities and technical labor which is one of the other challenges and is a major cause of the gap with a proper system (Secretariat of Higher Education, 2010)
Based on the essence and mission,education system should coordinate itself in different aspects so that does not become an expired institute;in particular, in the age where innovation sphere leads to new capacities at times. Legal legislation system should possess mental preparation and ability necessities to be updated not to question formal education systems efficiency. Dullness in taking proper actions is a challenge threatening this system (Secretariat of Higher Education, 2010)In order to further the analysis of educational tools and facilities, demographic properties of subjects of the test were investigated. The results of a one-way variance analysis (table 2) demonstrated that the teaching age group in which instructors are working could not have an impact on applying educational tools and facilities and led to no improvement.
Results from the one-way variance analysis (table 3) and (table 4) indicated that education level and rank of subjects could not have any influence on applying educational tools and facilities, either. Besides, results of the independent-group T-test (table 2-3-5) presented that based on the two divisions of men and women; the state of educational tools and facilities is evaluated inefficient. For demonstrating this, it can be said that the many consensus clarify the deep gap between the current situation of educational tools and facilities and its desired state and it can also be noted that the centralized system of Iranian schools and lack of instructors accessibility to educational facilities have affected their scientific capabilities significantly and denies any kind of creativity.
References
Albero, M. ( 2001). Global Era:The Sociology of Globalization. Translated into Persian by Nader Salar Zadeh Amiri. Azad Andishan Press, Tehran, 2004 (in Persain). Charlton and Andreas, 2006.
zad ,M.( 2010). Analyzing the Electronic Government Model in Staff Department of Ahwaz Education Bureau.Masters Dissertation, Ahwaz: Chamran university
Charlton, B., G., & P. Andras, (2006). Globalization in ScienceEducation: an Evitable and Beneficial Trend; Medical Hypotheses,Vol. 66.
Derrida, J.,( 1974). Of Grammatology Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty, Spivak Baltimore. John Hopkins University Press.
Farmaini Farahani, M. (2010). Post Modernism and Education System. Tehran, Ayeej Publications.
Farmihani Farahani , M. (2003) . Studying Postmodernism Education Views with a Focus on Foucault and Derridas Attitudes. Shahed University Bimonthly Scientific & Research Journal, 10th Year, No. 3.
Ginkel, H. ( 2002) . What Does Globalization Mean for Higher Education. Globalization: what Issues are at Stake for Universities, Universite Lavel; Quebec Canada.
Madison, J. P. (2001) . "Globalization: Challenges and Opportunities" ; Translated by Mahmud Salimi, Rahbord Journal, Vol. 22 (in Persain).
McCormick R,. & Scrimshaw P.( 2001) . Information and Communications Technology. Knowledge and Pedagogy, Education, Vol. 1, no. 1.
Mushtaq ,H. ( 2004) . Globalization and Management Education in Developing Countries. viewed 5 July 2011, http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/29020.html
Secretariat of Higher Education,( 2010). Transformation Document Guideline for Formal Education System of Islamic Republic of Iran. Legislation Prospect. 826., pp57-59.
Shahi, S. and Naveh Ibrahim, A. & Mehralizadeh Y. 2008. Higher Education Encountering Global Challenges in Khuzestan Universities. Research in Higher Education Quarterly, no. 50, pp. 19-45.

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1) Nursing Education in Saudi Arabia: (5 pages) This section will cover history of nursing education, level of nursing education and present situation statistic about nursing education in Sau...di.( to put things into perspective-to show the progress done in nursing education with data please plot a chart )- It is important to mention that nursing education has significantly improved include that fact that in the past the focus was on disease management while presently the focus is on health promotion and disease prevention also in the pass the focus was on individual patients while currently the focus is on individual, families and communities. The future development of nursing education. Address barrier to fully integrate critical thinking into Saudi Nursing education: curriculum, didactic and practice (teacher , students factors, pedagogic approach, logistics, etc)-
2) Role of Critical thinking in Nursing education in general and in Saudi specific: (1 page)
3) Strategies to enhance integration of critical thinking in Saudi Nursing education: (4 pages) This is the selling points??" Strategies I like you to include are the Problem based learning, experiential education/learning as well as active learning, case study, target teaching, group discussion, student centered teaching, etc-Please add more strategies that can enhance critical thing in Saudi Nursing education

Below is the list of additional references you must include:
1-The Nursing profession in Saudi Arabia an overview by M. Almalki, G. FitzGerald & M. Clark
2-Health care and Nursing in Saudi Arabia by A.Aldossary, A. While & L. Barribball
3-Historical, cultural and contemporary Influences on the status of women in Nursing in Saudi Arabia by Kollen Miller-Rosser, Ysanne Chapman and Karen Francis
4- The development of critical thinking in Saudi Nurses: an Ethnographical approach by Elaine Simpson
Please do not limit yourself to those references-
Please note this is a doctoral level systematic/integrated literature review for publication  more

instruction would be...

- articulate why the article is meaningful to Black Americans and in the writing, need to cope these information:
**
Crisis in academic achievement
-black ...and white kids start school with similar standardized test scores
- by 6th grade, Blacks may be 2 grade levels below Whites
- by high school, Blacks begin dropping out at higher rates than Whites (eg. Sophomore 33%, jr: 58%, sr: 61%)
- Blacks have higher attrition rates from college than Whites
- Those who do finish college often have lower GPAs
- in sum, the longer in school the wider the gap!

Structure of Schooling Experience
- early childhood
- Black children more likely in structured daycare than White children. This should advantage Black children
- School selection
- White parents move their children out of schools that more than 30% Black students
- Teaching
- teachers may have lower expectations (and elicit lower performance) of Black students
- Tracking
- Black children more likely to be placed in lower tracks even when their test scores are similar to their White and Asian counterparts
- Testing and Accountability
- programs like No Child Left Behind (2001) may exacerbate unequal treatment of Black children
- Discipline
- Blacks are more likely to be disciplined and expelled from school

Educational Attainment
- fewer Black adolescents (20%) are college ready as compared to Whites (37%)
- Data from 2000-2005 show:
- high school/GED: (81.5% Black vs. 90.1% White)
- Associates degree (8% Black vs. 9.3% White)
- Bachelors degree (12.5% Black vs. 19.77% white)
- Masters degree (4% Black vs. 10.8% White)
- There are racial and gender disparities in income at the same education levels:
- for male high school graduates: Black ($34 K) vs. White ($43 K)
- for female high school graduates: Black ($30.6 K) vs. White ($30.9 K)

Explanations for the disparities
- conventional explanations:
- societal disadvantage
- cultural attitudes
- poorer preparation
- genetics
- challenges to these explanations
- the gap exists regardless of economic status
- even poor African Americans value education highly
- flunk out rates are high for Blacks at all levels of preparation
- if these differences were purely genetic then situational factors should have little to no effect
**



The link to the article is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16gap.html?_r=2&scp=7&sq=racial&st=cse  more

This paper is to explore Globalization's Effect on the United States' National Security. Please ensure to discuss topics such as the economy's role in National Security and the importance of educatio...n. Emphasize the fact that the last National Security Strategy by current President Obama (May 2010) is the first time these items are addressed in and National Security Strategy. This should be one of the sources. Within the document it states things like, "We must grow our economy and reduce our deficit. We must educate our children to compete in an age where knowledge is capital, and the marketplace is global. We must develop clean energy that can power new industry, unbind us from foreign oil, and preserve our planet. We must pursue science and research that enables discovery, and unlocks wonders as unforeseen to us today as the surface of the moon and the microchip were a century ago. Simply put, we must see American innovation as a foundation of American power." It also has some other interesting items such as, "The United States must ensure that we have the world's best-educated workforce, a private sector that fosters innovation, and citizens and businesses that can access affordable health care to compete in a globalized economy." There are other mentions of globalization and the importance of the US to be able to compete. I also have read that globalization is one key reason 9/11 was able to be successful. Things such as a good economy help the US fund its defense as well. There are many avenues to explore with this topic. Please include some charts and graphs (maybe to compare the US to other countries - e.g. education levels, economy growth and decline, ect...). I mention 10 sources are required, but more or less can be used; however, the sources MUST BE peer-reviewed sources. You may use a couple of media sources, but not for facts. Please include the major sections as if it were a small thesis (Intro, Literature Review, Analysis, Interpretations and Findings, Conclusion, etc...). It must be at a minimum of 17 pages (not including the bibliography). I am providing additional time because quality is the upmost importance to me. I will also be requesting (at the additional fee) an executive summery of the paper as well. I appreciate your hard work on this important project. Please write the paper in Chicago Style. Also cite all sources using Chicago Style rules.  more

Here is an outline of what I need for my thesis with what I think are clear instructions.

I will also mail in a sample thesis to assist the writer for referral.

I have added some n...otes to assist the writer in determining what I need for Chapter 1 (Intro), and Chapter 2 (literature review)

I will write title page, acknowledgments, abstract, contents, appendix, biography and Chaps 3,4,5,6.

(All citations requested per section also be in the Bibliography.here is a sample of the Bibliography Style:

Pearson F.S and Rochester J.M. (1992), International Relations: The Global Condition in the Late Twentieth Century, 3rd Ed,. McGraw-Hill, Inc, USA.
Power C. N., (2000), Global Trends in Education, International Education Journal Vol 1, No 3, 2000 http://www.flinders.edu.au/education/iej (p.152-p.163)
Ruhland S. K. (2001), Factors that Influence the turnover and retention of Minnesotas teaching college teachers, Journal of Vocational Education research, Vol. 26, N0.1, pp. 56-76.
Schermerhorn J.R., Hunt J. G., and Osborn R.N. (2005), Organizational Behavior, 9th Ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., USA (p.72 p.162)
Secord, Paul F. (1964) Social psychology, New York : McGraw-Hill, c1649.

There should be approx. 242 citations in the work)


My topic is Teacher Motivation.

My Research Hypothesis is: Factors affecting High School teachers motivation in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1 Background and Significance of the problem (3 pages)
(Include statistics, 3 quotes, and 4 citations)

1.2 Rational for the Study (1 page)

1.2 Research Questions (here are a few examples below...please add 2 more based on literature review)

1.2.1 What is the level of teacher motivation among secondary school teachers in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada?

1.2.2 Are there significant differences in levels of motivation among secondary school teachers working under the British Columbia District by their Socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status, education level, year of experience and present subject taught?

1.2.3 Are there significant differences of the level of motivation among secondary teachers working under the British Columbia School district due to organization, size of school and teaching load of teacher?

1.3 Objectives

1.3.1 To determine the levels of motivation among secondary teachers working under the Vancouver British Columbia School District in Canada and recommend the areas for improvement.

1.3.2 To compare the level of motivation among secondary school teachers under the Vancouver British Columbia School District in Canada by their socio-demographic and organizational factors.

1.4 Research Contributions.

1.4.1 (Write a page)

1.4.2 (Write a page)

1.5 Limitations of the Study (I will do this)

1.6 Operational Definitions of the Terms (2 pages with sources)

1.7 Research Hypothesis

The study was designed to examine the overall level of motivation among secondary teachers under the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada school system by adding both hygiene and job aspects such as recognition, responsibility, growth and advancement, work itself, supervision, interpersonal relationship, working condition, job type and salary.

Chapter 2 - Literature Review
2.1 Background of the Education system in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (2 pages with 3 citations)

2.2 General Overview of the Canadian people's belief of the education system in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (2 pages with 3 citations)

2.3 Contextual Study

2.3.1 Historical Development of Teachers in Canada (1 page w/ 2 citation and 1 quote.)

2.3.1.1 Teacher Certification Requirements in Canada (1 page w/ 2 citations)

2.3.1.2 Canadian Government Policy on Retaining Teachers (2 pages with 3 citations)

2.3.1.3 Canadian Government Programs in supporting teachers in the work place. (2 pages with 3 citations)

2.3.1.4 Canadian Government programs for professional development (career ladders) for teachers. (2 pages with 3 citations)

2.3.1.5 Canadian Government Resource & Support Services for teachers to maintain quality working relationships with administration, students and community. (2 pages with 4 citations)


2.4 Background of Vancouver School District (I will do this)

(Include its area, map, population, how high schools, student population, teacher population,)

School District # Name of High
Schools Population in each district Students Enrolled Total no. of teachers Average teacher /pupil ratio

2.5 Significance of Motivation (1 page w/ 2 citations)

2.6 Concepts, Definitions and Theories of Motivation

2.6.1 I need holistic write up of scholar definitions of motivation linked to teacher motivation with citations, this may include up to 9 definitions. (5 pages with 9 citations) and why motivation can be defined in many ways.

2.6.2 Here I need the bulk of the literature review to have a flowing discussion on the theories of motivation (listed below) with explanations for each of its parts and how they are related to teacher motivation with scholarly quotes on the pro and cons of each theory as a way of measuring/assessing/ teacher motivation with citations.

I also need tables for each theory included in the text.

-Maslow Needs-Hierarchy Theory
-Alderfers ERG Theory
-Acquired Needs Theory (McClellan)
-Cognitive Evaluation Theory
-Two Factor Theory (Herzberg) Hygiene and Motivators
-Equity Theory
-Expectancy Theory (Vroom)
-Spectors Three Model Theory

This section should be 30 pages with 4-6 citations per page.

Miller (1981, cited in Lumsen, 1998) notes. (Example of citation style)

2.7 Use of independent and Dependent Variables in the Research

The factors discussed here are based on the presented theories above. The most relevant to the context of the study are presented here;

2.7.1 Independent Variables

Socio-demographic Factors

Each Independent variable needs a page relating to other studies with 2-3 citations to teacher motivation to support the variable.

i) Age
ii) Gender
iii) Marital Status
iv) Education Level
v) Years of Experience
vi) Position in School

2.7.2 Organizational Factors

Each factor below needs to be supported by other studies with citations.

i) Organizational Commitment (2 pages with 9 citations)
ii) School Size (1 page with 3 citations)
iii) Teaching Load (1 page with 3 citations)

2.7.3 Motivation Aspects

The dependent variable is the average of motivation aspects from two components; Hygiene aspects and motivation aspects.

A) Hygiene Aspects

i)Supervision (1/2 page with 2 citations)
ii)Interpersonal Relations (1/2 page with 2 citations)
iii)Working Conditions (1 page with 3 citations)
iv)Professional Status (1/2 page with 2 citations)
v)Salary (1/2 page with 2 citations)

B) Job Aspects
i) Recognition (1/2 page with 2 citations)
ii) Responsibility (1/2 page with 2 citations)
iii) Work itself (1/2 page with 3 citations)
iv) Growth & Advancement (1/2 page with 1 citation)

2.8 Measurement of Motivation (1 page with 4 citations)

Done.


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Reflective Essay- personal teaching philosophy statements
At the start of week one till the week 8 you are asked to reflect on your learning journey through this unit and develop a reflective pers...onal teaching philosophy statement that embraces your understanding of best practice. What you don't do is just summarise what you've put in your journal- this is not reflective practice. But a new piece of writing, which reflects upon your learning journey and uses relevant references to support your argument. Also reflect- on what is important -not just what you have learned, but how it has changed your values, attitudes and perhaps made you think about your future practice.
By the time you get to week eight, you will be able to actually see what you have learned- you will have a comprehensive record of your reading and your ideas. How have your ideas changed and crystallised over eight weeks? Unless you think and reflect, you will not be able to write the reflective essay.
Reflection is the way of thinking that all good teachers live with everyday. It means- "well, I thought this, and did this- how could I do it better next time?" So- you should ask yourself the same thing about curriculum. This is central to the teaching process- how can I take this requirement and achieve what is mandated, taking into account the students I have at this particular time, the ethos of the school, the leadership team, the parents, my own capabilities and interests. You might find this quite hard to do if you don't know very much about what drives curriculum construction and philosophy.

HERES HOW I STARTED IT, YOU CAN CHANGE IT IF YOU LIKE.
When starting the personal journal i found it hard, but after starting the journals entries for the past 8 weeks I have learned a lot, and I found myself better understanding of the curriculum than I did before starting the unit. I couldn?t even say curriculum or spell it properly. However after researching more on curriculum and doing the weekly reading and participating on online discussion with other students helped me a lot and gave me a better understanding of curriculum. Therefore I was able to achieve the weekly questions and tasks.

