The last institute of the 1971-1972 LARC Institute Series was devoted to automated library acquisitions systems. The focus is upon a system in operation at Florida Atlantic, Florida International and Arizona State universities. The papers which discuss this automated acquisitions system are: "Computer Systems Hardware,""The Systems Approach," and…

Design tools used for instructional planning can be described in terms of inputs, outputs, major components, and their interrelations. The outputs are course length; student flow; and requirements for resources, such as facilities, material, personnel, and dollars. The inputs are the teaching institution, learners for whom the course was designed,…

The applicability of a mathematical theorem designed to trace causality of a three-variable path that consists of an initial cause variable, an intermediate variable, and a final-effect variable with control over other system variables is evaluated. The formula was used with a horizontal rather than a normal distribution, as had been done in an…

This report shows in detail how cost analysis of educational programs has been used at the junior college level. The primary objective of the National Junior College Finance Study is to determine the cost of educating a student in a specified curriculum and to utilize these data to demonstrate the relationship of the unit cost of each of several…

Resource acquisition is a general process active in all social organizations. The relative success of organizational resource mobilization determines whose goals and values will be met. Several factors impinge on resource mobilization, including suborganizational levels, technological sophistication, professionalization, and unionization.…

Guidelines are presented for achieving human factors inputs to the design of synthetic training systems. A method is developed for design and organization of training concepts and data supportive to the human factors specialist in deriving the functional specifications for the design of any complex training device. Three major sections are…

Public policymaking institutions and their operations should be viewed as complex systems, to be analyzed and improved with the help of basic general systems theory ideas and concepts. Possibilities of and needs for changes in the policymaking system can be illustrated by eleven improvement proposals: explicit strategy decisions, explicit learning…

The paradigm outlined in this paper is designed to aid in writing scenarios of alternative futures. Specifically the author outlines major conditions and processes in social life which should provide a scheme to be used in constructing or in criticizing scenarios developed by other methods. This scheme should provide assistance in several ways: 1)…

This publication is a discussion of the concept of an educational production function, a mathematical formulation of the relationship between inputs and outputs in education. A description of how a production function can direct decision making toward economic efficiency precedes a theoretical discussion of the nature of actual estimation. Several…

The fifth (of 14) volume of the Education and Training Consultant's (ETC) series on systems engineering of education is designed for readers who have completed others in the series. It reviews arithmetic and algebraic procedures and applies these to simple education and training systems. Flowchart models of example problems are developed and…

This paper concerns situations in which a p x p covariance matrix is a function of an unknown q x 1 parameter vector y-sub-o. Notation is defined in the second section, and some algebraic results used in subsequent sections are given. Section 3 deals with asymptotic properties of generalized least squares (G.L.S.) estimators of y-sub-o. Section 4…

Concepts of general systems theory, cybernetics and the like may provide the methodology for communication theory to move from a level of technology to a level of pure science. It was the purpose of this paper to (1) demonstrate the necessity of applying systems theory to the construction of communication theory, (2) review relevant systems…

The author's main concern is to provide a research format which will supply a unitary conception of communication. The wide range of complex topics and variety of concepts embraced by communication theory and the rather disparate set of phenomena encompassed by communication research create this need for a unitary study approach capable of linking…

Higher education will be analyzed in greater depth in the future than at any time in the past. Comprehensive information systems will grow and be used for planning, budgeting, and coordination of all postsecondary education supported by public funds. As these information systems develop, educators and legislators must use the information to make…

The contents of this training manual are divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1 provides introductory information. Chapter 2 presents the principles of programming which includes the basic concepts necessary for preparing for a programming course. Systems analysis--fact finding and critical examination of the facts--and approaches to systems…