Global Operation Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Global Operation Management - Essay Example There are also more than 25 training centres distributed throughout the world. The official Huawei report of 2007 revealed that the corporation had realised US$12.6 billion in that financial year. Huawei’s overseas profits had increased by 60.4% from the previous year. Huawei’s evident success in such a competitive industry stems from its ventures in the local market. In 1988, Huawei began with a modest capital of RMB 20,000. It participated in reselling telephone switchboards for a period before it started producing its own products. In 1990, the Huawei Corporation invested its capital in channelling proceeds into a branch of research and development into creating its own telephone switches. In 1992, Huawei introduced its new digital switch product which came from its own design and development facilities. The company proceeds that year exceeded RMB95 million. The Huawei Corporation then made the decision to invest more capital in more research and development, which r esulted in assisting the corporation to corner the telecom market in China. At the start of the 90s, the Chinese telecom market dominated by equipment providers from the Western democracies. When the Huawei Corporation first introduced its products, it had to deal with the business rivals right in its own nation. Most Chinese consumers of electronic products viewed the products manufactured in the West as having more value as than any goods that were manufactured domestically. The Huawei Corporation at first concentrated on reaching the populations in rural China with its products. This is because these areas were not viewed as having many people interested in electronic products by the multinational corporations that dealt in electronic products. In these areas, Huawei slowly acquired a respected brand name, thus generating a faithful clientele. Then, Huawei then began to market its electronic products, as well as software, to average sized municipalities. The move to corner the ma rket in the bigger towns would come later. The Huawei Corporation experienced a considerable measure of success because the Chinese government, then, viewed the growth of the telecommunications industry as an important part of the nation’s economic objectives. The government of China extended a lot of support in terms of financial investments and policy to the Huawei Corporation. The 90s were actually the golden era of the development of the telecom industry in China. Between 1991 and 1999, the proceeds from the telecommunications industry increased by 2050%. With the support of the government, the Huawei Corporation successfully made use of the chance to be the foremost supplier of electronic goods in China. By 1996, Huawei was realising profits of RMB2.6 billion on an annual basis, making it the leading provider of telecom goods in China. The excellent performance of a corporation in its own nation is generally a fact that stimulates it towards internationalisation. The Hua wei Corporation was not contented to dominate the Chinese domestic market, but wished to compete in the international arena against bigger rivals. There were some reasons for this. Even though the telecom industry in China had great potential, fierce competition among corporations that were established in the same decade meant that proceeds would be limited even for the corporation that

Crowd Dynamics & Management in an Event Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Crowd Dynamics & Management in an Event - Essay Example As the discussion outlines, major events have happened in the world where issues such as stampedes lead to death and injuries, or people suffocate due to congestion and commotion. This study will elaborate on effective crowd dynamics and event management by evaluating the Hajj, an annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca which attracts millions of people. In 2006, a stampede led to the death of over 340 people. Since the first events were organized about 2,000 years ago, they have been increasing in number by the day owing to the effect they have on our lives. They affect our political, environmental, economic, social, and cultural aspects. An event can have negative and positive impacts on the stakeholders and host communities, and that has made understanding of crowd dynamics and event management an important part of events. Today, events are increasingly researched and well documented to optimize their benefits and enhance their outcomes. One of the biggest challenges to crowd management is that minor factors such as bad behavior, substance abuse or criminal behavior can alter the agenda of an event and lead to unintended consequences. An event manager should therefore be equipped with skills to predict and come up with measures to mediate in the event that an unintended occurrence emerged before, during, and after an event. To elaborate how effective crowd management should be structured, the following study text will highlight the causes of fatalities and injuries at the 2006 Hajj where 340 people died and 1,000 injured. Following these, crowd reactions to situations and environments at public events will be discussed with regards to crowd management and control. In January 2006, pilgrims at the Mecca Hajj pilgrimage event numbering millions went rushing through the city streets towards al-Jamarat, three large stone walls made of stone which represent the devil.  

The Lively Art Of Writing Questions English Language Essay

The Lively Art Of Writing Questions English Language Essay 1) The difference between an opinion and a fact is that an opinion can be used as the main topic of an essay. It is based on partial knowledge of a subject where the writer thinks what seems true. In a fact, however, the statements are based on absolute certainty and can be proven if needed to. Facts can not be used as an essay topic since no sides exist, meaning no people to persuade. 2) Although facts do not make admirable essay topics, they do provide the needed support for an opinion. If an essay is purely based on personal feelings, nothing is available to prove those emotions. What is needed are strong facts which can show the reader the impartial aspects of the main idea. 3) Opinions may prove a writers viewpoint, but not all of them are created equal. In terms of writing an essay, a more detailed opinion (more than just a yes or no answer) is preferred. This makes the topic more interesting to read and forces the writer think in a less general perspective. The legitimacy of the opinion is also considered when it comes down to quality. A writer needs a statement that creates controversy to stir up interest. An opinion that is generally accepted to be true would not be a topic to choose since hardly any factual evidence would exist to support the opposition. 4) Assuming a writer has all the background information needed, an essay topic on an American foreign policy would be a great choice. In this opinion, one nation is enforcing a rule based in another country. This would pull people from both America and the foreign country to either oppose or support this policy. With the numerous amount of people involved, controversy will be unavoidable. This controversy plays a key role in the topic since people will be interested and want to see how this policy will support/oppose their own views. 5) Of the five groups of topics, only one from each group would make a strong topic. In the first group (A-D), Sewing as a Hobby would be the better choice since people have different viewpoints on how sewing is a hobby. The variety of topics in sewing would also give the writer the work of narrowing the topic down to a single or few aspects. In group E-H, the choice would be Driver Training Programs Cost Too Much. This is an excellent topic for both support and opposition and for looking though the viewpoints of multiple people, such as students, parents, or other people in a community. The winner of best topic in the third group (I-J) would go to Moby Dick, Americas Greatest novel. This statement would relate to anyone who has read the novel and has created an opinion on the quality of it. Using these opinions, interest would be created and people would gladly voice their love/hate for the classic. In choices M-P, the best topic would be High Points in American Literature. Great am ounts of literature have been composed in American history and that would bring out numerous high points. People will have their views on which should be crowned best. In the final group (Q-T), The Student Council is Outmoded would be the choice since this would stir up views from teachers, students, and parents. Depending on their likings of the student council, they would strongly support or oppose it since this audience would have a strong view on what is best for the students. 6) The chief difference between a typical term paper and an essay is that an essay is mainly a persuasive piece of writing. In it, the writer writes on a certain topic which reflects his/her opinions. In a term paper, however, the writer is mainly focused on providing the facts in order to tell about a subject. 7) A. Edison Invented the Electric-Light Bulb would be a poor essay topic since that is a fact and it can be proven without much effort. B. The weakness of Teachers Should Explain Things More Clearly is that this topic is too emotional. Hardly any facts that would prove this true. C. No weakness lies in the topic Science Has Influenced Modern Life. D. Safe Driving Should be Encouraged is another weak topic as this statement is supported by a vast majority of people. It would be ridiculous go against safe driving. E. Although The Responsibilities of Students may seem like a feasible topic, it is actually quite poor since varieties of responsibilities exist and they can mostly be agreed on by everyone. Chapter Two 1) The difference between a thesis and an opinion is that an opinion is a broad idea. This cannot be used as a strong basis for an essay, but when it is condensed down to a specific point, it becomes a thesis. A thesis, now with all excess information cut away, is now ready to become a main point of an essay. 2) To narrow down an opinion to a thesis, five steps are required. The first step is to take inventory, and that means to take into consideration all that is known about the topic. After seeing all the information available, ask questions that derive from the opinion. Make sure that the questions asked are still related to the topic. When a question that seems appeasing is found, look for relationships between this question and the original opinion. Try to find what commonalities they share and search for statements that can be used as a thesis. Then ask the yes-or-no question; if both a supportive and negative statement can be given, then it is on its way to becoming a thesis. The final step in the process is to qualify the statement by narrowing it down. Choose which point to write on and specify a degree of support/opposition. 3) The value of a yes-or-no question is small when it is viewed as a an essay topic, but is very useful in finding a proper thesis. The question will help define a particular viewpoint, which is the basis of growth to a more specific statement. It will also help determine whether or not the statement is appropriate for use as a thesis. 4) Qualification of a thesis is important since that is where the the feelings toward an opinion come in. Qualifying outlines the degree of support or opposition, thus it helps guide the writer on the right path when writing an essay. This process is also useful for looking at both sides of an opinion and it can help the writer take them into consideration. Chapter Three 1) The three elements that create a full thesis are the statement itself, the supporting points, and the opposing points. 2) In writing, the full thesis is related to the psychology of an argument since the goal of a thesis is to persuade, just like how one tries win in an argument. Arguments arent won just by pure factual information nor is it won by emotions alone. The thesis statement highlights the main view of an argument, thus taking a stand. Then the use of both the supporting and opposing statements are used to persuade the reader/opposition. With these two sides, the persuader can use factual information along with some opposing statements, in an attempt to win by including facts with a hint of emotion. 3) The full thesis statement should be kept in view when writing since this prevents the writer from steering off into another topic. It also reminds the writer of the degree of the thesis and in turn, this ensures the appropriate details are being added into the essay. 4) When writing an essay, a full thesis should be followed as much as possible, but it is possible to have some leeway. The thesis should only be used as a guide since there should always be creativity in a paper. Following this guideline is great for beginning writers, but as experience racks in, it will be normal for writers to sway away from following a strict guideline. Chapter Four 1) An essay needs a concluding paragraph since it ties all of the middle section together. It brings the essay to a formal close, thus leaving the reader with satisfaction. 2) The introduction helps write the conclusion since the format of the two paragraphs are very similar. The introduction starts out broad and narrows down to a point (the thesis). In a conclusion, however, the thesis expands out into the broad subject used in the introduction. Therefore, the writer can look at the introduction and then use the information to help plan out the conclusion. 3) It is likely that the introduction will have to be rewritten since the middle is not necessarily completely based off of the thesis. Ideas will frequently change throughout the writing process, thus the intro could then become inaccurate. It must be revised to fit the new middle section before the conclusion is made since it is significantly based off of the introduction. 4) The structure of a conclusion is the exact reverse as that of the introduction. It starts out at a specific point (thesis) and gradually works its way to become a vague idea. Instead of trying to prove a point in the middle, it is tying in (restating) the middle section. 5) Every time an idea from the middle is used in the conclusion, it rings a bell in the readers mind. The reader recognizes this statement from the essay and is thus once reminded. This will be an effect that prolongs the memory of the ideas listed in the essay. 6) A person can summarize without listing by using references to the middle text or introduction. Instead of listing the points, talk about the significant points, thus the reader is reminded and the deadly three point conclusion is not used. 7) To broaden a conclusion means to get more vague in a subject until the broad point is reached (which would be the idea used in the beginning of the introduction). The writer reviews what was stated in the preceding starting form the first sentence in the conclusion, therefore the writer begins to talk more vaguely. Chapter Five 1) Style in writing is similar to style in any other kind of activity since it takes time to create. Just like how athletes train to get skill and gracefulness, a writer must train to get his own expertise. Style also is what stands out to the audience. Similar to how people admire different athletes for different traits, readers will learn to respect a writers method. 2) It is important to learn what not to do in writing since that is how the writer gains experience. If a writer was told only what to do, he can make numerous mistakes and not even notice it, as they are abiding by the to do rules. He must be told what not to do in case of the multiple times that this event might take place. Just like in bowling, the person is told to roll the ball to try to knock all of the pins down. If he is not informed to not cross the line, then he could walk over it and not know the consequence until its too late. 3) Two rules that shall be applied to my writing is to only use third person and to never use the word there. 4) The use of a personal pronoun weakens a statement since it gives the reader a sense of the writers uncertainty such as in the sentence I believe that animal cruelty is wrong. If no pronoun is used, then the writer is giving a sense of command and confidence just like in Animal cruelty is wrong. 5) To substitute first and third person means to revise a statement so that only a third persons point of view is used. The process usually involves cutting out the personal parts if it is substituting for a first person view and rewording if for a second person view. 6) The elimination of the word there forces writers to use better verbs since it requires thought to fill in the blank space. Leaving the space blank would usually mean a boring sentence. It is best filled with an action verb to give the sentence life.

