Key Initiatives

Please consider applying for this important position:

Call for General Editorship of Adult Education Reference Work

The American Association of Adult Continuing Education (AAACE) has been asked to partner with Wiley-Blackwell Publishers in the creation of a multi-volume, hybrid print and online, comprehensive reference work on the field of adult education. In the online version, all entries will contain hyperlinks to relevant book and/or journal content and websites at both AAACE and Wiley-Blackwell. The intent is to create an authoritative gateway for adult educators, educational researchers, and policy makers interested in learning more about adult education. The American Association of Adult Continuing Education’s Board of Directors supports the project as a research tool and way of raising awareness of the importance of our field.

We seek a senior scholar to direct the project as General Editor. However, we are also open to other organizational designs in the editing/managing this reference work (e.g., Co-general Editors; Editorial Team) who would all share the responsibilities and benefits of this project. This would entail: determining the scope and organization of the work (for instance, determining if the entries should be thematic or chronological, and choosing a useful, engaging mix of accessible overviews of important issues, debates, trends, and luminaries in the field, based on primary and secondary sources and case studies), soliciting scholars to write entries, assembling a team of Associate Editors to help manage the work, and creating and adhering to a schedule of completion for the project. Wiley hopes to publish the volume within three to four years of our signing an agreement.

The General Editor (or Editorial Group) would be compensated with an advance, a share of the royalties, and unlimited free online access. AAACE would also receive a share of the royalties.

For examples of other reference works in the Wiley-Blackwell catalog see the International Encyclopedia of Communication (www.communicationencyclopedia.com) and Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (www.sociologyencyclopedia.com). Note that these encyclopedias are larger than what is expected from an AAACE reference work. If you would like more expanded access, please contact Amy Rose at the email below.

If you are interested in being considered, please submit a CV and a letter of intent that outlines your vision for the project, including preliminary thoughts on how this work will complement and extend AAACE’s current publications (http://www.aaace.org); in particular please address the ways this would be distinguished from the current Handbook series that AAACE publishes every ten years; how you might organize the work; and finally an estimate of when you might be able to begin and complete it. General Editors must be members of AAACE. Please send a letter of intent to submit a proposal by January 1, 2015 to AAACE Publications Chair, Amy D. Rose at[email protected] . Full applications will be due to her by March 1, 2015. The Wiley editor has given us some general organizational suggestions for the volume, which we would be happy to send to anyone interested in taking on this important project.

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is a household study that has been developed through OECD. In the United States, the study was conducted in 2011-2012 with a nationally representative sample of 5,000 adults between the ages of 16 and 65. The goal of PIAAC is to assess and compare the basic skills and the broad range of competencies of adults around the world. The assessment focuses on cognitive and workplace skills needed for successful participation in 21st-century society and the global economy. Specifically, PIAAC measures relationships between individuals' educational background, workplace experiences and skills, occupational attainment, use of information and communications technology, and cognitive skills in the areas of literacy, numeracy, and problem solving.

PIAAC Gateway is a clearinghouse of news and analyses of PIAAC: http://piaacgateway.com/

Researchers interested in PIAAC data are also encouraged to sign up for the PIAAC Researcher Wiki at: https://piaac.squarespace.com/researchers/

Improving the Lives of Adults and Families: Identifying Individual and Systems-level Factors Relating Education, Health, Civic Engagement, and Economic Well-being

The title is intended to convey a critical goal for the research, practice, and policy community. Enhancing the research evidence base for both practice and policy constitutes a key component of any such effort. We are pleased to announce a new PLOS Collection, which is part of a much broader step in this direction.
In partnership, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child and Human Development (NICHD) and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)) and the U.S. Department of Education (Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE)) are encouraging new analyses and thinking with the long-term goal of increasing overall education levels and promoting public health for adults and their families particularly for those most at-risk for poor educational, economic and health outcomes. The PLOS Collection, or virtual journal special issue, capitalizes on the recently released Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development ‘s (OECD) cross-national, population representative data set measuring adult competencies in literacy, mathematics, and problem solving. By encouraging analyses of this dataset, in concert with complementary data at the local, state, regional, or national level, we hope to hone in on issues of core interest to the U.S. and international adult education community by examining the intersection of adult competencies, health, educational attainment, civic engagement, and economic well-being.
This collaboration between agencies reflects a shared commitment to increasing the evidence base for the work that these agencies perform and to making that evidence freely available for all.
Detailed information about the call for papers is available at PLOS Collections website:

http://blogs.plos.org/blog/2014/07/28/relationships-education-health-skills-improving-lives-adults-families-call-papers-new-plos-collection/