Representative FY 2002 agency activities
NSF: IT tools and applications in education and training, including
approaches to increasing IT literacy; research on barriers to IT careers
for women and minorities; and multidisciplinary research opportunities
for students
NIH: Expanded opportunities for IT training, especially in bioinformatics;
individual and program grants for advanced IT R&D training for
health professionals
NASA: Use Internet for training and development of engineers and scientists
in IT security and collaborative engineering
DOE Office of Science: Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Program,
a nationwide competitive program to train the next generation of leaders
in computational science for DOE and the Nation
NIST: Summer undergraduate research fellowships, in cooperation with
NSF; postdoctoral fellows and university guest researchers |
Employers in every sector as well as a variety of studies
identify the persistent shortage of skilled IT workers as the single
greatest threat to U.S. competitiveness over the next 10 years. "Building
a Workforce for the Information Economy," a new report by the
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research
Council, concludes that the tight IT labor market will continue for
the foreseeable future and that there is no single solution to the
problem. "Coping with a tight labor market," the report
states, "requires the best efforts of all stakeholders: employers,
employees, educational institutions, and government at all levels."
In FY 2002, the NITRD agencies will sponsor research on issues in
IT literacy and IT workforce development, including a focus on barriers
and impediments to IT careers among women, minorities, and other underrepresented
groups. The agencies also support efforts to develop innovative IT
applications for work-related learning and broader access to IT by
expanding the high-performance infrastructure to encompass underrepresented
educational communities and students.
As researchers representing many different disciplines, NITRD participants
know firsthand that the shortage of IT researchers is already jeopardizing
their ability to carry out the research program that is crucial for
the Nation's future. To address this problem, the Federal research
community should strive to double the number of new IT researchers
over the next five years and increase the support levels for existing
faculty.
Current NITRD research also addresses fundamental questions about
the efficacy of IT in education, examining theories and models of
learning and developing high-quality IT applications for learning
environments.
- New knowledge about cognitive development and about group
and individual learning in varied settings
- More substantial empirical data on the effects of IT systems
in education and training environments
- Software for self-instruction and collaborative learning
- Integration of information technologies in learning environments
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