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NLII Key Documents

NLII Program Activities

By joining the NLII, institutions, corporations and organizations make a commitment to work collaboratively with others to understand and demonstrate how the application of information technology in higher education can address the major problems facing American higher education today: increasing access, containing costs and improving student learning.

To facilitate these collaborations, the NLII has established a Request for Partners (RFP) Process. The opportunity to initiate an RFP has been available since the Initiative's first semi-annual meeting in January, 1995, and it continues today. Initially sixteen separate projects were proposed and begun. As participation in the NLII has increased and our understanding of the NLII's mission-critical issues has grown, partnerships have also evolved. Some have merged into larger projects, some have continued to exist as exemplars of best practice, and some have raised issues which continue to warrant discussion and consideration. Others have been completed or, on further investigation, were found not to be viable partnerships. (Please see Status of NLII RFPs for futher information.)

NLII Mission-Critical Issues

The NLII's program activities are now organized around six mission-critical issues which are reviewed and revised by the membership annually. Ongoing NLII cooperative efforts, relevant publications, and examples of best practices are linked to each mission-critical issue.

• Enhancing academic (learning) productivity
• Developing tools and standards to support new learning environments
• Advancing our understanding of the virtual university by showcasing best practices in distributed learning
• Creating a market structure for development of interactive learning materials
• Providing evidence of the viability of these concepts, including outcomes assessment and cost/benefit analyses
• Articulating those public and institutional policy issues that inhibit the creation of a national learning infrastructure.

webmgr@cni.org