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Higher Education 7 (1978) 13-26 �9 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands

SOME NEW A P P R O A C H E S TO R E S E A R C H AND D E V E L O P M E N T F U N D I N G

RICHARD HOOPER

Director, National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning, London, England

ABSTRACT

Some new approaches to research and development funding, adopted by the United Kingdom's National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning are described. The five-year, s million National Programme, sponsored by seven Govern- ment departments, was set up in 1973 at a time of widespread concern about government R & D funding. The funding strategy of the Programme is described in the hope that it might apply to the funding of other educational innovations. Four unusual features are discussed in detail, the aim of the Programme; the role of the Programme directorate in "cooperative" funding; the approach to evaluation; and the emphasis on project manage- ment.

The main aim of the Programme, from which all other policy and management decisions derived, was the "institutionalisation" of innovation. The Programme directorate, by con- trast to the central staff of research councils, was active and interventive in the formula- tion of policy, the design and selection of projects, and their evaluation. A "cooperative" approach to funding was adopted which permitted projects to combine national and local interests, in an effort to avoid the over-centralisation of some of the large schools curric- ulum development projects in the UK and the USA, and the parochialism of some higher education research funding. A major evaluation device used in the National Programme was the "midterm" evaluation of projects. Projects were "step-funded" for one or two years in the first instance, with continued funding dependent on the outcome of the mid- term evaluation. A further novel feature of the evaluation was the existence of independent educational and financial evaluation. Project management skills were considered impor- tant in the Programme, and various techniques were adopted, such as virement, to improve project management and control.

Introduction

This p a p e r descr ibes some novel a p p r o a c h e s to the m a n a g e m e n t o f re-

search and d e v e l o p m e n t funding which were a d o p t e d by the Un i t ed K i n g d o m ' s

N a t i o n a l D e v e l o p m e n t P r o g r a m m e in C o m p u t e r Ass i s ted Learning. The

Na t iona l P r o g r a m m e , s p o n s o r e d b y seven g o v e r n m e n t d e p a r t m e n t s , was set

up in J a n u a r y 1973 wi th a b u d g e t o f s mi l l ion over a f ive-year pe r iod .

The c o n t e n t o f the P r o g r a m m e - the a p p l i c a t i o n o f c o m p u t e r s to t each ing

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in higher education, schools, military and industrial training - is described at length elsewhere (Hooper, 1975; Hooper, 1977) and is tangential to the con- cerns of this paper. Whilst "computer assisted learning" was indeed the focus of funding in the National Programme, the issues discussed in this paper are hopefully of general interest - and possibly application - to the funding of other educational innovations.

The National Programme started life at a time of widespread concern, in the United Kingdom and abroad, about the management of research and development, both within education and outside. In July 1972, for example, the British Government had published a White Paper setting out new guide- lines on the subject, with the emphasis on applied research and development on a "customer-contractor" basis. (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1972). Within education, a decade of federally and nationally funded curriculum projects, in both the USA and the UK, had led people to question centralised models of funding innovation. Yet, traditional academic research funding in higher education, which avoids centralised control, was also seen to have drawbacks - parochialism and poor dissemination, duplication, unsystematic coverage of the research domain, absence of credible evaluation, poor project management.

The novelty of the National Programme's approach to funding is to be found in four main areas:

1 The choice of programme aim. 2 The role of the programme directorate in "cooperative" funding. 3 Evaluation. 4 Emphasis on project management.

Programme Aim

A cynical observer of the research and development scene might assert that just by having a clearly stated aim the National Programme was exhibit- ing novelty! The choice of aim for the Programme was the central policy decision, from which funding strategies and criteria for the design and selec- tion of projects derived.

What was the National Programme, given its budget and timescale, trying to achieve? To this obvious question, there was no obvious answer. One answer could have been, as it was for many of the schools curriculum projects in the UK and the USA, the production of a large amount of good teaching materials based on a thorough curriculum design. Another answer, recommended by one of those responsible for .persuading the British Govern- ment to fund the National Programme, was " . . . the identification of where and how computers can be used in tb_e education system of the United Kingdom" (McLaren, 1969, p. 86).

