The costs of persistent misalignment between the supply and demand for skills are substantial, ranging from lost wages for workers to lower productivity for firms and countries. Addressing skills imbalances has become a pressing priority as OECD governments reflect on the implications of technological progress, digitalisation, demographic change…

Digitalisation, globalisation, demographic shifts and other changes in work organisation are constantly reshaping skill needs. This can lead to persistent skill shortages and mismatch which are costly for individuals, firms and society in terms of lost wages and lower productivity and growth. These costs can be reduced through better assessment…

Mobile learning has moved in the last decade from being a small, scattered research interest to being viewed by many international agencies as a way of delivering their humanitarian missions to the developing contexts of the global South. This paper explores and documents fundamental concepts and concerns that characterize or perhaps jeopardise…

The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provides an opportunity to transform how data are used in education. The 2002 ESEA requirement to disaggregate data and provide them to the public has made it possible to have greater transparency and more accurate measures of academic performance than ever. Congress now has…

College and career readiness has become a unifying principle for education reform leaders across the country. A majority of states have made it a top policy priority, with an increasing number of national foundations and education reform advocates supporting this work. To help state leaders build strategies for sustaining their education agendas…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a congressionally mandated national assessment program, can provide valuable data to educational policy makers in Massachusetts and other New England states concerning the status of their educational reform initiatives and performance standards. The three purposes of this paper are: (1) to…

A number of problems faced by the custodians of large collections of data which are potentially useful for research in the behavioral sciences, are addressed in this presentation. These problems relate to the rights of individuals who provide research data, to questions of "informed consent", and to the circumstances under which the…

Two trends have inhibited the development of information and ideas, which are vital resources in a modern technological society, First, the Federal Government is engaged in efforts to control the flow of scientific and technical information (STI) to make it less accessible to foreign competitors and hostile nations. Second, the role of government…

Targeted to mental retardation/developmental disability (MR/DD) and vocational rehabilitation agencies, developmental disabilities councils, consumer and advocate groups, and protection and advocacy programs, this manual is designed to assist in the development of state-level data systems responsive to current accountability requirements. It also…

A step-by-step approach is provided for developing an environmental scanning system for colleges and universities to assist them in planning for the future. The objectives of such a system are to detect social, scientific, economic, technical, and political interactions important to the organization; define potential threats and opportunities from…

This issue includes the following nine papers on the theme of collecting and utilizing information on vocational training in Europe: "Information on Vocational Training in the Federal Republic of Germany" (Hardenacke); "Devolved Decision Making in the U.K. Demands Wide Dissemination of Information" (Cowan, Brown);…

During the past decade the Federal Government has significantly retreated from its historical responsibility to maintain the free flow of information that is essential to maintain a healthy democracy. This responsibility includes the collection of basic data on the health of the economy as well as the dissemination of information that assists and…

Information reporting at traditionally black colleges and universities was reviewed, based on the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) files for 36 institutions. The objective was to determine the quality of the data submitted by seven of these institutions, and to suggest actions for improving the quality of the HEGIS information…

The paper describes how information regarding future trends is collected and made available to educational policy makers. Focusing on educational implications of social and population trends, the paper is based on data derived from use of trend forecasting by educational policy makers in Florida and other southeastern states. The document is…

This guide for improving the quality of National Reporting System for Adult Education (NRS) data through improved data collection and training is intended for local providers and state administrators. Chapter 1 explains the guide's purpose, contents, and use and defines the following components of data quality: objectivity; integrity;…