Marking criteria please follow it.
Academic Engagement Evidence of self-reflective examination of learning issues-Consistently employs reflective learning strategies
Synthesis Evidence of synthesis of multiple concepts and sources of information-Explanations are thorough, innovative and are supported with research of the theories of learning.
Classroom ConnectionEvidence of connections between theory and practice- Consistently makes valid and insightful connections between personal experience, theories and classroom environments
Academic PresentationEvidence of ability in academic writing -Consistently applies appropriate standards of presentation in referencing and literacy (including spelling, grammar and sentence structure)

Here are my personal journals for each week that I did.

Week 1

Part A
What is curriculum?
What Curriculum means to me is a syllabus which needs to be taught and followed in order to complete a course.Syllabus and curriculum are not the same Curriculum is the learning which is planned by a teacher and taught to students weather it?s carried out for group of students or individually. Curriculum means subjects that are included in a course. Teachers use curriculum to direct their classrooms. Curriculum could also be everything that students or other learners gain within school or home which will help them in their everyday lives. However I believe that at most of schools, curriculum is looked at simply the recognized educational standards that are taught. These standards provide a sign of where the students/ others should be within a clearly defined range of learning. I believe that teachers should plan and focus on every Childs need, therefore focusing on the learning needs of every individual child and designing curriculum to meet the students/ children needs is very important as this will help the students to gain more knowledge. However I think it is the teacher?s duty to help the students to reach their goals and should teach them ways to become better learners and problem solvers so that they choose to take paths to learning of their individual foundation.
Part B
After doing my readings, online tasks and researching about what curriculum means? Curriculum is the most important document early childhood educators need to understand and apply and should be developed with discussion from all stakeholders. These stakeholders are families, government, communities and the students. (Brady & Kennedy, 2010). However why however? you are not adding anything to the previous sentence.as (Brady & Kennedy, 2010, p.5) stated that students curriculum is an interrelated set of plans and experiences that a student undertakes under the guidance of school. The term curriculum refers to everything that happens throughout the day. As Linderberg, L., & Swedlow, R. (1976). Stated that curriculum refers to all the provision professionals make for the whole of the Childs experience in the service. ???meaning?Therefore curriculum includes the educators understanding guiding their decision making and the provision of resources; the organisation of space, time and resources planned and spontaneous; and teaching strategies and interactions. Brady and Kerry (2010) states how the curriculum should be about the future. ?and to understand better role of the curriculum in the 21st century, the purpose should be to ensure that students/ children are well equipped to handle whatever it is that this century will call them to do and be? (Brady & Kerry, 2010, p.5). However teacher?s roles are to prepare and educate children by simply implementing the curriculum guidelines by the school. As (Brady & Kerry, 2010) highlighted that most importantly educators interpret those guidelines and add an educational aspect that forms from day to day curriculum experiences for students.

Reference:
Brady, L. & Kennedy, K. (2010). Curriculum Construction (4th Edition).Frenchs Forest NSW: Pearson Australia.
Linderberg, L., & Swedlow, R. (1976). Early Childhood Education: A Guide for Observation and Participation. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Week 2 & 3
In this modern and contemporary world, an individual is exceedingly blessed, who have had the fortune of attaining education, and utilizing his acquired knowledge, for the betterment of his living. In order to attain a blissful and a prosperous life, it is highly imperative that a person has been geared up to face and confront the ever increasing competition in the world, having the most advanced and inclusive education.
Beliefs about Early Childhood Education
A child?s mind is extremely na?ve and vulnerable. Researches have proven that not only an immature mind is exceedingly receptive, but also very impressive; therefore, what ever it hears or receives is imbedded very firmly, in both the conscious, as well as the unconscious level. Bearing in mind the previously mentioned notion, a cognitive mind is coerced to believe that education in the early ages of the child plays a pivotal role in constructing his ideals, morals, mentality and innovative approach.
Curriculum
The educational institutes in almost every region do not inculcate the knowledge based on their own choice or fluke. There is a set pattern of academic course, which an institute decides to follow, primarily authorized by a governing body or board. A curriculum, primarily, is an incorporated and structured course based on the theoretical studies, for the children.
Australian Curriculum
Australian curriculum is amongst the most compatible and well devised curriculum for children?s education in the developed countries. Like other curriculums, even the Australian curriculum pays utmost heed to the sound development and the exquisite knowledge attainment by the children. Australian curriculum is devised in a way that it is properly prepared for imparting the basic knowledge, required comprehensions, desirable capabilities and skill, which are essential for Australian children. The curriculum denotes the ownership or right of learning of a student as the corner stone of, future learning, proper cognitive growth, a healthy future lifestyle, and sound membership of Australian community (Hincks, 2010).
Historic Development of Australian Curriculum
Numerous researchers and scholars believe that, shortly after independence, the administration and establishment of Australia had started giving utmost attention to the domain of education, for a well equipped and efficient future generation. At the outset, the Australian education board resorted to the foreign guideline for the formulation of the curriculum for their nation. However, Gradually the Australian administration started to gain a grip on their own comprehensions, and started to devise their own curriculum, timelines and current, as well as future approaches regarding those curriculums (Atweh & Singh, 2011).
Stages
The sound and traditional development of Australian curriculum primarily comprises on four key stages. The first stage, which is the Curriculum Shaping Stage, revolves around the formulation an initial and rather rough or test draft of the proposed curriculum, in which highly expert advices are also sought, of the respective figures, which possess the adequate knowledge and experience.
In the second stage, which is the Curriculum Writing Stage, the proposed Australian curriculum is given the proper shape. Along with the assistance of a selective team of the writers, confirmed and acknowledged by the expert advisory panel and the respect staff of the curriculum. The third stage revolves around the astute and effective implementation of the drafted and approved curriculum. It is rendered to the respective school authorities via online mediums, and the respective authorities along with the teachers, endeavor to implement this at schools effectively. In the fourth and final stage, designated processes are employed which are pivotal for monitoring and sound evaluation of the implemented Australian curriculum (O'Meara, 2005).
Argument For and Against a National Australian Curriculum
On a personal level, as well as according to numerous observers, Australian curriculum is a highly compatible and competent course structure which the students receive, for preparing and gearing them up for the future competitive world. The best thing about the curriculum besides being peculiar about each and every aspect of the current knowledge in every domain (subject) is the astute and comprehensive process of its development. The proper formulation of a new curriculum after every predetermined period, along with teams of experts in every domain, enables the respective management and administration to devise the most comprehensible and compatible curriculum, as par the education level of other developed countries.
However, one minor drawback or shortcoming, which numerous observers have pointed, is regarding the involvement of the instructors or the teachers in the development of the curriculum. The reason why the involvement of the teachers is deemed to be equally essential is because eventually the teachers are responsible for inculcating the proposed knowledge into children, in a predetermined manner. Teachers must be made part of every stage, to keep them aware of what is coming their way to deliver it to the students. Moreover, if the teachers are part of the development of the curriculum, they will be able to acknowledge if they are in a position to deliver the proposed knowledge to the children or not. Furthermore, making teachers a part of development can prove to be fruitful, with respect to the vital suggestion flowing in from their part (Weksler, 2004).
A person depicts what he learns; therefore, it is highly imperative that the education, which the children receive in the educational institutes, is compatible, comprehensible and up to date. For this purpose, the management clearly and astute sorts out that what is to be taught and how effectively can it be implemented.
References
Atweh, B., & Singh, P. (2011). The Australian curriculum: Continuing the national conversation. Australian Journal Of Education, 55(3), p. 189-196
Aubusson, P. (2011). An Australian science curriculum: Competition, advances and retreats. Australian Journal Of Education, 55(3), p. 229-244.
Hincks, P. (2010). Australian Curriculum -- an update. Ethos, 18(2), p. 6-7
O'Meara, J. (2005). POLICIES, PRACTICES AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION IN AN AUSTRALIAN HIGH SCHOOL. Research In Education, (74), p. 99
RICNEY, L. (2011). Including Aboriginal perspectives in the Australian Curriculum: Advice to teachers. Primary & Middle Years Educator, 9(1), p. 14
Weksler, M. (2004). Teaching Contemporary Australian Studies: Stories from country students. Ethos, 12(4), p. 25-27.

Week 4

External and internal factors that might affect curriculum development
There is no doubt that the process of curriculum development is not a mood but a process based on a set of justifications may vary from one community to another and from time to time. These justifications are:
* Qualitative and quantitative development of human knowledge (the knowledge explosion) in the present era curriculum development before a big challenge.
* The rule of scientific method in the various areas of life.
* Cohesion between theoretical science and applied research and between theory and practice.
* Development of science as a result of educational research and studies is the perception of the curriculum, the school and the student.
? Lack of current approaches: this factor is linked to factors of social change, where the curriculum, which seems to put in the time it, is appropriate to continue a long period of time.
? Frequent repetition or drop out of school-related factors, and teaching methods is appropriate.
?Needs of the community the future: The studies predictive and study the development of communities and the different phenomena which may have contributed to provide educators understand the large for the needs of the community in the near future and showed those studies that the school curriculum should evolve to fit with those needs and to encourage change the direction of future developments.
Development of education: The continuing changes in the concept of education and its objectives and the roles of teachers and learners and organizations, the school curriculum requires a reconsideration of the tools and educational methods and developing them to achieve the objectives of education and what the school curricula of the most important tools, it is supposed to be a tool change is effective, and a tool achieve the desired educational goals (Lattuca & Stark, 2009).
Contemporary and Traditional Curriculum
The latest documentation from the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) gives the following aims for the curriculum ? that it should ?enable all young people to become successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve; confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives; responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society?. These aims cannot be achieved just within lessons. It is the whole-school experience which will produce successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens. This experience includes the atmosphere and environment in school, the way behaviour is managed, relationships between staff and pupils, and opportunities for pupils to make decisions, solve problems and collaborate with each other. Curriculum modern sense is a set of experiences educational readies itself the school for pupils both inside and outside in order to help them grow comprehensive and integrated, ie, growth in all aspects of mental, cultural, religious, social, physical, psychological and artistic growth leads to modify their behaviour and ensure that their interaction successfully with their environment and their community and develop their own solutions to are faced with problems (Kridel, 2010).

References
Kridel, C. A. (2010), ?Encyclopedia of curriculum studies?, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.
Lattuca, L. R., & Stark, J. S. (2009), ?Shaping the college curriculum: academic plans in context (2nd ed.)?, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Week 5
.
Part A
I have worked in Montessori centre before for two weeks however during that period I realized that it was different from other centres. I Have realized that the Montessori environment provided independence and individual learning for children by making choices and decision to use the materials from variety of resources for their play, which helps the children to further develop their self-esteem and independence skills. As Montessori educators provided time for children to stay focused and engaged in the activity that they were participating in, rather than rushing them into the next activity, as this gave the children time to finish their activity and helped them to be confident.
Part B
Working there for two weeks was not enough to learn about Montessori. But now that I have done my research about it, I have more understanding of it. As research has stated that Montessori is an approach to the education of children. It is a way of looking at, and understanding children. It is a view of how children develop and learn. However the Montessori environment is a place for building a positive, attitude towards learning and developing children?s skills by providing them with variety of activities and enough time to play free and individually. Children learn through play and exploring things around them. As Montessori philosophy stated that the discovery of their environment is important as children learn through discovering, exploring and learning, they must be given the freedom to develop physically, intellectually, and spiritually. The Freedom within Limits atmosphere of a Montessori classroom provides an environment which nurtures a sense of order and self-discipline. Therefore the educator?s role is to provide the materials and environment which will assist children?s development and to be ready to take action when help is needed.

Reference:
Montessori, M. (1966). The secret of childhood. New York: Ballentine Books
Montessori Live. (2010). Montessori Philosophy. Retrieved from
http://www.montessorilive.net/index.html

Week 6

PART A
I have studied about Steiner back in college Steiner education also recognized as Waldorf education involves a humanistic approach towards learning. Rudolf Steiner conceived of education as an art that is creative, progressive, social, and individual in nature.
However from what I have learnt back on college is that Steiner educators believe that children should not be rushed into adult awareness but allowed to savour their childhood. To assist the young people to learn to know and love the world in childhood, is to begin to develop good judgement in teenage years, to liberally take responsibility for life?s journey into adulthood; as these are educators and parents duty. Steiner?s image of child highlights the fact that all children are equal and they must be given education based on their capacity to absorb the information. Steiner image of child involves assessing the physical, academic, spiritual, and emotional capabilities of child to develop a curriculum based on their need. Steiner views every child as having great potential to learn and improve his learning abilities.
PART B
Based on the exploration of Steiner model of education text and discussion with colleagues on the topic has opened new insight dimensions that require assessment of implacability. Steiner model of education works for all children based on the principles of equanimity that does not make any differentiation on the basis of ethnicity class, academic ability, and religion. The central image of the child as in need of nurture and protection and an emphasis on the physical, of movement and of doing, are interesting points of reference for comparative studies (Uhrmacher, 1995).
Many theorists have supported the Steiner model of education. For example, Steiner-Waldorf kindergartens are built on the work of Rudolf Steiner and Emil Molt (Robinson, 2008).
The discussion with colleagues on the topic has highlighted few areas that require expansion. Key questions for research in terms of mainstream education centre on what practitioners in other forms of provision can learn from Steiner pedagogy. One factor in relation to the funding of children attending Steiner kindergartens has been the place of technology in the setting. Traditionally, the Steiner early years curriculum has no place for computer technology and this has been an issue in relation to developing curriculum in the foundation stage. Some of the important ideals in Steiner Waldorf Kindergartens, such as attachment, protection and nurture, challenge mainstream thinking and current government policy (Roopnarine & Johnson, 2005). Research could ask the question as to how Steiner Settings successfully recruit and retain male practitioners whereas the mainstream continues to struggle to attract men to the profession.
References
Pope Edwards, C. (2002), Three approaches from Europe: Wardlorf, Montessorri and Reggio Emilia. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 4(1),
Robinson, I, (2008), The delusional world of Rudolf Steiner. Australian Rationalist, 78, 2-5
Roopnarine, J., & Johnson, J. (2005), Approaches to early childhood education: Chapter 16: Waldorf approach to early childhood education. 4th edition. Pearson publications.
Uhrmacher, B. (1995), Uncommon schooling: A historical look at Rudolf Steiner, anthropophy, and waldorf education. Curriculum Inquiry, 25(4), 381- 406


week 7 journal Reggio Emilia Part A
The Reggio Emilia Model, known for their creative, sophisticated aesthetic curriculum, first opened in 1963 (a development of preschool run by parents after World War II). Discovered by international scholars in the early 1990s, they have generated broad interest among early childhood educators. Described as an adventure and research undertaken by teachers and children, the operational curriculum is based on teachers' careful observation and documentation of what children say and do, highlighting children's artwork (which constituted the ?Hundred Languages? exhibit that traveled across the globe). The Reggio Emilia Approach, a constructivist approach, is related to constructivist theorists such as Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget and Vygotsky offer theories on ways children think cognitively in a developmental manner. Piaget believes that a child is competent, when a child learns new things it just enhances their skills further. Vygotsky also believes that a child is competent, yet when they are educated it helps them in the process of the zone of proximal development. According to Piaget, children who are in the preoperational thought stage want to learn a lot. They are continuously asking questions and trying to get answers. They move from an elementary thought process to a more sophisticated way of expressing their thoughts and ideas. Reggio Emilia theorist believe that children have many different ways of expressing their knowledge of the world around them.
Part B
The centrality of the micro contexts (teachers' commitments and ownership) combined with shared visions and institutional support is a consistent finding of successful programs. Boo Yeun Lim explored various approaches to aesthetic education in early childhood settings in the United States that were used in Waldorf schools, the Bank Street School for Children, and Reggio Emilia model inspired programs. Each of these programs had a different philosophy, but all were characterized by a child-centered curriculum. Lim found that the teachers teaching the arts, specialists and classroom teachers, shared some common images of aesthetic education, viewing it as a means to help children to see the world with sensitivity and become aware of aesthetic elements in artworks. (Gandini, 2005).Teachers' views were also shaped by the respective philosophies of the individual programs (social beings in the Bank Street School, higher order thinking skills in the Reggio-inspired school, and a focus on spirituality in the Waldorf),. (Gandini, 2005). Reggio Emilia approach focuses on a child?s natural development. Base on philosophy that learning must make sense to the student in order to be effective and meaningful. It?s child-centered and child?s point of view is completely respected. Children have the opportunities to express themselves and they learn through senses play as the learning process. Children are encouraged to interact with other children and allow them to explore the world through material items and relationships. The environments are physical aiming to cultivate creativity across children.(Gandini, 2005).Another Getty Institute research project, initiated in collaboration with the College Board, and conducted by Bresler focused on the integration of music, visual art, dance, and drama into academic subjects in five high schools. The schools, located in South Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Maryland, and Boston, Massachusetts, were chosen for their strong support for the arts integration by principals and teachers and for their diverse student population. Curricular contents, assignments, and evaluation measures encouraged students' higher level thinking and creativity. The arts/aesthetic curricula changed the roles for both teachers and students. For teachers, curriculum design became an act of creation rather than just implementation. (Gandini, 2005). Teachers moved away from reliance on textbooks toward the active identification of overarching themes and broad issues. For students, their emergent ownership of the integrated work was connected with issues of identity, voice, and pride in their ideas and creation. Students' communication of their work to an interested audience of teachers and peers provided an additional aesthetic element and incentive to excel (Bresler, 2004). However educators and the children now take so much pride in their environment and are happy to learn through the interests and play of the children.
References
Bresler, L. (Ed.). (2004). Knowing bodies, moving minds: Towards embodied teaching and learning. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer.
Gandini, L., (2005). In the spirit of the studio: Learning from the atelier of Reggio Emilia. New York: Teachers College Press.  more