Essay --

Strange Meeting ‘Strange Meeting’ by Wilfred Owen is a poem about a soldier in war who makes contact with the spirit of a dead soldier. The poem begins with the relief of a soldier as he escapes the war; but then realizes where he was when he sees the dead soldier. The spirit tells him that joining war is simply a waste of your life. The poem describes the cruelty and harshness of war, and what it’s like to be in it. Owen’s main aim was to open up the truth about war and the horrific and gruesome reality of being a soldier, contradicting the propaganda illustrating soldiers as heroic, honorable, and proud. Owen’s poem ‘Strange Meeting’ shows the horrors of war through dramatic and memorable imagery that allow us to feel deep pity for the young soldiers, whether it’s physical or the soldier’s inner mental pain. For example, â€Å"They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress† (line 29) is a metaphor describing the violent attacks during the war. Meanwhile, â€Å"With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained† (line 11) gives a clear picture of what the dead soldier’s face was like, bringing pity to the reader. These images are used to show the immense harm and the brutality of war and its effect on men. The dead soldier describes the blood that clogged their â€Å"chariot-wheels† (line 35) showing his regret for participating in the war now that he was aware of its ugliness. Thus, when the soldier states that â€Å"the foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were† (line 42), he truly expresses the cruelty of war and how it leaves men with scarred souls. All of these images highlight the pure pain of war. Owen’s use of assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia in the poem help to bring it to life and remind us of the horrific situation at ... ...fred Owen to effectively build sympathy for the second soldier as he describes the pain that men suffered in war. It is only after having described the second soldier that we find out his real identity— the enemy the soldier killed back in war, which can be proved with the second soldier’s ironic question, â€Å"I am the enemy you killed, my friend?† (line 43). To conclude, Wilfred Owen wrote the truth. That was his goal. He did not try to dramatize his poetry. The simplicity of it is what draws readers and what they feel they can relate to. In â€Å"Strange Meeting†, Owen proved to his readers that his intent was the simple truth; and in my opinion, this is what he accomplished — to share the atrocity of war through the eyes of two soldiers. This poem really spoke to me, his clever words played like a movie in my and the truth behind the lines of the poem really shocked me.

Should Examinations be Abolished Essay

Good morning everyone. My name is YONG YU, representing class 2/7.The motion of today’s debate is â€Å"Should examinations be abolished in school† In my point of view, I strongly agree that examinations should be abolished in school! Firstly, the approach of present examination systems means the beginning of fear, tension, anxiety and stress in the minds of the students under which if a student doesn’t performs according to his/her parents expectations may lead to students even taking the extreme step of ending their life by doing suicide. Secondly, some people also think that exams are not a reliable test of gauging the ability of the students as luck plays a major role. It is impossible to set the questions at the same difficulty every year, if it is easier, he will score higher. It is possible to study the tested subjects for the exam then forget everything and yet score high marks. Therefore, I question that I want to ask you is, â€Å"What’s the point of having examinations, when it causes many negative impact In conclusion, I strongly believe that Examinations should be abolished in school!! Should examinatons be abolished in schools? Read more: If There Were No Exams Essay Good morning/afternoon/evening teachers and fellow friends . I am Ashraf from class 2/7 . I am here today to talk about the motion ‘ Should examinations be abolished in schools?’ First of all , i would like to say that i strongly disagree with the idea of abolishing exams eventhough they are troublesome for students and even teachers . Here are my reasons why examinations should not be abolished in schools . Firstly , examinations are part and parcel of school . You come to study in schools . You want to know where you stand . You want to know how good or how bad you are at your academics . So , what is the use of going to school , studying but there is no exam to test you ? That brings me to my next point . Without the presence of examinations , students would be much more lazy . They would not feel the importance or even the need to study . They might drop out of school or not care about the slightest thing that concerns school . Students also would give up easily because there is not a need for them to understand something and be good at it . This not only affects the students . It affects the teachers , the parents , the community and the country . If examinations are abolished , teachers would not feel the need to teach students until they understand a certain topic . It makes their work easier . But , for teachers who are committed in teaching , they would be getting a rough time trying to teach the students . These teachers would then feel they are not qualified for teaching . This would bring their morale down . This might even break their ambition . In conclusion , abolishing examinations would have more negative impacts compared to positive impacts . So i stress my point , i repeat it , Examinations should not be abolished in schools . Whether examinations should be abolished in schools. Meghan on Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:53 pm Hello, this is Meghan from class 2/7 express. I strongly believe that examinations should not be abolished. Examinations have been around for as long as anyone can remember. Examinations have been used in primary schools, secondary schools, junior colleges, polytechnics, so on and so forth. It should not just disappear from our society. I believe and feel that examinations help us get better in the subject. By taking examinations, our teachers may help us to improve our grades, and help us correct our mistakes. When taking an examination, our goal is to score high grades, and to make our teachers, parents and peers proud of us. As many different questions may come out on the examination, students are urged to study more, learn more. There are many reasons why students want to score high grades. One of the many reasons  which I experience time and again is because of competition. Students like to fight against each other to get higher grades on their examinations, as many students today, even though we do not like to admit things, are quite arrogant. Now, examinations also give us a chance to apply what we have learnt in school, and apply it in real life. Also, don’t examinations drive us to understand what the teachers are teaching. I’ve even heard a student, back in primary school say, â€Å"I don’t like to study! It’s irritating. I’ll just cheat.† Now, some people think that cheating is an easier way to make parents and teachers proud, but that’s actually. The cheaters are the ones who would be suffering. Not only they might get caught, but they won’t actually learn anything from the entire experience. See, the things we learn earlier in life help us to get THROUGH life. Just think about it. When we go to kindergarten, and learn simple English, and simple Mathematics, that got us through primary one, right? So basically our knowledge would keep building up and up, helping us to get through life. Also, have you ever thought about it? In Mathematics, for example, they base some problems on real life situations. See, we can use those skills in real life! So examinations are actually really helpful. Examinations are all based on one’s understanding of a formula, topic, or subject. So if we understand more, we would be able to get higher grades, and hence we would be able to apply our skills in real life. Some people might think, â€Å"What? How is algebra supposed to help me? Like if I were a hawker?† Now, not all jobs involve skills like that. Many jobs involve many different topics. There may be many reasons by students why they think examinations should be abolished, but this one reason rises high above all, in terms of importance: Examinations are the only way of determining the students understanding the subject. I would like to say once again, I stand firm by my idea, we should not abolish school examinations. Thank you for your attention. Should Examinations be abolished in school  Izzah(14) 2/7 Good morning Mrs Sng, teachers and fellow students.I am a representative from  2/7, here to express my opinion whether examinations should be abolished. As a student myself, I strongly believe that major examinations should be eradicated.Now,I shall move on to my first substantives for the day. This word could make a happy and cheerful student turn into a wreck in just one day. Exams. Exams have absolutely prove itself as a lethal weapon to students.As a result, this causes the student to be stressed before and after the exams itself. Before the exams, I am sure that most students will be extremely stressed out . Thus, they will most probably burn the midnight oil to study topics and cause the student to fall sick or suffer from sleep deprivation. It can even result to disastrous outcomes such as harming his/her self and worse,suicide. This also applies after the exams. A student may not achieve his/ her desirable results or the high expectations setted by their parents. Hence, the student will be depressed or afraid to face their parents. With all these factors in mind, it is obvious that examinations does not enhance the journey of learning, but hinder it instead. As a fellow student myself, every student had come across this scenario before. When a particular student score highest in the class, even without lifting a finger, it definitely will spark off a sense of jealousy between the students.As a result , they will become competitive .Hence, they will only try to beat the top scorers and not focuse on the main point of attending school, to actually gain knowledge and understand what is being taught. In conclusion, this competitive environment is not a condusive one to study in. Even so, I believe there is still some good left in examinations. However, I suggest an alternate arrangement that will help to lessen the immense pressure on the students. I suggest projects that require the teachers to assess students in oral and physical practices such as presentations and Science practical tests. I also suggest to have class tests that only test student based on a particular topic so the student can prepare for the test better thus the student will get better results. It is also because a major exam may not cover all topics that being taught. Hence, the suggestions I have stated will make the assessment of students much fairer. With that, I strongly believe examinations should be abolished due to the fact that it causes harm in the emotional and physical being of the student and a competitive environment that will affect the learning process.I have also stated alternative arrangements that could be implemented to make assessments of students better. With that, I thank you. Cue Should examinations be abolished Masyitah Shakirah on Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:04 am Good morning everyone.My name is Masyitah.I am going to talk about whether examinations should be abolished.In my honest opinion,I think that examinations should not be abolished. My first reason is because through examinations,students can know their level of understanding towards a certain topic of a subject.They will then approach their teachers if they know their weaknesses and if they need help in certain topics.After that,the students would be able to score well in their upcoming examinations.they would also be proud of themselves if they are one of the top scorers in their schools. Exams is also a form of encouragement for students to study harder and get better results for the coming examinations.I am sure the students would want to be the same standard as their friends.Without examinations,students will be lazy to study and they would not be bothered to do all the homework given by their teachers.As examination results will be printed out on a sheet of paper and parents have to sign on it,the students would surely try and do their best in every examinations because they do not want to get scoldings from their parents and want to make them proud. Even though I feel that examinations should not be abolished,I think that the number of examinations given per year to the students should decrease.This is so that the students would not feel stress as they need to rush through their revisions for a lot of subjects.The teachers would also have time to let their students understand the subject better until the whole class is  ready to move on to the next topic. In conclusion,I strongly believe that examinations should not be abolished because it can train the students to plan theri time well and be disciplined.However the amount of examinations given should be reduced so that it would not cause the students to be stress because they came to school to study,not to cramp their brains with a lot of things in just a few months before the examinations.With that,I thank you. Masyitah Shakirah Re: Should Examinations be Abolished in Schools? JunYe on Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:06 pm Hello everybody, this is JunYe from class 2/7E. Today, I am going to talk about the motion â€Å"Should examinations be abolished in schools?