The costs to colleges and universities of establishing a data-sharing exchange are examined, and it is argued that in most cases, the financial costs are minimal when compared to the potential opportunity cost of making decisions without access to good comparative information. (Author/MSE)

Before joining a data-sharing consortium, colleges and universities must address issues regarding goals and expectations, including why comparative data are needed, information types needed, needed comparisons, selection of institutions for comparison, data accessibility, time requirements, costs, and need for technical expertise. (MSE)

The International Program for Agricultural Knowledge Systems (INTERPAKS) research team is developing a descriptive and analytic framework to examine and assess agricultural technology systems. The first part of the framework is an inductive methodology that organizes data collection and orders data for comparison between countries. It requires and…