Education data are growing in quantity, quality, and value. When appropriately used to guide action, data can be a powerful tool for improving school operations, teaching, and learning. Education stakeholders who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to appropriately access, analyze, and interpret data will be able to use data to take…

This document is part of a series of guides designed to help school district leaders address one of the toughest challenges in American education: dropout rates of 30 percent nationwide, 50 percent in many big cities, and 60 percent or more in the lowest-performing schools. It includes tools for data analysts to drill down into the data and use…

Provides a method of classifying and exemplifying the types of discrepancies which are commonly found after comparisons of the content of scientific papers with their bibliographies. Lists and explains some of the major discrepancies and offers strategies for dealing with the problems. (ML)

Government and private agencies in Alberta, Canada, have voluntarily joined to establish the Alberta Disability Database, to bring statistical order out of the numerical chaos of disability data. This paper discusses the program's financing, confidentiality, definitions, access, archiving, consultation, and coordination. (JDD)

This paper discusses the role that the Office of Institutional Research and Strategic Planning played in providing data support, planning, and cohesiveness as Utah Valley Community College worked to become Utah Valley State College. The two tier model adopted at Utah Valley State College aspires to describe a cost-effective four-year college with…

The purpose of this paper is to present the multiple uses that can be derived from special education student database information and used in the evaluation of special education programs. Within the San Juan (California) Unified School District, many evaluation studies draw directly upon information which is in the computerized record system. This…

This report describes the use of a research-oriented databank on international treaties in undergraduate courses in international law. Following a discussion of the study of treaties, their magnitude, and the political significance of their magnitude, the use of treaties by lawyers and political scientists is contrasted with their value to…

Designed to evaluate the usefulness of the BIOSIS PREVIEWS database when searching the psychiatric literature, this study compared the effectiveness of this online database with the effectiveness of two other computerized databases, MEDLINE and PsycINFO (Psychological Abstracts), which psychiatric researchers and clinicians usually rely on when…

This paper describes the use of a theory-based framework, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), in evaluating the implementation of three educational innovations in the Portland (Oregon) Public Schools during 1986-87: (1) Project READ, a districtwide alternative language arts program for grades 1-8; (2) Timeline, project management software…

Discusses the importance of databases and information systems in efforts to examine the interinstitutional transfer of credits, courses, curricula, and students. Highlights the achievements of selected states and institutions in developing systems to monitor student flow and academic performance and to evaluate and enhance transfer/articulation…

The components of existing district instructional information systems are identified and illustrated by examples from field studies and descriptions of work with two districts in defining their instructional information systems and assigning costs. Instructional information systems are loosely organized methods of providing past and present…

One of the difficulties encountered by novice problem solvers in introductory physics is in the area of problem solving. It has been shown in other studies that poor problem solvers are affected by the surface aspects of the problem in contrast with more efficient problem solvers who are capable of constructing a mental model of the physical…

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…

Outlines 10 basic principles for managing intellectual property in a digital environment. Expands upon each principle and provides specific examples of how and where these principles might be applied. Briefly discusses the history of electronic documentation, recent changes, and how these impact on the world of scholarly communication. (MJP)

This article recommends that each college or university develop a management database about its human assets. A handbook has been designed to aid in the creation of such a database and includes explanation of basic concepts (faculty as individuals, the notion of human assets, and definitions of effort, workload, output, productivity); basic data…