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Neither of these answers was felt to be adequate because they did not directly address the central problem facing not just computer assisted learning but all educational technology. The problem was clearly identified in June 1972 in the US Carnegie Commission on Higher Education's report on instructional technology:

One of the great disappointments of the national effort to date is that for all the funds and effort thus far expended for the advancement of instructional technology, penetration of new learning materials and media into higher education has thus far been shallow. Even relatively commonplace technologies are not in evidence on many campuses. Equipment that has been installed at some institutions has fallen into disuse or is utilized to only a fraction of its capacity. (The Carnegie Commis- sion on Higher Education, 1972, p. 47).

The history of educational technology amply shows that the existence of good teaching materials, or research reports identifying the value of a given innovation, do not necessarily ensure their penetration. The team at the University of East Anglia, responsible for the independent educational evaluation of the National Programme, has written:

The belief that innovations succeed on their merits, a belief that sustained the rational optimism of the first generation of curriculum developers, has never been much in evidence at the centre of the National Programme... the citadel of estab- lished practice will seldom fall to the polite knock of a good idea. It may however yield to a long siege, a pre-emptive strike, a wooden horse, or a cunning alliance (UNCAL, 1975, p. 49).

The central aim chosen for the National Programme in January 1973, was " to develop and secure the assimilation of computer assisted and com- puter managed learning on a regular institutional basis at reasonable cost" (Hooper, 1975, p. 17). When external funding (in the USA it is often called "sof t " money) ceased in December 1977, the various teaching innovations involving the computer should continue, using local institutional funds ("hard" money). If the continued existence of such a youthful and mis- understood innovation as computer assisted learning (which includes not only distribution of programmed learning but also work in simulation, modelling, problem-solving, and data-bases) was not achieved, then all the positive research data and quality instructional materials in the world would not be convincing. Teachers in higher education are pragmatic. They may not take seriously a research report identifying, with suitably scientific pre- cision, a range of benefits of the computer in undergraduate teaching, unless the institutions responsible for the positive findings are seen to be exploiting the benefits themselves on a regular basis.

The aim of "institutionalisation of innovation" became the keystone of funding policy in the National Programme. Difficult management decisions

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were on many occasions arbitrated by reference to it. From this aim a list of criteria was derived to assist the Programme directorate with the design, selection and continuing evaluation of projects. There were two sets of criteria - one set aimed at "institutionalisation," and one aimed at "reason- able cost" which was felt to be a necessary precondition for institutionalisa- tion. Included in the "institutionalisation" criteria were concerns for the proper integration of computing into established course structures; the right kind of organisational structure in project institutions to encourage the development and survival of the innovation; the application of computers to real teaching needs and not frills;provision for teacher "training".

One example of a major directorate decision taken in the light of these "institutionalisation" criteria concerned the location of projects. It was decided to base the higher education projects in university and polytechnic teaching departments (one of the projects was directed by the head of a university physics department), not in educational technology or computing services, nor in research units of the institutional, regional or national variety. The reason was clear: teaching departments in higher education institutions have the political power to institutionalise. As Jerome Bruner has written: "If one by-passes the power structure, then no matter what one accomplishes, it is likely to last only as long as the project, and even if effective, will have too short a life to spread. . . " (Bruner, 1976, p. 13).

The most important of the "reasonable cost" criteria was the require- ment for inter-institutional projects. Transferability and dissemination were seen as part of development, not following development. This differs from the more usual pattern in higher education of single-institution funding, with dissemination following development often as an afterthought. Instructional materials developed by single-institution projects are more difficult and more costly to transfer. For the Programme, transfer was essential if the high development costs were to be shared across large numbers of students to get economies of scale. Other criteria aimed at reducing cost were concerned with, for example, the use of existing computer technology and existing facilities rather than expensive investments in new hardware systems, which has been the American approach.

