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This article focuses on contemporary discussions about university-affiliated lab schools and their growing international networks. Topics include university-affiliated lab schools, the State University of Malang-University of Pittsburgh partnership created by a consortium of rectors in Indonesia, and the growing importance of international professional development networks for university-affiliated lab schools. The instructional leadership side of the partnership has shared ways: (a) to design a better aligned curriculum; (b) to make learning activities more active and student-oriented; (c) to trigger creativity, critical thinking, and independence; (d) to practice ongoing assessment; and (e) to enrich the cultural repertoire of students. The institutional management side has focused greater attention on: professionalism in management; use of technology; human resources issues of recruitment, induction, and continuing professional development; and more innovative, balanced, transparent and sustainable funding sources. The following recommendations are made. First, fostering international partnerships is a good way for already strong schools to make continuous improvements in both instruction and institutional leadership. Second, partnership sustainability is paramount, especially during transitions in senior university management. Careful and thoughtful construction of the universities’ core memorandum of understanding is time well spent because it becomes embedded in institutional policy.

Recent initiatives in digital library research have suggested new models for the creation and organisation of digital information and its dissemination to virtual communities. PEN‐DOR (the Pennsylvania Education Network Digital Object Repository) is a digital library designed to provide access to the collective experience of teachers, students and administrators in public schools in building lesson plans and using curriculum materials. Using the WWW as a platform, PEN‐DOR incorporates current research in digital libraries to provide K‐12 educators with access to multimedia resources and tools to create new lesson plans and presentations, and to modify existing ones. Design problems addressed by the project include the design of a distributed, object‐oriented database architecture, the description and cataloguing of multimedia objects, and issues related to usability and training for a geographically scattered user community. Two critical aspects of the organisation of this digital library are the development of a method for the persistent identification of resources, and the design of a record structure based on recent developments in metadata. Resource identification has been achieved by adopting a system‐wide approach with an upgrade path to the emerging URN standards. In designing a record structure, the PEN‐DOR project has elected to use the GEM (Gateway to Educational Materials) metadata standard developed as part of the GEM union catalogue project. Content for the database is solicited from project partners, government agencies and educational resources Web sites, as well as from participating teachers. Once incorporated in the repository, materials can be organised in frameworks that form the basis for lessons, tutorials and presentations. As frameworks are developed, used, critiqueed and modified, they will form a community memory of past experience. Supported by the state’s Link‐to‐Learn programme, the system will function as a resource for educators throughout Pennsylvania.