†. I strongly agree that examinations should be abolished. There are a few reasons on why examinations should be abolished in schools. Firstly , as we all know examinations are used to test on students to let the teachers and students know how well they are in a particular subject. Students might be misled by parents that examinations will definitely make life-long changes to their life and hence , putting students under tremendous stress and unable to concentrate while learning or revising. Secondly , as most students are concerned about the grades they get and thus causing them to be over-reacting when they get disappointed in their grades. They might be under depression and emotionally unstable. Students in this state tend to become short-tempered with either their work or their fellow classmates and even the teachers are being used to vent anger on. In conclusion, I think the examinations should be abolished in schools as it is not that effective enough to let the students concentrate and learn. Thank you. JunYe Guest Should Examinations be abolished? BryanSim on Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:50 pm Hello everybody, I am Bryan from class 2/7. I am here today to talk about the motion, ‘ Should examinations be abolished in schools? ‘ I agree that examinations should be abolished. I will state a few reasons on why examinations should be abolished in schools. Firstly, examinations may put students under tremendous stress as if students do not do well in the examination, parents might scold them when they bring the papers back home for parent’s signature. As a result, students may study very hard to avoid their parents’ scolding. Secondly, Students may not really benefit from the examination as some students only memorise the things that are tested on the examination and after the examination, they would forget they had memorise as they need to memorise things tested on the next examination. Lastly, I think that examinations should be changed to surprise tests as surprise tests would not give students to memorise the things tested and this would mean that the students have to use their knowledge that they have. In conclusion, I think that examinations should be abolished in schools as it put students under tremendous stress and while students are in great stress, some of them do not really benefit from the examination. Thank you. BryanSim Should Examinations be abolished in schools ? Liyana on Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:11 pm Good morning teachers and fellow students. I am Liyana representing 2/7, and I strongly believe that examinations should be abolished in schools. Firstly, students get stressed whenever examinations are around. They might stay up late, or skip meals just to revise for their upcoming examinations. This is unhealthy for the students as the body would not get enough rest and nutrients, and there’s a likely chance that the students might get sick. Also, students are stressed after the examinations too because they will worry about what score they are going to get. Also, knowing students these days, we are very competitive. We always want to be the top. An  over-competitive environment is not a good place for students to learn, because then, all they want to do is to be the top. This is bad because is defeats the purpose of going to school in the first place, and that is to learn and gain knowledge. Also, students might not need to even pay attention during lessons and still get a high score. All they need to do is to memorise all thier notes given by their teachers, memorise information from their textbooks as nowdays examination is really about memorising. Students would then have a mindset that they can score well, even without paying attention in class. Just to summarise the points, the mindset, and an over-competitive is bad for students, because they will not really achieve the main goal, and that is to, again, gain knowledge. So I would like to end off my speech by saying that examinations should be abolished in schools.

The Impact of Ict on Tertiary Education

The impact of ICT on tertiary education : advances and promises Kurt Larsen and Stephan Vincent-Lancrin Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Directorate for Education / Centre for Educational Research and Innovation* DRAFT OECD/NSF/U. Michigan Conference â€Å"Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy† 10-11 January 2005 Washington DC ABSTRACT: The promises of e-learning for transforming tertiary education and thereby advancing the knowledge economy have rested on three arguments: E-learning could expand and widen access to tertiary education and training; improve the quality of education; and reduce its cost.The paper evaluates these three promises with the sparse existing data and evidence and concludes that the reality has not been up to the promises so far in terms of pedagogic innovation, while it has already probably significantly improved the overall learning (and teaching) experience. Reflecting on the ways that would help develop e-learnin g further, it then identifies a few challenges and highlights open educational resource initiatives as an example of way forward.The first section of the paper recalls some of the promises of e-learning; the second compares these promises and the real achievements to date and suggests that e-learning could be at an early stage of its innovation cycle; the third section highlights the challenges for a further and more radically innovative development of e-learning. Knowledge, innovation and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have had strong repercussions on many economic sectors, e. g. the informatics and communication, finance, and transportation sectors (Foray, 2004; Boyer, 2002).What about education? The knowledge-based economy sets a new scene for education and new challenges and promises for the education sector. Firstly, education is a prerequisite of the knowledge-based economy: the production and use of new knowledge both require a more (lifelong) educated popu lation and workforce. Secondly, ICTs are a very powerful tool for diffusing knowledge and information, a fundamental aspect of the education process: in that sense, they can play a pedagogic role that could in principle complement (or even compete with) the traditional practices of the education sector.These are the two challenges for the education sector: continue to expand with the help (or under the pressure) of new forms of learning. Thirdly, ICTs sometimes induce innovations in the ways of doing things: for example, navigation does not involve the same cognitive processes since the Global Positioning System (GPS) was invented (e. g. Hutchins, 1995); scientific research in many fields has also been revolutionised by the new possibilities offered by ICTs, from digitisation of information to new recording, simulation and data processing possibilities (Atkins and al. , 2003).Could ICTs similarly revolutionise education, especially as education deals directly with the codification a nd transmission of knowledge and information – two activities which power has been decupled by the ICT revolution? The education sector has so far been characterised by rather slow progress in terms of innovation development which impact on teaching activities. Educational research and development does not play a strong role as a factor of enabling the direct production of systematic knowledge which translates into â€Å"programmes that works† in the classroom or lecture hall (OECD, 2003).As a matter of fact, education is not a field that lends itself easily to experimentation, partly because experimental approaches in education are often impossible to describe in precisely enough to be sure that they are really being replicated (Nelson, 2000). There is little codified knowledge in the realm of education and only weak developed mechanisms whereby communities of faculty collectively can capture and benefit from the discoveries made by their colleagues.Moreover, learning typically depends on other learning inputs than those received in the class or formal education process: the success of learning depends on many social and family aspects that are actually beyond the control of educators. Information and communication technologies potentially offer increased possibilities for codification of knowledge about teaching and for innovation in teaching activities through being able to deliver learning and cognitive activities anywhere at any time.Learning at a distance can furthermore be more learner-centred, self-paced, and problem solving-based than face-to-face teaching. It is also true, however, that many learning activities cannot be coordinated by virtual means only. The emulation and spontaneity generated by physical presence and social groupings often remain crucial. Likewise, face-to-face exchanges are important when they enable other forms of sensory perception to be stimulated apart from these used within the framework of electronic interactio n.However, the influence of distance and time is waning now that the technological capacity is available for knowledge-sharing, remote access and teamwork, and organising and coordinating tasks over wide areas (OECD, 2004a). Focusing on tertiary education, this paper examines the promises of ICTs in the education sector, first as a way to better participate in the advancement of the knowledge economy, second as a way to introduce innovations. Leaving aside the impact of ICTs on the research or e-science performed by tertiary education institutions (see Atkins and al. 2003; David, 2004), we concentrate on e-learning, broadly understood as the use of ICTs to enhance or support learning and teaching in (tertiary) education. E-learning is thus a generic term referring to different uses and intensities of uses of ICTs, from wholly online education to campus-based education through other forms of distance education supplemented with ICTs in some way. The supplementary model would encompas s activities ranging from the most basic use of ICTs (e. g. use of PCs for word processing of assignments) through to more advanced adoption (e. g. pecialist disciplinary software, handheld devices, learning management systems etc. ). However, we keep a presiding interest in more advanced applications including some use of online facilities. Drawing on the scarce existing evidence, including a recent survey on e-learning in post-secondary institutions carried out by the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), it shows that e-learning has not yet lived up to its promises, which were overstated in the hype of the new economy. ICT have nonetheless had a real impact on the education sector, inducing a quiet rather than radical revolution.Finally, it shows some possible directions to further stimulate its development. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: the first section recalls some of the promises of e-learning; the second compares these promises and the real achievements to date and suggests that e-learning could be at an early stage of its adoption cycle; the third section highlights the challenges for a further development of e-learning and shows what directions might be the most promising for its further development. I.Advancing knowledge and the (knowledge) economy: the promises of e-learning The emergence of ICTs represents high promises for the tertiary education sector (and, more broadly, the post-secondary education sector if one takes into account their impact on non-formal education). ICTs could indeed play a role on three fundamental aspects of education policy: access, quality and cost. ICTs could possibly advance knowledge by expanding and widening access to education, by improving the quality of education and reducing its cost.All this would build more capacity for the advancement of knowledge economies. This section summarises the main arguments backing the promises. E-learning is a promising tool for expanding and widening access to tertiary education. Because they relax space and time constraints, ICTs can allow new people to participate in tertiary education by increasing the flexibility of participation compared to the traditional face-to-face model: working students and adults, people living in remote areas (e. . rural), non-mobile students and even foreign students could now more easily participate in education. Thanks to ICT, learners can indeed study where and/or when they have time to do so–rather than where and/or when classes are planned. While traditional correspondence-based distance learning has long played this role, ICT have enhanced traditional distance education enabled the rise of a continuum of practices between fully campus-based education and fully distance education.More specifically, fully online learning can allow large numbers of students to access education. The constraints of the face-to-face learning experience, that is, the size of the rooms and buildin gs and the students/teacher ratio, represents another form of relaxation of space constraints. ICTs indeed allow a very cheap cost of reproduction and communication of a lesson, via different means like the digital recording and its (ulterior or simultaneous) diffusion on TV, radio or the Internet.The learning process or content can also be codified, and at least some parts be standardised in learning objects, for example a multimedia software, that can in principle be used by millions of learners, either in a synchronous or asynchronous way. Although both forms might induce some loss in terms of teachers-learners interactivity compared to face to face teaching, they can reach a scale of participation that would be unfeasible via face-to-face learning.When the needs are huge, fully online learning can be crucial and possibly the only realistic means to increase and widen rapidly access to tertiary education. Some developing countries have huge cohorts of young people and too small a n academic workforce to meet their large unmet demand: given training new teachers would take too much time, notwithstanding resources, e-learning might represent for many potential students and learners the only chance to study (rather than an alternative to full face-to-face learning) (World Bank, 2003).E-learning can also be seen as a promising way for improving the quality of tertiary education and the effectiveness of learning. These promises can be derived from different characteristics of ICTs: the increased flexibility of the learning experience it can give to students; the enhanced access to information resources for more students; the potential to drive innovative and effective ways of learning and/or teaching, including learning tools, easier use of multimedia or simulation tools; finally, the possibility to diffuse these innovations at very low marginal cost among the teachers and learners.Distance E-learning has not only the virtue to be inclusive for students that cann ot participate in tertiary education because of time, space or capacity constraints, as it was shown above. It can also in principle offer to students more personalised ways of learning than collective face-to-face learning, even in small groups.Although learning is often personalised to some extent in higher education through the modularity of paths, ICTs allow institutions to give students to choose a wider variety of learning paths than in non-ICT supplemented institutions – not the least because of the administrative burden this would represent in large institutions. This means that students can experiment learning paths that best suit them. Moreover, e-learning can potentially allow students to take courses from several institutions, e. . some campus-based and others fully online. This possible flexibility of individual curricula can be seen as an improvement of the overall student experience, regardless of pedagogical changes. In one word, e-learning could render educat ion more learner-centred compared to the traditional model. A prestigious university generally has a sizeable library gathering tons of codified information and knowledge.One of the most visible impact of ICTs is to give easier and almost instant access to data and information in a digital form that allows manipulations that are sometimes not otherwise possible. The digitisation of information, from academic journals through to books and class notes, can change (and has changed) the life of students by giving them easy access to educational resources, information and knowledge, as well as new data processing possibilities.But e-learning could also lead to the enhancement of quality in tertiary education by leading to innovative pedagogic methods, new ways of learning and interacting, by the easy sharing of these new practices among learners and teachers communities, as well as by more transparency and easier comparisons and cross-fertilisation of teaching materials and methods. Fina lly, e-learning can be seen as a promising way to reduce the cost of tertiary education, which is critical for expanding and widening its access worldwide. It might thus represent new opportunities for students having ifficulties with this traditional format. Although ICT investments are expensive, they can then generally be used at near-zero marginal cost. Where would this cost-efficiency come from: the replacement of expensive brick and mortar campuses by virtual campuses; the digitisation of library materials that would save the cost of keeping huge paper collections; the improvement of efficiency of institutional management; the automation of some of the traditional on-campus activities, including some teaching. II. Living up to the promises: a quiet rather than radical revolutionHas e-learning (and especially online learning) lived up to the promises outlined in the previous section? It has to some extent. The reality of e-learning has never matched its most radical promises (Z emsky and Massy, 2004): while experiments are still underway, the initial stage of over-enthusiasm has ended when new economy bubble burst about 2002. In this respect, e-learning has followed the ups and down of the new economy and given rise to the same caveats as in other sectors: irrational beliefs about its market value, over-investment, over-capacity, and more announces than services really launched (Boyer, 2002).Like other activities, e-learning has not proven yet its ability to generate high profits or to replace the old economy of learning. However, interpreting this as a failure of e-learning would however over-simplify the reality and could be seen as â€Å"throwing the baby with the bath water†. While, perhaps unsurprisingly, e-learning has not led to the radical revolution in tertiary education that was sometimes prophesised, some of its forms are already pervasive in tertiary education and have already led to a quiet revolution.Its modesty should not lead to over look it. This section gives a overiew of the limited evidence we have about the adoption of e-learning in tertiary education. E-learning adoption The radical innovation view was that fully online learning would progressively supersede traditional face-to-face learning and represent a competitive threat for traditional tertiary educational institutions. To some extent, this belief has been a reason for the creation of new ventures and for established institutions to enter this new market: early adopters ould indeed possibly gain a brand name and a serious competitive advantage in the new market. The reality is that, while sometimes successfully experimented, fully online learning has remained a marginal form of e-learning and often not even the ultimate goal or rationale for e-learning adoption. However, this does not mean that e-learning in other forms has not gained significant ground over the past decade in tertiary education: there is indeed some evidence of a noticeable growth o f e-learning adoption both on demand and supply sides.One must bear in mind that e-learning encompasses a wide range of activities. Following the terminology used in the CERI survey (OECD, 2005), we distinguish between different levels of online learning adoption as follows, from the less to the most intensive form of e-learning: ?None or trivial online presence; ?Web supplemented: the Web is used but not for key â€Å"active† elements of the programme (e. g. course outline and lecture notes online, use of email, links to external online resources) without any reduction in classroom time; ?Web dependent: Students are required to use the Internet for key â€Å"active† elements of the programme—e. g. online discussions, assessment, online project/ collaborative work—but without significant reduction in classroom time. ?Mixed mode: Students are required to participate in online activities, e. g. online discussions, assessment, online project/collaborative wo rk, as part of course work, which replace part of face-to-face teaching/learning. Significant campus attendance remains. Fully online: the vast bulk of the programme is delivered online with typically no (or not significant) campus attendance or through â€Å"learning objects†. What do we know about the major trends in the adoption of e-learning by institutions and students? First, e-learning has grown steadily in the last decade, at a relatively rapid pace, but from a very low starting point—and for some activities: from scratch. The lack of comprehensive data renders these trends difficult to document, but existing surveys all point to the same direction of an increasing activity/supply.A significant share of tertiary education institutions have developed some e-learning activities and strategies and believe in the critical importance of e-learning for their long term strategy. The 2003 Sloan Survey of Online Learning based on a sample of 1 000 US institutions shows that only 19% of US institutions have no advanced e-learning activities – that is web dependent, mixed mode or fully online courses (Allen and Seman, 2003). The remainding 81% offer at least one course based on those advanced e-learning activities.Second, this growth of e-learning under all its forms should continue in the near future. There is indeed a converging evidence that tertiary education institutions consider as part of their future development strategy. In the Sloan survey, less than 20% of the US tertiary education institutions considered online education as not critical to their long term strategy. Similarly, data from the first international survey by the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE) revealed that of the 42 UK institutions that responded (out of a total population of ca. 06), 62% had developed or were developing an online learning strategy and most had done so since 2000 (OBHE, 2002). The second survey undertaken in 2004, 79% of the 122 unive rsities from the Commonwealth countries responding to the survey had an institution-wide â€Å"online learning† strategy as such or integrated into other strategies (46%) or under development (33%). Only 9% of these institutions had no e-learning strategy in place or under development in 2004 .While these figures may reflect some self-selection in the respondents, they unambiguously show a significant adoption or willingness to adopt some form of e-learning in the coming future. Although reflecting different levels of adoption of e-learning, all post-secondary institutions participating in the CERI survey on e-learning point to the same direction and report plans to increase their level of online delivery or to maintain their already high levels (OECD, 2005). Third, virtual universities are not likely to become the paradigm of tertiary education institutions.While it will most likely continue to grow, especially in distance institutions (see below), no evidence point towards a predominance of this form of e-learning in the near future in tertiary education. While the mixed mode of learning blending online and on-campus courses now clearly appears as a better candidate, institutions head towards the simultaneous offer of a variety of learning models. For understandable reasons, only few campus-based institutions (that is the bulk of post-secondary institutions) seem to aim at delivering a large share of their courses fully online or at becoming virtual.While some institutions participating in the CERI survey are at the avant-garde of e-learning, no campus-based institution predicted to deliver more than 10% of its total programmes fully online within three years (OECD, 2005). In the US, rather than offering only fully online courses (16%) or only mixed mode courses (10%), most institutions offer both fully online and blended courses; moreover, the majority (67%) of academic leaders believe that mixed mode and web dependent courses hold more promise than fully online, against only 14% having the opposite view (Allen and Seaman, 2003).This clearly reflects what we know about the main rationales for undertaking e-learning. The OBHE surveys show that on-campus enhancement of teaching and learning (1st) and improved flexibility of delivery for on-campus students (2nd) are the two key rationales in institutional strategies of e-learning. Only 10% of the institutions considered the enhancement of distance learning as more important than on-campus enhancement.Interestingly, the level of importance granted to distance or fully online learning decreased between 2002 and 2004 among returning respondents. Distance or fully online learning remains the fifth most important rationale though (OBHE, 2002, p. 4). Finally, while a generalisation of the fully online model is not probable for tertiary education overall, at least in the medium run, this does not mean that fully online activities are not growing rapidly nor that the fully online learning model gains ground at distance education institutions (Bates, 1995).To our knowledge, no data on fully online enrolments are available for other countries than the United States. According to the 2003 Sloan survey, more than 1. 