Terms such as "digital divide," normally understood to mean the gap in access between technologically disenfranchised populations and the information elite, take on a different resonance when the focus of university faculty, administrators, and an increasing number of potential students is on how education is to be conducted. This paper discusses the pedagogical, technological, and business trends that together affect the direction of innovation in virtual education. A discussion is presented on how traditional higher education (campus-based, lecture-bound, and faculty-driven) can benefit from the explosion of opportunities born of technological innovation and development by adopting changes in operational models-both administrative and pedagogical. Also addressed are the scope of services that comprise the engagement of information technology in academic environments necessary to fulfill evolving charters and missions that respond to current trends and future demands of educational innovations in the digital age where education and business-in their operational models and management styles-are moving toward complementary, even comparable strategies.

Discussions of pedagogy and instructional design ofen entail their impact upon the cognitive systems of learners, knowledge transfer, and eforts to organize, facilitate and evaluate learning activities (Bloomhave, over the past twenty years, undergone a demonstrable shifl in focus from those based in instructivist theory and approaches (logical positivism and idenfifiable/fixed truth) to consfructivist concepts (knowledge as a social conslruction) andpractices, particularly as they take shape in the activities'comprising problem-bosed learning (PBL) (Barrows, 1980(Barrows, . 1992(Barrows, , 1994. A technological one has accompanied this pedagogical shift. The Internet has made possible a transformation and increase in the methods of implementing the best practices and reaching greater numbers ofpotential learners through systems of distributed education.This paper examines how the design and implementation of problem solving tools used in programming instruction are complementary with both the fundamental theories of problem-based learning (PBL) and the pedagogy and practices of distributed education environments. A discussion of how such learning tools can be used to bridge the constructivist foundation of PBL with the needs of distributed education is suggested. We then consider how combining PBL, web-based distributed education and a problem solving environment (Deek, 1997) can create effective learning environments in a variety of disciplines and modes. IndexTerm-constructivism, distributed learning environments, instructional design, problembased learning, problemsolving tools.. Understanding is based on experiences with content, context, and the learner's goals. Cognition may be regarded as being distributed rather than individually localized. Puzzlement is the factor that motivates learning. Social negotiation and the ongoing testing of the viability of existing concepts in the face of personal

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This paper examines submission data for the SIGITE conference between the years 2007-2012 with an emphasis on the reliability and validity of the peer review process. Despite the centrality of peer review to academic endeavor, it is not easy to assess it due to the confidentiality of blind reviewing systems. This paper provides a unique addition to the study of peer review by examining reviews and submissions for a single international computing conference across an extended time period. It examines which external factors (such as nationality and familiarity of the reviewer) and which internal characteristics of the submissions (such as word length, number of references, and readability measures) are related to eventual reviewer ratings. Ramifications of the findings for future authors and conference organizers are also discussed.

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