Members of the Data Science Program at George Washington University (GWU) designed and implemented a tuition-free two-week summer camp at GWU for high-school students from the Washington Metro Area. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of the Chief Information Officer and his staff were our main partners in the project. The…

Higher education insiders trumpet the use of results for improvement as the most important part of the assessment cycle. Yet, at the same time, we acknowledge the rarity of improvement, especially at a program level. What are some reasons the most important phase of assessment occurs so infrequently? To seek answers, we investigated the "Use…

Since 2010, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has periodically administered the "Strong Foundations" survey, which documents the content, structure, and effective use of state postsecondary student unit record systems (PSURSs). This report highlights the results of the fourth administration of the survey,…

The use of evaluation information in a large state agency was investigated through a case study approach. Utilization was measured through a scaling procedure considering the status of recommendations within a report and the extent of influence of the evaluation of the status. The scaling procedure, the equal-appearing interval method, used…

In spring 1985, the Office of Student Outreach at William Rainey Harper College (WRHC) in Illinois initiated a study to determine the effectiveness of their responses to telephone and mail inquiries for information about the college. A survey was mailed to a sample of 420 inquirers, asking about their information needs, their evaluation and use of…

This report describes a four-day institute funded by the U.S. Office of Education to increase the utilization of government publications by extending the knowledge of academic reference librarians about them. Librarians from 25 universities attended the institute. Discussion of the use of government publications was divided into three broad…

This study reports findings from a survey of U.S. and Canadian medical libraries belonging to the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors (AAHSLD). Conducted in the spring of 1990 and funded by AAHSLD, the survey had the two primary purposes of assessing the use of the AAHSLD "Annual Statistics" in providing data for decision…

In 1981, when Chapter 1 replaced Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I and with the advent of the effective schools movement, the Hawaii state administrators of Chapter 1 made a long term commitment to program improvement, especially in the area of instruction and quality delivery of services to the target students. In this program…

The Local District Assessment Option (piggyback program) is an integral part of the Minnesota Statewide Educational Assessment Program, which provides the 162 participating local school districts with materials and procedures developed for the statewide program. Materials are available in reading, mathematics, social studies, and science for…

This handbook on locally directed evaluation (LDE) is designed as a practical guide for vocational and other school administrators to use in initiating or improving evaluation activities carried out at the local level. It is divided into seven sections. Each section includes an evaluation instrument, the purpose of the evaluation activity, and…