The following documents about developing countries are located in Week 4 of your course shell. Please review all three (3) documents.
? ?Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special ...Programmes?
? ?Economic Development in Africa, Report 2012: Structural Transformation and Sustainable Development in Africa?
? ?Modernizing and Enhancing BEA?s International Economic Accounts: A Progress Report?
Choose one (1) developing country that is discussed in the readings. Select a product to market in the selected developing country. Use the following Websites to gather information for this assignment:
? CIA World Fact Book?s Website, located at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/guidetowfbook.html
? The World Bank?s Website, located at www.WorldBank.org
? Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), African Affairs, located at http://www.ustr.gov/countries-regions/africa
Write a three (3)page paper in which you:
1. Briefly (one [1] paragraph) describe the country and product that you selected for this assignment.
2. Determine what type of governmental structure the selected developing country has and the challenges in marketing products there.
3. Examine the local infrastructure of the selected country. Describe the selected country?s unique products and assess the difficulties in getting products to market.
4. Evaluate the education level of the population and examine the labor force of the country. Determine whether or not the education level is moving the country into a different economic status.
5. Analyze the monetary system and global debt structure of the selected developing country. Develop a system of debt relief that could allow the people of the selected developing country to invest in their country.
6. Using the information from USTR?s African Affairs Website, determine if any imports are currently being delivered to the selected country. Examine the successes and struggles encountered when receiving these imports.
7. Use at least three (3) quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.  more

This is a formal paper, use readings below to help aid in answering the discussion questions. You must quote from the readings in order to substantiate your points. Use APA format when quoting from th...e readings. Do Not Use Outside Sources!

Discussion Questions
1.How can the quality of distance education be measured reliably and validly? What criteria are appropriate for assessing the quality of distance education? Are those same criteria appropriate for assessing the quality of classroom-based education?
2.Do tertiary institutions have clear policies about distance education course in program quality? Are procedures for monitoring quality in place? Is responsibility for monitoring quality clearly identified?


Distance Education Policy Issues: Towards 2010
Peter Dirr
At the time the authors suggest six questions that researchers might address to develop baseline information on the newly emerging field of distance education. Those questions are as follows: how needed is distance education in the US? How are the clients for distance education? What are their needs? Who should pay for distance education and how much? Can newer technologies help distance education overcome some of the barriers to traditional education opportunities? Where will our next generation of distance educators come from? What types of training will they need? What are the research needs of distance education as we approach the year 2000? Some of those questions are as valid today as they were in 1990 expressly given the growing number of persons participating in distance education in the US. In writing his 1990 chapter that Arthur relied entirely on issues from his own experiences in reviewing hundreds of proposals for finding and in in overseeing several of the leading distance education projects of that time. In comparing the current chapter, he relied on a review of articles on distance education that have appeared in the Chronicle of higher education, the American Journal of distance education, and various other sources of distance education literature the variety of articles almost defy classification but certain issues emerge from the midst more central than others. Some issues were identified in composite list develop a national or regional organizations such as accrediting bodies or governing boards. Others emerged as single issues but were cited by many sources.
Composite List of Issues
some groups especially national and regional planning organizations have compiled composite list of issues facing distance education. For example, the American Council on education issue to publication in March 2000 developing a distance education policy for the 21st Century learning. In it the American Council on education identify the following seven areas in which policies must be review or developed: intellectual property policies, ownership of distance education courses, faculty issues (e.g. teaching load, preparation time, and class size); student issues (e.g. increased access, privacy issues, and disabled students); limiting liability; commercialization (e.g. direct agreements, consortia, and royalties for licenses); and teaching beyond state and international borders.
The council for higher education accreditation has contracted with the Institute for higher education policy to conduct a series of literature reviews and original research called distance learning in higher education 1999; Council for higher education accreditation. Those report documents the expanding universe of distance learning and the growth of statewide virtual universities. Among the issues identified are the following: equity gap, digital divide, lack of teacher training, battle over encryption, works made for hire, contractual transfer (as faculty member switch institutions), and security/privacy. Student aid for distance learners: charting a new course, a separate report from the Institute of higher education policy 1998, the new rates several student aid policy issues that are unique to student pursuing distance education. They suggest that student aid should be holding learners centered, following the student through his or her academic program, available without regard to the mode of instructional delivery, awarded only to student in accredited program of study, and try to standards of academic progress and not arbitrary measure of time. They also suggest a regulation should allow flexibility on the part of institutions and that any amounts and limit should focus on lifetime standards rather than annual or institutional maximums. Working for a consortium of the six regional accrediting association, the Council of regional accrediting commission's 2000 prepared a draft of guidelines for the evaluation of electronically offered degree and certificate programs. Those guidelines focus on the following areas, indicating policy issue for institutions of higher education to consider in developing distance education programs: institutional context and commitment, curriculum and instruction, faculty support, student support, and evaluation/assessment. Reviewing contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education, Phipps and Merisotis 1999 cite the following gap in research: students outcomes for program rather than courses, differences among students, investigation of reasons for dropout rates, differences in learning styles related to particular technologies, the interaction of multiple technologies, the effectiveness of digital libraries, and a theoretical or conceptual framework. The review identifies three broad implications of the current research: the notion that distance education provides access the computer mediated learning requires special skills and technical support that might not exist; technology cannot replace the human factor; and technology is not nearly as important as other factors, such as learner cast, learner characteristics, student motivation, and the instructor. The same pair also wrote quality on the line: benchmark for success in Internet based education Phipps and Merisotis 2000, in which they identify 24 benchmarks considered essential to ensuring excellence in Internet based distance education. The benchmarks fall into seven categories: institutional support, course development, teaching/learning, or structure, student support, faculty support, and evaluation and assessment. This author in a review of the status of distance and virtual education in the US in 1999 Dirr, identify the following as important trends in the profession: the pervasiveness of change, growing commercial interest in education, the importance of partnership and alliances, and unbundling of the educational process. An Internet search for policies of distance education reveals a robust body of literature on the policies of individual institutions. In one instance, a group of researchers studied the written distance education policies of all the tertiary institutions in the state of Nebraska. They found that most existing policy dealt with: academic areas, faculty issues, students, and technical issues. Academic issues emphasize course integrity, especially ensuring the equivalents of distance education program with regular on-campus instruction. Measure of the code and see included class time, course content, student services, prerequisite skills, and instructor qualifications. The University of Nebraska system had the most policies (103), followed by community college's (48), state colleges (32), and independent colleges (32). The researchers found that legal and cultural issues were not addressed in any sector. They also found that written policies were more structured were collaborative efforts exist. They attributed this to the need to develop and communicate rules of participation for the collaborative efforts. They concluded that multi-instructional arrangements might be an excellent opening to cultivate and generate fundamental policy actions. Looking across these composite lists of policy issues facing distance education, one sees the faculty and student issues appear on almost all the list, as to academic and curriculum issues. Beyond those categories the list presents a quite disparate grouping of additional issues.
Singular Citation of Policy Issues
In addition to the composite lists of policy issues more than 100 articles over the past two years in the Chronicle of Higher Education alone have dealt with the policy issues that affect distance education in the US. The articles might have been labeled as policy issues but they certainly have policy implications for the future of distance education and in some cases the higher education in general. In most cases the issues addressed in those articles are also found in the composite lists of policy issues cited above. For the convenience the single citation have been classified by the author in the following categories: quality issues, equity and access, collaboration and commercialization, globalization, intellectual property rights, the roles of technology in distance education, faculty issues, student issues, and research and evaluation. Because many of the citations in this section are drawn from the Chronicle of Higher Education reporters Blumenstyk, Carnavale, Carr, and Young will be referenced often.
Quality Issues
Several articles have addressed the issues of how to maintain quality in distance education courses and programs. At a September 2000 meeting of education officials from 30 nations, but is it is recognizes education as a means learners to become exchange students without passports of costly plane tickets. They sought to identify ways to foster coordination among institutions. High on their list was the development of ways to measure the quality of distance education courses and programs (Young, 2000). Sometimes the issues of quality is dealt with subtly. In an editorial in the American Journal of distance education, Michael Moore 2000 notes that two articles in fact issue address the question of whether distance teaching requires more or less work from the faculty than traditional teaching. Just below the surface of that question, however, live the issues of quality of instruction and the amount of interaction between the instructor and student. Following up on an announcement of the development of the new guidelines for distance education developed by the Council regional accreditation commission for the six regional credit rating agencies, interviewed Charles M. Cook of the New England Association of schools and colleges that observed that although the guidelines sought to ensure a quality distance education experiencing a half also anticipated new pedagogy one that shifts toward the learner and away from the teacher. This carries an important message for researchers will in future will be setting the quality of distance education courses. Charles Cook points out that because the assumptions of what happens in a traditional classroom cannot be made about an online course distance education will be held to a more explicit and possibly more detailed set of criteria and would be applied in a traditional classroom. If explicit criteria are developed for distance education courses might those same criteria be used to challenge the assumptions that underlie traditional classroom experience? It is not possible that holding distance education to higher standards may have ripple effect raising the standards for all of higher education? There is also an emerging body of evidence that distance education might be having qualitative impact on how students learn. For example, Lang 2000 and skeptically whether an asynchronous environment can foster suspension critical thinking given the lack of gestures and subtle nonverbal clues that students have in face-to-face instruction. In the end, he argues that online discussion can develop high level thinking skills, citing the experiences of faculty and students involved in an online writing across the curriculum course. Because words do not disappear and can be read, remit, and revised all online participants have an equal opportunity to organize your thoughts clearly. Furthermore since the conversation is not confined to an artificial time limit all participants have an equal opportunity to speak. The Pew Charitable Trust have been influential in encouraging new ways to evaluate the quality of learning experience. With $3.3 million in funding the trust have supported the development of the national survey of student engagement. The survey measures the extent to which colleges encourages actual learning by scoring student responses to 40 questions. More than 63,000 undergraduates filled out a questionnaire in spring 2000. The questionnaire actresses five benchmarks: the level of academic challenge, the amount of active collaborative learning, student interaction with faculty members, access to in reaching education experience (e.g. internship and study abroad programs), and the level of campus support (e.g. social life and help in coping with nonacademic responsibilities). Not all of efforts to improve the quality of distance education have come from within the traditional higher education sector. Blumenstyk and McMurtrie 2000 reported on the tension being calls in higher education should go buy a fairly new a credit-rating agency, global alliance for transnational education. Created by Glyn Jones, founder of Jones international University the first fully online university accredited in the US, global alliance for transnational education is an international accredited agency for technology-based education programs and institutions. Originally run by a nonprofit group global alliance for transnational education has now become one of Jones's several for-profit businesses related to distance education. Critics charge that as a for-profit company tied to Joneses other businesses, global alliance for transnational education is riddled with conflicts of interest resulting from the marriage between the corporate and academic worlds. In a letter to the editor responding to critics, Jones 2000 noted that for-profit corporations are increasingly playing a leading role industry-leading education and that traditional nonprofit institutions are no longer the sole gatekeepers of quality education. Other solutions of the quality issue might also emerge from the private sector. Recognizing the vacuum in cyberspace when he comes to reliable information with which to evaluate online courses some web sites such as new promise.com, ecollege.com, and hungry minds have become to allow students who have taken online courses to post evaluations of those courses, similar to the way Amazon.com posts evaluation of the books in sales or eBay allows buyers to rate sellers of auction items (Carnavale, 2000).

