The higher education sector today faces an environment unlike any it has seen before. Serving a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders and facing diverse and fast-changing economic, social, and political pressures, universities can benefit from corporate-like approaches such as the use of analytics to inform strategic decision-making…

Learning object repositories, a form of digital libraries, are robust systems that provide educators new ways to search for educational resources, collaborate with peers, and provide instruction to students in unique and varied ways. This study examines a learning object repository created by a large suburban school district to increase teaching…

For decades, discussions regarding assessment have been taking place in higher education, which has forced institutions to take a look at outcomes and indicators of student achievement. Although the literature indicates an acceptance that assessment is not going away, the process that takes place within higher education institutions has led to…

Teachers in the classroom need to be able to modify instruction in a meaningful way that helps students to improve academically. School districts provide electronic assessment data which helps teachers identify areas for improvement within their instruction. Electronic performance assessment systems can be an effective means of assisting schools…

A multiple case study was designed to examine the components of data literacy used by formal and informal leaders to support the work of Data Teams. Nine formal leaders and ten informal leaders constituted the participants. One overarching central question and seven subquestions guided the research. The answer to the central question, How do…

The purpose of this investigation is to study and pursue a user-defined approach in preserving data privacy while maintaining an acceptable level of data utility using machine learning classification techniques as a gauge in the generation of synthetic data sets. This dissertation will deal with data privacy, data utility, machine learning…

This dissertation examines the role of information in influencing both individuals' college outcomes and the productivity of a higher education system. It focuses in particular on large-scale educational reforms that raise different mechanisms than those in the existing literature on the returns to college attendance and college quality. (Abstract…

The study examines available information to upward transfer students through the perspective of successful transfers. The study explores which information was most helpful in a successful transition to a four-year institution. Utilizing this knowledge to recommend policy at the four-year institution and better serve upward transfer students. The…

Errors during the course of clinical practice are common and can lead to adverse events in hospitalized patients. Insufficient information and lack of clinician knowledge can serve as major contributing factors to the incidence of errors that occur during patient care. Nurses at the bedside need immediate access to patient specific information, at…

Formative assessment, assessment for learning, involves checking in with students during the learning process to see if they understand concept or standard, before holding them accountable for mastery and moving on to the next concept or standard. This process can be used in the classroom during the lesson or across a subject area as teachers of…

This study examined the effect of various district and site level conditions that influence the frequency of teacher data-driven decision-making behaviors. This study is motivated by four research questions: 1) Among various kinds of data available to teachers and principals in making data-driven decisions: a. What is the relative level of…

Under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act Part C state administrators have reported data for compliance since the inception of the program in 1986. Recently, Results Driven Accountability (RDA) introduced a shift to use data for continuous improvement at the state and local levels. The researcher used a multiple case study to…

According to Markus's theory of reuse, when digital repositories are deployed to collect and distribute organizational assets, they supposedly help ensure accountability, extend information exchange, and improve productivity. Such repositories require a large investment due to the continuing costs of hardware, software, user licenses, training,…

This dissertation study explores the perceptions of principals as literacy leaders and the enactment of these perceptions in high-need elementary schools. Literacy leadership, as perceived by principals, was analyzed based on interview data from six participants. Individual cases were studied for the unique characterizations each participant…

This dissertation investigates the effect of observational learning in crowdsourcing markets as a lens to identify appropriate mechanism(s) for sustaining this increasingly popular business model. Observational learning occurs when crowdsourcing participating agents obtain knowledge from signals they observe in the marketplace and incorporate such…