Recent literature suggested that while the discussion of presidential selection, evaluation, and compensation was common to both private and public institutions, special attention was paid to public university presidents. They and their presidencies were subject to intense public debate and scrutiny. Florida's public university presidents have contended with the same issues as their counterparts in other states. However, the 2001 changes in the state's higher education governance created distinct challenges and opportunities for the 11 presidents in the Florida State University System. The purpose of this study was to analyze the trends in the selection, evaluation, and compensation of the 11 university presidents in the Florida State University System (SUS) from 1996-2006, the period five years before and five years after the changes in governance. Interviews with university presidents, members of boards of trustees, and members of the Florida Board of Governors, members of the Florida Legislature, and salary histories from seven of the 11 Florida institutions were used to analyze the trends in light of the shift in perceptions of the presidents' roles and the changes in higher education governance. Since 2001, and the establishment of boards of trustees and by Florida statute, presidents were seen as the chief executive officer of their institutions, a change from an academic to a business model. Trustees, who primarily came from a business background, viewed them as CEOs and chose to compensate presidents at a higher level than they had previously been paid. The Board of Governors, a majority of whose members also had corporate backgrounds, implied the need for a CEO-type leadership style and more corporate-style accountability. In 2003, the Florida Legislature responded to the salary surge at the chief executive level and placed a $225,000 salary cap from appropriated funds on the university presidents' salaries. The legislation did not place any restrictions on university foundations or other sources for supplementing the compensation package.

This study examines the current state of computer-based instructional systems design (ISD) tools and outlines its implications for the future. The study utilizes the grounded theory methodology to capture and document modern instructional designers' perspectives regarding the current state of ISD tools, the issues associated with them, and their interrelationships. The study also presents a framework for classifying modern ISD tools and a conceptual prototype of a designer-oriented system of computer-based ISD tools.

The pursuit of this ethnographic study was inspired by my lived experiences as an urban school teacher for 18 years, as well as, the experiences of a group of other urban teachers. The study explored the following question: Does knowledge and practice of Ubuntu pedagogy help to improve teachers' cultural competencies in an urban school? The research documents how knowledge and practice of the three pillars of Ubuntu pedagogy help to transform the perspective of urban teachers. The three pillars are (1) Humanism and Ubuntu Competency, (2) Collaboration and Partnership, and (3) Relationship and Learning Community. Data were collected using multiple techniques, which included semi-structured interviews, book study, reflective digital journal notes, observations and a focus group. Seven participants, who were interviewed, were selected using convenience sampling (Creswell, 2013). Transformative learning and Ubuntu pedagogy are constructs in the conceptual framework that guided the process of the research design. For the data analysis procedures, the description of the interpretation of the cultural-sharing group provided more insights about teachers' experiences in an urban school. Recommendations were made based on the data collected, which provided evidence of how the knowledge and practice of Ubuntu pedagogy helped to improve teachers' cultural competencies. The teachers' focus group, book study reflections and classroom observations revealed that all the teachers experienced levels of a disorienting dilemma, a shift in frame of reference that was more inclusive and self-reflective.

The biggest change in the facial recognition community since the completion of the FacE REcognition Technology (FERET) program has been the introduction of facial recognition products to the commercial market. Open market competitiveness has driven numerous technological advances in automated face recognition since the FERET program and significantly lowered system costs. Today there are dozens of facial recognition systems available that have the potential to meet performance requirements for numerous applications. But which of these systems best meet the performance requirements for given applications? Repeated inquiries from numerous government agencies on the current state of facial recognition technology prompted the DoD Counterdrug Technology Development Program Office to establish a new set of evaluations. The Facial Recognition Vendor Test 2000 (FRVT 2000), was co-sponsored by the DoD Counterdrug Technology Development Program Office, the National Institute of Justice, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and was administered in May-June 2000. The sponsors of the FRVT 2000 had two major goals for the evaluation. The first was a technical assessment of the capabilities of commercially available facial recognition systems. The sponsors wanted to know the strengths and weaknesses of each individual system, as well as obtain an understanding of the current state of the art for facial recognition. The second goal of the evaluation was to educate the biometrics community and the general public on how to present and analyze results. The sponsors have seen vendors and would-be customers quoting outstanding performance specifications without understanding that these specifications are virtually useless without first knowing the details of the test that was used to produce the quoted results. The Facial Recognition Vendor Test 2000 was a worthwhile endeavor. It will help numerous readers evaluate facial recognition systems for their own uses and will serve as a benchmark for all future evaluations of biometric technologies. The FRVT 2000 evaluations were not designed, and the FRVT 2000 Evaluation Report was not written, to be a buyer's guide for facial recognition. No one will be able to open the report to a specific page to determine which facial recognition system is best because there is not one system for all applications. The only way to determine the best facial recognition system for any application is to follow the three-step evaluation methodology described in the FRVT 2000 Evaluation Report and analyze the data as it pertains to each individual application. This thesis explains the design and implementation of the FRVT 2000 evaluations, and discusses how the FRVT 2000 Evaluation Report met the author's objectives for the evaluation. / Master of Science

