The National College Access Network (NCAN) and Exponent Partners have teamed up on a two-part report series aimed at helping organizations to become more data-driven. NCAN members have increasingly incorporated research, data, and evaluation into their critical work of serving low-income, first-generation students on their way to postsecondary…

Hierarchical task analysis (HTA), which requires description of a task in terms of a hierarchy of operations and plans, is reviewed and examined as a basis for making training decisions. Benefits of HTA in terms of economy of analysis and as a means of accounting for complex performance are outlined. (Author/MBR)

This network planning paper discusses creation and maintenance of authority files as one of the essential components of bibliographic control, which is a prerequisite to the access of information. Authority files impose consistency on the organization of information and thereby greatly facilitate information retrieval. In the creation of a union…

Some of the schools participating in the Southwest Regional Laboratory's Instructional Management System (IMS) pilot test submitted input data forms to and received processed information from regional processing and data collection centers. To determine the feasibility of alternative methods of data collection and output return, evaluative data…

A computer program designed to produce summary information on the data processing volume of the Southwest Regional Laboratory's (SWRL) Instructional Management System (IMS) is described. Written in FORTRAN IV for use on an IBM 360 Model 91, the program sorts IMS input data on the basis of run identifier and on the basis of classroom identification…

Explains the need for meaningful performance measures in libraries and the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach to data collection. Five tools representing different stages of a TQM inquiry are covered (i.e., the Shewhart Cycle, flowcharts, cause-and-effect diagrams, Pareto charts, and control charts), and benchmarking is addressed. (Contains…

A college admissions system model is described that can be used to monitor applicants at each stage of the admissions process and to assist in planning and student recruitment. Examples are provided that demonstrate the model's broad applicability for the development of specialized admissions programs that can be targeted to accomplish…

Version 3 of the Southwest Regional Laboratory's (SWRL) Instructional Management System (IMS) is a fully automated system which accepts pupil criterion exercises from remote sites and returns various reports to the same location. This paper briefly describes the SWRL/IMS system design and functional characteristics. The instructional system…

A model for the assessment of funded vocational and career education projects presents a methodology for collecting data on innovative processes and materials, selecting promising practices, compiling selected innovative practices in a handbook, and dissemination of promising practices. The authors include a flow chart for the selection…