Data has played an important role in England's recent school improvement journey. The evolution of the approach has not been perfect but the National Pupil Database has become a vital tool for health checking the education system, driving accountability, directing education policymaking, and tracking the educational attainment of key vulnerable…

This report examines a Massachusetts pilot program for quarterly benchmark exams in middle-school mathematics, finding that program schools do not show greater gains in student achievement after a year. But that finding might reflect limited data rather than ineffective benchmark assessments. Benchmark assessments are used in many districts…

This report describes recent efforts to modify, test, and evaluate an experimental online database consisting of 15 vendor-supplied, controlled subject vocabularies or thesauri. The experimental database, called the Vocabulary Switching System (VSS), is designed to enhance search strategies and ultimately retrieval performance for users of online…

The characteristics of paper or microform library materials, electronic publications, and online databases are compared in terms of equipment needs, cost effectiveness, budgeting, and satisfaction of users' needs. Suggestions for the effective integration of these materials are offered. (13 references) (CLB)

This series of ten articles exploring users' reactions to optical data disk technologies, focuses on comparisons with online retrieval systems. The opinions of users and vendors on cost effectiveness, searchability, equipment requirements and performance, effectiveness, and efficiency are presented and discussed. (CLB)

Reviews arguments for and against fees for online services and describes a supply side model in which the library absorbs the costs of online searching. The implementation of this policy at an academic library is evaluated and detailed guidelines for implementing such a policy are provided. (CLB)