Equity and Access
At the turn-of-the-century, the professional literature and the public press were full of references to the digital divide -- the gulf between the affluent and the poor in terms of access to telecommunications services and computer technologies. There was general concerns that the digital divide would have a major impact on access to distance education opportunities. Phipps and Merisotis 1999 pointed out that even though most studies of distance education courses concluded that these courses compare favorably with classroom based instruction and that students in these courses enjoy higher satisfaction than students in traditional classes the notion that distance education provides access to higher education opportunities might be mistaken. Many distance education courses require computer mediated technology and skills and technical support that certain students might not have. Increasingly colleges and universities are attending to the need to make online courses accessible for all students, including the handicapped. In colleges strive to give disabled students access to online courses; Carnavale 1999 reported that colleges are finding that they must include the virtual equipments of Wiltshire ramps when building online courses. To understand the requirements colleges are urged to consider the guidelines developed by the California community college systems.
Collaboration and Commercialization
An overriding theme of much of today's literature in the extent to which alliances among colleges and between colleges and commercial interests are playing leading roles and the development and delivery of distance education at the higher education level. More has been written on the topic than any other. However since this theme is covered in depth elsewhere this theme is only noted briefly here. Many collaborations are driven by the need of the partners to provide their offerings to more students each year thereby increasing their revenues each year. This is as true for colleges and University as it is for commercial firms with whom they partner. For although enrollments in the US colleges and universities are growing steadily and tuition costs are growing along with them the increase enrollments by themselves cannot provide sufficient fuel for expansion. The scope of collaboration and the factors that motivate them are quite varied. Some are region-wide alliances, such as Kentucky virtual University (Young, 2000), Western governors University, and the Southern regional educational board electronic campus (Carnavale, 2000). Others bring together groups of institutions that share interests such as Jesuit-net, a collaborative effort of 24 and the 28 Jesuit universities in the US, and Universitas 21, a network of 17 or 18 procedures universities in 10 countries. The collaborators often struggle to devise relationships that draw on the strengths of each to create and deliver new products to meet the perceived needs of vast populations of adult learners. Sometimes, the collaborations involve a commercial partner most notably a publisher along with institutions of higher education. Other times institutions of higher education have established their own commercial distance education programs to extend their academic programs to new groups of learners. Cornell University, for example, formed a for-profit distance education entity named e-Cornell, Temple University created virtual temple, and the University of Maryland formed UMUC online.com a for profit arm to market its online courses to new groups of students. Temple University quietly shut down virtual temple in early 2001, less than 18 months after its and adoration, because it was not economically viable. One rather recent distance education collaborator in the US federal government especially the military, education opportunities are seen as a key incentive for attracting and retaining recruits to volunteer service. In the final days of 2000, the US Army found its six-year $453 million project to deliver distance education courses to soldiers all of the world. The project, Army University access online, involves a commercial company Price Waterhouse Cooper, 10 companies, and 29 colleges. By the middle of 2001 it had already enrolled more than 4000 persons in distance education courses. The U.S. Navy initiating similar program around the same time.
Globalization
Interwoven into many of the collaborations is the theme of globalization. The very technologies used for distance education today make it possible for an institution to think beyond its traditional borders. The technologies also make it possible for potential students to sink education opportunities from tertiary institution throughout the world. This trend holds the potential of having a major impact on traditional institutions because this theme is dealt with in depth elsewhere in this handbook, only a few examples will be mentioned here as evidence of its importance. Many US universities have already begun to extend their distance education programs into other countries as a way to expand their student population. Currently enrolling about 75,000 students in the US, the University of Phoenix plans to I had another 75 students in such diverse countries as China, India, Mexico, and Brazil. Carnegie Mellon University plans to offer online programming courses to 15,000 students in India. The University of Bar-Ilan Israel and developing virtual Jewish universities to deliver in Jewish studies courses to learners throughout the world. And on any more global level, the World Bank is setting up distance learning centers in countries that lack the telecommunication infrastructures so that learners in those countries might have access to education opportunities offered in other parts of the world. One challenge that will face all institutions offering distance education over the next decade will be to develop new guidelines and policies that allow the expansion of education opportunities through distance education while its same time providing learners with appropriate course of instruction and student support services.
Ownership and Intellectual-Property Rights
The issue of ownership and intellectual-property rights is one of the importance in all sectors of education today. This issue shows up on many of the composite list of issues facing distance education. Developing a distance education policy for 21st-century (American Council on education, 2000) in this intellectual-property rights first on the list of issues that must be reviewed and address. Distance learning in higher education cites works made for hire and joint works are two of the policies that must be addressed. Written policies of many tertiary institutions that offer distance education programs addressed issues of intellectual-property rights of institution and of individual faculty members. Policy at San Diego State University requires that faculty and the university must agree on who owns an online course before the course begins. A faculty committee at the University of Illinois has recommended that professors retain ownership and control of online courses. Aside from the issue of ownership of online courses the issue of copyright raises many questions for which there is no clear answer. In fact, the congressional web-based commission referred to the copyright law as a horse and buggy on the information superhighway. The Napster case in the US and the icrave.com case in Canada have provided vivid examples on how the law and policy lagged behind practices supported by new technologies. It is safe to say that it is not currently clear just how the copyright laws will apply to digitized content.
The Role of Technology in Distance Education
Colleges and universities in the US have been increasing their spending on information technologies including those used in distance education. A study of liberal arts colleges by David L. Smallen of Hamilton College and Karen L. Leach of Colgate University shows that in the decade of the 1990s the typical liberal arts college doubled its spending on information technology services. Information technology spending at liberal arts colleges at the end of 1990s was typically 3.5% to 5.2% of total institutional spending. PC replacement costs accounted for 14% to 24% of the total. A broader annual study of technology using by tertiary institutions, the campus computing project, by Kenneth Green, showed that in spite of increased expenditures on information technology institutions of higher education still have a long way to go. The study in 2000 found that 60% of all college courses uses e-mail as a tool for instruction, and 30% of all courses have web sites. In spite of that high level use of the technology by faculty members, administrators remain skeptical about its value. Only 14% of administrators agree with the statement, technology has improved instruction on my campus. Green believes that in the absence of empirical evidence of impact the increase in technology use might begin to slow. He noted that some technology trends in society at large have yet to catch on in academe, citing the absence of any meaningful use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) by colleges. He further noted that academe is far behind the private sector when it comes to e-commerce. Only 19% of colleges have e-commerce services such as tuition payment. Perhaps educators have reason to be at least slightly timid about jumping on the technology bandwagon. That many businesses are suffering because they bet on web-based growth rates that are well beyond what could be delivered. That has led to the downfall of several dot com companies. Rather than banking completely on the Internet, Noguchi 2000 encourages business to think of the Internet as enhancing what they already do, and extension of the business rather than a revamping of it. That is not bad advice for colleges and universities with distance education programs. Distance education has existed through correspondence courses for more than a century. Access to distance education was accelerating in the 1970s with the introduction of television bass lessons that were broke faster of the US on public television stations the advanced capabilities of Internet based courses have greatly expanded the reach of distance education courses open new opportunities for learners to continue their education. But the sad fact is that we know little about the impact that these technologies have on the access or quality of education being provided. One question that has been raised Ridley for at least three decades is, how effective is the use of technology in education? This question has been very specifically about distance education. Some studies in recent years have addressed the issue of the roles and effectiveness of technology in distance education. Unfortunately many of those have been a dimensional, that is, they have focused on a single technology is isolation from many other variables from the horse race syndrome; that is, they attempted compared a technology base course with a traditional course to see which came out ahead in terms of student learning. This approach suffers from two flaws: first, it holds up the traditional course as the standard to be emulated rather than asking whether things might be done differently (and may be better) by using the power of technologies, second, it overlooks the sample bias that is inherent in the research methodology when potential students cannot randomly assigned to traditional or distance education courses.
Faculty Issues
Many faculty issues emerge from the literature. Faculty concerns our needs are referenced in most of the composite list of issues cited at the beginning of this chapter. A study of 402 college faculty members drawn from the 85,000 members of the national education Association found that faculty members who have taken part in developing and/or offering distance education courses are generally enthusiastic about the experience and benefits of teaching distance education courses. They might feel that they put in more work on distance education courses than on traditional courses but they also believe the benefits outweighed the extra work involved. Some faculty members have used students as a shield questioned the appropriateness of distance education courses when Fairleigh Dickenson University decided to require that all its undergraduates take at least one distance education course annually in part to help students become global scholars who are able to use the Internet for IT purposes, the American Federation of teachers question whether that was an appropriate requirement for students who do not do well in distance education courses. Nevertheless, some pouty members expressed fear about distance education, some fear that they might be replaced by Barry distance education courses they help develop. Others fear that distance education might take jobs away from Ph.D.'s and put them in the hands of business executives and poorly paid part-timers. Still others resist this is education because they fear it will increase competition from foreign institutions. One thing that seems to increase faculty opposition to distance education is when administrators commit to distance education programs without adequate consultation with the faculty. This became a major issue when Cornell University established e-Cornell to deliver distance education courses and when Temple University established virtual temple. The San Diego State University policy on distance education, developed by the faculty senate, contains several requirements that reflect the concerns of faculty: professors must oversee online courses in their fields, students must have substantial, personal, and timely entry action with faculty members and other students, faculty and the university must agree on who owns the course before it begins, students must be assured of access to appropriate resources and services, and full-time professors must not be replaced by part-time instructors. Another concern of faculty members is that distance education might be leading to a new learning paradigm and changed roles for the faculty. The concern seems to be supported by some of the literature. The draft guidelines for the Council regional accrediting commissions to help colleges and University review the quality of electronically offered online degrees and certificate programs anticipate a new pedagogy won the shifts toward the learner and away from the teacher. Some see the emergence of multi-University portals and statewide virtual universities as evidence of new learning paradigm in which the faculty role changes from teacher to designer of interactive materials and guide for students. Perhaps the most interesting train in terms of potential impact on the roles of about 20 members in distance education is the unbundling of the parts of education process. This phenomenon was identified by this author in 1999 as one of the leading trends in distance and virtual learning in the US (Dirr, 1999). Since then the team had appeared several times. In September 2000, John Stone noted that the task of teaching and supporting students learning are becoming unbundled. One way of breaking out of this components is as follows: curriculum development, content development, information delivered, mediation and tutoring, student services, administration, and assessment. As these functions most of which have traditionally been done by individual factor members are unbundled, it becomes possible to ask who might best performed each function and which of the functions might be contracted out. Distance education provide a fertile testing ground for exploring such arrangements. A growing number state line institutions and consortium provide administrative services for online students. Follet, Amazon.com and others offer electronic bookstores and library services. Others offer testing services the most recent addition to the field is smart thinking.com, an online tutoring service with coverage 24 hours a day seven days a week. The theme of contracting out unbundle services appeared again indecent or 2000. A new digital library company announced plans to offer students online access to searchable books and journals. For a fee of about $20 to $30 per month, students would have access to 50,000 scholarly books and journals (150,000 by the end of 2003). The resources would be searchable by keyword leading some faculty to fear a cut and paste approach to the research and report writing an approach that could lower the effort that students put in to their studies. About the same time the faculty union at New York University was expressing his concern that new roles for faculty hired by the University online subsidiary would begin to break down the teaching functions into a series of discrete tasks performed by different people which would lead to disassembling and de-skilling of the profession. A counterbalance to such faculty affairs can be found in a monograph issued by the league for innovation. The faculty guide in moving teaching and learning to educational networking is intended to encourage faculty members to break a course down into component functions and explore how they can for field each component without meeting any fiscal classroom.
Student Issues
Distance education programs and courses have become known for being more student centered than many other university programs in part because many distance education programs are developed in response to specific perceived needs for the students. But how well our distance education programs doing responding student needs? Few empirical data exist. Young 2000 interviewed seven adult students who were taking online courses. For several the courses provided a chance to be back in college and opportunity they would not have had absent distance education. Many reported a nagging guilt -- that they should be logging-on to their courses web pages more often. Those who were most successful had developed a regular schedule for working on their courses. The oft-reported isolation of distance learner were supported to some extent by these interviews. The students stated that the dismissed instant feedback from their professors. They also found taking exams a logistical challenges especially if they had to travel to campus to take the exam. Although generally satisfied with the distance education experience the students recognize the distance education is probably not appropriate for everyone. Hara and Kling 1999 also studied a small group of students six enrolled in a web-based distance education course. They identify several frustrations that inhibited student performance in the course. These included a felt need to compete among each other on the volume of e-mail messages submitted, a perceived lack of feedback because of the lack of physical presence of the instructor and other students, technical problems and the absence of personnel to provide technical support and ambiguous instructions from instructor. The students dealt with these frustrations by venting them with each other over the Internet. The authors do not end up condemning distance education but rather causation institutions against advertising only the virtues of computer mediated distance education when promoting courses. These studies possibly reflect the way that many distance education courses have been developed they have devolved out of campus base courses in faculty member focus almost all their attentions on getting the content of the course transferred into a new medium the Internet. However a new emphasis began to emerge in the late 1990s spurred in part by a funding program of the fund for the improvement of postsecondary education. The fund encourage institutions amending proposals for funding to think about the entire student experience when designing distance education courses as much emphasis was placed on making quality student support services accessible at a distance as was devoted to quality presentation of the course content. One of the recipients of the fund for the improvement of postsecondary education grant was the Western cooperative for educational telecommunications an organization that has played a leading role in looking at how support services are provided to students studying at a distance. The goal of the Western cooperative for educational telecommunications -- the fund for the improvement of postsecondary education Project was to identify colleges and universities that had developed quality suites of student support services that were delivered to students at a distance. From a survey of 1028 institution the project learned that most institutions that offer distance education courses that concentrated on delivery of existing courses without developing new support services for students studying electronically. Most held firm to traditional structures and policies for student support services. The findings of that study led Western cooperative for educational telecommunications to create its guide to developing online student services. This guide offers a series of the practices for delivering student services via the Internet. It ends with a section call outstanding web-based student services system, which highlights some institutions that have shifted from a provider perspective to a customer centered orientation for providing student support services. The most advanced institutions have three decision-support systems that offer students variety of opportunities for self-help and customized services. The guide notes that within the past couple of years a number of software companies have been gone to develop products that assist institutions in making the transition to a customer centered orientation. For-profit and nonprofit companies are also developing resources that help students sort through the thousands of online courses that are available and to choose a course that best fit each student's needs and interests. Rose 2000 evaluated 21 online course database is designed to help students locate the right courses or program. Criteria for evaluating databases include user friendliness, search capabilities, reliability, course offerings, course information, and connectivity. Another student issue that continues to work in the background distance education is the number of dropouts from distance education courses. It is generally recognized that enrollments in distance education courses are increasing but so is the number of dropouts. National figures do not exist but anecdotal information suggests a sum that dropout rates are higher in distance education courses than in traditional courses. Direct comparisons across institutions are difficult because institutions in a report completion and dropout rates in any consistent way. Some speculate that distance education dropout rates are higher because distance education students are older than traditional students and have busier schedules. Others argue that the nature of distance education courses is at fault in that they cannot supply the personal introduction that some students crave. This is certainly an area that deserves further research. Some colleges have entered the world distance education without fully considering the implications for disabled students they were surprised, for example, that they must include the virtual equivalents of wheelchair ramps on the web sites when building online courses. This can raise the cost of developing online courses. Provisions of the American with a disability act and the vocational rehabilitation act are generally interpreted to apply to online education programs even though the US office of civil rights has not yet issued rules for online courses. In the meantime colleges are being urged to use guidelines developed by the California community colleges system. The report of congressional web-based education commission has already reference above. The report recognized the students in distance education courses and programs are penalized by existing laws and regulations. One regulation is that specifically targeted is a requirement that to be eligible for full student aid a student must at least take 12 hours of classes each semester. The whole question of student aid for students enrolled in distance education courses was studied by IHEP 1998. In its report student aid for distance learners: charting a new course, IHEP suggested several principles future policies regarding student aid for distance education: student aid should be available without regard to mold of institutional delivery, delivery of student aid should be learners center, with eight following the student through the academic program, aid should be awarded only to those an accredited programs of study, awarding of age should be tied to standards of academic progress and not average really measures of time, regulations allow flexibility on the part of institutions, and aid amounts and limit should focus on lifetime standards rather than annual or institutional maximums.
Research and Evaluation
The need for research and evaluation distance education generally recognized however that the need is really get in shape. Consequently although many studies can be found there is little organization among them and cumulatively they did not add up to a significant body of research on topics that are critical for guiding the future of distance education. As in 1990 the author will encourage the research community to concentrate their energies on a limited number of questions so that the sum total of the research efforts might have far more impact on the future of distance education than if they were without a focus. Certainly some quality research and evaluation is done in distance education, Phipps and Merisotis 1999, of IHEP with backing from the American Federation of teachers and the national education Association analyze what current research tells us and does not tell us about the effectiveness of distance education. They found that many of the questions educators have about distance education are unanswered by existing research in their opinion although there is a not insignificant body of original research, little of it is dedicated to explaining or predicting distance education phenomenon. From their perspective, three Bourque measures of effectiveness dominate the research: student outcomes, student attitudes, and overall student satisfaction. According to Phipps and Merisotis most of the studies of distance education conclude that distance education compares poorly with classroom base instruction and that students enjoy higher satisfaction with distance education courses then with classroom base course. However their review of research suggests that many of the research studies are of questionable value, rendering the findings inconclusive in the opinion of the reviewers. The current research suffers from key shortcomings: it does not control the extraneous variables and cannot show cause and effect, it does not use random selection of subjects, and the validity and reliability of the issue mints are often questionable. In looking at gaps in current research Phipps and Merisotis identify the following needs: studies of student outcomes for complete programs of study rather than the single courses, careful attention to the differences among students, investigation of reasons for dropout rates, research on how differences in learning styles relate to different technologies, research on the interaction of multiple technologies, research on the effectiveness of digital libraries, and development of the theoretical or conceptual framework. Using a modified Delphi technique, Rockwell, Furgason, and Marx 2000 surveyed educators in Nebraska to identify needs for distance education research and evaluation. They identified for topic areas: cooperation and collaboration among institutions including postsecondary and secondary schools, designing the educational experience to meet the unique needs of distance learners, teach preparation especially in competencies that are unique to distance education, and educational outcomes expressing participation and completion rates. Smith and Dillon 1999 tackled a difficult problem of how to conduct comparative studies that will withstand critical review. They know that most comparative studies have suffer from confounding factors in their methodologies making the findings suspect. They propose a schema to address the issues of confronting factors, the media attribute theory, a framework based on identifying the defining categories of attributes that are embedded within each delivery system and media used in distance education course. The categories of attributes they suggest include realism/bandwidth, feedback/interactivity, and branching/interface. Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dan Carnavale 2000 reported on a study criteria for an excellent online course, Lee Alley chief executive officer of world-class strategies Inc. Alley stated that some aspects of distance education that were considered novelties if you years ago are now considered essentials for quality distance education. He specifically cited regular into action between student and faculty and among students, a student centered approach, and a built-in opportunities for students to learn on their own. He concluded that distance education is changing the theoretical underpinnings of tertiary education by forcing an understanding that you don't transmit knowledge; knowledge is constructed. This will inevitably lead to a change from faculty centered to student centered instruction. Ongoing tracking of developments in issues in distance education has been a characteristics of the work of the CHEA and IHEP. Since at least 1998 these two organizations have worked together to issue an annual report, distance learning in higher education. The report looks at the status of distance education at the tertiary level in the US, tracking growth, identifying trends, and raising issues. The organizations have also undertaken focus studies of distance education, such as IEHPs what's the difference? A review of contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education and quality on the line call in benchmarks for success in Internet base education. One issue that has gotten sporadic attention from researchers and the cost of distance education. Brian M. Morgan, a professor at Marshall University has developed an interactive spreadsheet that will help an institution compute the likely cost it will incur in offering distance education courses. Morgan 2000 also wrote and extensive background paper, is distance learning worth it? Helping to determine the cost of online courses, in which he identified the research he did several original surveys to obtain the data on which he based the algorithms used in the interactive worksheet. The paper contains many helpful references and insights. Business might be even more concerned about the cost of providing learning opportunities than some colleges and universities. Writing and the Washington Post, Evans 2000 noted that Internet base lessons are rapidly overshadowing traditional manual and face-to-face classes and many corporations. According to international data Corp., which falls more than 200 e-learning companies, the e-learning market will grow from $550 million in 1998 to $11.4 billion in 2003, especially in the view of the need of companies to deliver up-to-the-minute training to workers all over the globe without having them leave their place of work. Not all e-learning is online because not every place on earth have the bandwidth needed to accommodate interactive learning over the Internet. Whalen and Wright 1999 use the case study approach to analyze the cost benefit of web-based telelearning at the bell online Institute. They examined the relative importance of several design elements and presented a detailed cost-benefit analysis model of courses that Bell uses to train employees and customers. Treat courses each equivalent to a two-day classroom course were developed and offered on for learning platforms (WebCT, Mentys, Pebblesoft, and Symposium). Fixed and variable costs were computed for each, including the cost of delivery platforms and transmission costs, salaries, hardware, and license fees. The author concluded that web page training has higher fixed cost than classroom base training but those costs are offset by lower variables costs in course delivery given a larger enough number of students overtime.
Conclusion
There are many policy issues concerning distance education that must be addressed over the next decade. There is little evidence in the literature to indicate that they will be addressed in any systematic way. That along with the fact that distance education holds the potential to have a greater impact on higher education than any other single phenomenon for several decades, leads this author to suggest that the education community consider adopting a framework, a focus, and funding that will permit systematic development of policies that can advance quality distance education. A systematic approach will also facilitate the documentation and validation of the impact distance education has on the lives of learners. At a starting point, the author suggests that the policy issue areas identified above serve as the framework for policy development. The focus might be created by carefully crafting the few questions in each policy area.  more

