The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association's (SHEEO) "Communities of Practice" project builds upon SHEEO's ongoing efforts to measure the capacity and effective use of state postsecondary data systems and provides states with opportunities to develop solutions to common issues with those systems. The sixth Community of…

Electronic health records (EHRs) have been in use since the 1960s. U.S. rural hospital leaders and administrators face significant pressure to implement health information technology because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. However, some leaders and managers of small rural hospital lack strategies to develop and implement…

States invest heavily in education, providing funding either directly or in the form of financial aid from preschool through college, with positive outcomes from those impacting nearly every other area of public policy, particularly the workforce. To understand and assess results, states collect and analyze information about these investments at…

The blended model for information literacy instruction described in this article introduces students not only to efficient techniques for finding scientific literature and properties of chemical compounds, but also to managing this information with a bibliographic management program (EndNote Online). The model blends face-to-face instruction with…

Housing choice vouchers provide low-income households with additional income to spend on rental housing in the private market. The assistance vouchers provide is substantial, offering the potential to dramatically expand the neighborhood--and associated public schools--that low-income households can reach. However, existing research on the program…

This study investigates whether information saved in the log files of a computer-based tutor can be used to predict the problem solving performance of students. The log files of a computer-based physics tutoring environment called Andes Physics Tutor was analyzed to build a logistic regression model that predicted success and failure of students'…

This section shares recent dissertations and theses with the "Journal of International Students" readers. There were about 139 graduate dissertations and theses related to the issues and challenges of international students in 2016. The complete versions of these selected dissertations are available in the ProQuest, Michigan-based…

Dual enrollment programs offer high school students the chance to enroll in college courses and earn transferable college credit while they are still pursuing a high school diploma. Research shows that dual enrollment participants are more likely to enroll and persist in college, earn higher GPAs during college, and accumulate more college credit.…

Maryland's College and Career Act of 2013 recognized the potential of dual enrollment and called for the expansion of it in the state. According to a December 2016 report to the Maryland General Assembly, however, only 2% of Baltimore City public 12th grade students participated in dual enrollment opportunities in 2015 as compared with a state…

Over the past decade, research on dropout prevention has become focused on using evidence-based practice, and data-driven decisions, to mitigate students' dropping out of high school and instead, support and prepare students for career and college. Early warning systems or on-track indicators, in which readily available student-level data are used…

Social work is an applied profession using a combination of theory, research, and practice to meet the needs of client populations. First-hand experiential learning is central to social work education. Just as students learn clinical skills by interacting with clients in a practice setting, students need a forum to use real data to develop their…

Despite increasing accountability requirements and a national call for transparency in public policy, Mid-Atlantic Region state education agencies indicate that they have little information about what instructional materials districts adopt. This report describes first-year results of an ongoing project to generate and share information on core…

Mathematics proficiency of English language learners (ELLs) on the Maryland School Assessments (MSA) for mathematics continues to lag behind the proficiency level of students who are proficient English speakers. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a statistically significant relationship between English language learner's…

Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) has made great strides in its effort to lower the number of high school dropouts and to encourage prior dropouts to return and graduate by providing a broad set of options for students with a diverse set of needs and academic histories. At the same time, City Schools has initiated an effort to foster a…

Despite increasing accountability requirements and a national call for transparency in public policy, Mid-Atlantic Region state education agencies indicate that they have little information about what instructional materials districts adopt. This report describes first-year results of an ongoing project to generate and share information on core…