Discusses technical services as a reader service in academic libraries and suggests that the successful implementation of digital libraries needs a systems approach that crosses functional and administrative boundaries. Describes the need for the integration of technical services with other reader services and explains forces pushing for and…

Describes an instructional design process, Learning Environment Design (LED), as being geared to the design of flexible and user-centered learning resources by distinguishing between content and strategy. LED as a possible successor to instructional systems design is discussed, and the potential of LED for restructuring schools is considered.…

The triple helix image of university-industry-government relations should be reconsidered with a focus on knowledge production systems. Public policies aimed at improving relationships should recognize the contributions made in this new mode of production and take into account users as the fourth player. (SK)

This taxonomy of learning tasks new employees must complete has four categories: individual (attitudes, expectations), people (relationships, supervision), work tasks (knowledge, skills, abilities), and organization (culture, roles). Learning tasks are accomplished through three types of intervention: orientation, job training, and workplace…

Examines four aspects of administrative software systems implementation that college and university administrators need to understand to avoid implementation pitfalls. These include: (1) system complexity, (2) dangers of customization, (3) documentation, and (4) real costs. (DB)

Explores current influences on educational managers' work, lightheartedly adopting the language of phenomenology and describing the "cult" of two gods of mismanagement. Discusses these gods in terms of their myths, practices, main adherents, structures, beliefs, and spiritualities, evaluating how these characteristics afflict management practice.…

Examines assumptions that policy for secondary school teachers' continuing professional development should be dominated by such activities as courses and workshops. Research into learning, communities of practice, and complexity establishes a contrary view that subject departments are prime sites of non- predictable professional learning. The…

Article focuses on the devastating consequences of poverty on the educational outcomes of school children and micro-, exo-, and mesosystems as their home, school, and community. An ecological systems perspective is offered to identify interventions and change the quality of interactions and processes among these systems in ways that improve…

Suggests that our combined public, private, corporate, and proprietary system of postsecondary education can be best understood as a complex interaction of various types of markets, governmental policies, disciplinary associations, and institutional actors. Proposes a model for explaining how these factors interact to form the "system" of American…

Illustrates a "systems approach," based on the quality deployment function, for examining the direct and interaction effects of multiple solutions aimed at improving access to college and student persistence. The high leverage solutions emerging from this study call for the improvement of academic achievement and schools for grades K-12. (SLD)

A South African university's community development program attempted to integrate Checkland's soft-systems method into Kolb's learning-cycle theory. Evaluation revealed shortcomings in the curriculum design, including the assumption of learner autonomy, necessity of assessing students individually, and difficulty of allowing learners to construct…

Introduces series by rehabilitation counseling scholars concerning research on employment interventions and the implications of the findings. Concludes that consumers with severe disabilities need more employment services than can be accomplished from a linear case management model. Argues that productive employment outcomes are better achieved…

Four conceptions of and approaches to systemic change are statewide, districtwide, schoolwide, and ecological. State and district approaches value expert opinion and narrow groups of stakeholders. School-level approaches value school autonomy. An ecological systems approach values broad, meaningful participation and the change process itself. (SK)

Examines the essential features of prevention activities and relates them to modernity and social systems. Draws on systems theory to argue that prevention activities help to maintain, and yet weaken, boundaries by which social-system functioning is sustained. For this reason, preventive policy making can be described as recursive. (Author/KB)

A hypermedia method for teaching management theory is presented as a tool that develops conceptual learning needed for systems thinking. Hypermedia enable links to supporting materials that illustrate the multidimensional nature of management in organizations. (SK)