"Training" magazine taps 2012 Training Top 125 winners and Top 10 Hall of Famers to provide their learning and development best practices in each issue. This article looks at strategies to foster technology innovation and implementation and onboarding.

Disciplines and professions each have their own methods of inquiry. This article outlines the commonalities as well as the differences and describes the relationship between the disciplines and the professions. The emphasis is on consulting because this is the profession with which we are concerned. There are three different approaches in…

Colorado school librarians are in the midst of a crisis. According to a 2009-2010 survey of public schools in Colorado, just 23% of elementary schools have an endorsed librarian, while 37% of middle schools and 32% of high schools report having an endorsed librarian. This report also shows how these percentages have dropped in just a two-year…

At colleges and universities today, the increasing number of students is putting new pressure on facilities--and on facility staff. Student needs are also increasingly different, and most campus facilities have not kept up with the changing times. Facilities are expensive to build, maintain, and renovate, and costs are on the rise. Funds for…

In the library context, they depend on sophisticated business applications specifically designed to support their work. This infrastructure consists of such components as integrated library systems, their associated online catalogs or discovery services, and self-check equipment, as well as a Web site and the various online tools and services…

Since getting books into the hands of her students was of utmost importance to her, this author began to look at areas that took away from the time she had to work with the students. In this article, the author offers suggestions on how to have a successful school library program, regardless of reductions in budget and/or staff. She mentions that…

Internet protocol (IP) network-based cameras and digital video management software are maturing, and many issues that have surrounded them, including bandwidth, data storage, ease of use, and integration are starting to become clearer as the technology continues to evolve. Prices are going down and the number of features is going up. Many school…

A return to normal after a crisis is a good thing. Who doesn't want back what once seemed lost? The problem is it usually isn't a simple task figuring out how to patch together a scaled-back training program. When the recession hit in fall 2008, trainers were asked to scale down programming and make do with fewer resources. With a recovery in full…

The paper considers the extent to which the education sector has embraced performance management and performance-related pay. It contemplates the transfer and adaptation of performance management by the public sector as an audit mechanism for improving the performance, productivity, accountability and transparency of public services. The paper…

This column explores the world of Gene, a composite CIO who leads a sizable IT organization for a top 100 university somewhere in America. The author's goal is to help him navigate the tough times ahead of higher education IT. The author peeks into Gene's daily goings-on, investigates his problems, and helps him to not only survive, but prosper.

The practice of performance improvement requires measuring before and after conditions to determine if changes have occurred as a result of an intervention. Understanding how to take, make, interpret, and use measurements can go a long way toward improving performance improvement work and improving conditions for clients. The risk of not…

Although the current interest in informal learning seems recent, performance improvement professionals have long had an interest in informal learning-the ways that people learn outside of formal structures. The earliest forms of learning for work were informal, including de facto and formal apprenticeship programs and the "school of…

Half of servers in higher ed are virtualized. But that number's not high enough for Link Alander, interim vice chancellor and CIO at the Lone Star College System (Texas). He aspires to see 100 percent of the system's infrastructure requirements delivered as IT services from its own virtualized data centers or other cloud-based operators. Back in…

A domestic credit union engages in a systematic performance improvement plan to better leverage a technical application within its organization. By engaging stakeholders early in the process, standardizing the organization's nomenclature, and building strategic partnerships, the credit union was able to achieve both quantitative and qualitative…

Preparing employees for the immediate work in front of them is a challenge. While most companies are still mastering effectively training their own workforce, some, such as "Training" magazine Top 10 Hall of Famer The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, have set up for-profit academies open to the public. When Ritz-Carlton won the national Malcolm…