Proponents of educational reform often call for policies to increase competition between schools. It is argued that market forces naturally lead to greater efficiencies, including improved student learning, when schools face competition. In many parts of the country, public schools experience significant competition from private schools; however,…

In recent years, state and national policy created the need for higher accountability standards for student academic performance. This increased accountability creates an imperative to have a formative assessment system reflecting validity in inferences about the effectiveness of instruction and performance on statewide large-scale assessments.…

The purpose of the qualitative positivistic case study was to explore whether resource communication technology has helped or would help the marketing of textile products in the U.S. textile industry. The contributions of human capital in the marketing department, the marketing-demand information system function, and the product supply chain…

In the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the immediate demand for data about displaced students overwhelmed many school districts that had gained or lost students because of the disasters. The scale of these crises and their effects on school operations and management were in many ways unprecedented. This guide reflects "lessons…

The Foundations of Inquiry (FOI) course at Illinois State University was a required freshmen course designed to prepare incoming students for the requirements of their various academic programs. One of the course's goals was for students to receive instruction in information literacy (IL) skills and become accustomed to locating and retrieving…

New hardware such as mobile handheld devices and digital cameras; new online social venues such as social networking, microblogging, and online photo sharing sites; and new infrastructures such as the global positioning system are beginning to establish new practices--what the author refers to as "sociolocative"--that combine data about a physical…

Acquiring the knowledge to assemble an integrated Information System (IS) development process that is tailored to the specific needs of a project has become increasingly important. It is therefore necessary for educators to impart to students this crucial skill. However, Situational Method Engineering (SME) is an inherently complex process that…

Despite all the speeches, articles, and meetings about data-based instructional decision making, the author's observation after more than 20 years of working with middle and high school teams is that teachers and administrators often make important instructional decisions on the basis of historical precedent, anecdotal information, experience, or…

Objectives: To map food access in the city of Preston in the north-west of England in order to determine access, availability and affordability of healthy food options. Design and methodology: The research design employed a number of distinct methods including: surveys of shops; interviews with local people and shopkeepers; a cost and availability…

InterCon provides services to health insurers of foreign tourists who travel to the United States and Canada. Management wants to implement a new information system that will deal with several operational problems, but it is having difficulty securing the capital resources to fund the system's development. After an initial failure, the chief…

Mashups, Web applications integrating data and functionality from other Web sources to provide a new service, have quickly become ubiquitous. Because of their role as a focal point in three important trends (Web 2.0, situational software applications, and end user development), mashups are a crucial emerging technology for information systems…

Deep and shallow learner approaches are useful for different purposes. Shallow learning can be good where fact memorization is appropriate, learning how to swim or play the guitar for example. Deep learning is much more appropriate when the learning material present involves going beyond simple facts and into what lies below the surface. When…

Since 2001, there has been a dramatic decline in Information Technology and Computer Science student enrolments worldwide. As a consequence, many institutions have evaluated their offerings and revamped their programs to include units designed to capture students' interests and increase subsequent enrolment. Likewise, at Victoria University the…

This study aimed at exploring how high school students deal with designing an information system, for example, for a small business or a medical clinic, the extent to which students develop as independent learners while working on their projects, and the factors that help or hinder fostering students' design skills. The three-phase dual-loop…

The study reported here examined the effectiveness of educational robotics combined with GPS/GIS technologies used as "digital manipulatives" in the teaching of concepts in science, engineering, and technology. Based on the success of previous summer camps, the study also examined a scaling-up of the intervention from 38 participants to…