The list of project design criteria was first written down in January 1973 and survived reasonably well. Some of the original criteria proved to be invalid or unworkable, others were dented by reality. But the existence of such a list, changed over the years in response to experience, was highly advantageous in forcing staff to go back again and again to first principles: what was the Programme trying to achieve?

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The Role of the Programme Directorate in "Cooperative" Funding

The directorate of the National Programme, based in London, was small. In the middle years of the Programme, it contained five executive and three secretarial/administrative staff. Directorate costs amounted to 1 5% of the total budget of s million. The working patterns adopted by the National Programme directorate differed quite markedly from those of central staff in research councils, such as the UK's Science Research Council and Social Science Research Council, or the USA's National Science Founda- tion. For one thing, the Programme directorate was given more independence than is normal for research council staff. The executive Programme commit- tee, on which representatives of the seven sponsoring government depart- ments sat, empowered the directorate, for example, to refuse applications for funds without necessarily referring the matter to committee. The directorate was encouraged and expected to formulate a general policy within which development projects were embedded, rather than behave in the more ad hoc manner of grant-giving agencies. In addition, there were never any standard applications forms for funding in the National Programme, a mundane but crucial difference.

The biggest difference, however, following naturally from the delegation of power noted above, was to be found in the style of working. Whereas, traditionally, research council staff are responsive, reacting to applications for funding as they arrive, the National Programme directorate was assertive.

This assertiveness is best illustrated by examining how projects within the National Programme developed. Ideas for projects originated in different ways. Some arrived conventionally through the post in the form of unilateral requests for funding. Other ideas developed within the directorate in London, and would then be suggested to particular people - who, in some cases, had not thought of applying for funds, and in one case did not even know there was a National Programme!

In whatever way the ideas might have originated, the actual design of projects became a collaborative affair, involving prolonged negotiation. This period of negotiation (lasting weeks or months) allowed the directorate to feed into the design certain "national" requirements, for example that any teaching materials to be developed with Programme funds should be as trans- ferable as possible. Similarly, the future project staff were able to feed in their "local" requirements, having for example to do with local political problems of support. On a few occasions, negotiations broke down because one or the other side could not agree to certain conditions, and no proposals emerged. More usually, a mutually acceptable project proposal did emerge, which was usually finally written by the project staff and edited by the directorate. These proposals, which were then sent to Programme committee for approval, did not always bear much resemblance to the first tentative

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ideas. This is one of the reasons why the Programme did not develop standard application forms (though the proposals for Programme committee approval did follow a standard pattern). Another reason was the feeling that good proposal writers do not always make good project directors, and vice versa. Also, a written proposal by itself does not provide adequate information on which to base a decision for funding.

A budgetary innovation, that supported this notion of cooperative, national/local funding, was "matched funding". Institutions were expected to contribute to the overall costs o f the project. Matched funding had a num- ber of functions. It increased the level of resources available, and therefore the scope of the Programme, by around s million. For example, since the higher education projects were developing teaching innovations for their own (rather than, say, for schools') use, no overhead costs were paid to the insti- tutions by the Programme. In addition, the level of matched funding proposed by a project during the design and negotiation stage was a very tangible way of evaluating that particular project director's local power and influence - use- ful evidence to have before having to make the final binary decision to fund. Matched funding also ensured that institutional decision-makers were and felt involved in projects from the beginning, thus paving the way for the important institutionalisation decisions they would have to make later on. Finally, matched funding gave the project directors power in what might otherwise have been one-sided negotiations with the holders of the s million purse.

Both during the period of project design and negotiation, and after the projects began to be funded, the interventive style of working required the Programme directorate to travel extensively. Behind a written application for funds, or a written annual report, are people, institutions, political climates, which are best evaluated at first hand. The Programme took the view that successful development projects were likely to be heavily personal- i ty-dependent in the early years. Thus, choice of project directors became crucial, and was best made on the basis of personal contact on his or her home territory.

