Below is a description of the November-December 1998 issue of On the
Horizon, which is available at
http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/online/html/6/6/.
You may be in an organization with an institutional online subscription,
which you can see at
http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/subscribe.asp. If you
are not, ask your librarian to request a 60 day trial subscription, which
will allow everyone in your organization to have access to OTH On-Line
without logging on (your e-mail IP address does this automatically).
We constantly seek articles describing signals of change on the horizon that
can affect educational organizations. Please consider writing for us. See
our call for manuscripts at
http://horizon.unc.edu/horizon/write.asp.
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ON THE HORIZON
The Strategic Planning Resource for Education Professionals
November/December 1998
IN THIS ISSUE:
Leading a Knowledge Organization: Three Keys to Success
Joseph H. Boyett and Jimmie T. Boyett
Boyett and Boyett discuss three ideas that represent "the core of new
thinking" about knowledge organizations in a postindustrial society. In
order to survive, these organizations must have leaders that assume somewhat
nontraditional roles: that of visionary, storyteller, and agent of change.
Moreover, knowledge organizations must foster "communities of practice"
(informal networks in which workers exchange ideas and experiences) and must
operate under a federal structure in which individual units work
cooperatively to achieve organizational goals. Boyett and Boyett include
valuable references to contemporary research on knowledge organizations by
business and learning experts.
The Horizon from a System President's Perspective: An Interview with UNC's
Molly Broad
James L. Morrison
The fifteenth president of the University of North Carolina talks about the
marriage of education and technology and how that partnership already is
impacting traditional universities. She also warns against the government
"micromanagement" of educational institutions, arguing that institution
leaders must find a way to keep "autonomy and accountability in the right
balance."
Competency-Based Training: The Link Between Education and Workplace
Excellence
Phillip Rutherford
The term "competency" no longer simply means the capacity to do a job;
consequently, educators and business leaders should stop measuring
competency with learning outcome approaches. So argues Phillip Rutherford,
who provides a modern definition for "competency" and offers a model for
developing competency standards in educational institutions and businesses.
Such standards teach students/workers not only job skills, but also how to
apply and adjust those skills in specific environments.
Intelligent Agent Software
Wallace Hannum
According to Hannum, the ease of using computers has not kept pace with the
growth in their functionality. With the production of more complex computer
systems and the rapid expansion of the Internet, users are finding it more
difficult to keep current their technological skills. Hannum explains how
intelligent agent software can do everything from research the Web to
simplify feature-laden software, thereby freeing up both time and energy for
the overwhelmed user.
Globalization Revisited
A. G. Stell Kefalas
Underlying the "New Global Age" are two interrelated phenomena: information
technology and liberalization (of governments and economies). Kefalas
examines how Americans have avoided incorporating globalization into their
way of thinking, especially when it comes to the U.S. economy. What we
really want, he says, is to focus on our current desire for travel, trade,
and telecommunications-not to be aware of other nations' collapsing economic
systems and how they might eventually impact our own.
Integrating Social and Natural Sciences for Environmental Studies
Daniel Neal Graham
In an age when the depletion of the ozone is talked about not only by
natural scientists, but also by social scientists who debate environmental
policy, there must be greater communication between the two groups. Graham
discusses how universities can integrate the concerns of natural science,
social science, and humanities students into interdisciplinary
courses-courses that investigate the ways in which people affect their
environments as well as the ways in which environmental factors affect human
culture.
Beyond Today's Rhetoric: The Internet as a Model Organization
William Halal
Halal attacks management strategies that emphasize decentralization and
federalism, terms that he considers euphemisms for the "same old top-down
systems" of "typical corporations." In order for decentralized organizations
to function effectively, he argues, their individual units must operate as
internal enterprises: small businesses in competition for customers. This is
especially needed in education, where schools and universities remain our
last bastion of central planning. He points to the Internet as a stellar
example of a decentralized, free-market enterprise.