The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul, produces 250,000 transcripts a year with five microfiche reader printers. (Author/MLF)

A computer program that utilizes an optical scanning machine is used for ordering supplies in a Louisiana school system. The program provides savings in time and labor, more accurate data, and easy-to-use reports. (Author/MLF)

Investment in efficient, high-speed machines is a step toward greater productivity in school maintenance. (Author/MLF)

Describes the array of contractual features between the project owner and the main contractor that can lead individually or in permutations to expediting the construction process and reducing the financial risks and expenditures of the project owner. (MLF)

Shares some insights into the school purchasing process. (MLF)

Critiques Michael Staten and John Umbeck's article ("Journal of Economic Education," Winter 1989) on the concept of inefficiency in applied economic analysis. Suggests the Staten-Umbeck article is useful in forcing a precise analysis of the exercise of welfare economics. Concludes that the term efficient is semantic and provides an…

Suggests ways for superintendents to assess instructional photocopying needs and costs and adopt workable, cost-effective procedures and guidelines. Evaluators of copy content need to consider teaching objectives, appropriateness, conceptual enrichment, alternative approaches, style, grammar, public relations effects, and possible copyright…

One way colleges can approach cost control is by taking advantages of cooperative purchasing activities with other, similar institutions. Guiding principles for effective efforts include sharing the risk, sharing the resources, providing services to other institutions, and expanding institutional bargaining power through cooperation. Significant…

School districts can reduce payrolls and be more efficient by installing work simplification programs. (Author/MLF)

The basic profit assumption that requires accountability for manpower can be applied to a school or university maintenance program. (Author/MLF)

Discusses linear demand functions and constant marginal costs related to a monopoly in a market economy. Illustrates the demand function by using a curve. Includes an appendix with two figures and accompanying mathematical formulae illustrating the concepts presented in the article. (CFR)

Possible changes in U.S. Postal Service rates and services, resulting from a planned restructuring, are discussed. College administrators are encouraged to review mail class use, available discounts, and even the design and quantity of materials mailed out. (MSE)

Increasingly, higher education institutions are using Total Quality Management (TQM) as a vehicle for delivering cost-effective programs and services. The TQM philosophy is that quality can be improved by ceaselessly improving the processes that support the institution's mission. TQM is applicable to institutional research and planning as well as…

Streamlining involves the modification of cost-analysis methods to make them more appropriate for the limited time and resources, and immediate information needs, of local-level program evaluations. It can also enhance the reliability and validity of district-level studies. A review of existing texts of cost analysis and of studies of traditional…

Computers, though they can help educational institutions manage their facilities efficiently, are no substitute for good judgment. Before computerizing, institutions should systematize their records and evaluate their information needs; they should take care not to acquire unnecessary systems or become over-reliant on computers. (MCG)