Why would schools consider partnering with a vendor to operate a pilot? Why not just wait until the final product is released? For starters, pilots provide schools with a golden opportunity to get an early look at the software, take it for a test flight, and ask for changes tailored to their operating environment and business needs. In some cases,…

With their budgets under increasing pressure, many campus IT directors are considering open source projects for the first time. On the face of it, the savings can be significant. Commercial emergency-planning software can cost upward of six figures, for example, whereas the open source Kuali Ready might run as little as $15,000 per year when…

Despite huge growth in hospital technology systems, there remains a dearth of literature examining health care administrator's perceptions of the efficacy of interoperable EHR systems. A qualitative research methodology was used in this multiple-case study to investigate the application of diffusion of innovations theory and the technology…

Background: Hospital adoption of health information technology (HIT) systems is promoted as essential to decreasing medical error and their associated 44,000 annual deaths and $17 billion in healthcare costs (Institute of Medicine, 2001; Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 1999). Leading national healthcare groups, such as the Institute of Medicine,…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provides several funding opportunities that can assist states in designing, developing, and implementing statewide education longitudinal data systems. These new and enhanced information systems will enable states to track student progress within and across the secondary and postsecondary education…

The MetaFrame system migration project at WorldPharma, while driven by merger and acquisition, had faced complexities caused by both technical challenges and organizational issues in the climate of uncertainties. However, WorldPharma still insisted on instigating this post-merger system migration project. This project served to (1) consolidate the…

Data management challenges at the Pennsylvania State University are discussed, including providing user access to data, developing a classification system for data elements, eliminating the manual process for creating tailored user views, and developing data dictionary user enhancements. Solutions are provided to give insight into problem solving.…

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…

To provide better access to information, the University of Arizona information technology center has designed a data warehouse accessible from the desktop computer. A team approach has proved successful in introducing and demonstrating a prototype to the campus community. (Author/MSE)

This statement of Cornelia M. Blanchette to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Reources discusses Department of Education information management systems that support the financial aid programs authorized by Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. These programs help the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), the…