A telephone survey conducted March 15-22, 1991, examined how small businesses are currently performing. Interviewees were 400 small business owners randomly selected from a Dun and Bradstreet list of companies with 50 or fewer employees. Major findings were as follows: (1) owners were survivors, highly confident in their own abilities, and…

Intended to establish a philosophical base for the acquisition and utilization of computers for both administrative and instructional purposes, this paper begins by briefly describing instructional applications and listing the necessary elements of a computer literacy program. Administrative applications are discussed in terms of traditional…

Papers from a media leadership conference are presented in this volume, as well as a foreword, a list of conference coordinating committee members, a message from the director of the council, and the conference agenda. Papers from the three conference general sessions are: "Status of Computer Technology in American Education" by Richard…

This report describes PROUST, a computer-based system for online analyses and understanding of PASCAL programs written by novice programmers, which takes as input a program and a non-algorithmic description of the program requirements and finds the most likely mapping between the requirements and the code. Both the theory and processing techniques…

SELECT is a system designed to streamline the process of determining proper ratings and assigning pay grades to potential Navy lateral entry accessions, i.e., the enlistment of personnel with the appropriate training and qualifications as petty officers. It uses a cross-reference index to convert civilian occupations to Navy ratings that was…

This 11-document kit introduces the current and planned uses of telecommunications facilities in the computerized information systems of several research libraries, public libraries, and library groups contacted in 1983. The first two documents are excerpts from reports on networks: "Telecommunications: An Overview for OCLC," and…

The role of institutional research in policy analysis regarding the operation of a computer model for delivery of financial aid to disadvantaged students is considered. A student financial aid model at Arizona State University is designed to develop a profile of late appliers for aid funds and also those who file inaccurate or incomplete…

The use of an electronic feedback system, the Anonymous Audience Response System (AARS), in educational decision making is described, and the results of use studies in North Carolina are discussed. The AARS insures anonymity of an individual participant's responses, and at the same time, provides immediate feedback of the group's collective…

Predictions are made based on a study of developments in computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) regarding how they will have an impact on employment, skills needed by Illinois aspirants to manufacturing employment, and the training modes that can be employed most effectively. The report first discusses economic benefits in terms of cost and time…

Intended for developers of vocational education professionals and for educators making decisions about the usefulness of personal computers in education, this report deals with the effects of the personal computing revolution on professional development of vocational educators. The two major papers and published opinion pieces that make up this…

Pierce College, a two-year school in the Los Angeles Community College District, offers a three-phase training program for computer technicians directed toward high school graduates, current high school students considering computer technology careers, and teachers of mathematics, science, and liberal arts advancing their computer science…

SCORIGHT is a very general computer program for scoring tests. It models tests that are made up of dichotomously or polytomously rated items or any kind of combination of the two through the use of a generalized item response theory (IRT) formulation. The items can be presented independently or grouped into clumps of allied items (testlets) or in…

The techniques used for teaching college economics have remained relatively unchanged over the past few decades. These techniques do not give the students an opportunity to apply, to develop, or to practice the economic theory they read about and hear in lectures. They tend to reinforce student assumptions about the subject's "givenness"…

One of nine brief guides for special educators on using computer technology, this guide focuses on the use of computers to improve skills and attitudes in writing instruction. Pre-writing tools such as group brainstorming, story webs, free-writing, journal entries, and prewriting guides help generate ideas and can be carried out either on or off…

Responding to the rapid development and often prohibitive costs of new classroom instruction technology, a group of interested faculty at Harford Community College (HCC), in Maryland, formed three Interactive Video (IV) Teams to explore the possibilities of using existing computer hardware and software at the college for interactive video…