The New Technology Applications Quarterly

The Quarterly Review of Distance Education is a rigorously refereed journal publishing articles, research briefs, reviews, and editorials dealing with the theories, research, and practices of distance education. The Quarterly Review publishes articles that utilize various methodologies that permit generalizable results which help guide the practice of the field of distance education in the public and private sectors. The Quarterly Review publishes full-length manuscripts as well as research briefs, editorials, reviews of programs and scholarly works, and columns. The Quarterly Review defines distance education as institutionally-based formal education in which the learning group is separated and interactive technologies are used to unite the learning group.

This pathbreaking book argues that the roots of the degradation of labor, education, and the environment lie not in technology per se but in the cultural values embodied in its design.

The surge in technological transformation affects all business model phases over many industries. Emerging technologies provide new avenues for industries to increase their competitive advantage and enhance economic progression. Blockchain technology’s ability to build an open and trustworthy network model seems to promote shared IT-based networks in banking, insurance, and other similar industries. The adoption of blockchain in the banking and insurance industry is developing rapidly. Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities of Blockchain Technology in Banking and Insurance explores how blockchain technologies optimize and integrate the transactions and operations in association with access to information and reduction in communication costs and negligible data transfer errors. It includes studies on various banking and insurance industries intending to use blockchain technology to make transactions convenient, simple, and safe. Covering topics such as cryptocurrency, digital transformation, and small and medium-sized enterprises, this premier reference source is an essential resource for policymakers, government officials, students and educators of higher education, libraries, banking managers, insurance professionals, researchers, and academicians.

More than half of the 116 research parks now operating in the United States were established during the 1980s, with the aim of boosting regional economic growth. But until now no one has systematically analyzed whether research parks do in fact generate new businesses and jobs. Using their own surveys of all existing parks and case studies of three of the most successful--Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Stanford Research Park in California, and the University of Utah Research Park--Michael Luger and Harvey Goldstein examine the economic impact of such facilities. As the name suggests, a research park is typically meant to provide a spacious setting where basic and applied technological research can be quietly pursued. Because of the experience of a few older and prominent research parks, new parks are expected to generate economic growth for their regions. New or old, most parks have close ties to universities, which join in such ventures to enhance their capabilities as centers of research, provide outlets for entrepreneurial faculty members, and increase job opportunities for graduate students. Too often, the authors say, the vision of "incubating" economic growth in a gardenlike preserve of research and development has failed because of poor planning, lack of firm leadership, and bad luck. Although the longest-lasting parks have met their original goals, the newer ones have enjoyed at best only slight success. Luger and Goldstein conclude that the older facilities have captured much of the market for concentrations of research and development firms, and they discuss alternative strategies that could achieve some of the same goals as research parks, but in a less costly way. Many of these alternatives continue to include a role for universities, and Luger and Goldstein shed fresh light on the linkage between higher education and the use of knowledge for profit.