Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns of benefits. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We consider four states for specific analysis: Arkansas, Missouri, California…

Understanding human activity in real-world situations often involves complicated data collection, analysis, and presentation methods. This article discusses how Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) can inform design-based research practices that focus on understanding activity in real-world situations. I provide a sample data set with…

The research literature is rich on innovations in R&D-specific organizations and provides useful information on support systems and other organizational features associated with such specialized organizations. An implied assumption of many studies is that R&D exists as an independent entity, without controls or influences from the other…

In senior-level undergraduate research courses in Computer Information Systems (CIS), students are required to read and assimilate a large volume of current research literature. One course objective is to demonstrate to the student that there are patterns or models or paradigms of research. A new approach in identifying research paradigms is…

This paper presents a theoretical study conducted as part of a larger research project concerning personality as an educational phenomenon. In contrast to most approaches, which view personality from the outside, this approach employs systems analysis to examine how individuals identify their personalities in varying subenvironments of a social…

Chaos offers educational communications and technology new systems' tools and ideas; i.e., it provides the system with a deterministic "I don't know" state within which new activity patterns can be generated. Previous characterizations and paradigms of systems stated that simple systems behaved in simple ways, complex behaviors implied complex…

The predicted long-term undesirable effects of young academicians not entering the university are considered in light of systems theory and generation theory, and recommendations are made regarding the need for greater correspondence between university goals and society's needs if the university is to regain critical inputs. (Editor/JT)

This article describes a comprehensive system analysis in which students evaluated their educational experience on such dimensions as faculty-student communications and decision making, psychological closeness, freedom to express deviant views, sexual and racial bias, and the degree to which the program climate encouraged them to be active rather…

This paper summarizes a preferred design of organizational effectiveness studies of small rural school districts. The preferred design consists of five major and mostly sequential steps: (1) considering a large number of complex policy questions associated with the issue of organizational effectiveness efforts; (2) deciding on the technical issue…

This sociotechnical analysis assesses the effects on the educational environment of migrating from the currently fragmented analog system to an environment dominated by integrated digital telecommunications systems. An integrated telecommunications channel is at the heart of the design for an ISDN (integrated services digital network). ISDN is a…

Arguing that the production system for computer courseware has a strong impact on quality courseware development, this report offers an introduction into the relationships between instructional system design and software engineering, and investigates courseware quality as a means of identifying quality enhancement factors that can make the…

The Certificate in Computer Programming (CCP) Examination is conducted by the Institute for Certification of Computer Professionals (ICCP) to identify qualified computer professionals in various spheres of computer technology. The CCP Examinations are focused on programming skills and are designed for recognition of competent senior-level…

To address the question of why newspapers tend to become more and more fragmented internally and to propose a model of the interrelationships between the newspaper and its "operating environment," this paper draws on recent work by organizational theorists. Beginning by examining the central goal of newspapers, the first section suggests that the…

This study focuses on factors contributing to the low level of effectiveness of library and information services to the Spanish speaking community as reported in the literature. It analyzes, using an open system approach, models developed by public and academic libraries to serve the Spanish speaking population. Problems contributing to the…