The purpose of this study was to analyze the effectiveness and use of a free educational resource, the ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY NEWSLETTER. Four issues ranging in dates from Fall 1973 to Fall 1976 were selected for review. Data were gathered from elementary school teachers over a three year period of time. The analysis indicated teachers were using…

Information needs and research systems of scientists in various disciplines. (LS)

The Federal Government creates and disseminates large accounts of technical information in various forms, i.e., handbooks, manuals, guides, texts, brochures and periodicals. Much of this information is of value to the vocational-technical secondary school teacher for updating lessons and giving information which keeps pace with occupational…

Approval and use of the 15 issues of the Review of Educational Research which appeared from June, 1965 to June, 1968 were determined for each issue separately and for all the issues as a set. The survey respondents, all members of the American Educational Research Association, were teachers, administrators, consultants, and researchers. Half had…

With the increase in institutional research activity and the number of reports resulting therefrom, there is a growing need for better assessments of the impact of such reports. This paper proposes a framework for analysis of institutional research report impact. The three major dimensions identified are: (1) time (short-term, intermediate, and…

One hundred seventeen administrators, users of both batch process and online computer systems at a major university, responded to a questionnaire designed to discover attitudes toward the quality of the system and services, the users' evaluation of the service, and the relationship of these attitudes with voluntary use of the system. These…

This paper discusses underlying assumptions of user studies and approaches to information systems design, and reviews key issues in the design of information systems in three major areas: (1) factors affecting information seeking and use; (2) formal and informal channels of information transfer; and (3) discipline oriented transfer patterns.…

To obtain user evaluations of the information analysis products (IAPs) produced by the Educational Resources Information Center Clearinghouse on Tests, Measurement, and Evaluation (ERIC/TM), subjects were randomly drawn from a 1976 list of the clearinghouse's IAP orders. The sample was stratified by the title requested and the following…

This review takes a critical approach in summarizing and evaluating the methodology and scope of catalog use studies, with emphasis on the subject approach to card catalog searching. Subject access is defined in this report; however, the process of subject searching, described repeatedly in library literature, has been based upon common sense…

A summary of a two-day conference held in September, 1973 is presented. The meeting was convened by the Planning and Policy Analysis Unit of the National Institute of Education (NIE); its purpose was to bring NIE staff together with developers, publishers, attorneys, and educators to develop input for a position paper on dissemination and…

The research in this report presents and analyzes data on the extent of use of nine new secondary social studies curriculum materials in four states. These include: American Political Behavior, Asian Studies Inquiry Series, Episodes in Social Inquiry, Geography in an Urban Age, Holt Social Studies Curriculum, Justice in Urban America, Patterns in…

This report presents the results of a survey of Digital Library Federation members that examined the kinds of assessments they were conducting, what they did with the results, and what worked well or not so well. The first section of the report is an introduction that describes the report structure and summarizes challenges in assessment. The…

User training experiences in Asian countries, using the UNISIST guidelines for training users of scientific and technical information, are reported through summaries of discussions following the presentation of papers, as well as the texts of the papers. Participants, including users, user trainers, and information handlers, heard these papers:…

This general exposition of information consolidation and primer on information consolidation processes defines information consolidation; discusses the concept's evolution; summarizes its objectives, audiences, value, and benefits; discusses information consolidation processes including selection, evaluation, analysis, synthesis, restructuring,…

The basic objective of this study was to examine, apparently for the first time in communications research, the impact on professional communication of an annual review publication. A sample of users and non-users of Volume 1 of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology was identified, and questionnaires were sent to nearly 3,000 of…