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…

E-Learning standards began to come on the scene in the late 1990s. SCORM is the most widely known and practiced example, but some would say that it has failed to yield the hoped-for results. The authors have been engaged in projects to determine the impact that SCORM has had, and this article presents the results of interviews with individuals who…

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…

This report demonstrates how the application of Behavioral Systems Analysis (BSA) methods assisted in assessing a small training company's Print Production Management (PPM) system. PPM is the process by which printed materials are conceptualized, estimated, released to a commercial printer, proofed, and delivered to the client. The current PPM…

New theories and theory-based methodological approaches have found their way into Comparative Education--just as into Comparative Social Science more generally--in increasing number in the recent past. The essays of this volume express and critically discuss quite a range of these positions such as, inter alia, the theory of self-organizing social…

This fall, the nine states that finished as runners up in last year's groundbreaking Race to the Top competition will have an opportunity to reapply for a grant. The winners will receive a combined $200 million to help implement the bold education reform plans they developed last year. Many of the eligible states already have clear roadmaps toward…

The work of state higher education system boards is changing. By "system boards," the author means governing boards for all of higher education in a state, governing boards for certain kinds of institutions (such as the Louisiana Community and Technical College System and the California State University system), and state coordinating agencies…

Since the break up of the USSR, its former republics have seen the emergence and rapid expansion of an examinations industry that was, to all intents and purposes, unknown in Soviet times. New national assessment agencies have been established and been charged with, amongst other things, developing high-stakes exams to replace the diverse and…

This article is about the so-called Bologna process and the historically unprecedented diffusion of an abstract model for the restructuring and harmonization of higher education studies and degrees across Europe it has fuelled. This process is interpreted here as a particular example of much larger processes of world-level interconnection and…

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how to conduct a Behavioral Systems Analysis (BSA) to aid in the design of targeted performance improvement interventions. BSA is a continuous process of analyzing the right variables to the right extent to aid in planning and managing performance at the organization, process, and job levels. BSA helps to…

As a concept, the next-generation catalog (NGC) is not new to librarians, who have been wishing for better OPAC interfaces for their integrated library systems (ILSs). The NGC has been the focus of discussion for more than 5 years now, from the 2006 report of the implementation of Endeca at North Carolina State University, to Marshall Breeding's…

While behavior systems analysts have recognized the importance of the consumer of organizational products (i.e., receiving system) in developing models of organizational change, few have offered a systematic assessment of the relationship between consumer and organizational practices. In this article we will discuss how a behavior systems approach…

This article introduces a qualitative research method called "discourse tracing". Discourse tracing draws from contributions made by ethnographers, discourse critics, case study scholars, and process tracers. The approach offers new insights and an attendant language about how we engage in research designed specifically for the…

When teaching Information Systems (IS), one of the crucial objectives is to make students understand the practical aspects of the integration of IS in organizations. Over the last decades, several pedagogical approaches were introduced to more tightly bridge theory and practice, e.g., hands on exercises, simulations, real world projects, guest…

The authors developed this experiential exercise to aid students in learning how others perceive them as well as how they perceive others and, ultimately, to begin to help them identify the origins of such perceptions. The exercise's goal is to explore how participants may make inaccurate perceptions of others and how they might pierce through…