Educational technology in the broadest sense is knowledgeand competence forimproving the educational process: forusing hardware (equipment), software (methods), and"underware" (underlying organizational structures).This volume in the Special Programme on Advanced EducationalTechnology presents the results of a NATO Advanced ResearchWorkshop on educational systems design as a new educationaltechnology. The objective of the workshop was toadvance ourknowledge about the comprehensive systems design approachfor improving educational systems. The workshop wasorganized for the transdisciplinary interaction of threescientific groups representing design science,organizational/systems science, and educationaltechnology.Participants were selected based on their scholarship asmembers of one or more of these three groups.The book opens with theframing papers sent by the editorsto participants prior to the workshop, then presents fivesets of thematic contributions: the conceptual and empiricalcontexts of comprehensive systems design, the systems designfocus, a systems view of designing educational systems, theeducational context of systems design, and high technologyfocus in systems design.
