The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education's (Department's) fiscal year (FY) 2024 "Agency Financial Report" (AFR) is to inform Congress, the President, other external stakeholders, and the American people on how the Department used the federal resources entrusted to it to advance the mission of the Department to promote student…

The Georgia Southern University admissions office implemented Total Quality Management (TQM) principles to control the quality of information management. It is suggested that, although TQM is used best on an institutionwide basis, it can also be useful in improving quality, reducing cost, increasing productivity, and achieving competitiveness on a…

Describes implementation of Responsibility Center Management in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University (Indianapolis) to achieve higher academic and research goals and what the institution as a whole has learned about the approach. Argues that this form of decentralized management is a partial antidote to the outmoded,…

An organizational development and quality enhancement effort at the University of Cincinnati (Ohio) incorporating characteristics of several popular quality management systems has produced unanticipated benefits in the administrative services and information technologies division: downsizing was less drastic than anticipated; innovative financing…

The transfer of an existing computer-based system for dental school clinical administration to another institution in another country is described. Considerable cost and time savings were effected by using an existing system rather than developing a new one. (MSE)

At Rio Salado Community College (Arizona), project documentation is the final step in the continuous improvement cycle. This stage is very important because it assists others in understanding the work the team has done and documents in detail when, where, how, and why process changes were made. (MSE)

In an effort to integrate existing data into decision-making processes, the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) began development of a comprehensive set of databases to be used in planning and administration. University strategic planning had begun in 1975 and continued with new impetus and revisions in 1984 and…

An award-winning administrator of a college computer system discusses the role of networking and teamwork in successful information management, drawing on experiences during recent political upheavals in eastern Europe for illustration. Other success factors stressed include having and sharing a dream and developing future leaders. (MSE)

The University of Alabama Career Development Program was designed as a comprehensive, university-wide effort to enhance career development of students and faculty. The operational plan included four systems: (1) Academic mainstream system, designed to assist in the development of separate programs within the colleges and departments, (2) support…

A campus information center is one way to formalize the total user services approach to computing, as a strategy for the distribution and use of new technology with an emphasis on end-user sufficiency. (MSE)

Operations tasking for data center management is discussed. The original and revised organizational structures of the data center at the University of Miami are also described. The organizational strategy addresses the functions that should be performed by the data center, anticipates the specialized skills required, and addresses personnel…

The University of Rochester's experience with online analytical processing (OLAP), part of its executive information system, is reported. The server, a multiuser, local area network (LAN)-based database loaded from legacy systems or a data warehouse, can rapidly manipulate and display data, and allows quick creation and changing of analytical…

The evolution to date of the United Kingdom's Administrative Computing Initiative for universities, a program funding development of institutional management systems for both operations and planning, is described. The program divides universities into four families, each of which has adopted a different approach to systems development. (Author/MSE)

The University of Miami (Florida) information resources department developed and instituted a program of "jump level leadership" in 1989 to open communication between all hierarchical levels. Results include free flow of ideas within the department, organizational changes, and happier, more effective employees. Successes, problems, and…

This paper describes a project in which an office of institutional research in a private research university developed a "Key Success Indices" (KSI) report that is presented each month to the president and other senior officers of the university. The KSI report collects summary data from a wide range of offices within the institution to…