A survey of 469 colleges and universities assessed the degree to which colleges and universities have adopted total quality management (TQM) or continuous quality improvement (CQI) techniques. Results suggest use of TQM/CQI is lower than predicted, at about 13% of institutions. Variations in extent of use of the approach are discussed. (MSE)

Describes the formation and role of a consortium for cooperative purchasing formed by the Council of Chief Librarians for the California Community Colleges in fall 1998 called the Electronic Access and Resources Committee. Its charge is to evaluate electronic, proprietary databases and negotiate prices for the community colleges as a group. (VWC)

Reports the results of an empirical study in Brunei Darussalam that identified the types of skills required for entry-level computer programmers. Investigated whether skills were related to organizational size; determined that communications skills were the top requirement, followed by database management systems skills; and discovered a decline…

Conventional management controls employees, but successful management encourages and enables employees to control themselves. Where control resides in an organization can be determined by examining its performance tracking systems. Most are management information systems. The best are owned and used by the employees to control and adjust their own…

Describes the applications of "Quicken," a software package developed by Intuit, for use by school-business officials. The program can be used for activity-fund and student-activity accounting and for printing checks. Five figures that illustrate screen activities are included. (LMI)

Describes characteristics of a questioning culture in organizational development. Addresses questions on leading; learning; and information access as leverage. Lists fundamental employee questions that exist in every organization, and describes two positive effects that occur when these fundamental questions are recognized and become the overall…

Suggests that management fads in higher education go through a predictable five-stage process, including creation, narrative evolution, time lag, narrative devolution, and resolution of dissonance. Finds that in the process of "virtual" adoption academic institutions may endorse management innovations for their symbolic benefits but isolate them…

Instructors can help students improve their metacognitive awareness and future exam performance by analyzing an exam after it has been taken. (Contains 1 figure.)

Computer-based systems have great potential for delivering learning material. Here, a Web-based learning management system is employed by a medical university to support undergraduate courses. The objective was to help the university's staff to understand the readiness and attitudes of students to the use of information technology, their…

Academic Web publishing is a complex and difficult challenge. It is not surprising that most universities find it necessary to provide different types of Web publishing infrastructures for their constituents, such as conventional, do-it-yourself Web and database services, as well as template-driven solutions that include portals, course management…

In March 2003, the Corpus Christi Independent School District (CCISD) received a Curriculum Management Audit report from the Texas Curriculum Management Audit Center of the Texas Association of School Administrators. One of the findings of this audit was that CCISD lacked a clear comprehensive management plan to define and guide the design,…

A need to take on additional responsibilities of managing the transportation system at their local campuses is the current trend among an increasing number of facilities and operations directors. Tightening budgets have led many education institutions to reduce staffing by consolidating the positions of transportation and facilities director,…

The basic principles of the Plan for Reforming Beijing University's Engagements and Promotions System (Draft for Soliciting Opinions) were set forth at the university leadership winter vacation work meeting held in January 2003. On May 9, 2003, the leading group for the university's personnel reform discussed the draft for soliciting opinions and…

An IT decision maker gives an overview of public access PC software that's useful in controlling session length and scheduling, Internet access, print output, security, and the latest headaches: spyware and adware. In this article, the author describes a representative sample of software tools in several important categories such as setup…

Management information system (MIS) is one of the core courses of master of business administration (MBA). Based on the educational characteristics of MBA, this paper studies the teaching issues and strategies of MIS course of MBA. The discussion includes three parts: modification of educational content; improvement of educational ability; case…