With the increasing complexity of technology and large quantities of data in our digital age, learning and training has become a major cost of employers. Employee competence depends more and more on how quickly one can acquire new knowledge and solve problems to meet pressing deadlines. This paper presents a practical method to use REU (Research…

The collection and analysis of weather data is crucial to the location of alternate energy systems like solar and wind. This article presents a design challenge that gives students a chance to design a weather station to collect data in advance of a large wind turbine installation. Data analysis is a crucial part of any science or engineering…

Faced with the need to create a competitive workforce and improve the quality of our education system, states are pursuing policy agendas to better prepare students for postsecondary education and careers. To inform these agendas, statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) have become an invaluable asset and serve as a tool to help states answer…

At Aalborg University (AAU) we are known to work with problem-based learning (PBL) in a particular way designated "The Aalborg PBL model." In PBL the focus is on participant control, knowledge sharing, collaboration among participants, which makes it interesting to consider the integration of social media in the learning that takes…

This paper describes the use of the CoFIND (Collaborative Filter in N Dimensions) system to evaluate two assessment styles. CoFIND is a resource database which organizes itself around its users' needs. Learners enter resources, categorize, then rate them using "qualities," aspects of resources which learners find worthwhile, the n dimensions of…

This report describes the efforts of the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) during the last several years to respond to direct requests from educational stakeholders to help integrate data into their decision-making processes related to school improvement. In some cases, NCREL cooperated in the development of educational…

This report describes the joint efforts of the Evaluation of Teaching program of the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education and the Office of Research and Evaluation of the Austin Independent School District to develop a competency based teacher evaluation system. The task assigned was to produce a system that reduced the vagueness…

The exchange of comparable data among peer institutions is discussed as an effective means of providing institutional research data and promoting interinstitutional communication and cooperation. Principles and procedures that will lead to faster, smoother, and less expensive data exchange are explained. The Southern University Teaching Load Data…

Software design is still a craft; techniques are based on the way things have been done, not on basic theorems or design principles. Suggests that academic software design needs to be more like a science or technology and that a taxonomy of design solutions or classification method is required. Describes two case studies. (MLW)

Development of a basic information system for vocational education through Project EDNEED (Empirical Determination of Nationally Essential Educational Data) is summarized in this first volume of a five-volume final report. Objectives of the project were to (1) determine the extent to which selected data questions represent the vocational education…

Reports of four Project EDNEED (Empirical Determination of Nationally Essential Educational Data) conferences are contained in this fourth volume of a five-volume final report: The national conference, state directors' mini-conference, mini-conference for local employer representatives, and the local administrators' conference. The purposes of the…

This paper presents a World Wide Web-based electronic feedback system for use in lectures and practical classes. The system is based on Java and provides a configurable feedback form, a managing tool for administrators, and a statistics viewer for presenting the generated statistical data in various ways. In addition, it generates a statistical…

This report of recommendations describes in detail the system for determining communication/language objectives (C/LOBS) within an instructional systems development (ISD) framework. C/LOBS was developed to support the front-end analysis efforts of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center and functions as a subsystem of the ISD…

This executive summary describes the communication/language objectives-based system (C/LOBS) developed to support the front-end analysis efforts of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. The C/LOBS functions as a subsystem of the instructional systems development (ISD) approach currently in use in the TRADOC school system. The…

The project was designed to develop a data interface system which would (1) improve the quality of vocational data, (2) provide vocational data in a more timely manner, (3) provide meaningful analyses of data (particularly in the worker demand-supply area), and (4) provide the capability of interacting different data bases. Procedures were…