6 million students (i. e. 11% of all US tertiary-level students) took at least one fully online course during the Fall 2002 and about one third of them, that is 578 000 students, took all their courses online. For example, the University of Phoenix, the largest university in the United States in terms of enrolments, has for example 60 000 of its 140 000 students online.The enrolments of fully online students in the United States were forecasted to increase by about 20% between 2002 and 2003, to 1. 9 million students—a projection that proved to be accurate according to the 2004 Sloan survey (Allen and Seaman, 2003, 2004). This growth rate, which is projected estimated at 25% for 2005 is much higher than the growth rate of total tertiary enrolments in t he United States. From a low starting point, fully online learning is growing at a rapid pace, even if it is merely as a complement to face-to-face or mixed mode learning.Moreover, fully online learning is clearly very important for distance institutions. In the CERI survey, the institutions willing to embrace fully online learning to the greatest extent were all virtual/distance learning only institutions (or branches) (OECD, 2005). In conclusion, e-learning seems to live up to its promises in terms of flexibility and possibly access. It is a growing activity that has for example significantly widened the participation in tertiary education of foreign students (OECD, 2004).Does e-learning improve the quality of tertiary education? The real impact of e-learning on the quality of education is difficult to measure. E-learning largely embodies two promises: improving education thanks to improved learning and teaching facilities; inventing and sharing new ways of learning thanks to ICTs , that is a new specific pedagogic techniques. While the first promise is by and large becoming a reality, at least in OECD countries, the second appears further from reach.Viewed mainly as an enhancement of on-campus education, and thus matching the reality depicted in the previous section, there is some evidence that e-learning has improved the quality of the educational experience on both faculty and students sides (not to mention enhancement of administrative management). All institutions participating in the CERI survey reported a â€Å"positive impact† of greater use of e-learning in all its forms on teaching and learning. The quality of education (with or without e-learning) is very difficult to measure, not the least because learning depends on students’ motivation, abilities and other conditions (e. g. amily, social, economic, health backgrounds) as much as on the quality of teaching. However, the reasons explaining this positive impact on quality largely live s up to the promises of e-learning to offer more flexibility of access to learners, better facilities and resources to study, and new opportunities thanks to the relaxation of space and time constraints. Basically, they do not correspond to a significant change in class pedagogy, but to a change in the overall learning experience. According to the institutions, the main drivers or components of this positive impact come from: †¢facilitated access to international faculty/peers, e. . with the possibility of online lectures or joint classes with remote students; †¢flexible access to materials and other resources, allowing students to revise a particular aspect of a class, giving more access flexibility to part-time students, or giving remote and easy access to the library materials; †¢enhancement of face-to-face sessions, as the availability of archived lectures online frees up faculty time to focus on difficult points and application and because the introduction of e-l earning has sometimes led to a debate on pedagogy; †¢improved communication between faculty and students and increase of peer learning;This â€Å"positive impact† on the overall learning experience is, alone, a significant achievement of e-learning, even though it has not radically transformed the learning and teaching processes. The quality of fully online learning is a more controversial question, possibly because online learning was once viewed as possibly become of higher quality than on-campus education (possibly including e-learning as already mentioned).Comparing the quality (or the beliefs about the quality) of fully online learning against traditional distance learning, traditional face-to-face learning or other mixed modes of e-learning might not yield the same results: fully online learning is indeed more readily comparable to distance learning than to on-campus education. While institutions having adopted e-learning have generally a positive view of its possi ble impact on quality, there is little convincing evidence about the superior or inferior quality of fully online learning compared to other modes of tertiary education.Another question is whether fully online learning has entailed innovation in pedagogy or just replicated with other means the face-to-face experience. As noted above, ICTs could indeed entail pedagogic innovations and help create a community of knowledge among faculty, students and learning object developers that would codify and capitalise over successful innovation in pedagogy. At this stage, there is no evidence that e-learning has yielded any radical pedagogic innovation.The most successful fully online courses generally replicate virtually the classroom experience via a mix of synchronous classes and asynchronous exchanges. Arguably, they have not represented a dramatic pedagogical change. We will see below that in spite of worthwhile experiments, learning objects and open educational resources are still in thei r infancy. They hold promises for educational innovation though. The cost of e-learning Has e-learning lived up its promises in terms of cost-efficiency?Here again, not if one looks at the most radical promises: as noted above, virtual universities have not replaced brick and mortars and saved the cost of expensive building investments and maintenance; digital libraries have supplemented rather than replaced physical ones; the codification and standardisation of teaching in a way that would allow less faculty or less qualified academics has not become the norm, nor have new online learning objects been invented to replace faculty altogether; finally, it has become clear that there was no once-for-all ICT investments and that the maintenance and upgrading costs of ICT facilities were actually important, contrary to the marginal cost of then replicating and diffusing information. Moreover, cost-efficiency has for many universities been a secondary goal compared to the challenge of dev eloping innovative and high quality e-learning courses at many tertiary education institutions. Although the anking of cost-efficiency has increased between 2002 and 2004 by 16%, 37% of respondents considered â€Å"cutting teaching costs long-term† as a key rationale in the OBHE survey (OBHE, 2004)—a small percentage compared to the two key rationales (over 90% of responses). Again, most universities consider e-learning materials and courses as a supplement to traditional class-room or lecture activities rather than a substitute. The predominance of web dependent and mixed modes of e-learning makes the assessment of the costs and benefits of e-learning investments more difficult to evaluate as they become part of the on-campus experience. It is striking that the institutions participating in the CERI survey on e-learning had no systematic data on their e-learning costs (OECD, 2005). In this context, and after the burst of the dot. om economy bubble that put out of busi ness many e-learning operations (many never really started their operations though), identifying sustainable cost-efficient models for e-learning investments in tertiary education has become critical. There are examples of cost-efficient models â€Å"outside† the traditional colleges and universities though. Virtual tertiary education institutions as e. g. the Catalonia Virtual University have a cost advantage as they are developing e-learning material from scratch and not â€Å"building onto† a physical camp. The Open University in the UK which is gradually moving from a traditional distance learning courses using books, video cassettes, and CD-ROMs to online courses has reported that their costs per student are one third of the average cost for similar on-campus programmes in the UK.Fixed capital costs are lower and it is easier to align staffing structures to e-learning processes than at â€Å"traditional† universities. The e-learning activities of Phoenix Un iversity, which is a private for-profit university mainly for adult students, is also seen as cost-effective. Its business model is based on â€Å"standardised teaching†, relatively small on-line class size, and use of proven low-tech e-learning technologies (inducing lower costs than more sophisticated technologies). Much of the faculty staff at Phoenix University is often hired part time and having jobs at other tertiary education institutions, which often implies that staff development costs are lower at Phoenix University than other tertiary education institutions.E-learning investments in tertiary education can be cost-effective, but it depends on the business model, the profile and number of students and topics (cost-effectiveness has been demonstrated in some cases in large undergraduate science classes (Harley, 2003), and initial development costs. The calculations also depend on whether student opportunity costs are taken into account. The initial costs for e-learnin g development are often high (e. g. infrastructure, creating course material from scratch, experimentation, new kind of staff/units, immature technologies, etc. ). In order to ensure that e-learning investments are cost efficient, e-learning activities may need to substitute parts of the on-campus teaching activities (rather than duplication).Educational innovations, like learning objects, could for example allow supporting the re-use and sharing of e-learning materials. Although data is lacking on cost-efficiency, at this stage there is little evidence that e-learning has led to more cost efficiency in tertiary education. Failures have been more numerous than success stories, although the latter document the possible sustainability of e-learning. The adoption of ICTs for administrating tertiary education institutions has probably been the main source of cost efficiency in the tertiary sector, like in other economic sectors. Conclusion: the e-learning adoption cycles So, has e-learn ing lived up to its promises?This is probably true as far as it holds promises for incremental improvement, including an increased access and quality of the learning experience—a kind of change whose importance should not be underestimated. As for radical innovation, the answer is rather: not yet. So far, e-learning has induced a quiet rather than a radical revolution of tertiary education. Perhaps e-learning will follow the same development path in tertiary education as other innovations that first begin with experiments, then expand to a group of early adopters before becoming commonplace. Zemsky and Massy (2004) have proposed a possible â€Å"e-learning innovation’s S-curve† divided into four distinctive but often overlapping adoption cycles that help understand the current development of e-learning, and, possibly, its future challenges. The cycles include: )Enhancements to traditional course/program configurations, which inject new materials into teaching an d learning processes without changing the basic mode of instruction. Examples include e-mail, student access to information on the Internet, and the use of multimedia (e. g. PowerPoint) and simple simulations; 2)Use of course management systems, which enable faculty and students to interact more efficiently (e. g. Blackboard or WebCT). They provide better communication with and among students, quick access to course materials, and support for administrating and grading examinations; 3)Imported course objects, which enable the faculty to embed a richer variety of materials into their courses than is possible with traditional â€Å"do it yourself† learning devices.Examples range from compressed video presentations to complex interactive simulations including