This report reflects a multi-year collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the eLearn Center of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya to help inform Iberoamerican educational leaders about significant developments in technologies supporting teaching, learning, and research in tertiary education. The report was produced to…

This report reflects a collaborative research effort to help inform Brazilian educational leaders about significant developments in technologies supporting teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in primary and secondary education. In an effort that ran from August through October 2012, a carefully selected group of 30 experts considered hundreds…

Discusses technological developments causing changes in personal information systems: increase in commercial support services; proliferation of microcomputers; capability to download from secondary services into private files; and developing desire to utilize functions such as electronic mail and automated office functions. Appendices list 21…

Information is provided on the data sources and tools used in-house at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS). The objective of the guide is to serve as a central resource for the various data management and analysis activities of NCHEMS. Summaries are provided of NCHEMS information and analytic resources including…

Presents data model based on text data model (TDM), universal relation model, and nonfirst normal form (NFNF) relations, and discusses applicability to text processing and document retrieval systems. Highlights include database technology applied to information retrieval, NFNF and universal relation, and TDM integration with NFNF universal…

Overview of expert systems (intelligent computer applications that use data, a knowledge base, and a control mechanism to solve problems) highlights history of expert systems; construction (human element, knowledge acquisition and learning, system architecture); limitations; issues and trends; and implications for information science. Thirty-three…

While traditional views of literacy assume that discourse is either written or oral, an alternative perspective considers different discourse samples as part of the linguistic repertoire of the speech community. Placing this perspective in a sociolinguistic context and taking language use rather than form as the starting point for analysis, it is…

The use of Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS), a type of microcomputer application software, to analyze open-ended survey questions is discussed. Using open-ended questions allows researchers to ask respondents to express themselves freely about their attitudes and beliefs. This approach also can elicit a precise answer even though the…

Reports on study of the adoption of particular innovation, a software cataloging system, in central Ohio elementary school of approximately 500 students and 22 teachers. Discussion covers rationale for developing innovation, relationship between attributes of innovation and its adoption, use of cataloging components, consequences, recommendations,…

A broad range of well-structured problems--embracing forms of diagnosis, catalog selection, and skeletal planning--are solved in expert computer systems by the method of heuristic classification. These programs have a characteristic inference structure that systematically relates data to a pre-enumerated set of solutions by abstraction, heuristic…

Four developments have made strategic planning and information-based management necessary in higher education: changing external conditions; demands for accountability; deteriorating financial strength; and need for changes in leadership roles. Although institutional situations and needs vary, what is most important is to learn to manage with…

Design concepts and techniques for building integrated executive information systems and decision-support systems for mission-critical college applications are presented from the developer's perspective. Financial planning, student retention, and enrollment demand are offered as examples of administrative applications. Sample screens are included…

Priority given to enrollment management at the University of Hartford (Connecticut) has created demands for better information about prospective student markets, admissions selectivity, enrollments, student adjustment, retention, and graduation rates. The planning and institutional research office used fourth-generation software, microcomputers,…

Different approaches employed to automate the administrative recordkeeping processes within academic departments at three University of California campuses are contrasted: the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. The results are based on campus…

The experience of Coastal Carolina College (South Carolina) suggests that, although the small college often has the same academic reporting demands for intercollegiate athletics as a large institution, the nature of the institution creates different recordkeeping and reporting challenges. Computerization and active institutional research staff…