The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the entry ramp to federal grants and loans that many students depend on to afford college. Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020 in part to make it easier to apply for federal aid. However, Education's rollout of the new FAFSA has suffered from numerous challenges and delays.…

Modern computing technology makes it possible for governments at all levels to use the data they already collect to improve service coordination and delivery, and to conduct research and evaluation to inform policymaking. California is well behind other states in taking advantage of this opportunity, in education and in other fields. The state has…

This article investigates the implementation of a quality assurance system in Georgia as a particular case of "Bologna transplant" in a transitioning country. In particular, the article discusses to what extent new concepts, institutions and models framed as "European" have been institutionalised in Georgia. Based on an outcome…

Rounding the corner on the design of new teacher-evaluation plans, states and districts are beginning to wrestle with the significant technical and logistical hurdles for transforming their blueprints into reality. In the coming months, more states--especially those that won grants through the $4 billion federal Race to the Top initiative--are…

In this article St. Vrain Valley (CO) School District (SVVSD) librarian, Holli Buchter describes what took place in the school libraries in the district when the newest elementary school, Red Hawk, opened its doors. Red Hawk asked and answered the question: "Is the Dewey Decimal Classification system still the best way for students to locate…

This paper presents a practitioner's view on student system implementations in the Australian university sector. A student information system is a core system of any university and integral to its operations and services to students. These systems are constantly on the list of major projects and at any point in time, a university is either…

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…

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…

InterCon provides services to health insurers of foreign tourists who travel to the United States and Canada. Management wants to implement a new information system that will deal with several operational problems, but it is having difficulty securing the capital resources to fund the system's development. After an initial failure, the chief…

Approved in 1999 by the Swiss Parliament, the Swiss Virtual Campus (SVC) project debuted in 2000 with the goal of promoting an information society in Switzerland. The University of Geneva has been actively involved with building the SVC and the European virtual campus e-LERU, a two-year project in which eight European countries partnered to…

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…

This article presents the unique approach to university-community partnerships developed and practiced at Michigan State University (MSU). We have established a model of campus-community partnerships that builds a wide-reaching system of networks connecting the university to communities. Our approach is "developmental",…

Several contexts and themes of professionalism are considered including the nature of "professional issues," professionalism, and writing about professional issues. The professional issues discussed are the socio-political and cultural contexts, systems, employment, career development, relationships with other professionals, and the self. Next, I…

Recovery of significant achievements by exemplary individuals and institutions in public education and librarianship informs our present understanding and motivates future efforts. This narrative history recounts some of the struggles and successes of a great city library when the very conception of a free, public library was still being defined.…