In this emphasis on travel, and personal contact, the programme differed significantly from research council practice. Yet personal contact is central to innovative activity. In The Politics o f Educational Innovation, House writes:

To control the flow of personal contact is to control innovation. As the flow of blood is essential to human life, so direct personal contact is essential to the prop- agation of innovation... Who knows whom and who talks to whom are power- ful indicators of where and when an innovation is accepted, or if it is accepted at all (House, 1974, p. 6).

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The cooperative nature of the National Programme, as reflected in rela- tionships between directorate and project staff, and within the inter-institu- tional projects, has brought substantial benefits and some difficulties. The major benefit of cooperative funding is that it allows projects to combine the advantages of "centralisation" (increased transferability leading to cost reductions) with the advantages of "localisation" (increased teacher partici- pation leading to better institutionalisation). The difficulties of cooperative funding are primarily human. The approach requires people both in the directorate and in projects to be able to give and take, to disagree without causing mutual resentment, to see the other point of view, to be able to balance principles with pragmatism. The comparative security of "them and us" funding, where the line between project proposers and project approvers is clearly drawn, is replaced by more ambiguous stances. By comparison to conventional funding, the National Programme's style was, in some senses, less objective. To counteract this, and for other reasons, the Programme placed emphasis on evaluation.

Evaluation

Both the amount and types of evaluation, used in the National Pro- gramme, were unusual by comparison with traditional grant-giving agencies. The reasons for this evaluation emphasis were many. One, introduced above, was this need to ensure some detachment within a funding strategy that laid stress on personality-dependent innovation, personal contact, and cordial personal relationship. Another reason, more substantial, had to do with a weakness that emerged in the wording of the Programme's main aim (see above). The weakness was pointed out by the independent educational evaluators. Was the Programme in danger of falling into the trap of "insti- tutionalisation at any price"? The fact that an innovation succeeds in becoming institutionalised is a useful - b u t n o t s u f f i c i e n t - criterion of educational value. The value (or otherwise) of the product must be assessed in ways that go beyond just the "hit" rate of institutionalisation, or the amount of dis- semination achieved.

A further important reason for energy being devoted to evaluation was identified by the Programme 's assistant director, Roger Miles:

�9 .. the Programme has adopted a pragmatic approach to its work. Thus it has initiated project work in areas of need, often with only limited feasibility estab- lished and with various uncertainties remaining. Psychology and education have not yet produced a comprehensive theory of learning which might have given a sound base to the work. Given the Programme's concentration on development and appli- cation, rather than on research and the exploration of theoretical issues, a respon- sive attitude to events has been called for. Procedures which reveal the fullest

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possible information on the results of actions, especially unexpected results, are necessary to create a base for adaptive decision-making throughout the five years. Speed is an important feature of this monitoring and reporting process, since the Programme has a short life and is dealing with a high cost technology; errors, delays and shortcomings need to be recognised and remedied as soon as possible

(Hooper, 1975, p. 45).

Evaluation within the Programme was carried out by four groups: the Programme committee and the projects, the independent evaluators and the Programme directorate. The main evaluation role of the Programme commit- tee, to approve project proposals placed before it by the Programme director- ate, had no particularly unusual features. Within projects, evaluation was mainly of the well-established formative variety. But the sheer amount of evaluation undertaken by projects was unusual, to meet the unusual require- ments of the independent cvaluators and the Programme directorate.

INDEPENDENT EVALUATION

The decision to have independent evaluation - that is to say, indepen- dent of the management of the Programme - was prompted by a desire to increase the credibility of the evaluation results. Too often in educational projects the evaluation is carried out exclusively in-house under the control of the project director who has (to put it mildly) a career stake in positive

results. It was decided to have two independent evaluation agencies and, some-

what unusually, to appoint them early in the Programme's life before any projects had been funded. A team at the University of East Anglia, headed by Barry MacDonald, and called UNCAL (UNderstanding Computer Assisted Learning), was concerned with the educational issues raised by the programme at all levels. John Fielden and Philip Pearson of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co., Management Consultants, were contracted to carry out the financial evaluation - what does computer assisted learning cost. Independent evalua- tion totalled 7% of the s million budget.

