The "Forum Guide to Metadata" presents and examines the ways in which metadata can be used by education agencies to improve data quality and promote a better understanding of education data. Supported by metadata-related case studies from state and local education agencies, the guide highlights the uses of metadata from a technical point…

Districts across the country are facing severe shortages of teachers--especially in certain subjects (math, science, special education, career and technical education, and bilingual education) and in specific schools (urban, rural, high-poverty, high-minority, and low-achieving). The severity of the teacher shortage problem varies significantly by…

Response-to-intervention (RTI) systems posit that Tier 1 consists of high-quality general classroom instruction using evidence-based methods to address the needs of most students. However, data on the extent to which general education teachers provide such instruction are rarely collected. This missing instructional data problem may result in RTI…

The field of learning analytics is being discussed in many circles as an emerging concept in education. In many districts and states, the core philosophy behind learning analytics is not entirely new; for more than a decade, discussions of data-driven decision making and the use of data to drive instruction have been common. Still, the U.S.…

FACET DESIGN, AS ORIGINATED BY LOUIS GUTTMAN, IS A METHOD OF SYSTEMATICALLY ORDERING A PROBLEM FOR RESEARCH. FACET ANALYSIS ENABLES THE VALIDITY OF AN ASSESSMENT OF THE ORDERING PROCESS TO BE TESTED. THE LOGIC OF FACET DESIGN AND ANALYSIS IS BASED UPON SYSTEMATIC DELINEATION OF THE IMPORTANT VARIABLES PRIOR TO DATA COLLECTION AND THE EVALUATION OF…

The technical report documents the methodology of a study reviewing the vocational research and exemplary projects in Oregon, so that successful projects or products may be accessible for transportability to other environments. The three stages of research were: (1) Data collection of information on practices, (2) selection of promising practices,…

This issue of "EFF Voice" focuses on current research and development efforts to create an assessment framework for the Equipped for the Future (EFF) Content Standards. As in all earlier phases of EFF R&D, this work engages practitioners in the field, as well as researchers and other technical advisors, as partners in the development…

The report reviews three years of progress toward implementing the Career Information System (CIS), a statewide interagency consortium that provides current labor market and educational information in usable forms to students and clients and assists in the integration of such information into schools and social agencies in Oregon. The system's…