If this project turns out good, I'll be back in January for my thesis paper. I teach elementary math and this is an instructional design project. My topic is measurement such as area, perimeter, and v...olume. Please reference the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for measure for grade 5 mathematics. They are found here: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter111/ch111a.html (Scroll almost to the bottom and they start at 5.1) My instructions are below:







Instructional Design and Performance Improvement Project



Define a problem that can be solved through appropriate instruction. The instructional design process begins by analyzing this problem. In this project you will analyze the instructional problem that you have identified and provide a rationale for why this problem can be solved through instruction rather than through other means. After the underlying nature of the problem has been analyzed, you will need to identify any and all domains of knowledge needed to solve the problem, identify component tasks for each, and develop a corresponding objective for each task. These objectives guide the design process and help you select and sequence content, instructional strategies and assessment measures. Your final product must be in APA style and should include the following:

1. Problem statement and needs analysis

2. Goal statement

3. Learner analysis

4. Task analysis

5. Performance objectives

6. Instructional strategies and supporting learning theories



Problem Statement. This statement should clearly identify the problem and identify sources of the problem. Conduct a needs analysis by obtaining additional information on the problem from others through the use of observation, interviews, focus groups, achievement tests, surveys, or other appropriate data gathering instruments. In the needs analysis, obtain information regarding the difference between the current state of affairs and the desired state of affairs. The results of the needs analysis should demonstrate that there is a need for instruction to solve the problem. The problem statement in your project should include the following subheadings:

1. Background of the problem

2. Definition of the problem

3. Needs analysis (this should contain a description of the data collection and analysis techniques used in your needs analysis and the findings of your needs analysis)

4. Rationale for the need for instruction (based on the needs analysis)

5. Available resources (resources you have available for creating an instructional unit to help solve this problem)



Goal Statement. After all the information about the problem has been gathered then it is possible to better identify the “what should be.� The goal statement is the expression of the way things should be. Instructional goals focus on what learners will be able to do when they complete the set of instructional materials. It describes the real world context, outside the learning situation, where the learner will use the new skills and knowledge. Write an instructional goal statement that (1) contains a clear, general statement of learner outcomes (2) describes what the learner will be able to do using a measurable verb, and; (3) relates to the identified problem and needs assessment.

Learner Analysis. An important part of the analysis process is gathering information about the learners. The learner analysis describes the target audience and provides valuable information that helps to identify deficiencies that will become the focus of instruction. Additionally, the learner analysis provides important information for the selection of instructional strategies. Subheadings in the learner analysis section should include:

1. Demographic information

2. Relevant group characteristics

3. Prior knowledge of topic

4. Entry level knowledge and skills

5. Attitudes and/or motivation toward the subject

6. When appropriate, additional information may include education level, learning styles and/or orientations.

Task Analysis. Once the goals of the instruction or curriculum have been determined the next step in the instructional design process is the task analysis. In the task analysis the instructional designer analyzes how an expert performs a complex job by breaking the job down into simple, easy to perform steps that need to be performed in order to meet the course or curriculum goals. The task analysis identifies both the steps and the sequence that the steps are performed. You may choose to do either a topic analysis or a procedural analysis depending on the nature of your project. A topic analysis identifies facts, concepts, principles, and rules needed for the instruction and is well suited for defining cognitive knowledge. A procedural analysis identifies both the observable and non-observable (cognitive) steps required to complete psychomotor tasks, job tasks, or multi-step cognitive sequences.



A hierarchical numbering scheme should be used to label the items in a task analysis.

Example:



1.0 Task 1

1.1 First step of task 1

1.2 Second step

1.2.1 First sub-step step 1.2

1.3 Third step

2.0 Task 2

2.1 First step of task 2

2.2 Etc.

Performance Objectives. A performance objective is a detailed description of what students will be able to do when they complete a unit of instruction. The objectives are usually derived from the steps in the goal analysis identified in the task analysis. Performance objectives. follow the three-part standard as identified by Mager: (1) a description of the condition under which the learner must be able to perform the task; (2) a statement of the intended learning outcome in terms of a measurable performance, and (3) the standard for an acceptable level of performance.

Instructional Strategies and Theories of Learning. The performance objectives provide a focus for selecting instructional content and instructional strategies to help ensure the mastery of your goal. Now that you have completed the learner analysis and have identified the performance objectives, consider effective instructional strategies for teaching the content. Consider using either Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction or the abbreviated Five Events as found in the Systematic Design of Instruction by Dick and Carey as a framework.



After you have discussed the instructional strategies briefly discuss how you expect learning to occur using these strategies based on one or more of the three theories of learning: behaviorism, cognitivism or constructivism.



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OPEN TO ALL WRITERS!!!

EXPANSION ON ORDER #37745, WRITER REQUEST: JENNIFER L. JONES

PLEASE HAVE MS. JONES TO EXPAND ON WRITING THIS MEMO.

REQUIREMENT: Memo to Gov. Schwarzen...egger. Advise as what to do after the settlement of the "Williams" case. Provide an assessment of the settlement. What do you expect will be the impact of this settlement on the student performance in California public K-12 schools?
The Governor also keeps hearing people talk about "ADEQUACY". Give him a short analysis of the approaches that the California Quality Education Commission might take to determine what an adequate level of educational spending might be. Describe the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and indicate how you think the Commission should proceed to define an adequacy educaiton in CA. Please put everything in a "MEMO' format. Thank.

This is the source:


MEMORANDUM

To: Governor of California
From:
Subject: the Williams case settlement and methods of evaluating the cost of adequacy level of education

The Williams case settlement has several important provisions that should be mentioned before we assess the settlement and evaluate the future consequences and its impact.
The most important of them are:
? Provision of $138 million for textbooks and instructional materials
? $50 million for ?assessment of facility needs? at critical condition schools
? Investments of close to $ 1 billion in repairs of school deficient facilities

These figures will directly and positively affect 2400 ?low- performing schools? . Obviously, the most important thing that comes to mind when evaluating this final settlement is the fact that pupils from low-performing schools have a better and improved chance because they will benefit from more books and higher attention, including better prepared educators. It is, if you like, a moral decision and a moral settlement because the idea of equality of chances, mentioned both in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, is more abided by.
Additionally, the settlement contains additional clauses and issues besides the monetary implications. For example, students, parents and teachers can further report complaints in an established process, with the conscience that their complaints will finally arrive to the competent authorities that will take measures.
?County education superintendents? will also monitor the low- performing schools, so as to be able to swiftly act and correct the disfunctionalities that may appear here.
Even more so, the settlement comprises a reference to the so-called Concept 6 schools in California. According to the clause, these schools should be completely phased out by 2012.
According to Concept 6, ?a school?s population is broken down into four tracks or schedules. No more than three tracks are ever in school at the same time and students attend throughout the year.? . The problem with this Concept 6 is that there are only 163 days of instruction if this concept is applied, instead of 180 days that will be offered if the concept is given up on.
However, the settlement may have possible future negative reverberations. First of all, it is to be determined how fast the promised amounts of money will get to the beneficiaries, schools, parents and students in the form of textbooks and educators. Indeed, many of those directly concerned have expressed doubts regarding the fluency of the bureaucratic system in California.
For example, Jack O?Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, said that the case and the settlement ?relied heavily on bureaucratic solutions? . The fact that this conclusion comes from a state official may give an outlook towards what may happen in the future.
Additionally, some educators have expressed their doubts as to whether the amounts mentioned would actually be enough to make a significant difference or rather whether they would be enough to reach every one of the students in the 2,400 schools implicated in the settlement. This may be so, however, in my opinion, it is hard to evaluate what the actual cost would be, even if we may use several methods to determine the cost of minimum education level (presented here below). In this sense, it is much better to start somewhere and work on the way to achieve what the final scope may be.
In my opinion, the settlement provides the very basis of a serious change and improvement of public education in California. The fact that the state has decided to stop the legal and judicial bickering and actually act upon its mission, that of providing equal opportunities for everyone, shows a great step forward.

Adequacy and methods of evaluating adequacy cost
In order to determine what the spending for an adequacy level of education should be, we first need to refer to the term adequacy and define what this minimum level of education actually refers to.
According to one of the numerous article on the subject, a definition of the term adequacy was first attempted somewhere in the late 70s, in the judicial matter of Pauley vs. Kelley. In the ruling provided in the respective case, an adequate education was perceived as being that education that ?teaches students literacy; the ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers; knowledge of government to the extent that each child will be equipped as a citizen to make informed choices; self-knowledge and knowledge of the total environment so as to allow each child to choose life work intelligently; work training and advanced academic training if a child chooses; recreational pursuits; all creative arts, such as music, theater, literature, and the visual arts; and social ethics, both behavioral and abstract, to facilitate compatibility with others? .
This rather long and cumbersome definition relates the concept of an adequate level of education as being an enumeration of things that a child should be taught in school, both academically and social or behavioral skills.
An adequate level of spending generally refers to the amount of money required to give ?all, but the most severely disabled? a minimum level of education. The ways and different methodologies to determine what that amount may be is still subject to controversy even today. In Texas, for example, this minimum level of spending has been set in a decision by the Texas Supreme Court, in an Edgewood Independent School District v. Meno decision, to $3,500. However, we never know how that sum was actually determined, even if in Texas it has staid valid to this day.
There have been used, however, at least three methods to determine the cost of an adequate education program and these approaches may be successfully be used by the California Quality Education Commission as well. These are the cost function model, the observational model and the professional judgment model, to which one may also add the statistical model.
The cost function model has lately gained momentum with the economists. It applies a strict mathematical model for the mix of input variables needed for the outcome of certain student results, hence outputs. The mathematical and complex econometric models that may be used in this case make the model quite reliable and theoretically sound, as some of its advantages.
However, there are several negative aspects here. First of all, because it is quite technical, it is more difficult to explain to policymakers and may be also harder to implement, given the fact that you need exact input variables to obtain a result. Additionally, practice has shown that the results obtained with the use of the cost function model are usually ?to three times higher than current funding levels--and higher than funding levels identified for other school districts in the state? . Overall, it is hard to implement and its results even harder to use and properly and efficiently apply.
The observational method is more empirical than the former method. The idea is that the cost is evaluated by direct calculation within the schools that have already met the ?previously identified outcome levels? .
The positive aspect of this method is the fact that it is easier to explain to policymakers, as it is much less technical and more accessible than the previous one. On the other hand, the outcome levels that are used still need to be determined and agreed on, which makes it rather cumbersome. Additionally, observation and empirics always have the disadvantage that you never know exactly whether the results that you have arrived to are correct, as there is no mathematics behind them.
Finally, the professional judgment model, which is often referred to as the resource cost model, ?relies on professional judgment to create an instructional model for which the costs can then be estimated? .
This method has several advantages compared to the previous ones. Indeed, this method is completely unsophisticated and easy to use, because it does not rely on difficult statistical evaluations or on student assessment systems. Additionally, this method has been fully implemented in Wyoming, for example, at it seems to have given nice results there.
On the other hand, among some of the negative aspects of this method, we should mention the fact that it is quite subjective. Indeed, the fact that educators estimate the costs may include a subjectivism factor which makes it less reliable than a model with full mathematical explanations.
Finally, the statistical model is somewhat similar to the cost function model presented here above, with the slight amendment that a statistical formula is determined and then applied in all calculations. The positive and negative aspects determined for the cost model function are applicable here as well.
In my opinion, California should use one of the less empirical methods and I would advise for the cost function method. The inherent difficulties related to econometrics models are, in my opinion, fully compensated by the advantages of having hard facts and calculations behind the final figure.

Bibliography
1. Picus, O. Lawrence. Adequate Funding. American School Board Journal. 2000
2. http://www.ecs.org/html/issue.asp?issueid=48&subIssueID=35
3. Helfand, Duke; DiMassa Cara Mia. State, ACLU settle suit education. Los Angeles Times. August 11 2004.
4. News Sentinel Staff. Schools lawsuit deal includes phasing out Concept 6 by 2012. On the Internet at www.lodinews.com/articles/2004/08/12/news  more

This application essay is for Pepperdine university
Write 2 pages on:
1.) Why are you pursuing an MBA degree at this time in your life? What characteristic about Pepperdine's program made you ...decide to apply to Pepperdine specifically?WHat expectations to you have of Pepperdine's MBA program?

Write 2 Pages:
2.) How will your work and extracurricular background contribute to your own learning in the program and to the learning experiences of your classmates? What would you contribute to the samll interactive learning environment of this program? What characteristics differentiare you from other applicants to this program?

Write 2 pages:
3.) describe a situation or learning experience thatt significantly changed your current goals or outlook on life. When describing the situation, include the actions you took and the results of those actions and describe how they led to changing your goals or outlook on your career choices.

write 2 pages:
4.) Develope a strategic five-year career plan for yourself. Please be specific with your career goals, how you plan to achieve them, and how a degree from Pepperdine fits into your plans. Include a year-by-year self-marketing plan.

Personal Information:
Current Job: Quality Control Assistant manager in a garment Agency. Job is to ensure the finished product meets the customers requirements. Good Interpersonal relationship with the factory managers and workers is needed.

Education Level: B.S in International Business and B.S in Computer Information System, from California Lutheran University.

