Help us develop a research agenda for the 2007 Horizon Report!

As you know, the NMC's annual Horizon Report highlights six technologies that the underlying research suggests will become very important to higher education over the next one to five years. A central focus of the discussion of each technology is its relevance for teaching, learning, and creative expression.
 
With the release of the fourth edition in this annual series, the NMC is undertaking for the first time a concerted, international effort to describe a research agenda that will inform the six practices and technologies featured in the 2007 edition of the Horizon Report . As many of your campuses or institutions are having workshops or discussions related to the report, we'd like to invite you and your colleagues to participate in this process, contribute to the discussion, and help shape directions for future research in these topics across the academy.
 
To develop the research agenda, the NMC is collecting responses to the following three questions, designed to help identify the most essential areas for study around each of the six Horizon Report topics:
 

1. What are the missing pieces for this technology or practice to be implemented in higher education?
2. What kind of research would you like to see around this topic?
3. What are some of the learning implications of this topic?

 
If your campus plans to host faculty or staff workshops based on the Horizon Report, we encourage you to consider including these three questions in your program, and including the responses in our effort.
 
We have created a simple handout that explains the effort, a paper-saving questionnaire you can distribute, and a short description of each of the topics on a single page.  These are attached, and we encourage you to share them via email with colleagues.

Individual responses, by the way, are as welcome as those from a group or workshop. You can send your thoughts to the NMC in any of the following ways:
 

• Enter your responses directly on the project wiki , where there is a space for each question and you can see what others have said.
• Edit the questionnaires in a word processor and email them to horizon@nmc.org.
• Print out the questionnaires, write your responses on them, and send them in by mail or fax.
  • Fax   (512) 445-4200
  • Postal Mail:   NMC Horizon Project, 2499 S Capital of Texas Hwy A202, Austin, TX  78746

 
This effort reflects and embodies the topic of new scholarship, featured in the 2007 Report and also the subject of a major NMC focus area initiative. The completed research agenda, slated to be released in mid-year 2007, is designed to encourage a deeper level of understanding around each of the topics in the Report.

To ensure that you have ample opportunity to participate, this project will continue through June 1, 2007, and we will accept responses in any of the above forms until that date.
 
Sometime mid-year, not coincidentally around the time of the NMC Summer Conference, you can expect to see a report that contains a set of recommendations related to each of these topics and based on the conversations taking place on campuses like yours throughout the first half of the year.
 
If you have any questions, please email horizon@nmc.org or call the NMC at (512) 445-4200.

Larry Johnson
Chief Executive Officer