This paper is concerned with the following problem: Given a tentative educational system, constructed to reach certain predetermined objectives and satisfying a set of well-formulated constraints, how can mechanisms be installed and operated such that rational, iterative improvement of the system can be made?" (Author)

Article describes findings of a survey of systems engineering programs made in 1968 by the Systems Science and Cybernetics Education Committee. (IR)

System design can be improved through the participation of the people who will eventually use the system, if they can be provided with the necessary skills. A framework for such an approach to system design is described.

Discusses the potential sources of knowledge for customizing transportable natural language query systems, including sophisticated dictionaries, database content, and human database experts. A rough quantification of the importance of each source is provided. (17 references) (Author/CLB)

Efforts to make substantial and substantive improvements related to mental health in schools and student/learning supports requires much more than implementing a few demonstrations. Improved approaches are only as good as a school district's ability to develop and institutionalize them equitably in all its schools. This process often is called…

After almost three decades of school reform, student achievement nationally is about where it was when it started, and student behavior has declined dramatically. Numbers of dropouts, especially in cities and among the poor and minorities, have gotten much higher. Yet many billions of dollars have been spent; countless professionals have carried…

It is important for students to develop critical thinking and other higher-order thinking skills during their tertiary studies. Along with the ability to think critically comes the need to develop students' meta-cognitive skills. These abilities work together to enable students to control, monitor, and regulate their own cognitive processes and…

This article responds to the reply by Cooper and Shallice to Botvinick and Plaut's previous comment . In the authors' view, the reply by Cooper and Shallice left their original responses more or less intact. The present exchange has strongly highlighted the degree to which any account of the habit system will interact with how the goal-directed…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that changes in social systems do not occur randomly. They are consistent with what has gone on before, with the history and identity of the system. As long as the organizing principles of a dominant culture remain unchallenged, behavior of all the social-units originating from this culture will remain…

Here is a short presentation of the main statistical indicators for higher education. The analysis was structured on national and regional level and also taking in account the differences between private and state universities. We have focused on some indicators regarding students and teachers flows. Romanian case is a special one, that had no…

Understanding complex systems is fundamental to understanding science. The complexity of such systems makes them very difficult to understand because they are composed of multiple interrelated levels that interact in dynamic ways. The goal of this study was to understand how experts and novices differed in their understanding of two complex…

Postwar librarians have sacrificed the humanistic basis of librarianship and regard the use of science in librarianship as a settled issue. American librarianship is currently dominated by the physical thinking of scientific systems theory, which includes Bertalanffy's general system theory, Wiener's cybernetics, and the Hartley-Shannon theory of…