*** please contact me at tianxiawudinanzihan@hotmail.com if u need anymore info about me. And please be particular about the grammar and sentance structure. thanks!!!!  more

Smartphones are rapidly becoming the technology of choice for a variety of functions beyond just making and receiving phone calls. Most notably, because of their relative inexpensiveness compared to d...esktop computers, laptops, and even tablets, many people are opting for a smartphone as their primary vehicle for accessing the Internet. In many cases, some people simply can't afford any kind of Internet-accessing device other than a smartphone. In Africa, for example, over 316 million people have become new mobile phone subscribers since 2000.
In the United States, smartphones offer a way for economically disadvantaged people to get connected to the Internet. In many respects, this may very well close the digital divide between the "haves" and "have-nots" with respect to technology. The following are some statistics from the Pew Research Center for you to consider.
? 83 percent of U.S. adults own a mobile phone. Of those, 42 percent own a smartphone. So, 35 percent of all adults in the United States own a smart phone.
? 59 percent of adults in households with earning income greater than $75,000 own a smartphone.
? 44 percent of African Americans and Latinos own a smartphone.
? 87 percent of smartphone owners access the Internet via their smartphones, while 68 percent do so on a daily basis.
? 25 percent of smartphone owners say they mostly go online using a smartphone instead of a computer.
? By Gender (for smartphone ownership):
o Men-39 percent
o Women-31 percent
? By Age (for smartphone ownership):
o 18-24-49 percent
o 25-34-58 percent
o 35-44--44 percent
o 45-54-28 percent
o 55-64-22 percent
o 65 + -11 percent
? By Race/Ethnicity (for smartphone ownership):
o White, non-Hispanic-30 percent
o African American, non-Hispanic-44 percent
o Hispanic-44 percent
? By Household Income (for smartphone ownership):
o <$10,000-21 percent
o $10,000-$20,000-20 percent
o $20,000-$30,000-26 percent
o $30,000-$40,000-36 percent
o $40,000-$50,000--44 percent
o $50,000-$75,000-38 percent
o $75,000-$100,000-53 percent
o $100,000-$150,000-57 percent
o $150,000 + -73 percent
? By Education Level (for smartphone ownership):
o No high school diploma-18 percent
o High school graduate-27 percent
o Some college-38 percent
o College + -48 percent
? By Geographic Location (for smartphone ownership):
o Urban-38 percent
o Suburban-38 percent
o Rural-21 percent
? Percentage of Smartphone Owners Who Also Own These Devices:
o Laptop computer-79 percent
o MP3 player-70 percent
o Desktop computer-68 percent
o E-book reader-20 percent
o Tablet PC-18 percent
? By Race/Ethnicity (percentage of owners who use their smartphone as the dominant means to access the Internet):
o White, non-Hispanic-17 percent
o African American/Latino-38 percent

From the Case above and answer the questions below. APA formatting guidelines require a title page, abstract page, and reference page in addition to the body of the paper.
In this final closing case study, we present some data regarding smartphone adoption and usage by ethnicity, gender, income, and education. It?s very interesting to see how different groups use smartphones in different ways.
1. Even though 44 percent of African Americans and Latinos own a smartphone while only 30 percent of White, non-Hispanics do, many people contend that this isn?t really closing the great digital divide because African Americans and Latinos use their smartphones more for entertainment than empowerment. Build an argument to support the previous statement.

2. When accessing the Internet, what can you do on a desktop or laptop computer that you can?t do on a smartphone? If smartphones have fewer Internet capabilities (than desktop and laptop computers), can you necessarily link an increase in smartphone ownership within a U.S.-based economically-disadvantaged group of people to closing the great digital divide? Why or why not?

3. How does an increase in smartphone ownership in a third-world geographic region like Africa close the digital divide for countries in that region? If you owned a U.S. business and wanted to start doing business in Africa, what would be an essential part of your marketing strategy?

4. If you look at smartphone ownership by household income, you?ll notice a fairly sizable dip for the category of $50,000-$75,000. To what do you attribute this? Justify your answer?

5. Finally, will greater access to the Internet cause a closing of the great digital divide? You can answer Yes, No, or Some. Whatever the case, build an argument for your answer.  more

There is no method section in the Sample APA paper. The key to writing an effective method is to have a clear set of research questions and/or hypotheses. Write a Method section for the paper based on... the following research question: "What are the factors associated with online purchases?" For this assignment, you can use the information included in the original paper, but you will also need to do original writing to fully develop the Method section. You should consult chapter 2 in your APA manual for a complete explanation and an example of a correct Method section.

The Method section should be divided into two categories with different emphases: 1) describing participants, and 2) describing the procedure. Within those two broad categories, you should include subsections that address the following elements: 1) experimental manipulations or interventions, 2) sampling procedures/size, 3) measurement approaches, and 4) research design/procedure. Be sure to state the methodology clearly so that the study is understandable and repeatable.

As part of this assignment, you should also create a survey that attempts to answer the research question. You can use survey items from other research to construct your instrument. In most cases, it is best to have some research precedent on which your instrument is designed. This makes your research more comparable to other research, and helps in synthesizing your results with the body of work that has already been completed on the topic. You are not required to conduct the research; simply create the survey.

Review the grading rubric attached above for the grading criteria. This assignment is due by the end of Module/Week 8.

Here is the APA Paper:
Running head: ONLINE CONSUMER BEHAVIORS
Exploring online consumer Behaviors

John A. Smith & Jane L. Doe

Liberty University

Abstract
Internet usage has skyrocketed in the past few decades, along with this increase comes the increase in internet shopping by consumers. This research examines the behaviors, motivations, and attitudes of this new form of consumer entity. Online consumer behavior has been studied for over 20 years and will undoubtedly be the source of many future researches as internet consumerism expands. This paper will examine the following research questions: (1) How do factors previously researched affect the online purchasing behavior of consumers and (2) what are the significant consumer behaviors both positive and negative that affect internet consumerism? By identifying these factors and variables, new strategies can be formulated and both consumer and supplier can gain knowledge and understanding of behaviors which exist. The purpose of this research paper is to integrate the varied research information together and draw coherent linkages to how consumer thoughts, attitudes and motivational behavior affect online buying, thus building a broader framework of analysis in which to build upon.

Introduction

The Internet has been accessible to the public for over twenty years. It came upon the scene and has exploded in popularity like few things have ever done in the history of the world. Since the introduction of the World Wide Web, the interest in the value of commerce and individuals has been growing. Skeptical at first, online consumerism has steadily increased and along with it has come some positive and negative behaviors. The purpose of this research is to understand how individual behaviors affect online consumerism. According to Lars Perner, consumer behavior is defined as ?the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society? (2008). By identifying the behaviors that support buying online and those which do not, businesses can help to increase profits and will help to assure their share of the market, as electronic trade may well out-step traditional buying in the not to distant future.
There are many variables to consider when outlining behaviors of Internet consumerism. According to Delia Vazquez and Xingang XU , online consumer behavior is affected by three main things: ?attitudes towards online shopping, motivations, such as price, convenience and hedonic motivations, and online information search? (2009, p.409 ). If a person is positive about the experience of shopping on the Internet then that attitude will affect the outcome of purchasing online. Also online consumers feel more in control when they can search with relative ease, prices and special offers. This price comparison is in itself, a great motivational tool. The fact that more information is available online concerning products also allows the consumer to feel that better information, will lead to better decision making on their part.
Research was conducted through a self-given online questionnaire. Important data was collected concerning the scale items of attitude, motivations and searches of information. The group consisted of students in three different age categories. The first were between 15 and 24. The second group was between 25-34 years old. The last group fell between the ages of 35 and 44. The 35-44 year old group was rated as first in Internet buying. The 25-30 year olds were next, followed by the younger group. A further study was done through the use of email and administered questionnaires. Two hundred students were surveyed in person and 300 students were asked to fill in an email survey. Between the two groups, 406 responded and participated in the research. Data analysis using a quantitative approach was used. Reliability analysis was formulated and used to test the data obtained. Canonical analysis was also used to help understand the data and build a framework around online consumer behavior.
The analysis showed that 49.8% of those surveyed were women and 50% were male. The group under age 24 made up a little less than two thirds of the total. Those over 24 accounted for the rest. Respondents who had used the Internet for five years or more represented 79% of the study. The results clearly showed that online shopping motivations, information searches, and attitude all had a significant affect on online purchases.
Other variables to consider in online consumer behavior are online experience, sexual preference, and the primary place in which the Internet is accessed. In a study performed by Cuneyt Koyuncu and Donald Lien, research showed that all three of these had ?large statistically significant effects on online shopping? (2003, p.721 ). They concluded that consumers, who had more experience with the internet, felt more comfortable navigating it. Consumers also felt safer in using the internet at their residence or on the job, rather than community computers. Sexual preference, according to their research, showed that bisexuals bought online in greater numbers than heterosexuals. This behavior may have resulted because of the bias against this portion of the population that is present in society. The survey which supports this data was conducted by Georgia Institute of Technology. There were over 10,000 participants. The total amount of samples used was 8717. Data such as an individual?s demographic; economics, sexual preferences, and primary places of online access were collected. The findings showed 7026 considered themselves online shoppers, while 1691 did not. The average for education was considered, ?some college? for both groups. Online shoppers? income was between $50 and $74K. The non-online shoppers? income was between $30 and $40K. The average ages of both groups were between 36 and 40 years old. Almost 90% were white and 60% were male. A little under half of all the participants were married. The conclusion of this research clearly identified that both the primary place to access the Internet and sexual preference had very important positive effects on online shopping.
Unlike shopping in a store on-site, making purchases online has other positives associated with it. According to Anthony Ammeter and Donghyun Kim, they stated ?one of the most important traits of online shopping is bidirectional communication capability? (2008, p.9). They go on further to explain how online shoppers have greater assess to communicate with those they are buying from. This communication can take place in such ways as bulletin boards and e-mails. This gives consumers a perception of personalized assistance. In contrast to this scenario, is the fact that we are losing our ability to maintain a high level of customer service on-site. The employees many shoppers encounter seem more to be filling a spot than actively engaging in helping consumers with purchases or becoming knowledgeable about what they sell.
Online consumerism is not however without its apprehensions. Set forth in the research by Janda Swinder were concerns. She stated in her article that there were, ?four consumer online concerns, identified as privacy, security, credibility, and virtual experience? (2008, p. 339). Each of these factors is considered when people think of making online purchases. Privacy issues, security, credibility and virtual experience have all shown to have negative effects on consumer purchasing. It is relatively simple for information to be collected from consumers whenever one logs onto a site or makes a purchase. Some information, such as name, address, phone number and credit card, is gathered through direct questioning and other information is gathered through tracking software. This transference of information makes some consumers nervous and they do not want to take the risk. Another point to consider is the credibility of the person or business in which one is dealing with. Questions arise about trust, description of merchandise, warranties, shipment, returns, and follow-up correspondence. Although this concern, though valid, has according to research, had very limited negative effect on consumer buying habits (2008).
Another negative behavioral pattern well documented is that of compulsive buying tendencies. These tendencies to over buy can have detrimental affects on the consumer, notably affecting monies, feelings, and relationships. According to ?The Relationship Between Consumers? Tendencies to Buy Compulsively and Their Motivation to Shop and Buy on the Internet,? somewhere between 5 and 9 percent of America?s population could be identified as people who have a propensity to compulsively buy (Kukar-Kinney, Ridgway, and Monroe, 2009). Motivators of this type of behavior include the very key ingredients of online shopping. These motivations are the following; items may be purchased at any time, shopping can be done frequently, a broader variety exists, and also purchases may be brought in private.
The actual detailed research conducted involved many aspects. The first method of research was a survey of over 300 people in 42 states. As quoted from the article, ?the sample consisted of 98.5% women, 63% of the respondents were married, the average age was 53 years, and the average household income was $82,000? (2009, p.300). The penchant to buy compulsively was measured using a buying scale that included six focuses. These scale items included, unopened packages at home, labeled by others as a shopaholic, how much time actually spent shopping, buying unneeded items, buying unplanned items, and if the surveyed considered themselves an impulse buyer.
Research was also conducted using a 22 statement survey in which the surveyed agreed or disagreed with the following statement, ?In comparison to retail stores, I shop on the Internet when buying clothing and accessories for myself because? (2009, p.301). The 22 statements included areas that linked to, ?buying unobserved, product variety, social interaction, and immediate positive feelings.? An analyses of the information was obtained through a series of ?linear regression analysis, with individual shopping and buying motivations in the role of the dependent variable, and compulsive buying index as an independent variable? (2009, p.302).
The final research was defined as cluster analysis. Taken into account were such categories as demographics, age, gender, income, education level, marital status, average income spent at retail and internet stores, frequency of purchase, and the number of credit cards used. All of this research data was well defined and explained. The findings of each method was then charted and analyzed with easy to understand tables and terminology. In keeping with the theme of the method section, the interpretations and conclusions made by these researchers were very detailed and data supported. The results showed that compulsive online consumer behavior was in part explained by motivations of the shopper. All motives set forth in this study exhibited an important positive connection to the compulsive buying scale except for one and that was the product variety motive. The overall findings concluded, as the researchers had hypothesized that
compulsive buying strongly affected consumers? decisions to make purchases using the Internet.
This research group acknowledges that one of its weaknesses was the sampling of consumers used. Subjects were relatively wealthy women, who frequented expensive internet retailers. I believe, as they do, that this assessment represents a bias in the general population. The research also only tracked the behavior of women. Compulsive online consumer behaviors are not gender specific and therefore this research, in my opinion, is somewhat flawed. Another weakness noted in this study was the amount of people surveyed in the first example with a total number of a little over 300. I do however think that one of this study?s greatest strengths was the broad base of surveys conducted (2009).
There are differences in online behaviors as identified by gender in the research of Janda (2008). Main differences account for shopping behaviors, attitudes to technology, and processing of information. Women were found to be more venerable to risks and perceived risks as higher than that of the male population. It was also found that women used the Internet less often and were less confident about their online ability. Females were found to enjoy the experience of shopping more than men. Women leaned more toward the sites which provided information and education about items.
The data for this gender research was gathered through surveys that were handed out. The opinions were taken from a quota sampling of different age groups. Responses totaling 404 were collected. The sample included a total of 196 men and 208 women. The median age was 32.8 years old. Another noted point was that the participants each had a history of Internet usage for about five years(2008 ). This is valuable research and asserts that these differences must be addressed in order for online distributors to appeal to both sexes in a meaningful way.
In research done by Christy Crutsinger, Sua Jeon, and Haejung Kim, they identified seven motivators of online auction participants. These motivators were, ?search costs, product assortment and price, brand equity, transaction costs, customer orientation, perceived quality, and social interaction? (2008, p.31). Never before has there been such a vehicle for buying and selling merchandise and services. Online auctions are tapping into this relatively new trend. More than 1,660 sites have been procured and are available to cater to this type of consumer.
The study on online auctions was done through a questionnaire, based on 36 auction motivators, online behavior, and demographics of participants. The Likert scale was used to determine responses. These participants totaled 410 and were selected from a pool of college students. Data was retrieved from 341 responses. There were 74.8% female and 42.6% labeled as
white. The ages ranged from 18 to 40 years old. The collected data revealed 90.9% were regular
users of the Internet. A low 20% revealed they had no online auction experience. The remaining who did have experience with online auctions were identified as follows; 5.3% used the Internet daily, 15.2% weekly, 29.9% monthly, and 29.3% said one to two times per year. An interesting note to this research was that although most of those surveyed had participated in online auctions, the majority of them (80.6%) conveyed that they had never sold anything online.
According to this research the following results showed that, ?search costs were the most important motivation, followed by product assortment/price, brand equity, transaction costs, customer orientation, and perceived quality. Social interaction was the least important motivation associated with online auction behaviors? (2008, p. 36). There is no doubt that college students
are very involved Internet participants. Studies like this one show the need for businesses to see the value of online auctions and use this prospect to increase their customer base. This research, however did not addressed the negative component of online auction consumer behavior. These types of behavior may fall into one of two categories, such as impulse buying or compulsive buying. Further research would need to be done in order to fully understand online consumer
auction behavior.
A major part of esthetics is how information is arranged on the web page. Too much information can overwhelm a consumer, too little can decrease consumer confidence. J.M. Stibel conducted research which included this topic of interest. Tests performed by him showed how online information presentation failed in many ways. His results showed clearly that ?category information presented in an alphabetical list allowed consumers the ability to navigate to their destination much faster than when they were asked to traverse a hyperlinked hierarchy? (2005, p.
149). Simplicity is the key. Consumers want to navigate with the least amount of effort. Clarity in the web design gives consumers the confidence in their ability to do so. This research led Stibel to identify a mental model of consumers, which concluded that people wanted information presented in concise and understanding ways. The ability of online businesses to do this is imperative because it leads to a ?more intuitive and compelling online experience (2005, p.149). There is a sub-group of online consumers that have been recently identified. This group has been termed, the ?net-geners or net generation.? This term is defined as, ?individuals born between 1977 and 1997 and is the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital media and the Internet? (Donghyun Kim & Anthony Ammeter 2008, p.7). This group understands technology and is comfortable with Internet commerce. The net-geners are the first generation that will actually surpass the baby-boomers in population size. Because of their knowledge and their numbers, it is safe to say that business as usual is in for a transformation. As the elderly portion of our population die and new individuals are born, this new way of doing business will be the reality that is known throughout life. The sky is indeed the limit in the progression of online consumerism.
Method

