Teacher evaluation and dismissal reforms have been in the education policy spotlight in recent years. From The New Teacher Project's "The Widget Effect" to states' Race to the Top applications, educational leaders and advocates have been thinking about how to make evaluation and dismissal more performance-based. These downstream…

Introduction: We examine doctoral students' awareness of and attitudes to open access forms of publication. Levels of awareness of open access and the concept of institutional repositories, publishing behaviour and perceptions of benefits and risks of open access publishing were explored. Method: Qualitative and quantitative data were collected…

This issue of FOCUS presents a framework for integrating two distinct processes: knowledge translation (KT) and technology transfer (TT). The integration permits stakeholders involved in technology-based research and development activities to identify and coordinate their respective roles, and to optimize the eventual use of research by industry…

Information use patterns by doctoral students are studied for selected years in the pre-web (1990-1993) and post-web (2003-2006) time periods. Over 55,000 citations from dissertations in ten disciplines were analyzed. The results show that there was some increase in journal use in most of the disciplines in the post-web era, and that the use of…

Academic librarians are striving to better serve international students as this emerging population grows on university campuses. Past studies of international students generally focus on linguistic and cultural differences in relation to information literacy skills development. However, it is necessary to go beyond these factors to better serve…

It is a historically held principle of microeconomics that in the presence of better information, consumers make better decisions. This chapter focuses on information to guide consumers in making decisions about higher education. It examines the development and implementation of a one-stop career and college planning tool that leverages existing…

The need for educational programs to show their return on investment is exemplified in the intense debate surrounding gainful employment programs--defined as programs that lead to gainful employment in a recognized occupation and theoretically differ from programs that offer education in the liberal arts or prepare students for further education.…

The "Census in Schools Educator Update" is sent to educators and educational organizations periodically to keep them informed about current and upcoming census data and to provide ideas about how to use data in the classroom. This issue of the "Census in Schools Educator Update" newsletter focuses on the following topics: (1) 2010 Census; (2)…

The first book in the James H. Stronge Research-to-Practice series focuses on improving student achievement through academic goal setting. It offers the tools and plan of action to use performance data to improve instructional practice and increase student achievement. The book is divided into three parts: (1) How Student Achievement Data Can Be…

Introduction: The study contributes to the conceptual investigation of information use by reviewing the conceptions of epistemic work proposed by Cook and Brown, and knowing in practice proposed by Orlikowski. The above conceptions are developed in the field of organization science. Method: The key articles by Cook and Brown, and Orlikowski were…

Quality measurement serves as a foundation for child care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). Understanding the variation that exists in quality measurement, the different contexts in which states make decisions, and the factors that play into their decisions can help administrators identify where their state may fall along the spectrum…

Evidence-based policy-making and other recent reforms in public steering emphasize the role systematic evidence can play in improving decision making and public policies. Increasing deficits heighten the pressure on public authorities to legitimate public spending and to find savings. Existing studies show that the influence of research-based…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the accessibility and use of web-based electronic databases on the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) portal by physicians in the Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Aro--a psychiatry health institution in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach: Collection of data was through the use of a three-part…

APPA's highest institutional honor, the Award for Excellence in Facilities Management (AFE), recognizes those educational institutions whose facilities management organizations demonstrate quality in overall operations and effectiveness. The two most recent recipients, Arkansas State University-Jonesboro (ASU-J) and the University of Nevada-Las…

The present study focuses on the perception of primary school principals of school performance feedback (SPF) and of the actual use of this information. This study is part of a larger project which aims to develop a new school performance feedback system (SPFS). The study builds on an eclectic framework that integrates the literature on SPFSs.…