The use of robust research findings in public health policy has been strongly encouraged for bridging the evidence-policy gap. To assess and further promote evidence uptake, understanding how research evidence is being used by decision makers is very important. This systematic review examined primary studies exploring the use of research evidence…

Universities, across the globe, are increasingly judged on social and economic impact. An important initiative in the UK is the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, which assessed the wider impact of university research. The Impact Case Studies, produced for REF 2014, provide a rich new source of information to explore the wider impact of…

Location-based social networks (LBSNs) have recently attracted the interest of millions of users who can now not only connect and interact with their friends--as it also happens in traditional online social networks--but can also voluntarily share their whereabouts in real time. A location database is the backbone of a location-based social…

Discusses the making of a satisfactory national policy on the collection and dissemination of information on persons, noting that random facts about an individual when aggregated and interrelated with other facts, form a composite "data profile" from which one can draw conclusions and make decisions: an incomplete or improperly balanced profile…

Discussion of the planned transformation of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) from a printer to a multimedia disseminator of information products and services considers the need for a governmentwide publishing policy; the underlying principles that define the GPO's role; and strategies for providing access to online data. (six references)…

Discusses national information policy changes that are hoped to occur in the Clinton administration. Topics addressed include the Reagan/Bush legacy of privatization; public access to electronic databases; citizen involvement through information technologies such as computer networks; pricing for government information products and services;…

Analyzes the utility of policy principles advanced by professional associations for public access to government information. The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS), the Information Industry Association (IIA), and the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) urge the adoption of principles for the dissemination of public…

This research analyzes similarities and differences in how students with disabilities are identified in national databases, through examination of 19 national data collection programs in the U.S. Departments of Education, Commerce, Justice, and Health and Human Services, as well as databases from the National Science Foundation. The study found…

The conflict between immediacy and accuracy in data-gathering and analysis is discussed. The case of the Postsecondary Transcript Sample (PETS) of the National Longitudinal Study is used to illustrate the particulars of this conflict and their resolution on the side of accuracy. (Author/MLW)

A number of problems faced by the custodians of large collections of data which are potentially useful for research in the behavioral sciences, are addressed in this presentation. These problems relate to the rights of individuals who provide research data, to questions of "informed consent", and to the circumstances under which the…

Three categories of issues relating to government policies and computerized data processing are examined. These relate to: 1) central government policies for data development; 2) parliamentary and public concern with the social consequences of computerized data processing; and 3) the international dimensions of developments in data processing.…

This two-part paper attempts to establish the facts about, and to debate the merits of, using individual earnings information collected quarterly by states from employers as a source for vocational education performance assessment. The first part of the paper explores three topics: (1) who wants to know about the earnings of vocational education…

Argues that shifts in government policies can produce unintended consequences for needy students and the institutions they attend, and illustrates how campus units can cooperate to examine the impact of these changes through creation of longitudinal databases and data warehousing techniques. Describes the approach used and results of a study at…

The movement toward integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods within the same study has been most evident in social policy research. Four major approaches to integrating can be identified in recent studies. The sequential, the parallel, and the fused models have been rather widely used. The interactive model, developed during…

Six support systems for black higher education that are needed to achieve educational equity for black Americans are assessed, and recommendations for national program objectives are offered. The six support systems are: federal policy toward black colleges, a research base, a human resource system support, dealing with socioeconomic and…