FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Why is a new R&D program needed for advanced technologies for education and training?
The U.S. Congress has received at least twelve reports and key statements, including the Gathering Storm report, which points out that there is a unique and essential role for basic federally-sponsored research for pre-competitive, high risk, long-term projects, as well as The U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (The Hart-Rudman Report) that warned: "the inadequacies of our systems of research and education pose a greater threat to U.S. national security over the next quarter century than any potential conventional war that we might imagine. American national leadership must understand these deficiencies as threats to national security. If we do not invest heavily and wisely in rebuilding these two core strengths, America will be incapable of maintaining its global position long into the 21st century." The basic recommendation for improvement was the same: To meet the national need America must transform its learning and training for the 21st century by applying the remarkable advanced information technologies that have already transformed so many other aspects of our society. We need a national research and development roadmap for technology-based learning and Congress should create a national entity to implement that plan.At the 2002 Summit on the use of Advanced Technologies in Education and Training convened by the Departments of Commerce and Education, participants from the corporate and academic sectors agreed that business, university and federal initiatives were operating without coordination or integration, and that the community as a whole wants and needs national leadership to help make their collective efforts more rational, coordinated and integrated.
How does the National Center fill this role?
The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies will do for education and training what the NIH does for health and medicine and what DARPA does for the military: provide basic and applied research that reflects a critical priority for society. The NSF was created to stimulate America's research in science and technology to ensure America's continued global leadership. The National Center was created to do for education and training what NSF has done for science and technology.Why can't the private sector perform the functions envisioned in the National Center bill?
There are insufficient economic incentives for the private sector to make such a substantial investment in education and training. The return on an investment in the "human capital" of a nation is a longer-term return than any corporation can bear. The high cost of the R&D initially required and the uncertain and difficult markets for educational innovations make private investment too risky. A key goal of DO IT is to provide the pre-competitive R&D and needed demonstration projects to catalyze a market for these critically needed educational and training products.Where is the government's return on investment of such funds?
Just as with the Northwest Ordinance, the Morrill Act and the GI Bill, substantial investments to transform education and training have always come from the federal government. And these investments in education and training have always paid "dividends" in the general knowledge and skills base of the citizenry, which correlates directly to earning power over a lifetime, and in America's ability to retain its global competitive leadership. Greater earning power provides the federal government with its return on investment in the form of greater tax revenues, reduced deficits, and global technological innovation. In the past, far-sighted Congressional leaders made such substantial investments in education in times of war and crisis: the Morrill Act that created the nation's Land-Grant Colleges was passed during the darkest days of the Civil War, the GI Bill was passed during World War II, and the NSF was created at the beginning of the Korean War.How was the National Center legislation developed?
After reviewing the initial plans for the creation of the National Center, the Congress requested that the Digital Promise Project develop the learning roadmap to help transform education and training called for by the Congressional commissions and reports. The Digital Promise Project formed a partnership with The Learning Federation of the Federation of American Scientists, an organization that contains most of the nation's Nobel laureates in science. The Learning Federation brought together more than one hundred scientists, researchers, and academics in the fields of technology and education to develop a national research and development roadmap for utilizing advanced learning technologies to address our nation's compelling need for high quality education and training in the digital age. This roadmap became the basis of the widely praised 2004 Digital Promise report to Congress and eventually the bipartisan Digital Promise legislation.How does the National Center legislation meet the needs of the nation?
The National Center will serve as the national entity to provide leadership, coordination and integration among all government agencies and across military and business sectors for R&D and innovation in this area that all agree is vital to the nation's future. The National Center will be led by an expert Board of Directors, initially appointed by the Secretary of Education, that will be responsible for setting the priorities for grants and contracts to:- advance research for improved educational and training technologies
- digitize material in America's libraries, museums and universities
- develop prototypes for using next-generation technologies for learning
- assess their pedagogical effectiveness and use.
The Board will oversee competitive grant making through a peer-review process to fund these purposes, and be directly accountable to the Congress for all expenditures of funds.