the increased use of â€Å"learning objects† ; 4)New course/program configurations, which result when faculty and their institutions reengineer teaching and learning activities to take full advantage of new ICTs. The new configurations focus on active learning and combine face-to-face, virtual, synchronous, and asynchronous interaction and learning in novel ways. They also require faculty and students to adopt new roles – with each other and with the technology and support staff. The overview of current e-learning adoption shows that most tertiary education institutions in OECD countries can largely be located in cycles one and/or two. These first two cycles have largely built upon and reinforced one another. However, they have not fundamentally changed the way teaching and learning is pursued at the large majority of institutions.Their momentum has not automatically transferred to either increasing use and dissemination of learning objects or to the use of new course/program configurations (e-learning cycles three and four). Cycles 3 and 4 correspond to changes remodelling more radically teaching and learning. While some experimentations underway give us some idea of where they could he ad, they are still in their infancy. The third cycle corresponds to the creation of â€Å"learning objects† that can potentially offer an efficient approach to the development of e-learning materials (i. e. reduced faculty time, lower cost, higher quality materials), although many issues remain (e. g. opyright, lack of incentives for faculty to create, the range of actors in and ‘location’ of the creative process, lack of standardisation and interoperability of e-learning software). The learning objects model implies material/course development that departs from the â€Å"craft-model† where the individual professor is responsible for the majority of work. Instead it is a model where the course is assembled largely by or from third-party material. Besides the technical and organisational challenges of developing learning objects, there are also considerable pedagogical challenges using them. Some argue that learning is so contextually based that the breakin g up of the learning experience into defined objects is destructive for the learning process.Evidence from the Open Learning Initiative at the Carnegie Mellon University suggests that effective e-learning courses are often facilitated by having a ‘theme’ that runs throughout the course, which might be difficult to obtain with the notion of decontextualised learning objects (Smith and Thille, 2004). Therefore, much more research and development is needed to ensure pedagogical effectiveness of the learning objects model. For faculty members to rely on others for their material will also need a cultural change as it would probably often be considered today as demonstrating â€Å"inferiority†. Wide use of learning objects in tertiary education will therefore only occur if major changes in working habits and attitudes of faculty are possible. The development of learning objects is very much in its initial phase. This is illustrated by the use of the public available l earning objects repositories as e. g.MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching). The basic idea behind the MERLOT repository was to create a readily available, low-cost, web-based service to which experimenters could post their learning objects and from which interested practitioners could rate and download objects for use in their courses. While there has been a tremendous growth in the number of learning objects made available by MERLOT, there has been very little interest to use what other colleagues had made available and consequently little effort in terms of rating others’ learning objects. This can however be seen as the first steps towards the construction of knowledge communities in education.Despite the premature stage of learning objects and the large number of obstacles to overcome, some standard form of learning objects will probably emerge and gain importance in the development of e-learning in tertiary education as well as in othe r education sectors. Very few institutions have reached the fourth e-learning adoption cycle at an institution wide scale. There are however institutions which are clearly experimenting with new ways of using ICTs that change the traditional organisation and pedagogy of tertiary education. One such example is the previously mentioned Open Learning Initiative at the Carnegie Mellon University. The use of cognitive and learning sciences to produce high quality e-learning courses into online learning practices is at the core of this initiative (Smith and Thille, 2004).As there is no generic e-learning pedagogy, the aim is to design as â€Å"cognitive informed† e-learning courses as possible. The establishment and implementation procedures for routine evaluation of the courses and the use of formative assessment for corrections and iterative improvements are part of the e-learning course development. The development of the e-learning courses often rely on teamwork including facul ty from multiple disciplines, web designers, cognitive scientists, project managers, learning designers, and evaluators. The key question for any project like the Open Learning Initiative attempting a combination of open access to free content, and a fee-for-service model for students using the courses in a degree granting setting is its sustainability.This initiative could not have been realised without significant voluntary contributions from private foundations and a major research grant from the National Science Foundation to start the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. The next section will address the challenges for the adoption of these third and fourth adoption cycles. III. Challenges for the further development of e-learning in tertiary education: what sustainable innovation model? The aim of this final section is to identify and reflect on some of the key issues that would need to be considered in a systematic way for e-learning to develop further and become a deeper d river of innovation in tertiary education.If the vast majority of colleges and universities are to embrace the third and fourth e-learning adoption cycles, a sustainable innovation and investment model will have to be developed. A first challenge lies indeed in the development of sustainable e-learning innovation models which go beyond using e-learning as an add-on to traditional forms of teaching and learning in tertiary education but rather invent new, useful and better pedagogic innovations partly substituting traditional face-to-face teaching. This will require a broad willingness of these institutions to search for new combinations of input of faculty, facilities and technology and new ways of organising their teaching activities.A second challenge lies in the development of a realistic model for investment in e-learning that would stimulate the participation of faculty and other stakeholders and be financially sustainable, which is not straightforward given that there is littl e systematic knowledge on the real costs and benefits of e-learning investments in tertiary education. However, like for ICT investments in other sectors, the cost-effectiveness of e-learning investments will depend on whether new organisational and knowledge management practices are adopted. It might indeed be more difficult to provide the â€Å"softer† social, organisational and legal changes in tertiary education than the technological infrastructures necessary to fully embrace the advantages of e-learning.This section emphasises partnerships and networks as a possible way forward for further investment, product development and innovation diffusion in e-learning. There are many examples where tertiary education institutions seek to share the costs of e-learning development through partnerships and networking. Partnership and network building are also useful for having access to new knowledge, to learn from others experience and exchange information about the latest develop ments in e-learning and they can involve many different organisations as e. g. traditional colleges and universities, virtual universities, libraries, for-profit ICT and training companies from different sectors etc.These activities can range from sharing material, joint technology and software development, joint research and development, joint marketing, joint training, connectivity, etc. and can be sub-national, national and international (OECD, 2004b; Cunningham and al. , 2000). After showing the importance (and challenges) for universities to engaging their faculty in e-learning, we will turn to an innovative practice exemplifying the potential power of partnerships and networks: Open Educational Resources (OER). They will indeed most likely have significant implications for the way e-learning activities will develop over the coming years in tertiary education. Engaging universities and faculty in e-learningIn most OECD countries the question is no longer whether or not tertiary education institutions should invest in e-learning. Because of the competition between institutions and student demand for easy access to courseware material and flexible learning environments, most tertiary education institutions willing to deliver quality teaching are bound to invest in e-learning. As we have seen, the large majority of institutions are now embracing e-learning adoption cycles one and two, which are basically about providing the students with better access to learning and course material and facilitating the electronic communication between students and teachers.Again, only very few institutions and faculty are however systematically exploring and producing re-usable learning material and objects (third cycle) or have taken full advantage of new ICTs with focus on active learning that combines face-to-face, virtual, synchronous, and asynchronous interaction and learning in novel ways (fourth cycle). The latter approach would require faculty and students to adopt new roles – with each other and with the technology and support staff. While ICTs offer powerful new instruments for innovation, tertiary education institutions are generally decentralised institutions where individual faculty often has the sole responsibility for teaching courses and delivering course material. Adoption of the third and especially the fourth e-learning cycle would imply changing to more collaborative ways of organising and producing teaching material.Faculty members would in many cases have to collaborate with a whole range of new staff as e. g. course managers, web designers, instructional/pedagogical designers, cognitive scientist etc. to produce course material. This could lead to resistance from â€Å"traditional† faculty arguing that current teaching practices have proved its value for centuries and there is no need to change them to new pedagogical and teaching methods, which have hardly proven their efficiency yet. Moreover, promotion of facult y and funding allocations in universities are often linked to research activities rather than teaching activities, often seen as less prestigious.Faculty members have therefore often relatively few incentives to invest their time in e-learning activities. The adoption of new ways of teaching and learning at tertiary education institutions through ICTs can therefore create organisational conflicts and tensions. New organisational innovations, new knowledge management practices, and more team working are therefore necessary conditions for tertiary education institutions to be able to move to e-learning adoption cycles three and four. The CERI study on e-learning case studies in post-secondary education has identified a number of lessons learnt by institutions that are in the forefront of e-learning development (OECD, 2005): More strategic e-learning planning at the institutional or faculty level and to tie this to the overall goals of the institution is needed; †¢A paradigm shift in the way academics think of university teaching would be necessary, e. g. a shift away from ‘scepticism about the use of technologies in education’ and ‘teacher-centred culture’ towards ‘a role as a facilitator of learning processes’, ‘team worker’, and ‘learner-centred culture’; †¢Targeted e-learning training relevant for the faculty’s teaching programme as well as ownership of the development process of new e-learning material by academics is also necessary. There is no one-best-way or trajectory for e-learning development at tertiary education institutions.But it might prove more difficult to provide the â€Å"softer† social, organisational and legal changes in tertiary education than provide the technological infrastructures necessary to fully embrace the advantages of e-learning (David, 2004). It will depend on a whole range of factors not necessarily related to the development of e-learning including: †¢Changes in the funding of tertiary education and in particular e-learning funding; †¢Student demography; †¢Regulatory