In 2006, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell unveiled the Classrooms For the Future (CFF) technology initiative. The stated outcome of the program was to provide a vehicle for high school reform which transforms Pennsylvania's schools into a more engaging atmosphere that equips students with the necessary skills for the 21st century. The study…

This article describes a protocol the authors developed for teaching undergraduates to document their statistical analyses for empirical research projects so that their results are completely reproducible and verifiable. The protocol is guided by the principle that the documentation prepared to accompany an empirical research project should be…

A visit to any classroom at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (WPSD) or The Scranton School for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children reveals a host of amazing things--all at the same time. Visitors see dedicated and passionate teachers presenting engaging and relevant material. They see an all-inclusive communication environment, where…

Most economic impact studies are prepared by external consultants at significant cost to an individual college, a higher education state system, or a set of institutions with similar Carnegie Classifications. This case study provides a detailed framework that academic institutions may use to derive economic impact estimates without hiring external…

For more than 20 years, two courses, History, Education, and Guidance of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing and Introduction to Instructional Methods for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing, have been taught at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania using a traditional lecture format. A state grant provided funding to explore the use of technology to teach online…

This study was designed to establish a caseload standard for child welfare workers. Understanding reasonable workload expectations for child welfare workers is a cornerstone of quality service provision and the recruitment and retention of qualified workers. Because of the analytic complexity of this question, qualitative and quantitative methods…

Most people picture "strategic planning" as endless meetings spent doing SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analyses, crafting vision and mission statements, and developing goals and action plans. Few look forward to the experience or reflect back on it with pleasure. In this article, the author describes how he…

Objective: This dissertation developed an automatic classification procedure, as an example of a novel tool for an informationist, which extracts information from published abstracts, classifies abstracts into their "fields of study," and then determines the researcher's "field of study" and "level of activity." …

This demonstration project was conducted to create an awareness among the least educated adults in Armstrong and Indiana counties of Pennsylvania of the availability of Adult Basic Education (ABE) opportunities at the ARIN Adult Learning Center and its satellites. The project was carried out by means of a public relations program. Activities…

Describes how the School District of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, implemented a districtwide quality-management system based on the Geneva-based International Standards Organization 9001, a major component of which is the documentation of procedures. Includes sections on implementation, procedure manuals, quality management, uniformity, formatting,…

Two procedures for scoring the Recreation Experience Preference scales were investigated using data obtained from respondents engaged in outdoor recreational activities. Both procedures yielded acceptable levels of reliability and concurrent validity. When time is unimportant, the scale score strategy is preferred over the domain score strategy.…

The evaluation of an exemplary career resource center (CRC) developed for the Wyoming Valley West School District, Kingston, Pennsylvania, is presented. Questionnaires were used to assess the CRC in terms of information collection, evaluation and storage, client usage, and attitudinal factors and were completed by approximately 1,000 seventh and…

Policies and procedures are outlined for the Online Database Information Network (ODIN), a cooperative of libraries in south-central Pennsylvania, which was organized to improve library services through technology. The first section covers organization and goals, members, and responsibilities of the administrative council and libraries. Patrons…

IN DEVELOPING A COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING METHOD FOR DETERMINING SPACE REQUIREMENTS AND UTILIZATION RATES, IT IS NECESSARY TO OBTAIN DATA PERTAINING TO THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS USING THE FACILITIES. TO AID THE PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS OF PENNSYLVANIA IN DETERMINING ENROLLMENTS, THE STATE COMMISSION ON ACADEMIC FACILITIES PREPARED THIS…

To provide a basis on which to determine space required in the public higher education institutions of Pennsylvania, the State Commission on Academic Facilities developed an instruction manual for a method of inventorying physical facilities by building and room. The building inventory and the room inventory are presented as separate sections,…