A.J. Visscher - Böcker

This text addresses issues relating to the design of information systems for schools and discusses the implementation issues of information technology in educational management (ITEM). The following topics are discussed in detail: the potential of ITEM for running schools of the future; experience gained with ITEM around the world; evaluation and design of school information systems; description of research findings in ITEM; and, cultural aspects of ITEM. The book comprises selected papers from the proceedings of the international conference "Information Technology in Educational Management for the Schools of the Future (ITEM)", sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), held in July 1996, Hong Kong. It should be useful for managers of educational institutions, teachers, lecturers, researchers and system designers.

This text aims to connect school organization theory with the school effectiveness knowledge base. Each chapter presents a comprehensive overview of the knowledge base on the central theme and addresses the question of what is known about the subject as a school effectiveness-enhancing condition.

Internationally there is an increasing trend to publish and feed back information to schools and teachers on their functioning. School improvement is often the central goal, though accountability and the promotion of parental/student school choice also play an important role.Practical initiatives and research in this field have often failed to recognize the full complexity of improving schools through school performance feedback. Relevant questions are, for example, to what extent: the information fed back to schools is valued and understood by them; the school performance feedback enables appropriate diagnosis and remediation to take place in schools; the use of the feedback generates conflicts and tensions for teachers and administrators; the features of the implementation process and school organization influence the utilization of school performance feedback systems; schools do actually improve as a result of performance feedback; and the feedback systems have unintended effects.This book fills the gap by including: a thorough conceptualization of school feedback as a performance enhancing mechanism, and the prerequisites for utilizing this information in schools; a typology of school performance indicators; a review of the research on the impact of feeding back performance information to individuals and to organizations; evidence on the process, problems and impact of school performance feedback from an international variety of contexts (Australia, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, USA); and reflections on these experiences within the theoretical framework, leading to recommended strategies for school improvement through performance feedback.

Although a few books are available on the use of computers in the school office, this book is the first one addressing the topic of computer-assisted school information systems (SISs) for an international audience, based on both practical and scientific international collaborative research. This book: - analyzes the nature of SISs, their intended benefits and history; - presents the development strategies and the characteristics of three SISs that are widely used in various parts of the world; - reviews what has been learned from the research over the last decade to inform successful design and implementation of SISs; - presents exciting perspectives on the future of SISs from experts, vendors, and users; and - reflects on what needs to be done to promote the full utilization of SISs by clerical and managerial school staff through better system design, user support, and continuing research. The book has been written for an international audience of students, researchers, system designers and implementers, practitioners and policy-makers in developing as well as in developed countries.It will also be of benefit to professionals in the field of school administration and school management to help them promote better use of SIS in their own context by learning from the experience of others.

This book is for both specialist and generalist. For Information Technology (IT) and Educational Management (EM) researchers, it brings together the latest information and analysis of ITEM projects in eleven countries. But the issues raised by this collection of papers are so important for schools, school systems and the future of education that it is essential reading not only for researchers but also for teachers, administrators and all concerned with the planning and governance of our education systems. New technologies may improve our lives in two ways: by enabling us to do things better (accomplishing what we do already more efficiently) and by enabling us to do better things (accomplishing new things that we were not able to do before). Sometimes "doing things better" merges into "doing better things". Thus in the 19th century the coming of the railway enabled our forbears to accomplish their existing journies in less time and in greater comfort. But it also opened up the prospect of new journies to more distant places, and led ultimately to far-reaching changes in lifestyles in new, commuter settlements far from the old city centres. So it is in the present day with Information Technology in Educational Management. Some of the papers in this volume focus on specialist tasks, for example how to develop a computer-based decision-support system to help those drawing up school timetables. Others address situations in which the power of the technology offers us the potential to change radically what we do.

This text aims to connect school organization theory with the school effectiveness knowledge base. Each chapter presents a comprehensive overview of the knowledge base on the central theme and addresses the question of what is known about the subject as a school effectiveness-enhancing condition.

Internationally there is an increasing trend to publish and feed back information to schools and teachers on their functioning. School improvement is often the central goal, though accountability and the promotion of parental/student school choice also play an important role.Practical initiatives and research in this field have often failed to recognize the full complexity of improving schools through school performance feedback. Relevant questions are, for example, to what extent: the information fed back to schools is valued and understood by them; the school performance feedback enables appropriate diagnosis and remediation to take place in schools; the use of the feedback generates conflicts and tensions for teachers and administrators; the features of the implementation process and school organization influence the utilization of school performance feedback systems; schools do actually improve as a result of performance feedback; and the feedback systems have unintended effects.This book fills the gap by including: a thorough conceptualization of school feedback as a performance enhancing mechanism, and the prerequisites for utilizing this information in schools; a typology of school performance indicators; a review of the research on the impact of feeding back performance information to individuals and to organizations; evidence on the process, problems and impact of school performance feedback from an international variety of contexts (Australia, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, USA); and reflections on these experiences within the theoretical framework, leading to recommended strategies for school improvement through performance feedback.