and legal frameworks; †¢Competition between traditional tertiary education institution themselves and with new private providers; †¢Internationalisation including the possibility of servicing foreign students living abroad; and not the least to the extent to which students will want to use the new opportunities for new and flexible ways of learning.Many tertiary education students would possibly prefer to have some kind of â€Å"mixed model† learning choice involving a whole range of different learning opportunities and forms combining face-to-face, virtual, synchronous, and asynchronous interaction and learning. A possible way forward: Open Educational Resources Open Educational Resources appear as a potentially innovative practice that gives a good example of the current opportunities and challenges offered by ICTs in or der to trigger radical pedagogic innovations. Digitalisation and the potential for instant, low-cost global communication have opened tremendous new opportunities for the dissemination and use of learning material.This has spurred an increased number of freely accessible OER initiatives on the Internet including 1) open courseware ; 2) open software tools (e. g. learning management systems); 3) open material for capacity building of faculty staff ; 4) repositories of learning objects ; 5) and free educational e-learning courses. At the same time, there are now more realistic expectations of the commercial e-learning opportunities in tertiary education. The OER initiatives are a relatively new phenomenon in tertiary education largely made possible by the use of ICTs. The open sharing of one’s educational resources implies that knowledge is made freely available on non-commercial terms sometimes in the framework of users and doers communities.In such communities the innovation impact is greater when it is shared: the users are freely revealing their knowledge and, thus work cooperatively. These communities are often not able to extract economic revenues directly from the knowledge and information goods they are producing and the â€Å"sharing† of these good are not steered by market mechanisms. Instead they have specific reward systems often designed to give some kind of credit to inventors without exclusivity rights. In the case of open science, the reward system is collegial reputation, where there is a need to be identified and recognised as â€Å"the one who discovered† which gives incentives for the faculty to publish new knowledge quickly and completely (Dasgupta and David, 1994).The main motivation or incentive for people to make OER material available freely is that the material might be adopted by others and maybe even is modified and improved. Reputation is therefore also a key motivation factor in â€Å"OER communities†. Be ing part of such a user community gives access to knowledge and information from others but it also implies that one has a â€Å"moral† obligation to share one’s own information. Inventors of OER can benefit from increased â€Å"free distribution† or from distribution at very low marginal costs. A direct result of free revealing is to increase the diffusion of that innovation relative to conditions in which it is licensed or kept secret.If an innovation is widely used it would initiate and develop standards which could be advantageously used even by rivals. The Sakai project has, for example, an interest in making their open software tools available for many colleges and universities and have therefore set a relatively low entry amount for additional colleges and universities wishing to have access to the software tools that they are developing. The financial sustainability of OER initiatives is a key issue. Many initiatives are sponsored by private foundations, public funding or paid by the institutions themselves. In general, the social value of knowledge and information tools increases to the degree that they can be shared with and used by others.The individual faculty member or institution providing social value might not be able to sustain the costs of providing OER material freely on the Internet in the long term. It is therefore important to find revenues to sustain these activities. It might e. g. be possible to charge and to take copyrights on part of the knowledge and information activities springing out of the OER initiatives. Finding better ways of sharing and re-using e-learning material (see the previous mentioned discussion on learning objects) might also trigger off revenues. It is also important to find new ways for the users of OER to be â€Å"advised† of the quality of the learning material stored in open repositories.The wealth of learning material is enormous on the Internet and if there is little or no guidance of the quality of the learning material, users will be tempted to look for existing brands and known quality. There is no golden standard or method of identifying quality of learning material in tertiary education on the Internet as is the case with quality identification within tertiary education as a whole. The intentions behind the MERLOT learning object repository was to have the user community rating the quality and usability of the learning objects made freely available. In reality very few users have taken the time and effort to evaluate other learning objects.There is little doubt that the generic lack of a review process or quality assessment system is a serious issue and is hindering increased uptake and usage of OER. User commentary, branding, peer reviews or user communities evaluating the quality and usefulness of the OER might be possible ways forward. Another important challenge is to adapt â€Å"global OER initiatives† to local needs and to provide a dialogue between the doers and users of the OER. Lack of cultural and language sensitivities might be an important barrier to the receptiveness of the users. Training initiatives for users to be able to apply course material and/or software might be a way to reach potential users.Also important will be the choice (using widely agreed standards), maintenance, and user access to the technologies chosen for the OER. There is a huge task in better understanding the users of OER. Only very few and hardly conclusive surveys on the users of OER are available . There is a high need to better understand the demand and the users of OER. A key issue is who owns the e-learning material developed by faculty. Is it the faculty or the institution? In many countries including the United States, the longstanding practice in tertiary education has been to allow the faculty the ownership of their lecture notes and classroom presentations. This practice has not always automatically been applied to e-learning c ourse material.Some universities have adopted policies that share revenues from e-learning material produced by faculty. Other universities have adopted policies that apply institutional ownership only when the use of university resources is substantial (American Council of Education and EDUCAUSE, 2003). In any case, institutions and faculty groups must strive to maintain a policy that provides for the university’s use of materials and simultaneously fosters and supports faculty innovation. It will be interesting to analyse how proprietary versus open e-learning initiatives will develop over the coming years in tertiary education. Their respective development will depend upon: How the copyright practices and rules for e-learning material will develop at tertiary education institutions; †¢The extent to which innovative user communities will be built around OER initiatives; †¢The extent to which learning objects models will prove to be successful; †¢The extent to which new organisational forms in teaching and learning at tertiary education institutions will crystallise; †¢The demand for free versus â€Å"fee-paid† e-learning material; †¢The role of private companies in promoting e-learning investments etc. It is however likely that proprietary e-learning initiatives will not dominate or take over open e-learning initiatives or vice versa.The two approaches will more likely develop side by side sometimes in competition but also being able to mutually reinforce each other through new innovations and market opportunities. Conclusion There are many critical issues surrounding e-learning in tertiary education that need to be addressed in order to fulfil objectives such as widening access to educational opportunities; enhancing the quality of learning; and reducing the cost of tertiary education. E-learning is, in all its forms, a relatively recent phenomenon in tertiary education that has largely not radically transformed teachi ng and learning practices nor significantly changed the access, costs, and quality of tertiary education. As we have shown, e-learning has grown at a rapid pace and has enhanced the overall learning and teaching experience.While it has not lived up to its most ambitious promises to stem radical innovations in the pedagogic and organisational models of the tertiary education, it has quietly enhanced and improved the traditional learning processes. Most institutions are thus currently in the early phase of e-learning adoption, characterised by important enhancements of the learning process but no radical change in learning and teaching. Like other innovations, they might however live up to their more radical promises in the future and really lead to the inventions of new ways of teaching, learning and interacting within a knowledge community constituted of learners and teachers. In order to head towards these advances innovation cycles, a sustainable innovation and investment model wi ll have to be developed.While a first challenge will be technical, this will also require a broad willingness of tertiary education institutions to search for new combinations of input of faculty, facilities and technology and new ways of organising their teaching activities. Like for ICT investments in other sectors, the cost-effectiveness of e-learning investments will depend on whether new organisational and knowledge management practices are adopted. Experiments are already underway that make us aware of these challenges, but also of the opportunities and lasting promises of e-learning in tertiary education. References Allen, I. E. and Seaman, J. (2003), Sizing the opportunity.The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003, The Sloan Consortium. American Council on Education and EDUCAUSE (2003), Distributed Education: Challenges, Choices and a New Environment, Washington DC. Atkins, D. E. , Droegemeier, K. K. , Feldman, S. I. , Garcia-Molina, H. , Klein, M. L. , Messerschmitt, D. G. , Messina, P. , Ostriker, J. P. , Wright, M. H. , Final Report of the NSF Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, available at http://www. cise. nsf. gov/sci/reports/toc. cfm. February 2003. Bates, A. W. (1995), Technology, e-learning and Distance Education, Routledge, London/New York. Boyer, R. 2002), La croissance, debut de siecle. De l’octet au gene, Albin Michel, Paris; English translation: The Future of Economic Growth: As New Becomes Old, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2004. Cunningham, S. , Ryan, Y. , Stedman, L. , Tapsall, S. , Bagdon, S. , Flew, T. , Coaldrake, P. (2000), The Business of Borderless Education, Australian Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Canberra. Dasgupta, P. and P. A. David (1994), â€Å"Towards a New Economics of Science†, Research Policy, 23(5). David, P. A (2004), Toward a Cyberinfrastructure from Enhanced Scientific Collaboration: Providing its ‘Soft’ Foundatio ns May be the Hardest Threat, Oxford Internet Institute. Foray, D. 2004), The Economics of Knowledge, MIT Press, Cambridge, USA. Harley, D. (2003), Costs, Culture, and Complexity: An Analysis of Technology Enhancements in a Large Lecture Course of UC Berkeley, Center for Studies in Higher Education. Paper CSHE3-03, Berkeley University. Hutchins, E. (1995), Cognition in the Wild, MIT Press, Cambridge, USA. Nelson, R. (2000), â€Å"Knowledge and Innovation Systems†, in OECD, Knowledge Management in the Learning Society, Paris. Observatory for Borderless Higher Education (2002), Online Learning in Commonwealth Universities – Results from the Observatory 2002 Survey, London. OECD (2003), New Challenges for Educational Research, OECD, Paris.OECD (2004a), Innovation in the Knowledge Economy – Implications for Education and Learning, Paris. OECD (2004b), Internationalisation and Trade in Higher Education. Opportunities and Challenges, Paris. OECD (2005 forthcoming), E- learning Case Studies in Post-Secondary Education, Paris. Smith, J. M. and C. Thille (2004), The Open Learning Initiative – Cognitively Informed e-learning, The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, London. World Bank (2003), Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education, The World Bank, Washington D. C. Zemsky, R. and W. F. Massy (2004), Thwarted Innovation – What Happened to e-learning and Why, The Learning Alliance, Pennsylvania University.

