Data-mining systems provide a variety of opportunities for school district personnel to streamline operations and focus on student achievement. This article describes the value of data mining for school personnel, finance departments, teacher evaluations, and in the classroom. It suggests that much could be learned about district practices if one…

Thanks to intelligent solutions, schools, colleges, and universities no longer need to manage user account life cycles by using scripts or tedious manual procedures. The solutions house the scripts and manual procedures. Accounts can be automatically created, modified, or deleted in all applications within the school. This article describes how an…

The everyday operations of a school district depend on a network of people, including students, teachers, staff, and administrators. However, the ancillary services staff are really responsible for making the school day run smoothly. They are often the first employees that students see in the morning, either on the school bus or in the cafeteria,…

Paying for employee turnover costs, data storage, and multiple layers of benefits can be difficult for fiscally constrained institutions, especially as budget cuts and finance-limiting legislation abound in school districts across the country. Many traditional paper-based systems have been replaced with automated, software-based services, helping…

Spotsylvania County Public Schools (SCPS) in Virginia uses a document-imaging solution that leverages the features of a multifunction printer (MFP). An MFP is a printer, scanner, fax machine, and copier all rolled into one. It can scan a document and email it all in one easy step. Software is available that allows the MFP to scan bubble sheets and…

In the late 1600s, British physicist Sir Isaac Newton first demonstrated refraction and dispersion in a triangular prism. He discovered that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum. Hold a prism up to the light at the correct angle and white light magically splits into vivid colors of the rainbow! So what do prisms and rainbows have to…

The University of Pittsburgh has a 2-year agreement designating the Xerox Corporation as the primary supplier of word processing and related office automation equipment in order to increase productivity and more efficient use of campus resources. (MLF)

Describes school financial election campaign strategy using a random survey of registered voters, concentric targeting of likely "yes" voters, and an integrated database. (PKP)

Describes the implementation of a FOCUS, a fourth-generation language (4GL) database management system for the St. Louis (Missouri) Public Schools, that allows for the analysis of individual department or school files and the districtwide file. (MLF)

Developed by the Sperry Corporation, MAPPER is an interactive report processing system that uses simple English-language commands. The system is used by departments at the State University of New York at Albany to access institutional data. (MLF)

Describes the benefits and how to set up a georeferenced information system that contains standard student demographic data, the geographical location of each student, selected geographic location descriptors, growth factors attached to various land sections, and land usage and zoning. (MLF)

Describes role of school business officials in complying with No Child Left Behind Act's mandated use of school and student data. Includes data mining for educators and information technology solutions. (PKP)

Describes a Minnesota school district's approach to managing a day care program, highlighting the integrated database management system used to automate the billing process and to provide complete data concerning the program and its enrollees, constituents, and services. Presents several guiding principles for designing a system matched to program…

Focuses on the major issues faced by a school district throughout the implementation of a financial management information system. Describes how commercially available software was tailored to the specific needs of a Virginia school district. (MLF)

Describes a program for enrollment projections in sufficient detail to communicate the output generated and techniques utilized. Interspersed with the text are 14 tables. (MLF)