UNCAL's approach to educational evaluation was novel in that it moved away from the classical emphasis "on the measurement of student achieve- ment by experimental-control group comparisons, and on goal/performance discrepancy" because of the "notoriously barren yield of this evaluation tradition." UNCAL was based. . .

on the proposition that an 'experimental research' design, besides being unaccept- able in a curriculum development setting, would poorly serve all its audiences. Those who have to judge the worth of a programme, or take decisions about its future direction, need many more kinds of information than student scores pro-

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vide. Audiences distant from the action may benefit, for example, from knowing what the programme looks like close-up, how its performance is influenced by "real world" circumstances, what it means to those who are touched by it (UNCAL, 1975, pp. 4 - 5 ) .

The existence of independent financial evaluation was itself novel. Whilst in the USA, there has been costing evaluation in a number of projects, for example the use of educational television in developing countries, this has not been the case in Europe. The methodology of costing adopted by Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co. was particularly interesting in two ways. First of all, a total costing approach was adopted, which required projects to keep data on such items as accommodation used, and academic staff time spent on, for example, preparing teaching materials. Secondly, costing was done at three leve ls - departmental, institutional and national. Thus, for example, it emerged that many applications of the computer could be relative- ly cheap in terms of a university departmental budget, but more expensive if assessed on a university-wide basis (for this can include the costs of comput- ing which tend to be "free" to departments), and more expensive still if costed in national resource terms (for this includes the cost of academic staff time devoted to development). Given the normal budgetary structure of higher education, the true cost of an innovation to the nation may be con- cealed.

PROGRAMME DIRECTORATE'S EVALUATION

Evaluation responsibilities obviously formed a natural part of the active, rather than reactive, management stance of the Programme directorate. Indeed, it was almost impossible to distinguish evaluative activities from Programme management. For example, an important Programme manage- ment decision was, as noted above, the choice of people to lead major pro- jects, and this involved the difficult, ever fallible, business of personal evaluation.

The major evaluative device developed by the Programme directorate was the "midterm evaluation" of projects. Unlike the normal pattern of research and development funding in higher education, all projects were "step-funded". This involved funding work for one or two years only in the first instance. Further funding in later years was dependent on the outcome of a two-day site visit called the "midterm evaluation". The main function of this evaluation was to enable the Programme to make necessary mid-course corrections, by either stopping projects altogether (this happened only two times in fact in 18 midterm visits), or continuing funding but with modifica- tions to the plans for future work (for example, changing the project director, reducing or increasing the suggested budget). The midterm evaluations had

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other functions as well, for example, to "temper the steel" of projects. It was an opportunity for friends to raise hard questions which would be asked by "enemies" later on, as the project moved towards institutionalisation and wider dissemination.

The midterm evaluation team, chaired by the director or assistant director of the Programme, included two or three external assessors. Drawn from outside the Programme and with no necessary knowledge of the Pro- gramme's jargon or history, or even computer assisted learning, these people put the work of the project and the Programme in a more detached perspec- tive. Their contribution to the decision to continue funding - a decision that was the responsibility of the Programme committee acting on recom- mendations made by the directorate - was considerable. External assessors also helped to bridge the gap with the more familiar "peer group" evaluation used by research councils.

Midterm evaluation tended to increase the ambiguous nature of the relationship between directorate and project staff. For example, since project proposals had been designed mutually, criticism of a project by the director- ate at midterm evaluations could entail a criticism of the original project design, for which the directorate shared responsibility. The independent evaluators, who were present as participant observers at all midterm evalua- tions, and who had an intimate knowledge of how the projects came to be designed, ensured that the directorate got a share of any blame going!

Another source of ambiguity was the close personal relationships that developed, given the style of funding, between directorate and project staff. On one day the two sides would be working closely together, for example to persuade the university to support the project financially in 1978. On another day the two sides would be facing each other across the evaluation table and the directorate would be questioning the value of supporting the project at all.

