The current uses of audio podcasts, the accessibility of audio podcasts, and the benefits of using audio podcasts in U.S. online college courses as a form of access to visual course content that would be otherwise unavailable to learners with vision loss had not been examined and described. To provide instructional designers with a firm basis for…

The interactions that students have with each other, with the instructors, and with educational resources are valuable indicators of the effectiveness of a learning experience. The increasing use of information and communication technology allows these interactions to be recorded so that analytic or mining techniques are used to gain a deeper…

Implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has been accompanied by demand for data systems capable of providing a longitudinal record of each student's educational experiences and performance over time. The national Study of Education Data Systems and Decision Making is examining both the implementation of student data systems…

A case study approach taken with three years of data on a hospital's trauma program indicate that, although service user data is important, its political importance far outweighs evaluation value and utility, especially for hard-to-access samples. Implications of this challenge to traditional assumptions for program evaluation are discussed. (SLD)

Long considered four-letter words by many in education, "data," "testing," and "assessments" have come to signify more than additional burdens and distractions from instruction for most educators. Although many educators are still wary of data, many top-performing school systems have embraced data as a means to drive educational decision making…

This compendium is a companion document to the Maryland Sailor Online Public Information Network assessment final report, and contains detailed study findings, study data collection activity write-ups, detailed methodologies, data collection tools, and consultant notes on the uses of the study's data collection instruments. The purpose of the…

In this study, the quality of the computer and Internet based social studies course was investigated. A case study design was chosen to understand, a) how computers are used in the eighth grade classroom, b) what the students' and teachers' perceptions are about the advantages and problems of using computers. Qualitative data sources showed that…