There are increasing demands for higher levels of data assurance in higher education. This paper explores some of the drivers for this trend, and then explains what stakeholders mean by the concept of data assurance, since this has not been well defined previously. The paper captures insights from existing literature, stakeholders, auditors, and…

Quality assurance is defined and some of the tools of the quality assurance analyst and how they are being used at the Division of Administrative Programming Services at Clemson University are described. Customer involvement and training of the data processing staff to ensure quality products are discussed. (Author/MLW)

This report presents the results of an audit by the Office of the Inspector General to determine whether the Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) provided sufficient oversight of graduation and dropout rates submitted by states in their Consolidated State Performance Reports to ensure the rates were…

An effort to enhance quality and efficiency at the University of Florida was designed to produce quick results without involving many employees and focused on the accounts payable department. Flowcharting identified inefficiencies and pinpointed opportunities for improvement in labor-intensive processes, mailings, check registers, reports,…

Includes "Learning by the Numbers" (Oliver); "Industrial Control through Electronics" (Cowen, Haynie); "Data Control with a PC" (Zoghi, Lorenzo); "Portfolio Assessment" (Wolansky); and "Quality in the Classroom: Evaluating Individuals in Group Projects" (McCrea). (SK)

Initial efforts to collect data on the impact of Elementary Secondary Education Act Title I programs began in Pennsylvania in 1972. Due to the frequent turnover of local education agency (LEA) staff responsible for Title I impact reports and the fact that a study of the accuracy of reported scores revealed that some sort of errors appeared in…

Discusses the role of computer keyboard operators in typesetting complex mathematical expressions used in instructional materials, examines the role of software in producing good quality output, and describes Expressionist, software for Macintosh hardware that can be used with desktop publishing and word processing software to enter mathematical…

The New York City Public School System has mandated an Integrated Student Data System (ISDS). This integrated system will include data already maintained in independent computerized files, as well as data that have not been computerized in any systematic way. This paper explores general issues about data accuracy for a system that covers all the…

Describes the creation of an interactive retrieval system for electronic numeric files that was developed at Cornell University's (New York) Mann Library. Topics discussed include user characteristics; special data characteristics; quality control; software; hardware; data preparation; database design and construction; interface; subject indexing…

The way that the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) should conduct its quality assurance function of monitoring a processing contractor is described. For the following quality assurance procedures, information is provided on the goal of the procedure, activities to be measured, measures, and the role of…

A framework for monitoring quality control (QC) of processor contracts administered by the Department of Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) is presented and applied to the Pell Grant program. Guidelines for establishing QC measures and standards are included, and the uses of a sampling procedure in the QC system are…

The issues, options, and procedures for annually measuring overall payment error in the Pell Grant program are specified in detail. Guidelines for establishing a definition of Pell Grant payment error are provided, and the design issues related to error measurement are examined. A comparison is made of options for selecting a study sample and for…