The purpose of this paper is to highlight the complexities involved in higher education provision and how systems thinking and socio-technical systems (STS) thinking approach can be used to understand the education ecosystem. Systems thinking perspective is provided using two case studies: the development of European Learner Mobility (EuroLM)…

Large quantities of data are now being generated, collated and processed within schools through computerised systems and other digital technologies. In response to growing concerns over the efficiency and equity of how these data are used, the concept of "open data" has emerged as a potential means of using digital technology to…

Students, policymakers and institutions all need to have high quality data about how today's students access and pay for higher education--and what contributes to their success. But the data that are available now are woefully inadequate. We need to improve the national postsecondary data infrastructure The report thoroughly explores seven options…

Early education leaders--inside and outside of government--are looking for new ways to improve quality, accountability, and efficiency across many different programs serving young children and their families, and they see investment in data systems as a pivotal part of that effort. However, it can be challenging to develop and implement effective…

There is growing interest in collectibles of many types, as indicated by the popularity of television programs such as the History Channel's "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers" and the Public Broadcasting Service's "Antiques Road Show." The availability of online auction sites such as eBay has enabled many people to collect items of interest as a…

Lane County, Oregon, has 16 school districts, and up until last year, every one of them had its own online learning program. Some were more like correspondence courses, while others were closer to online curriculum delivery. No one had ever explored the options available, the cost savings that district collaboration might provide, or the benefits…

Faced with the need to create a competitive workforce and improve the quality of our education system, states are pursuing policy agendas to better prepare students for postsecondary education and careers. To inform these agendas, statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) have become an invaluable asset and serve as a tool to help states answer…

A major task involved in the management, analysis, and integration of qualitative data is the development of a coding schema to facilitate the analytic process. Described in this paper is the evolution of a coding schema that was used in the analysis of qualitative data generated from online forums of middle-aged women with chronic conditions who…

Most UK universities can trace their current management information systems back to significant investments made in the 1990s, largely fuelled by concerns about the millenium bug and a change from character interfaces to graphical user interfaces following the introduction of the personal computer. It was during this period that institutions also…

As state policymakers strive to ensure that every student is taught by an effective teacher and is ready for college and 21st-century careers, they must also make drastic budget cuts. States cannot do more with less without collecting and using quality data to determine which programs and policies increase student achievement and the state's…

This document, "Book Two of Four: Planning and Developing an LDS", is the second installment of this Forum (National Forum on Education Statistics) series of guides on longitudinal data systems (LDS). This second book in the guide series delves into the planning, implementation, and evaluation phases of a longitudinal data system (LDS)…

Montana State University (MSU) Libraries (where the authors serve as web services librarian and digital initiatives librarian, respectively) is perhaps unique because it has no current periodicals room due to lack of space. As a result, finding current journals for research is difficult for its patrons, who do not always know how or where to…

Universities in Australia, like their counterparts abroad, are making available several different kinds of electronic information services for their student communities. University students need different types of information for the frequently entwined purposes of learning and living, and such information may be available from a variety of…

Data are most useful when they are transformed into actionable information that people are able to access, understand and use. Thanks to both state and federal leadership, political commitment and investment of financial resources, states have made tremendous progress in the building of statewide K-12 longitudinal data systems. However, to ensure…

No school is an island; it is a part of a continuum or a pipeline of institutions which together form an educational pipeline through which groups of students pass. To turn a body of data into useful information for knowledge-based decision-making at any level, data must be collected, organised, analysed and reflected upon. The purpose of this…