Reference Page
Crutsinger, Christy. Jeon, Sua & Haejung, Kim. (2008). Exploring online auction behaviors and
motivations. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 100(2), 31-40.
Janda, Swinder. (2008) Does gender moderate the effect of online concerns on purchase
likelihood? Journal of Internet Commerce, 7(3), 339-357.
Koyuncu, Cuneyt & Lien, Donald. (2003). E-commerce and consumer?s purchasing behavior.
Applied Economics, 35, 721-726.
Kukar-Kinney, M., Ridgway, N. & Monroe, K. (2009). The relationship between consumers?
tendencies to buy compulsively and their motivations to shop and buy on the internet.
Journal of Retailing: Consumer Behavior and Retailing, 85(3), 298-307.
Stibel, J. M. (2005). Mental models and online consumer behavior. Behavior & Information
Technology, 24(2), 147-150. Retrieved from
Vazquez, Delia. & Xu, Xingang. (2009). Investigation linkages between online purchase
behavior variables. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 37(5),
408-419.  more

1
Effective communication depends largely on understanding your audience. Your
audience?s expectations, characteristics, knowledge level, and information needs determine the content you choose... to present, the depth of detail you provide, the overall tone or attitude of your writing, and even the purpose you establish for your communication.
As the Bayer aspirin examples in Chapter 4 of your textbook show, information on the same medicine can be presented quite differently depending on the audiences? knowledge levels. The one designed for a general audience uses straightforward, non-technical language, and colorful visuals to make the drug information more comprehensible. The desk reference designed for health care professionals uses highly technical language, complex statistics, and less visuals to establish a professional ethos of the drug.
In addition to knowing the importance of analyzing audience, you should also be able to distinguish a document?s primary and secondary audiences. Primary audiences are the major intended readers for your document. In the workplace, your primary audience is the person or persons who will understand and act on your message. Secondary audiences are the other potential readers of your document. These are people who may receive a copy of your document. Most workplace communication has a combination of primary and secondary audiences. For example, people attended your presentation (primary audience) might later share information about your presentation and your handouts with people who didn?t attend (secondary audience).
Assignment Guidelines
For this assignment, choose two Websites that present information on the same subject.
However, the two Websites should be aimed at different primary audiences. One of them should be designed for a non-technical audience (such as WebMD, http://www.webmd.com/) and the other for a specialized/professional audience (such as the National Institutes of Health, http://www.nih.gov/).
Write a memo to your instructor analyzing both Websites and their audiences (primary and secondary) and explain the persuasive strategies each Website uses to serve its primary audience?s needs.
Synthesize your analysis to the following questions:
? What primary audiences do the two Websites seem to aim for? What kind of knowledge do the audiences seem to possess about the subject matter? What are
2
their age(s), genders, education level, occupations, and cultural background?
(Just because a Website is available on the Internet does not mean it is
designed for everyone. You need to think carefully and find out the specific
primary audience that the Websites aim to serve.)
? Who are the secondary audiences of these Websites? Who else might use
information found on this site?
? What persuasive strategies do the Websites employ to appeal to their primary
audiences? Do they use claims? Do they make an effort to connect with the
audience? (See pages 58-63 of your textbook for more on persuasion)
? To what extent do the Websites use technical language? Do you see any
examples of jargon? List examples.
? How long is the average sentence in each Website? How long is the average
paragraph? Does this tell you anything about the audience?
? How formal/informal are their respective styles? Why?
? Is there advertising? If so, what do the ads tell you about the audience?
? Do the Websites use tables, graphs, or figures? How do they differ on the two
Websites? What do they accomplish?
Requirements
? Keep in mind that your purpose is to contrast the two Websites, not merely to
describe them.
? Do not simply type the questions followed by your answers. Like all professional
memos, this one should summarize and organize the information into coherent and
well-written narratives.
? Format: Use a business memo format. See Chapter 11: Memos and Letters for
examples of business memo format. You can also use a memo template in Word.
? Minimum word requirement: 750 words
? Complete in MS Word.
? Make sure to include the Websites? URLs in your memo.
Submission
? Submit via SafeAssign in Blackboard. No assignments will be accepted over email.
Assignments incorrectly posted or submitted to the wrong location in Blackboard
will not receive credit.
? Required title for final version: your last name-audience analysis memo. So my file
name should be: Pearman_audience_analysis_memo.docx
?? Completeness (10 pts): The analysis addresses all questions for analysis.
? Organization (10 pts): The analysis is well organized. It has a clear structure with
an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
? Comparison and Contrast (30 pts): Your memo includes a clear analysis of the
two web sites, including comparison and contrast of the sites themselves and their
3
target audiences. It does not just describe.
? Support (30 pts): The analysis is concrete in that it uses examples from the Websites to support major points. The use of examples is selective and to-the-point. The examples are included in order to illustrate the analysis point and not to fill the page with words. There are no long direct quotations (defined as more than 3 lines) from the analyzed Websites. The student explains how the examples relate back to the analysis.
? Format (10 pts): The memo is formatted correctly following the specified guidelines for memos from Chapter 11. APA citation style is used when needed.
? Grammar and Mechanics (10 pts): Spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct. Minimum word requirement is met.  more

The following are directions to write the narrative description of your field project. It should be written in APA (6th edition) format, appropriately noting in-text citations, references, etc. You ma...y attach as appendices any charts, tables, or other materials (labeled with the source identified per APA format).
ASSIGNMENT:
TOPIC: PREVENTION OF OBESITY. AGE 50+

A. Assessment
1. Describe the LA COUNTY community where you performed your fieldwork. In your description, identify each of the following items:
? Geographical area (e.g., county, city, town)
? Area size
? Population size
? Demographics
? Physical and social environment

2. Create a community genogram/profile reflecting the health status of the community. INCLUDE STATISTICS RELATED TO OBESITY (RELATION TO SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, RACE, HEART DISEASE, STROKE, DIBETIS). SEE ATTACHED SAMPLE OF THE GENOGRAM. MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE INTERPRETATION OF THE GENOGRAM IN THE PAPER.

3. Discuss the health concern you studied in your fieldwork. OBESITY PREVENTION. DISCUSS OBESITY AND HEALTH PROBLEMS RELATED TO OBESITY. MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE FOLLOWING POINTS:
? Background in relation to Healthy People 2020 (2010) and local public health data that characterizes this health concern
? Data from national, state, and/or local level related to the health concern

MAKE SURE TO ADDRESS FOLLOWING POINTS FOR QUESTION #3

Health Concern and Data

Describe the issue at the national, state, and county (local) levels.Present the historical data at each level. What has been the trend for this problem over the last 20-30 years? Has it gotten better, worse, or plateaued? What are the baselines (where does the issue stand now) at each level? What are the improvement goals for the next 5-10 years? _ How does your county compare on this issue to the state level and the national level? Better, worse, or the same? For national level, be sure to discuss Healthy People 2020. _ Provide data to support your conclusion about the issue. Is the issue getting better, worse, or plateaued? What are the predictions for the future? _ Describe why we are concerned about this issue. What will happen if this issue is left unresolved? What are the consequences for the individual and for the community?

4. Describe the population of interest affected by the health concern (OBESITY) you studied in your fieldwork.
a. Description should include: the population of interest (50+), use demographic information and citing sources such as county data and US census data, i.e., percentage of males and females, socioeconomic states, education level, race/ethnicity, etc.
MAKE SURE FOLLOWING COMPONENTS IN THE DESCRIPTION:
? Gender (MALE AND FEMALE)
? Age (50+)
? Demographics including socioeconomic status and educational level
b. Describe how this health concern is linked to a health inequity for the population of interest. Include data that describes whether there is a sub group or sub groups within your population of interest that is more affected by this issue than others. Example: are men more affected than women or children more affected than adults? Answer the question ?What subgroups are suffering more from this issue??
c. Use data to support your conclusion.

5. Describe the community resources and partners (e.g., mission, activities, Web sites) currently involved with the health concern.
This section describes the results of your field work in detail. Ask: Is this an issue of concern to the community? Is it getting better, worse, or plateaued?
What are the gaps (what is not being done to prevent it)? What can be done to prevent it (what do they recommend?) Any other question you think will help you gain insight into the issue? Cite discussion with individuals and groups as
(personal communication, date). Use APA guidelines.

B. Diagnosis

1. Discuss aspects of the health concern not being addressed despite the efforts of the partners involved.
2. Make an overall statement of the present status of the issue in your county in terms of prevention.
3. What were the indications that the county is trying to work on this issue (strengths)? Where is there still room for improvement (gaps)?

C. Outcomes Identification
1. Describe the ultimate outcome(s) or goal(s) for improvement related to the health concern.
2. List one outcome or goal as if you were proposing a multi-year project such as 3 years or 5 years that a team of community health nurses was going to implement.
3. Explain how you arrived at this goal, using the baselines and improvement targets for this issue from your state level and the national level (Healthy People 2020). Give your citations.

D. Planning
1. Recommend nursing actions to improve the health concern.
Note: Use the Minnesota intervention wheel as an aid in selecting the broad areas for nursing action.PLEASE SEE ATTACHED MINNESOTA INTERVENTION WEEL.
2. Present your plan as if a team of community health nurses was implementing the plan. Part 1: Strategies and objectives . Part 2: The Minnesota Wheel, The 17 public health interventions. Interventions from the Wheel that connect to your objectives. Part 3: Table (like a care plan): Objectives, Nursing actions, Timelines.Objectives Nursing
i3. Explain how you and other nurses might work with the community and the population of interest to improve the health concern. Explain that community health nurses cannot achieve the objectives by nursing action alone. They must partner with the community (community members and institutions within the community) to be successful. Describe who or which entities will partner with the community health nurses to do the actions. Use your knowledge of potential partners gained from your field work. You may want to list each objective again and then explain which partners will assist with each objective and what their role will be. Be specific and assign roles that relate to the actions and objectives described in the previous section.
Note: Select primary and secondary prevention activities only.
4. Discuss potential public and private partnerships that could be formed to implement your recommendations.
5. Discuss the overall objective(s) for implementing these activities.
6. Create a timelines for expected outcomes.

E. Evaluation

1. Explain how you would evaluate whether the efforts to improve the health concern were effective.
? Include in your explanation the tools you might use to do this evaluation.
Include:
Part 1: how will you evaluate progress toward achieving your big outcome or goal?
Part 2: how will you evaluate whether you have achieved the objectives of the plan?

F. Conclusion

1. Reflect on how your perspective of the community?s health and the national, state, and local efforts toward a healthier population has changed as a result of your fieldwork. Up to this point in your paper, you have been writing in the 3rd person (they, he, she, it). You will write the conclusion in the 1st person (I, we) because this is a personal reflection of your field experience.

H. Supplemental Materials
1. Include supplemental materials at the end of your paper.
? Reference pages in APA format

PLEASE ADDRESS ALL QUESTIONS AS A SEPARATE PARAGRAPHS:
PART A: QUESTIONS 1, 2, 3, 4 (a, b, c), 5
PART B: QUESTIONS 1, 2, 3
PART C: QUESTIONS 1, 2, 3
PART D: QUESTIONS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
PART E: QUESTION 1: ADDRESS PART 1 AND PART 2
PART F  more

REPORT

The report must include a foundation, career application, and recommendation for the training module.



Foundation

? A clear description of the group?s most ...relevant aspects of the culture and why they exist.

1. Economic, political, and social history (which should also include the current social status of the group),

2. Educational information (education levels, educational system, the role of education),

3. A discussion of family and religion (the youth and elderly in the group and the challenging roles of men and women),

4. Popular culture (fashion, art, music, dancing, traditions, etc.) and cuisine.



Career Application

? Discussion of how the factors in the foundation play a part in their profession

? Description of possible real-world situations that would raise awareness to potential conflicts between cultures and promote tolerance in a training module that is relevant to the chosen profession.

? Optional: The student may also want to conduct an interview to become more familiar with the group?s background, lifestyles, problems, and issues from the perspective of a member of the culture. If the student chooses to include this as part of the paper, he/she must ask the interviewee to sign a document acknowledging that the person was interviewed.

Recommendation for Training Module

? Describe the objectives of the workshop

? Practical application for your workplace

o Provide an annotated agenda for the topics to be covered in the workshop

o Provide sample workshop materials





FORMAT

Write a formal, well-structured, researched, narrative, and qualitative report. The report must contain an APA-style cover page. No abstract is required for this report. The report should be 8-10 pages with 1-inch margins, typed, double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font. The cover page and references page are not counted as part of the 8-10 page minimum requirement. Remember, this report needs to be balanced between the three sections. The report must include all of the points mentioned above. The report requires a minimum of five scholarly resources (journal articles, books, etc.) in addition to the textbook. Any outside material used in the report must be cited in-text and included in the references page (using APA-style guidelines). Grammar and composition are a part of the grade.  more

Should a police officer be required to have at least an Associates degree in Criminal Justice or some other closely related field?
Your discussion should include: Does an officer's education level play a role in his/her ability to understand and protect the rights of defendants/suspect, does a typical officer without a C.J. degree receive enough training on Constitutional rights from a police academy, is there any research being done in this area, and conclude with your opinion on requirements should be required for one to become a police officer.

minimum of 3 pages

I ordered a paper on Globalization?s Effect on the United States? National Security that was due on May 20, 2012 (Order #A2064566). Because of a busy schedule and confidence in this website from prev...ious orders, I neglected to read the paper until today. Unfortunately, it is too late to request a rewrite. This is the reason for this order. The paper I received vaguely discussed the requests made in the original request. It did not expand on any issue. After reading it, I still don?t really understand how Globalization is affecting National Security. For example, it did not expand on the education system in the United States (e.g. whether its lagging behind in important subjects such as Math and Science) and its effect on National Security (e.g. on innovation). It didn?t discuss how it contributed, exactly, to the 9/11 attacks. In addition, it makes references to numbers and statistics without proper reference and does not explain the included charts and graphs. The last chart is hard to understand because it is misaligned. It often repeats itself. It also has numerous grammatical errors and is not written in proper English. I made a substantial initial investment in this project, but did not receive a quality product at the Master?s level. Because of my neglect, I am willing to make another financial commitment to this paper. I have paid for 5 additional pages. This should suffice for another writer to review the paper I received from this service and perfect it. This will require some deletion of content (especially repetitive items) and an addition of content (expansion of Education, Innovation, and any other globalization issue). Please ensure to properly cite resources, especially numbers and statistics. If any of the graphs or charts are used, please fix them to be readable. Please correct the grammatical errors and write in proper English. Basically, I am looking for a rewrite of the originally provided poor paper. I also paid for a summary page. If possible, please provide a summary. This can be bullet points of the important items of the paper. After completion, I should be able to see how globalization has affected the US? National Security. Please use Chicago Style citations. In addition, please update the bibliography. Take out the items you decided not to use and add any you decide to use. I appreciate your help with this matter. The paper should still be 17 pages. I absolutely require it by early Friday, June 1, 2012. I will attach the received paper as a source material. Again, THANK YOU!!! Below is the original request made:

This paper is to explore Globalization's Effect on the United States' National Security. Please ensure to discuss topics such as the economy's role in National Security and the importance of education. Emphasize the fact that the last National Security Strategy by current President Obama (May 2010) is the first time these items are addressed in and National Security Strategy. This should be one of the sources. Within the document it states things like, "We must grow our economy and reduce our deficit. We must educate our children to compete in an age where knowledge is capital, and the marketplace is global. We must develop clean energy that can power new industry, unbind us from foreign oil, and preserve our planet. We must pursue science and research that enables discovery, and unlocks wonders as unforeseen to us today as the surface of the moon and the microchip were a century ago. Simply put, we must see American innovation as a foundation of American power." It also has some other interesting items such as, "The United States must ensure that we have the world's best-educated workforce, a private sector that fosters innovation, and citizens and businesses that can access affordable health care to compete in a globalized economy." There are other mentions of globalization and the importance of the US to be able to compete. I also have read that globalization is one key reason 9/11 was able to be successful. Things such as a good economy help the US fund its defense as well. There are many avenues to explore with this topic. Please include some charts and graphs (maybe to compare the US to other countries - e.g. education levels, economy growth and decline, ect...). I mention 10 sources are required, but more or less can be used; however, the sources MUST BE peer-reviewed sources. You may use a couple of media sources, but not for facts. Please include the major sections as if it were a small thesis (Intro, Literature Review, Analysis, Interpretations and Findings, Conclusion, etc...). It must be at a minimum of 17 pages (not including the bibliography). I am providing additional time because quality is the upmost importance to me. I will also be requesting (at the additional fee) an executive summary of the paper as well. I appreciate your hard work on this important project. Please write the paper in Chicago Style. Also cite all sources using Chicago Style rules.  more

Condense this to 5 pages. I will send the original vignette and a sample of what it is to look like when completed.

