Examined instructors' satisfaction with and use of intelligent agent toolkits in the classroom. Found that no single uniform toolkit satisfied the needs of instructors. Moreover, satisfaction levels were influenced primarily by user interactions with the toolkit, followed to a lesser extent by toolkit performance and functionality. (EV)

Investigated how different strategies for grading online discussions influenced both the discussions and sense of classroom community in 18 graduate-level courses delivered at a distance. Found that there were significantly more discussions per student per week and higher levels of sense of community in courses where discussions were a graded…

Found that in an introductory biology course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, adoption of the Data Aggregation Project (free software that allows students in a course to aggregate a large body of data for some particular problem) resulted in an increase in the number of data points students analyzed per semester by a factor of almost…

Presents an overview of the features of course management systems as they pertain to teaching online courses. Specifically, it identifies tools and techniques related to the effective use of management features, assessment options, instructional activities, and communication in online courses. (EV)

Contains articles on such topics as the progress of black student enrollment at highly ranked institutions; academic performance of black athletes at highly ranked universities; racism on official U.S. maps; sharply deteriorating black enrollments at U.S. medical schools; crime on the rise at many black college campuses; the annual black college…

Presents a statistical record of African Americans' progress in U.S. higher education institutions, discussing: the black-white higher education equality index; statistics that measure racial inequality; ranking law schools by percentage of black students; black enrollments at the nation's highest-ranked universities and highest-ranked liberal…

Asserts that conservatives in the U.S Supreme Court failed to see that affirmative action in higher education is an important and constitutionally protected institutional liberty, suggesting that Grutter v. Bollinger was correctly decided, and Gratz v. Bollinger was a mistake (but not a disaster). Suggests that such difficult issues should not be…

Although the Black-White scoring gap on the Scholastic Assessment Test closed significantly between 1976 and 1988, it has widened since 1988. Discusses this widening racial scoring gap, offering a series of articles that discuss social science research which shows that the test scoring gap is not the result of any innate intellectual inferiority…

While blacks are making modest headway in U.S. undergraduate engineering programs, there are few blacks in graduate engineering programs and, thus, among the nation's engineering faculty. Discusses: nationwide black enrollments in undergraduate and graduate engineering programs; blacks at top-rated engineering schools; universities enrolling the…

Nationwide, fewer than two out of five entering black college students earn their degrees, while three out of five entering white students go on to graduate. Nearly 19 out of 20 black students at highly competitive universities earn their diplomas. Black women outpace black men in college completion. Examines trends in black graduation rates at…

This collection of articles discusses such topics as why the SAT is a poor predictor of black college student graduation rates; the sudden nationwide decline in black faculty; the power of higher education to close the black-white income gap; Internet access to case files of slaves who sued for their freedom; the racial shortfall in counselors for…

This statistical record of the progress of African Americans in U.S. institutions of higher education focuses on the black-white higher education equity index; statistics that measure the state of racial inequality; rankings of black enrollments at the nation's 50 highest-ranked universities and liberal arts colleges; and students and faculty from…

Discusses the philosophy of John Rawls, asserting that although Rawls never wrote about affirmative action, his ideas are relevant to the issue. Rawls concentrated on "ideal theory," which he believed was the theory of what constituted a truly just society. He considered slavery and racial segregation paradigms of injustice. His ideal theory of…

Reflects on John Ogbu's explanations for the wide academic achievement gap between black and white students, explaining Ogbu's view that black students' poor performance reflects their incorporation of the beliefs of white society and their subsequent academic self-doubt leads to self-elimination. Notes the importance of telling black children…

Shows why prior rulings of a key Supreme Court justice are not in conflict with a final ruling that race may be considered as one factor in admissions to higher education. Discusses the Supreme Court's decision to hear the cases on affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan, asserting that affirmative action in the university…