During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations increased virtual programming and adoption of online technologies. This article outlines the University of California assessment of tools for gathering data on participant learning outcomes from virtual educational programs. After assessing colleagues' experiences and searching for new web applications,…

The Education Insights Center produced a series of reports culminating in recommendations for the structure and governance of a preschool through higher education and into the workforce (known as a P20W data system). This brief follows up on that series, with a focus on data quality; the brief was informed by the author's experience using…

Higher education is a key driver of economic mobility and future growth in California. Yet there is much unknown about how students advance from K-12 schools to postsecondary education and into the workforce--and where they falter. This lack of knowledge stems from the fragmented nature of California's education data and inhibits informed decision…

Many campuses across the California State University (CSU) system are seeking to improve academic advising as part of their efforts to increase student progress and graduation rates. In this exploratory study of efforts to improve academic advising at five CSU campuses, researchers at the Education Insights Center (EdInsights) working on behalf of…

As professional learning director in California's Palo Alto Unified School District, Kelly Bikle attended a California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress Institute (CAASPP) workshop with a district team composed of our assessment coordinator, a special education inclusion specialist, and several teachers. The goal was to learn about…

Qualitative interviews were conducted with parents of teens to explore how parents store and monitor prescription drugs in the home. Most parents had prescription drugs in the house, but took few precautions against teens accessing these drugs. Strategies for monitoring included moving the drugs to different locations, remembering how many pills…

Teacher shortages that most severely affect schools serving the least advantaged children have been part of the California education landscape for the last half decade. This brief describes how key teacher supply and demand factors vary across the state, and it provides potential policy solutions to mitigate ongoing shortages. The brief also…

When California students returned to school in fall 2019, hundreds of thousands returned to classrooms staffed by substitutes and teachers who were not fully prepared to teach. In recent years, California has experienced widespread shortages of elementary and secondary teachers as districts and schools seek to restore class sizes and course…

The purpose of this collective case study was to explore digital badging in educational institutions as support for K-12 practitioners struggling to integrate technology into pedagogical practices. The researcher conducted a mixed-method study that captured perceptions about digital badges and follow-up interviews with selected badge users to…

The significance of biorepositories has been known for many years but the latest advances in clinical and translational research and increased collaborations among investigators have made biorepositories even more prominent. Biorepositories collect and store human tissue and serum samples used in both the research and treatment of disease. In…

Stanford University's (California) Julie Sweetkind-Singer is a recognized authority on digital preservation, and has been honored by the Library of Congress for her work in the field. She currently serves as both the assistant director of Stanford's Geospatial, Cartographic and Scientific Data and Services and as head of the Branner Earth Sciences…

Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) provides opportunities for scholars and students to respond directly to community needs; students also practice critical thinking, problem-solving, and conflict-resolution skills necessary for professional life and engaged citizenship. The challenges of involving undergraduate students in CBPR include…

This article presents the story of how Pepperdine University migrated its library management functions to the cloud using what is now known as OCLC's WorldShare Management Services (WMS). The story of implementing this new service is told from two vantage points: (1) that of the library; and (2) that of the service provider. The authors were the…

A graduate course, ETEC543 ("Technology and Learning I"), was revised to better serve increasing new student population, international students, in an academic program. Project-based learning, Google Docs, and instructional strategies fostering diversity and critical thinking were incorporated into the course redesign. Observations,…

IT leaders today must not only provide but also decide: which tools and services should they continue to supply, which are better delivered by others, and perhaps most critically, which methods from among the bewildering array of alternative sourcing strategies will best serve their faculty, staff, and students. In 2009, the EDUCAUSE Center for…