Digital Promise

LEGISLATIVE SUMMARY:
National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies (enacted in Section 802 of the bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act on Aug. 14, 2008, P.L. 110-315)

Purpose: The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies will be essential to American education, competitiveness and security in the 21st Century.

The National Center will:

  • Provide financing for research, development, and demonstration of advanced information technologies that can transform education, training, and lifelong learning just as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health do in their fields.

  • Build multi-disciplinary teams that combine the skills in America's colleges, universities, museums, libraries, public broadcasting entities and other similar organizations as well as the corporate sector to achieve these goals.

  • Support the testing and evaluation of these systems; and encourage the widespread adoption and use of effective approaches to learning

Funding & Structure: The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies is structured as a Congressionally originated 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation with a nine-member Board of Directors, initially appointed by the Secretary of Education.  Grants and contracts will be awarded on merit. The Board and Director of the National Center will develop policies that follow the tested procedures of NSF and NIH.  Congress will review the National Center's budget and financial performance annually.  The National Center will be financed through appropriations from Congress, as well as through donations, contracts, grants, and other private and public sources of funds.

Rationale: Any successful strategy for American competitiveness and innovation in the 21st Century must address essential R&D for education and training.  The nation's education and training institutions are not making the most effective use of advanced information technology that has transformed almost every other sector of society.  Technologies using state-of-the-art simulation, visualization, and other tools have been used to accelerate mastery of complex expertise in a variety of subject areas making it affordable to implement approaches to teaching and learning long recommended by experts in pedagogy and learning.  The technologies are particularly effective in building critical "21st century skills" needed for Americans to compete in a fast changing global economy.  These skills include critical thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving, plan formulation and execution, efficient data assembly and learning. Our competitors in the international marketplace, including China, Japan, Ireland, and India, are already responding to those needs by investing heavily in upgrading their education and training systems with R&D in learning technologies.  At present, no federal agency has a comprehensive and coherent program to undertake the complex and difficult research needed to develop and test innovative learning strategies using new technology.  Nor is there any initiative to ensure that the research will be made available for immediate and widespread use on a national level.