Projects from the beginning were encouraged to be open and honest about difficulties encountered so that swift remedial action could be taken and any lessons learnt disseminated to other projects. Yet honest revelations during informal regular visits could be (and were) brought up in evidence "against" the project at the formal evaluations. As it happened, an efficient grape-vine developed within the Programme which tended to be the undoing of (the very few) projects that tried to camouflage problems, so honesty was in any case the best policy.

Midterm evaluations were on occasion traumatic. But they were always enlightening to the directorate, and in most cases to the projects themselves. Sometimes the large amount of preparation that went into the visits dis- turbed project productivity. Sometimes, the questions asked were a little too predatory. One issue that always was sure to surface was the quality of the project management.

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Emphasis on Project Management

Emphasis on the need for good project management, and the evaluation of project management skills, caused tension between the directorate and the university-based projects in the early days of the Programme. Project management tends not to be an issue with research council funding, so why should the National Programme concern itself with such a matter? This ten- sion was increased by the fact that the staff of the Programme directorate had had little direct experience of university life.

There were a number of reasons for emphasizing project management, which, when discussed informally with projects, helped to resolve the ten- sions. If, for example, the management of an innovative project is poor, and the innovation does not "take," it is difficult to know which variable - the management or the innovation i t s e l f - i s most to blame. As it turned out, the Programme, if anything, ran into the opposite d i f f i cu l t y -ve ry well directed and managed projects which in one or two cases caused the particular innovation to look more viable than perhaps it really deserved! Within the computing industry at large, project management has been a growing con- cern. The success of large computer projects is likely to depend as much on management proficiency as on technical skill.

Another reason for emphasizing project management was the short time-scale of the Programme (five years) to achieve the aim of institutionali- sation. Clearly, there was no time to waste, and project productivity needed to be high from the start. Also, the inter-institutional nature of the higher education projects (the chemistry project based at Leeds University and Sheffield Polytechnic, CALCHEM, grew to include 20 institutions in active membership b y 1977) required good and resolute direction if they were not to collapse under the weight of committees and poor communication.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, this emphasis on project management within the National Programme came out of the early 1970s anxiety about government-funded research and development. Had the right balance been achieved between the requirements of academic freedom and the responsible use of public monies? At the time when the National Pro- gramme was starting up, some of the experimental medical computing pro- jects funded by the Department of Health and Social Security in the large teaching hospitals, for example, were getting into severe difficulties caused by bad budgeting, cost and time overruns, inadequate control and evaluation procedures (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976).

In the first two years of the Programme, John Fielden, of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co., in addition to his work as financial evaluator, assisted both the Programme directorate and the projects in setting up viable management systems. He recommended, for example, the use of four-monthly accounting periods which enabled the directorate and projects to keep a regular watch

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over actual spending compared to estimated spending. Project proposals con- tained detailed estimates of costs over the life of the project, divided into the four-monthly accounting periods. The project director of CALCHEM, Peter Ayscough, has written:

It must also be admitted, grudgingly perhaps, that the formidable detail in which the costing had to be done to satisfy NDP served a valuable purpose in concentrat- ing one's at tention on important matters which might otherwise have been forgotten. (It doesn't really matter very much how much one is going to spend on photo- copying eighteen months hence, but it does matter that one recognises that the distribution of reports and programs will require expenditure on photocopying, and makes provision for it) (Hooper, 1975, pp. 71 -72 ) .

Another useful budgetary technique was "virement". Project directors were permitted, within certain limits, to move (vire) money allocated under one heading (for example, staffing) to another heading (for example, non- recurrent expenditure) in the light of changing circumstances. Virement enabled the Programme to get value for money. It was in the interest of project directors to husband their resources since they knew that any money saved would not necessarily be lost to the project.

