The Communication Role Assessment Measure (CRAM) is an application of role theory to organizational communication. Using a communication-based taxonomy, CRAM was developed to integrate previous research in the field and to assess the following elements: the amount of time spent by members of an organization in selected communication roles; their…

The importance of information systems management to institutional research efforts of colleges and universities is discussed. The goal of information system management is to make an institution's information system more consistent, efficient, and informative. Each of the different functions of the university, such as admissions and registration,…

Participants in this resource sharing conference in Alaska, which focused on the identification of educational resources and linking users to resource providers, included representatives from business, industry, and other agencies, as well as educators. The objectives of the conference were (1) to provide providers of services with a better…

The first intensive exposure to organized dissemination at the state, regional, and national level for many of the participants, this 2-day conference consisted of a series of sessions held in Honolulu and neighboring islands. Explanations of how these dissemination efforts are organized and operated were followed by detailed information on the…

Selected by Department of Education staff to initiate a resource exchange effort, a core group of 19 representatives of educational agencies and organizations was invited to attend this conference intended to increase individual and group knowledge of the resources and services available from their organizations. A pre-conference mailing included…

Input into the design, content, and development of a comprehensive resource tool--the Montana Educational Resources and Services notebook--was provided by the 16 members of a planning team made up of Office of Public Instruction (OPI) managers and consultants, selected Montana educators, and Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Dissemination…

The approximately 100 participants in this conference, who represented a wide variety of educational and noneducational agencies in and outside Oregon, learned new strategies for networking; shared information about the extensive base of human and material resources available to support school improvement in the state; developed ideas on how…

Building upon groundwork established by previous meetings, this session of the Washington Dissemination Task Force focused on the preparation and intensive study of a policy and guidelines on dissemination for the Office of the State Department of Public Instruction (OSPI), and the identification of future responsibilities of the group. Conference…

The planning and organization of this project are described, as well as such activities as the formation of the steering committee, identification of resources, support for dissemination planning conferences in each of the six member states (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington), and the development of the State Consultant Model.…

Free speech for the public employee is much more limited than free speech in the society at large. The courts have been unwilling to extend free speech protection carte blanche and have instead cautiously attempted to define what speech would be allowed or prohibited in public organizations. This approach is illustrated in four areas of court…

Organizational communication research needs a conceptual model or taxonomy of variables for developing a knowledge base for past and future findings and information access and retrieval. The proposed Outcome-Determinant-Interface (ODI) model distinguishes three major groups of variables, each divided into classes and subclasses. The outcome…

In a comparative survey of the perceptions of community college presidents and board chairmen regarding assumptions and techniques employed by presidents in relating with their boards of trustees, 99 presidents and 38 trustees responded from a national sample of 142 and 55, respectively. The presidents' responses indicated that the average board…

Experiences with and studies of a formal network of 18 elementary schools--the League of Cooperating Schools (LCS)--in Southern California are described and analyzed in a narrative account, with observations, of the network's creation and maturation. This set of formal agreements between the school districts and the Research Division of the…

The "climate of opinion" is the dominant direction of opinions and perceptions as expressed by existing or assumed activities of constituent individuals, groups, and institutions. There are three regional definitions of this concept: macrolevel, local level, and individual level. A model of climate of opinion contains the following features: (1)…

In long established research organizations, it is necessary to safeguard good research ideas originating at lower organizational levels. The upward progress of unusually good ideas in an organizational hierarchy may be compared with that of ordinary ideas by means of a mathematical model, with the assumption that ideas follow a Poisson…