The National Science Foundation (NSF) is going to announce a major change in its patent policies that will allow qualifying institutions to be guaranteed in advance the royalties from faculty inventions that result from NSF projects. (Author)

Noting that junior college institutional research is being affected by two major influences--changing student populations and information demands of state and federal agencies--the author suggests specific questions for research important to college operations and emphasizes the need to reconcile the frequently contradictory internal and external…