To be useful for management decision making, the college or university's cost accounting system must capture and measure improvements. Activity-based costing (ABC), which determines more accurately the full costs of services and products, tracks improvements and should proceed alongside reengineering of institutional accounting. Guidelines are…

Focuses on two mental activities--reflection and metaphor--that can be used with communication to facilitate changes in an educational system. Discusses two contexts in which they are being used: (1) in individual thinking and writing; and (2) as part of a facilitated group activity. (AEF)

Evaluated nine diverse HIV/AIDS training programs to determine the degree to which programs produced changes in the way that health care systems delivered HIV/AIDS care. More than half the 218 trainees interviewed gave at least one example of a systems change. (SLD)

Discussion of user-relevance judgments in information retrieval focuses on findings from four separate studies of relevance judgments by 55 users conducting their initial online search on a particular information problem. Highlights include a theoretical framework, models of relevance, and implications for information-retrieval system design and…

Purpose--The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a learning organisation can be created within the framework of the family SME in Ireland. Design/methodology/approach--No comprehensive list of independent family businesses in Ireland was available. To overcome this problem a pragmatic approach was taken in the construction of a sampling…

Integrating news services into an intranet can be tricky. Even within related organizations, slight differences in subscriptions and end-user needs can necessitate different integration approaches. This article examines how the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund took separate approaches to tackle the same integration challenge in…

While most K-12 technology leaders appreciate that technology refresh--the periodic replacement of an organization's technology--is more complex than shopping for appliances, they do not necessarily have the tools to create a sustainable and comprehensive plan to upgrade their assets. Having a solid tech refresh plan helps ensure that teachers and…

Four out of five institutions of higher education are in the process of implementing (or significantly upgrading) their student information systems. This is more than a technical undertaking. How can a campus be attentive, right from the start, to the needs of its members, and maintain a vision that translates into a shared commitment to…

It is important for all Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) members to understand the ways society is changing as people evolve deeper into the information age, and to recognize that these changes require a change in paradigm for education and training systems to be most effective in meeting the needs of individuals…

This paper presents several brief papers about the process of systemic change. These are: (1) Step-Up-To-Excellence: A Protocol for Navigating Whole-System Change in School Districts by Francis M. Duffy; (2) The Guidance System for Transforming Education by Charles M. Reigeluth; (3) The Schlechty Center For Leadership In School Reform by Monica…

This paper, which updates and expands on the first edition (1981), begins by presenting a definition of instructional development (ID) and a discussion of its origins. A taxonomy for classifying ID models is then suggested, and it is noted that most ID models have been subjected to only a limited degree of testing. The 12 ID models that are…

Intended to enable an individual to converse with satellite antenna dealers and to select a dealer and acquire an antenna to suit his/her needs at the lowest cost, this edited version of a final project report provides detailed guidelines for purchasing of communications satellites distance education delivery systems and specific technical…

Arguing that the main promise of computers lies in their potential for moment-by-moment adaptation of instructional content and form to the changing cognitive needs of individual learners, this paper clarifies the implications of this potential for tutoring research, and points out overlooked relations between different strands of research…

The use of general systems theory in the field of instructional systems design (ISD) is explored in this paper. Drawing on work by Young, the writings of 12 representative ISD writers and researchers were surveyed to determine the use of 60 general systems theory concepts by the individual authors. The average number of concepts used by these…