The Department of Administrative Programming Services of Clemson University investigated products available in user-friendly retrieval systems. The test of INTELLECT, a natural language query system written by Artifical Intelligence Corporation, is described. (Author/MLW)

It is recognized that growing management information systems will require increased user involvement in acquiring, maintaining, and manipulating essential institutional data. A technique called Service/Requirements Analysis has been developed for incorporating user input into system design and development. (MSE)

Administrators, faculty, and staff should have electronic access to records needed to perform their jobs, and students should have access to their own records--course registration and addresses. User-directed analysis and reporting are discussed and the security and audit issues are examined. (Author/MLW)

The article demonstrates how information managers at institutions of higher education can develop a checklist for evaluating the usability and effectiveness of institutional data and information. Three primary personnel roles (technicians, analysts, users) and five primary activities (selection, capture and storage, manipulation and analysis,…

A summary of existing literature on administrative information services management skills in the nonuniversity, private sector is provided, followed by discussion of a study to determine the management skills perceived to be necessary for directing university units. (Author/MLW)

Data on levels of computer-related expenditures for two-year colleges are presented. The data show institutions whether their computer-related expenditures, as a percentage of total operating expenditures and in dollars per credit headcount student, are high, medium, or low relative to expenditures of other similarly sized institutions. (MLW)

Software design is still a craft; techniques are based on the way things have been done, not on basic theorems or design principles. Suggests that academic software design needs to be more like a science or technology and that a taxonomy of design solutions or classification method is required. Describes two case studies. (MLW)