Open Adoptions in Indiana †Family Law Research Paper (300 Level Course)

Open Adoptions in Indiana – Family Law Research Paper (300 Level Course) Free Online Research Papers Open Adoptions in Indiana Family Law Research Paper (300 Level Course) An open adoption is one where there is mutual disclosure of personal information about the birthparents and adoptive parents. Such personal information may include names, occupations, family background, medical histories, photographs and in-person meetings. A closed adoption is one where no personal or identifying information is exchanged and an agency handles all details. There are many adoptions today which are open because the birthparents want to have the ability to know and decide about who will be best in raising their child, and the adoptive parents want to know some things about the birthparents. The degree of openness is up to the adoptive parents and the biological parents. Many families choose to have some form of ongoing contact both before and after the adoption, whether it is with letters and photographs or conversations on the phone. In open adoption many birthparents want to arrange an in-person visit before choosing a family they want their child to live with. There are many adoptive parents who send update letters and photographs to the birthparents at least once a year after the adoption has been finalized. An adoption agency can act as an intermediary in these cases and nothing more than first names need be disclosed. In a completely open adoption, there is ongoing contact and visits with the arrangements made by the parties themselves. Many prospective adoptive parents are worried and very concerned about the idea of an open adoption. Some adoptive parents feel that they will suffer a loss of privacy and also worry about unwanted and unexpected contact from the birthparents after the adoption is finalized. Early in the pre-adoption process, the adoptive parents should be counseled about the options and decide how much openness they are willing to have. Once a birthmother has been located, both parties should receive counseling and assistance in developing a mutually agreeable adoption plan whether it is an open adoption or a closed one. In 69% of public and private agency adoptions, the birth parents had met the adoptive couple. (Berry, 1991). Adoptive parents must always remember that birthparents are afraid as well. Adoption agencies perform many functions; counseling birthmothers, counseling adoptive parents and assisting them in adopting, performing pre-licensure home studies, performing post-placement home investigations, taking consents from birthparents, taking temporary custody of newborns pending an adoption and much more. Some adoption agencies provide crisis pregnancy counseling for women, as well as support and living assistance. According to Indiana’s Adoption Program there are many legal aspects of adoption both open and closed that must be followed in order to adopt. Selecting an attorney would be very wise because there are many federal and state laws that apply to adoption which would require certain steps to be followed prior to the finalization of an adoption. The attorney fees will vary around the state and you will need to ask the attorney what fees they charge and how they bill those fees. You may also qualify for a one-time reimbursement of legal fees up to $1500 that your attorney may be able to assist you in applying for. Prospective adoptive parents need an approved Family Preparation Assessment (Home Study) to be recommended for a child who is a ward. Your local county Office of Family and Children (OFC) and/or the private agency (LCPA) that contracts with the county must determine if you have been approved. You are required to have written approval before a child can be placed with you for adoption and through your local court jurisdiction. The consent of the child’s mother, if she is living, is required by law to complete an adoption. The consent of a child’s father who has established paternity or signed a paternity affidavit is also required. The county Office of Family and Children (OFC) may have completed a court action to terminate the parent-child relationship so that a child who is a ward can be legally free for adoption, whether the child’s parents have consented or not determines the type of court action that is necessary. Your attorney should check with the OFC to se e whether all consents have been obtained or determine if the child is legally free for adoption. You will need the consent of the OFC that has the responsibility of care and supervision of the child you wish to adopt for the court proceedings, unless the court finds that their consent is not necessary to serve the best interests of the child. (Indiana’s Adoption Program) If you are an Indiana resident, you may file your adoption petition in the county where you reside, in the county where the child resides, or in the county where the private agency (LCPA) or Office of Family and Children (OFC) has custody of the child. If you are not an Indiana resident, you may petition to adopt a child who is a ward of Indiana in the county where the LCPA or OFC has custody or the county where the child resides. If you are married, both you and your spouse must sign the adoption petition. Partners of an unmarried couple may not petition to adopt together and in such cases, only one partner may be the petitioner. (Indiana’s Adoption Program) The following statistics are based on the Grotevant and McRoy longitudinal study on open adoption. Between 1987-1992, information was collected from 190 adoptive families and 169 birthmothers experiencing varying levels of openness in their adoptions. The data from the study, a snapshot of families taken 4 to 12 years after the adoptive placement, revealed: * Fears that birth parents would attempt to reclaim their children or otherwise intrude on adoptive families lives are not apparent in families with fully disclosed adoptions. * Openness does not interfere with adoptive parents emerging sense of entitlement to parenthood. * Having a fully disclosed adoption does not guarantee successful grief resolution, as is evidenced by the broad range of grief resolution ratings among birthmothers across all adoption arrangements in this study. In the same study, thirty-one adoption agencies were also interviewed on their practice toward the range of openness. The agencies were measured in two time intervals: Time 1 was between 1987 and 1989 and Time 2 was 1993. * Only 11 of the original 31 agencies (35%) offered fully disclosed adoption options as part of their standard practice at Time 1. Four to five years later, 22 of the remaining 29 agencies (76%) offered full disclosed adoptions. * By 1993, 2/3 of the agencies offered the continuum of openness in adoption, from confidential to fully disclose. In 1987, most agencies offered only confidential and mediated adoptions. * 2/3 of the fully disclosed adoptions in this sample did not start as fully disclosed: 5% began as mediated and 14% began as confidential. (Grotevant and McRoy, 1998) I conducted an interview over the phone with a woman named Anna Connaughton whom I met through a friend at a jewelry party. Anna had been married for several years before she and her husband had decided to adopt children. Before the Connaughtons decided to adopt a child they went to an all day class about adoption and many seminars to help them better prepare for the challenges that lay ahead of them in their decision to adopt. Anna and her husband adopted Jack when he was 2 days old, Jack who is now 4 years old is doing well and happy with his adoptive family. Anna and her husband went through a private agency to adopt Jack. Jack was adopted through a mixture of both open and closed adoption. Anna knew all about the biological mother, but the biological mother knew little about them, that is to say she did not know the specifics about them, where they lived, their last name, the personal things in their life. Anna spent three months with the biological mother before Jack was b orn and was there when Jack was born. Anna was also the biological mother’s Lamaze coach. Jack’s biological mother was 17 years old and had decided with her family that having a baby was not in her best interest or the child’s being that young and not living on her own and would not be able to support herself, let alone a child. Jack’s biological mother called an agency with her decision and they helped her locate a family that would love to have the opportunity to adopt Jack as their son. Anna wrote a â€Å"Dear Birthmother† letter to tell a little about herself and her family. The birthmother and her family also looked through many scrap books of families that were looking to adopt and out of those many scrap books she choose to pick the Connaughtons as the family to adopt Jack. Jack was officially adopted when he was two days old. Anna stated that the biological mother and the Connaughtons had to wait 48 hours after the birth of the child for the biological mother to sign the papers which gave the Connaughtons full custody of Jack. Only the Connaughton’s attorney and a counselor from the private adoption agency was allowed in the room to give the papers to the biological mother and have her sign them. The biological father signed away his rights to Jack before he was even born. I found that through my research that this is the case many of the times with the biological father I asked Anna to estimate how much money it cost her and her husband to adopt Jack. She hesitated and told me $18,000. I was astonished and asked her why it was that expensive and she told me that the money went to her attorney and the agency which placed Jack with them. She told me that there was a limit to how much money you could give an agency for the living expenses for the biological mother; she said it was around $3,000. Anna told me that the reason you could only give the mother so much for expenses was because she had heard of women who would shop there unborn child around and collect from many families before deciding who to give her child to. The biological mother has seen Jack three times, but not a lot lately and has had inconsistent contact with the Connaughtons. They send the biological mother pictures and gifts. Anna goes on to say that the biological mother comes in and out of touch for long periods of time and she has stated that she, the biological mother, feels bad on occasion and struggles with the decision she has made, but also realizes that it was the best decision for her and Jack in the long run and would have made the same decision if she had it all over to do again. Anna and her husband feel that it is a good thing that Jack knows he is adopted from the start; they have never tried to hide it from him at all. Anna stated that there are many advantages and disadvantages to the open and closed adoption. Anna states that the adoptive parents are responsible for all the medical expenses acquired by the biological mother during her pregnancy and the adoption process. The Connaughton do receive a tax credit of $10,000 for adoption which helps them provide excellent medical insurance and many of the necessities that are required by a 4 year old boy. She stated that her worst feeling is that the biological mother would one day come into Jacks life and try to interfere at an age he is not ready for. Anna doesn’t feel at this time that the biological mother is ready to see Jack again right now because she has been really inconsistent with her visits and her letters. The letters seem to be directed to Jack now and also as if he were old enough to understand them and what they say, which he is not. She did go on to say that she would keep these letters for Jack and when she feels he is ready she will give them to him at that point in time. Anna did state that open adoptions must feel right and the biological and adoptive parents must have the right fit in order for the adoption to work. Anna further states that open adoption is wonderful because she can answer Jack’s questions whenever he has them and will be able to give him all the answers he needs when he is ready. She then said that she never dreamed she would say that, but it was the truth. The Connaughtons also adopted a little girl from Guatemala who is now a year old. I asked Anna if she would ever adopt again and she said definitely, but this time it would also be an international adoption because domestic is so hard and expensive where as international is easier and you can time it better. I feel that adoption is best when it is open because like Anna, I would want to have information about their birth parents when he or she was ready to seek them out. Your birth parents are a part of you. Ancestors, genetic make-ups, environmental and social developments are all part of who a person is. All of these things make a person complete. Research Papers on Open Adoptions in Indiana - Family Law Research Paper (300 Level Course)Personal Experience with Teen PregnancyOpen Architechture a white paperUnreasonable Searches and SeizuresComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoStandardized TestingThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UseEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenHip-Hop is ArtLifes What IfsRelationship between Media Coverage and Social and