Ethnographic and interview research have made significant contributions to cumulative social science and influenced the public conversation around important social issues. However, debates rage over whether the standards of positivistic social science can or should be used to judge the rigor of interpretive methods. I begin this essay by briefly…

Background: While qualitative research on intellectual disability is on the rise, researchers have frequently reported that their methods bring methodological and ethical challenges. The authors advance shadowing as an alternative method to respond to these concerns. Method: The authors draw on their experiences with shadowing on the basis of two…

The healthcare environment is becoming increasingly dependent on health information technology, with providers, patients, payers, and other players producing and sharing information to improve healthcare delivery. This, in turn, has brought the issue of Health Information Infrastructure (HII) to the forefront of policy, design, and law. While…

As part of our NSF funded collaborative project on Data Sharing within Engineering Education Community, we conducted an empirical study to better understand the current climate of data sharing and participants' future expectations of the field. We present findings of this mixed method study and discuss implications. Overall, we found strong…

During the last few years, many academic libraries have accepted the challenge of helping their users locate and acquire the numeric data they need. To meet their users' ever-increasing need for data, librarians are purchasing data sets one at a time ("small data"). This service, though important to our users, raises many issues in the…

In the first of this four-part series of policy briefs on student data in California, we noted a disconnect in the views of state policy staff and local educators on the need for a statewide longitudinal student data system (see "About This Series"). The local educators we interviewed expressed a readiness to participate in a state data…

Conventional wisdom suggests that local educators tend to be wary of efforts by the state to gather more information from their institutions, due to the burdens that such requests often entail. But California's current education landscape, with its shift from state to local control of funding and accountability in the K-12 system, its massive…

Within blended learning environments, the availability and analysis of student data has emerged as a central issue. For struggling students, data generated by digital learning systems present new opportunities to investigate critical success factors. In reality, many seemingly basic questions about persistence, progress, and performance of these…

Background: In the last few decades, a focus on school accountability at the state and federal levels has created expectations for teachers to attend to data in increasingly structured ways. Although professional learning is often cited as an important facilitator of effective data use, research that focuses on the intersection of professional…

Title VII provides funding for the education of American Indian/Alaska Native students based on a formula grant available to school districts, charter schools, and local education agencies (LEAs). This report explores why some eligible schools and districts do not apply for federal Title VII, potentially resulting in American Indian/Alaska Native…

Literature suggested that the mandated filtering required by the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000 adversely affected the educational system. The literature stated that schools imposed more restrictive filtering than the Act mandated. School systems had the responsibility to ensure that children learn to read, write, and perform…

The purpose of this qualitative research was to examine how graduate students at one institution used personal iPads to support their educational needs. This study specifically addressed the questions: What do graduate students describe as the important educational benefits of their iPads? In what ways are graduate students using iPads to study…

The History Harvest project (http://historyharvest.unl.edu) is an open, digital archive of historical artifacts gathered from communities across the United States. Each year, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of History partners with local institutions and community members within a highlighted area to collect, preserve, and share…

Background: Data-based decision making can lead to increased student achievement; however, schools struggle with the implementation of data-based decision making. Professional development in the use of data is therefore urgently needed. However, professional development is often ineffective in terms of improving the knowledge, skills, and attitude…

Embedded librarians in online courses provide a wealth of service and information to students. Though students indicate that these services are valuable, the librarians providing embedded services frequently note that these projects are very time consuming. This study examines the provision of a less time-intensive model of embedded librarianship…