"Learner-centric."
That's the basic premise upon which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has built its new Acquisition Academy, whose mission is to train VA's acquisition workforce. The Academy was created to address the growing acquisition workforce challenge facing the VA and the federal government overall.

Senator Asks FTC Intervention
U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to provide guidelines for social networking sites...

GSA Gets New Chief of Staff
Michael Robertson is the new chief of staff at the General Services Administration...

Deals

Virtual H.S. Chooses Desire2Learn
The Virtual High School Global Consortium (VHS), a pioneer of online learning for high school students and course design for teachers, is deploying the Desire2Learn...

BU, Pyxis Collaborate
Boston University (BU) School of Management is putting the power of learning into the hands of its students...

Water Customers Being Served
Rancho California Water District (RCWD) has successfully completed the district-wide deployment of a multi-suite enterprise software system from Lawson Software...

TOOLS: Simulator Training That's Less Expensive
BBN's Damage Control Trainer (DCT) offers trainees an engaging first-person perspective and a supportive, instructionally rich environment...

WEB 2.0: Platform, Whitepaper Aid Collaboration
The Gilfus Education Group, a Washington, D.C.-based education consulting firm, has released a whitepaper ("Intelligence Emerges from the Enterprise Education Platform")...

TOOLS: Mobile Learning Solution Works on Smart Phones
Nomad is Hybrid Learning Systems' mobile application for iPhone/iPod Touch and Blackberry devices...

Your New Government Elearning! E-zine Has Arrived

Based on data from a recent Mercatus Center working paper, federal agencies that give out a lot of block and formula grants or have a heavy research-and-development focus seem less likely to have or use certain types of performance information.

Assisting these agencies should be a high priority for the Office of Management and Budget. Congressional oversight and appropriations committees might also prompt progress by insisting that these types of agencies show outcome and output measures and, ultimately, use those results for budgeting purposes.