The midterm evaluations, already described above, obviously played an important role in project and Programme control. They encouraged project directors (and the Programme director) to revise objectives, plans, and resource requirements, on a regular basis in the light of feedback. The Pro- gramme from the start took a fairly sceptical view of the more extreme versions of "Management by Objectives" which overemphasized pre-specifi- cation. Good development projects, by their nature, change as they grow and learn. They are opportunist and adaptive, rather than preset.

The midterm evaluations forced projects to stop and think, which was necessary if they were to revise their targets. In the Programme directorate's view, not always shared by the projects, this period of reflection and appraisal was well worth any loss of productivity that it entailed. In addition, the mid- term visits ensured that project staff documented and presented what they were doing and achieving, as they went along. Too often, documentation and presentation are left to the end of projects, when they may not be done at all. Yet dissemination requires significant attention to be paid to presen- tation of results, both in print and other media. The Programme directorate on occasion had to overcome the feeling in the higher education projects that attention to presentational skills was not quite respectable.

It could be inferred from this section that the Programme directorate was for ever interfering in the running of projects. Paradoxically perhaps, the management style of the Programme in fact involved significant delegation of responsibility. Once a project had been designed, approved and funded, and once it had shown its competence and capability at, for example, a midterm

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evaluation, it enjoyed considerable freedom of movement. The Programme directorate's task from then on was to support the project director with the amounts of money, information and the "political" visits which the project director judged to be necessary.

Conclusion

The National Programme adopted an aggressively developmental stance in relation to its projects, particularly those based in higher education, if only to counteract the pervasive influence of the "research grant syndrome". The aim of institutionalisation, and the funding strategy designed to achieve it, were practical. Whether these ideas would be appropriate in a funding agency that was involved exclusively in research as distinct from development, is not certain. Whilst there is much overlap between research and development, they are different activities. Research objectives and development objectives do not always sit together happily in one project. A development programme is essentially a "practical" activity in Schwab's meaning of the word: "By the "practical" I mean a complex discipline, relatively unfamiliar to the academic and differing radically from the disciplines of the theoretic. It is the discipline concerned with choice and action, in contrast with the theoretic, which is concerned with knowledge" (Schwab, 1969).

The novel approaches to funding, adopted by the National Development Programme in Computer Assited Learning were not its own invention. Step- funding and matched-funding, for example, have long been familiar features of federal funding in the United States. Since 1969, the National Research Council in Ottawa has been conducting a cooperative research programme in computer assisted learning with, for example, Canadian universities and community colleges. In the United Kingdom, the Nuffield Foundation has funded a number of higher education curriculum development projects on an interinstitutional basis. Also the central staff of UK research councils have been becoming less passive in their funding style.

Whilst the National Programme could not claim to have invented these various approaches, it could perhaps claim to be the first funding agency to bring them all together in pursuit of a clearly stated aim.

References

Bruner, J. (1976). "'Participatory Research- the Oxford Preschool Project," SSRC Newsletter, 32.

The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1972). The Fourth Revolution. A Report and Recommendations by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Her Majesty's Stationery Office (1972). Framework for Government Research and Development. Cmnd 5046. London: HMSO.

Her Majesty's Stationery Office (1976). Sixth Report for the Committee o f Public Accounts. Session 1975-6. London: HMSO.

Hooper, R. (1975). Two Years On - The National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning. Report of the Director. London: Council for Educational Tech- nology.

Hooper, R. (1977). The National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learn- ing. Final Report of the Director. London: Council for Educational Technology (in press).

House, E. (1974). The Politics o f Educational Innovation. Berkeley, G. McCutchan Publishing Corporation.

McLaren, P. (1969). "Planning and Managing the R & D Programme," in Annett, J. and Duke, J., eds., Proceedings o f a seminar on computer based learning systems, pp. 82-88. London: National Council for Educational Technology.

Schwab, J. J. (1969). "The practical: a language for curriculum," quoted in Jenkins, D. and Shipman, M. D. (1976) Curriculum: an Introduction. London: Open Books.

UNCAL (1975). The Programme at Two. An UNCAL evaluation report on the National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning. University of East Anglia: Centre for Applied Research in Education.