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to investigate an instrument, the Cross-cultural Understandings in Multicultural Education (CUME) Assessment, which was devised to measure third grade students' understandings of selected crosscultural/ multicultural concepts. These concepts were derived from a cultural anthropological perspective of human similarities and differences. Procedures. The study examined the reliability and validity of the CUME Assessment, a multiple-choice, domain referenced test consisting of twenty-one items based on seven instructional objectives. Third grade students, whose teachers indicated on a Teacher Questionnaire having taught these objectives as a part of the formal curriculum, were assessed. Three instruments were administered to this group (N = 100): the CUME Assessment, the Student Interview, and People Pictures, an instrument devised to measure attitudes toward foreign peoples. The CUME Assessment was examined and evaluated by a group of educational experts. Additionally, a quasi-experimental design was used to compare the CUME scores of the treatment group with those of a control group selected on the basis of the Teacher Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Findings. Analysis of the data established adequate reliability for the CUME Assessment. Expert evaluation of the item-objective congruence of the CUME yielded moderate to high mean scores for all subtests. The total scores of the Student Interview and the CUME Assessment were moderately correlated and significant (p Conclusions. A moderately high degree of content validity of the CUME Assessment was established. The investigation indicated adequate support for the reliability, construct validity and the concurrent validity of the assessment. Recommendations. The CUME Assessment may be justifiably, but cautiously, utilized by educators to assess third grade students. It is an efficiently administered instrument which evaluates the quality of curriculum and instruction.

No description available.

Studies have indicated that intergenerational relationships can assist children to learn more efficiently by providing support. As new forms of media have emerged and become pervasive in our society, it is important to understand how children use them to learn. Just as television coviewing has been observed by past researchers to aid youths to learn with parents and grandparents, three-dimensional virtual learning environments (VLE) are being investigated for their potential. This study seeks to examine the potential learning impact on children, ages 8 to 13, encountering a three-dimensional virtual learning environment with their grandparents. The primary research question this study examines is whether children exploring a 3D VLE with a grandparent learn the information being conveyed within the environment more effectively. A second aspect of the study considered if the grandparent-child pair would spend a greater amount of time in the virtual environment compared to a child exploring alone. Additionally, this research seeks to determine if there are other benefits a child could gain while interacting with a grandparent while using a VLE. This study used ChronoLeap: The Great World's Fair Adventure, an educational VLE developed at the University of Central Florida under a National Science Foundation Informal Science Education grant. ChronoLeap permits children to explore a virtual representation of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair where they can discover the roots of current technology in their 1960s form and its evolution to the present. This environment affords a child a unique opportunity to encounter a virtual recreation of an era in which their grandparents would have firsthand memories potentially eliciting the grandparent's personal reflections.

yes / The UK Government welcomes the findings and recommendations of the Evaluation of the Conflict Prevention Pools recently completed by Bradford University at the Government's request. A thorough evaluation of the Pools' unique approach was essential in order to ensure that, two years after their inception, the Pools not only functioned effectively, but actively added value to Departments¿ individual contributions. In this context, the finding that the progress achieved through the Pools justifies their continuation is particularly important. This document responds to the Evaluation's other key findings and recommendations.

Yes / Evaluation of GEAPs with Dr Maria Bustelo and Dr Julia Espinosa Fajardo at the GENOVATE conference. / FP7

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. / Effects of two independent variables -- expectations of liking or disliking other individuals, and evaluative reactions about self from these others on self concept and liking for others, were experimentally studied, as an application of Heider's theory of balanced states. Heider has postulated a tendency for individuals to reach a state in which interpersonal cognitions are balanced, or consistent, with one another. Several hypotheses were generated by applying balance theory to the relationships among these variables [TRUNCATED]