Client Name: Candy Barr Client ID Number: 55555

Gender: Female ...

Date of Birth: 05-05-1974 Client?s age: 28

Date of Assessment: 05-25-2006 Time of Assessment: 2:30 p.m.

Time Spent: 1.30 hours

Identifying Information: Ms. Barr is a 28 year old Caucasian referred by the human resource department where she is employed for depression. This writer by observation would assess if Ms. Barre?s body weight appear to be average for her height and age. This writer would observe the color of Ms. Barre?s hair and eyes. This writer would like to ask Ms. Barre what identifying marks i.e. scars and tattoos that she has.

Chief Complaint: When asked why she thought she was referred to this writer by the Human Resource Department. Ms. Barre stated that she referred her for depression. Ms. Barr reports that on three occasions she engaged in verbal conflict with her co-workers resulting in her being written up.

Presenting Problem: Ms. Barr was referred to this writer by the Human Resource Department where she is employed. Ms. Barre admits that she has been a ?little short tempered? lately. Ms. Barre reports that she noticed her short tempered moods started around the time last year when she was promoted at work. Ms. Barre admits that the new duties and responsibility has overwhelmed her and she is having difficulty completing any aspect of her work in a timely and ?perfect? fashion. Ms. Barre reports that in an attempt to correct the issue of not having her work completed on time she has increased the number of hours she is working from 40 to 90 hours a week.

Social Development History:

Father: Ms. Barre reports her father and grandfather were alcoholics. This writer would like to know more about the current or past substance abuse with the father and grandfather. This writer would like to know how long had this been an issue. Is it still an issue? Did their spouse or friends ever voice concerned with their use of alcohol? What were their drinking habits like? How much, how often, and what do/did they drink. Did they ever neglect some of their usual responsibilities in order to drink? Did they ever try to cut down on drinking but could not? Did they give up or reduce important activities in order to drink?

Mother: Ms. Barre reports her maternal side of the family has ?anxiety?. This writer would like to know more about the current or past mental health issues with the maternal side of the family and what treatment or services helped and what did not help.

Siblings: The vignette did not provide this information. This writer would like to know if there are any siblings if so what level of involvement she has with her siblings.

Education: The vignette did not provide this information. This writer would have asked what Ms. Barre?s education level is. This writer would like to know if she is involved in an educational or training program.

Employment: The vignette provided information that Ms. Barre is employed but did not provide information on type of employment, what hours she is scheduled to work, if she supervises any employees, and did not provide information on the skill set required to perform the task assigned. This writer would like for Ms. Barre to describe her current job, type of work, work environment, length of employment, attitude toward work, and how it affects her life in relation to family, leisure time, health, relationships, etc.

Marriage: Ms. Barre reports that she is separated from her husband of five years. Ms. Barre reports her husband described her as unavailable and unfriendly. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre engages in any type of sexual behaviors that she has concerns with. This writer would like to know if family or friends have raised concerns with her sexual activity. This writer would like to know if any of these issues are a concern to be discussed in counseling.

Independent Living: The vignette mention Ms. Barre home life in passing providing information that she drinks at home at night and alone. The vignette did not provide any additional information. This writer would like to know where Ms. Barre is living i.e. at home, with friends, does she have a roommate, or another type of living arrangements.

Legal Problems: The vignette did not provide this information. This writer would like to know if the client came as a condition to maintaining her employment. This writer would like to know if there are any legal problems pending.

Social Network: The vignette mention Ms. Barre in the past interacted with family and friends and engaged in activities of interest to her. The vignette did not provide details of the interaction with family and friends or activities Ms. Barre enjoys. This writer would like for Ms. Barre to describe the relationships she is involved with and how she feels about these people (e.g. family, friends, husband, co-workers, and supervisor). This writer would like to know whom Ms. Barre feels most comfortable confiding in.

Previous Treatment:

Mental Health: Ms. Barre reports that she does not have a history of mental illness or history of depression, mood instability or psychosis. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre is taking any medication i.e. prescription, over the counter, herbal treatments, vitamins, homeopathic or traditional to evivate the depression.

Substance Abuse: Ms. Barre reports that she does not have a history of substance abuse but admits that her father and grandfather were alcoholics. This writer would like to know any current or past substance abuse history in the family i.e. birth family, adopted family, and foster family. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre?s friends or family has raised concerns regarding her substance abuse. This writer would like to explore in depth the drinking habits of Ms. Barre. This writer would like to know how much, how often and what she drinks. This writer would like to know if she has drank more than she meant to, has she ever been preoccupied with drinking, and has she neglected responsibilities in order to drink. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre ever felt the need to cut down on drinking or to stop and couldn?t. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre reduction in activities that she enjoys is a result of her drinking or the result of working or both. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre used any of these drugs in the last thirty days, ( No use, 1-3 times, 1-2 times, 1-2 times week, 3-6 times week or daily), when she first used the drug, when did she last use the drug, how did she use it i.e. smoke, drink, inhaled, injected or other method to use; how often she used and when was the peak of her use with this drug: Alcohol, Marijuana, Methamphetamine, cocaine, Ritalin, Heroin, codeine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, oxycotin, propoxphene, benzadiapines, benadryl, LSD, PCP, MDMA, shrooms, ecstasy, glue, paint, gasoline, prozac, or haldol. This writer would like to know if she will drink or use today when she leaves the office. This writer would like to know if she can abstain on her own and when was the last time she did abstain. This writer would like to know how she managed to abstain. This writer would ask questions to determine how supportive Ms. Barre?s living environment is i.e. her home, work, community, and surrounding environment.

Hospital Admissions: The vignette did not provide information regarding any general health hospitalizations. This writer would ask questions to find out if Ms. Barre has had any hospital admissions.

Psychotropic Medications: The vignette implies that this is Ms. Barre?s first visit for mental health issues and is not taking any psychotropic medications. This writer would like to ask questions to clarify if this information is correct.

Medical Illness, Medications: The vignette did not provide any information other than she is having difficulty sleeping. This writer would like to explore this in dept with Ms. Barre.

Allergies: The vignette did not provide this information. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre has any allergies or allergic reactions to any medication.

Family Psychiatric History: Ms. Barre reports that the maternal side of the family has a

history with anxiety.

Drug and Alcohol Use:

Past Use: The vignette does not provide this information. This writer would like to explore in depth the drinking habits of Ms. Barre. This writer would ask questions to assess if Ms. Barre has had problems in the past with alcohol in the past.

Present Use: Ms. Barre stated in the past that she would have a glass of wine to assist her in falling asleep and to quite her mind. Ms. Barre reported after a period of time she needed more than a glass of wine to create the same results that a single glass of wine use to accomplish. Ms. Barre reported that she is now up to a full bottle of wine at night to assist her in falling asleep. Ms. Barre reports drinking everyday of the week. Ms. Barre denies that her drinking has interfered with her life in any manner. Ms. Barre denies any side effects of the alcohol or any withdrawal symptoms. Although Ms. Barre did admit that, on occasion she felt sick in the morning when she woke up and twice she did not remember what she did under the influence of alcohol. Ms. Barre denies that she has a problem with alcohol and does not want the issue of her drinking discussed in therapy. This writer would like to know how much, how often and what she drinks. This writer would like to know if she has drank more than she meant to, has she ever been preoccupied with drinking, and has she neglected responsibilities in order to drink. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre ever felt the need to cut down on drinking or to stop and couldn?t. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre reduction in activities that she enjoys is a result of her drinking or the result of working or both. This writer would like to know if Ms. Barre takes any other drugs or medication in order to sleep or make her feel better and if so how much, how often and the reasons why.

Mental Health Symptoms:

Mental Status: This writer would like to ask Ms. Barre if she ever thought of harming herself or someone else. If yes, did she have a plan and when was the last time she thought about harming herself or someone else? This writer would like to know if she has ever harmed anyone intentionally. If yes, does she have a plan and when was the last time she harmed someone else. This writer would observe if Ms. Barre physical characteristics such as clothing, hair color, eye color, mannerisims, interaction with her and include general observations about the person appearance, behavior and social interaction. This writer would describe Ms. Barre?s motor activity. This writer would describe Ms. Barre?s mood. This writer would describe Ms. Barre?s affect. This writer would describe Ms. Barre?s self concept. This writer would describe Ms. Barre?s speech. This writer would describe Ms. Barre?s thought process. This writer would describe Ms. Barre?s thought content. This writer would ask questions to test the Intellectual Functions: Sensorium ? Orientation to determine if Ms. Barre?s intellectual functions with sensorium in person, place, time, and situation. This writer would ask Ms. Barre where you are. (City, state, and location). This writer would ask Ms. Barre what is today?s date? (month, date, year). This writer would ask Ms. Barre why is she here in my office today? This writer would ask Ms. Barre to spell the word ?world? backwards. This writer would score on number of letters in correct order then record the score. This writer would ask Ms. Barre to begin at 100 and count backwards by 7, this writer would stop after 5 calculations, and then record the score of numbers right. This writer would test Ms. Barre?s memory by asking Ms. Barre to repeat the following words ? rose, fish, bread. After minutes I would ask Ms. Barre to repeat these words again. This writer would ask Ms. Barre to list 4 recent presidents of the United States. This writer would ask if Ms. Barre has difficulty remembering things in the remote past. This writer would ask Ms. Barre if she has experienced hallucinations, delusions, or other apparent thought disorders. This writer would estimate intelligence through evaluation and questioning Ms. Barre. This writer would ask questions to test judgment and control. This writer would ask Ms. Barre a series of question that would indicate if Ms. Barre has good, average, or poor judgment and self control. This writer would ask question to test Insight in the same manner.

Initial Impression:

Disposition:

This writer in completing the Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE) with Ms. Barre found that she had scored ?No Apparent Impairment? according to the vignette.

Ms. Barre has experience symptoms related to a stressful event which is one criteria for Adjustment Disorder. Ms. Barre has development of emotional and behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable stressor her promotion which occurred within 3 months of the onset. Ms. Barre has distress in excess of what would be expected from the exposure to the stressor, significant impairment in social, occupational functioning, and the symptoms are not caused by bereavement. Ms. Barre displays symptoms of having difficulties adjusting to starting a new position. As a result she has experienced difficulty with her mood and behavior for several months after the announcement of her new position. She is more irritable than usual. The primary goals of treatment related to the Adjustment Disorder are to relieve these symptoms and assist with achieving a level of adaptation that is comparable to Ms. Barre?s level of functioning before the new position.

Ms. Barre has not provided enough information for this writer to determine if she meets criteria for Alcohol Dependence, Alcohol Abuse, or other alcohol induced disorders.

Ms. Barre displays symptoms of Type A Personality. She has an insatiable desire to achieve goals. She has a strong desire for advancement and recognition. She has a desire to multitask under time constraints, a perfectionist in completing task, and always concerned about the work that needs to be completed.

Ms. Barre reports that she has difficulty sleeping and uses alcohol to help her sleep. Ms. Barre reports no other medical problems.

It is recommended that Ms. Barre participate in a minimum of one, one-hour weekly mental health individual counseling sessions for 16 weeks to address her mental health issues. In these sessions, Ms. Barre will be reinforced about the need to identify triggers which exacerbate her stress levels, develop alternative coping strategies, and work toward reducing her anxiety symptoms. In addition this writer recommends that Ms. Barre participates in MAST and SASSI-3 to gather data for this writer to evaluate if Ms. Barre needs additional treatment for substance abuse. This writer also recommends that Ms. Barre participate in a psychiatric evaluation to determine if medications would be clinically appropriate at this time. If a psychiatric evaluation is unable to determine appropriate clinical diagnosis, further psychological testing may be required.



There are faxes for this order.  more

Design a data collection tool that can be used with your aggregate population. Make sure the tool contains the following:

? Demographics?name, birth date, ethnicity, sex, education level, and so forth
? The questions that you came up with in Part One and any others that you feel would apply
? Two additional questions that would be consistent with the goals of Healthy People 2020
? Data from reliable sources that answers each of the questions you asked

Include data points with two levels of data for each? if you cannot find two points, a data gap exists.

Essay: A Local Mental Health Community Assessment of the Las Vegas, NV Homeless Community
10 pages maximum for essay (7 pages minimum)...not including references or appendices (let me know if you... need more pages for appendices like charts, community genograms, etc.)

"Community" refers to the homeless population with mental health problems in LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (may also include Southern Nevada area).

Please use the following outline headers in the paper (subheaders are optional but all the data needs to be included in the paper):
1. Introduction
2. Community Assessment -- include geographical area, area size, community population size, community demographics, community physical and social environment. Create a community genogram/profile reflecting the health status of the community (sample genogram will be provided as a resource).
3. Health Concerns of the Community --
a. Background in relation to "Health People 2020" and local public health data that characterizes this health concern.
b. Data from national, state, and/or local level related to the homeless community mental health concerns
4. Community Description -- inlcude data on gender, age, socioeconomic status, education level, etc.
a. Describe how the health concern is linked to health inequity for this population/community.
b. Use data to support the conclusion
5. Community Resources -- resources and partners (governmental, missions, activities, hospitals, websites, etc.) currently involved with the health concern of this community.
6. Diagnosis - discuss aspects of the health concern of this community that is NOT being addressed despite the efforts of the partners involved.
7. Outcomes Identification -- describe ultimate outcomes or goals for improvement related to the health concerns of this community.
8. Planning
a. Recommed nursing actions to improve the health concern
b. Explain how nurses might work with the community and the population of interest to improve the health concern -- select primary and secondary prevention activities only.
c. Discuss potential public and private partnerships that could be formed to implement the recommendations.
d. Discuss overall objective(s) for implementing these activities.
e. Create a timeline for expected outcomes.
9. Evaluation -- explain how you would evaluate whether the efforts to improve the health concern were effective. Include in the explanation the tools needed to use this evaluation.
10. Conclusion -- reflect on your perspective of the community's health and the national, state, and local efforts toward a healthier population has changed as a result of the study of this community.

Please make sure data is as up-to-date as possible (last 3 years preferably) as I will be using this paper as the base for the final paper and will be printing out a copy of all references for my final paper. THANK YOU.

Another note: Please include somewhere in the paper a discussion of the Nevada Legal Hold (sometimes known as Legal 2000, L2K, or civil commitment) process for people with psychiatric issues.

APA FORMATED CITATIONS AND REFERENCE PAGE PLEASE.
There are faxes for this order.  more

have a friend describe a high-involvement purchasing he has recently made. Discuss what factors affected his decision. identify the primary social influences that played a part in the decision. Use Fi...shbein model-multi-attribution attitude model- in describing the decision process. use as an example of purchasing a house.
i need to describe a person(name, age, family size, ethnicity, education level...) and how his/her social background influence the decision and process of high involvement purchase- a house. in describing the process i must follow fishbein model.

describe a specific person making a specific high involvement purchase- a house.in describing the process use fishbein model.. the paper about the person, with name, must answer:
how did he learn about the product?
what research did he use?
how many products did he compare against?
what were the determinanats?(price, features, condition, location)
did he talk to a broker?
who wre his opinin leaders?
and more questions about the person, the house, and the process. the paper is not about fishbein model but about high involvement purchasing process of a specific individual.
the individual can be my sister in low, Smadar. she is 40yo and has 4 children, 3 of them are still attending school. she graduated highschool but did not attend college.  more

Vulnerable Populations ? Part II
Paper includes the following:
? Details of the potential financial impact on the vulnerable population. Consider the following:
o The impact of changes in ...age groups, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic and education level
o Health or illness trends, such as disease morbidity and mortality within the population
o Health care service needs, such as acute care, long-term care, nursing home, home health, and hospice
? Description of the funding that is being used to assist this population.
? Description of the system impact due to the vulnerable population. How does this population affect delivery systems in the United States?
? Analysis of the issues and challenges of this vulnerable population. What are some potential solutions to address the needs of this population?
? Evaluation of the overall risk to the U.S. health care system if the rates of the vulnerable population continue to rise at 2?3% over the next 5 years as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is enacted.
? The paper is 1,400 to 1,750 words in length.
? The introduction provides sufficient background on the topic and previews major points.
? The conclusion is logical, flows, and reviews the major points.
? The paper?including the title page, reference page, tables, and any appendixes?is consistent with APA guidelines as directed by the facilitator. The paper is laid out with effective use of headings, font styles, and white space.
? Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed; spelling is correct.  more