The research administrator's role is changing rapidly and becoming more demanding. Training will be restructured to promote professionalism, and administrators should spend some time considering their profession's nature and purposes. Four tasks are proposed: safeguarding staff's creative time, getting long-term resource commitments, fostering…

The State University System of Florida's online registration system in a distributed environment utilizing an IBM 8100 is described. It is a modular system in which the user defines the operating environment for each registration period by selecting options from a comprehensive function list. (Author/MLW)

Gives suggestions for organizing a school newspaper staff's time and work area for more efficient work routines. (HTH)

Educable mentally retarded (EMR) and nonretarded (NR) adolescents verified superordinate and basic level descriptions of common objects. Results suggest that EMR subjects had difficulty making semantic classification decisions in general. Other results suggest that group differences in semantic processing speed were related to the deliberate…

Describes the Emerging Curriculum at the John Hopkins Summer School session. Use of student contracts, content organized in instructional hierarchies, student interaction sheets and individual evaluation made student involvement more meaningful. Illustrates that university graduate courses can be organized as paradigms of humanistic and efficient…

The question addressed is whether large enrollment provides economy of scale for institutional operation. The answer is masked by the complexity of an institution. The manner in which complexity, size, costs, and enrollment interrelate is examined. Curricula and complexity may severely affect per student cost. (MSE)

Some strategies can be borrowed from the business world to improve output (of faculty) and also improve outcome (for students). Four approaches are: setting goals and evaluating results; improving instructional skills through systematic feedback; adapting to new clientele; and applying modern technology, including computers and TV. (Author/MLW)

Provides advice on determining how much centralization is desirable and how to achieve it. Presents advantages of centralization. Suggests beginning centralization with a top executive mandate. Discusses the first meeting to define common objectives. (CSS)

Time management is seen as growing in importance for college and university administrators because they are finding that time is one of their major problems. Some suggestions for improving time management include: determining goals, analyzing time, delegation of responsibility, and organizing the unavoidable. (MLW)

To handle the major school budgetary and operating challenges posed by the energy, transportation, food service, maintenance, equipment, and material problems, administrators must look to improved management, improved operations, and optimization of existing resources. (Author/MLF)

Carnegie-Mellon University has experienced 20 percent more computing power each year for the same percentage of the University budget. A planning strategy is described to optimize this opportunity. (Author/MK)

Presents a case for and poses a procedure including techniques for a systematic approach to planning in education as a means of improving efficiency and effectiveness. Available from: Australian College of Education, 916 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia, $2.50 single copy. (Author/MLF)

Of 150 Huntington Beach (California) high school teachers participating in a survey on block scheduling's efficacy, 106 (70%) took time to make written comments. Teachers enjoyed having less up-front lecturing, more one-on-one interactions with students, and a less hectic schedule, but had concerns about interruptions and…

Describes a systematic curriculum development approach in Dutch and French universities for a modularized curriculum on biodiversity. Suggests that it is effective, efficient, and adaptable to new research results. (SK)

The focus in this book is on steering a course between rigorous definitions and theory and applied attempts to measure costs and benefits in the real world. As an introduction to the concepts underlying cost-benefit analysis, this volume is well-written and comprehensive for a book of its length. (SLD)