The ordinary conduct of school business is accompanied today by risks that were rare or unknown a few decades ago. This ERIC Digest discusses how risk management, a concept long used by corporate decision makers, can help school boards and administrators conserve their districts' assets. Risk management is a coordinated effort to protect an…

The ordinary conduct of school business is accompanied today by risks that were rare or unknown a few decades ago. This ERIC Digest in Spanish discusses how risk management, a concept long used by corporate decision makers, can help school boards and administrators conserve their districts' assets. Risk management is a coordinated effort to…

This collection of essays focuses on the importance of accurate and timely information for effective decision making. First, Ivan Lach considers the proliferation of statewide planning and policy formation and discusses problems with and ways to improve statewide research. Next, Cheryl Opacinch focuses on decision making for federal postsecondary…

The increasing complexity of management and planning within institutions of higher education has fostered the development of more sophisticated theories of management in higher education. Such complexity has also encouraged the development of a number of academic planning tools and models to aid administrators in management through access to data…

Four documents and seven journal articles on the management of enrollment decline, selected from those recently made available through the ERIC system, are described briefly in this report. Topics covered in the items listed include what can be done at the state level, suggestions for projecting enrollment, how instructional space is being…

An in-depth look is presented at how institutions are currently planning for microcomputers. The question is not whether the computer network on campus and between campuses will be the single most important technological event of the century for higher education, but rather how it will occur. Six sections include: the coming of age of…

It has been suggested that self-efficacy expectations may have a cognitive influence on career decision making (CDM) and vocational achievement (e.g., range of career options and persistence in career exploration). Personal self-efficacy expectations may influence the CDM process and career motivation. This study explored the role of self-efficacy…

Recent applications of the strategic planning approach in colleges and universities and techniques necessary for its application are reviewed. In addition, the intellectual roots of strategic planning are traced, and strategic planning is defined and contrasted with long-range planning. It is suggested that strategic planning addresses the total…

Career certainty refers to the degree to which individuals feel confident, or decided, about their occupational plans. Since Parsons first classified people into career-decided and career-undecided groups, counseling researchers and practitioners have worked to formally assess career choice status. These efforts have yielded two generations of…

Part of a series on the legal and governmental foundations governing education of handicapped and gifted children, the document explores the local variables that uniquely affect the cost of educating handicapped children and which thereby should be considered when developing state special education fiscal policies. An initial section outlines…

This guide provides a framework to help think about, choose, create, and design an electronically networked community. It is written for educators and educational entities involved with the design and implementation of educational projects. The guide will help planners and designers decide what type of networked community to create; what factors…

This digest addresses some of the special career planning needs of gifted and talented students and offers intervention guidelines for the elementary, junior high, senior high, college, and adult levels. Indications that students are having difficulty coping with the multipotentiality of their talents may be evidenced by early difficulty in making…

Individuals who are bored or dissatisfied with their career or are feeling stalled or plateaued in their career, may be suffering from the career doldrums. Although career doldrums may be associated with certain life and career stages (for example, middle age or the stabilization stage of career development), they may also depend on how personally…

Career exploration is a developmental stage identified by career development theorists and occurs typically during adolescents when boys and girls try out various work roles in part time work, volunteer work, or in school/community activities. This digest focuses on gender differences in the role of assessment in the exploration process. Girls…

This collection of essays by current or former directors of institutional research represents the broad spectrum of size, function, and geography within institutional research in the two-year college. The volume contains: (1) "The Role of Institutional Research in Evaluation of Nontraditional Programs: College Preparatory Analysis at Miami-Dade…