Learning with hypertexts require learners to navigate in a non-linear environment and build a coherent representation of the informational content. The expansion of digital technologies and hypertext use in higher education has emphasized the need to examine how technological tools may foster quality learning. This study examined how three types…

The standards of educational information exchange are still firmly rooted in a Newtonian paradigm that emphasizes strict rules of information exchange. With the explosion of information since World War II, and especially its accessibility through the mechanism of the internet, this paradigm has become a barrier to effective exchanges of…

For decades, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms were processed electronically by the legacy Central Processing System. In 2021 the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) initiated a system development effort and in December 2023 deployed a new system to process forms for the 2024-2025 school year. However, student aid…

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the entry ramp to federal grants and loans that many students depend on to afford college. Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020 in part to make it easier to apply for federal aid. However, Education's rollout of the new FAFSA has suffered from numerous challenges and delays.…

Purpose: Colleges and Universities have been established to provide educational services to the people. Like any other organization, the school has processes and procedures similar to business or industry that involve admissions, processing of data, and generation of reports. Those processes are made possible through a centralized system in…

Successfully providing access to special collections of digital geospatial data in academic libraries relies upon complete and accurate metadata. Creating and maintaining metadata using specialized standards is a formidable challenge for libraries. The Ontario Council of University Libraries' Scholars GeoPortal project, which created a shared…

How much information do natural systems store and process? In this work we attempt to answer this question in multiple ways. We first establish a mathematical framework where natural systems are represented by a canonical form of edge-labeled hidden fc models called e-machines. Then, utilizing this framework, a variety of measures are defined and…

This exploratory mixed methods study quantified and explored leadership interest in legacy-data conversion and information processing. Questionnaires were administered electronically to 92 individuals in design, manufacturing, and other professions from the manufacturing, processing, Internet, computing, software and technology divisions. Research…

Across the next 10 to 15 years, education, especially instructional pedagogies, and curriculum design, will be deeply impacted, as will all global society, by emerging technology. The most intense component of this emerging technology will be the cloud. An evolving and self-sustaining digital entity, the cloud provides a ubiquitous access to…

Smart spaces, or smart environments, represent the next evolutionary development in buildings, banking, homes, hospitals, transportation systems, industries, cities, and government automation. By riding the tide of sensor and event processing technologies, the smart environment captures and processes information about its surroundings as well as…

Tag clouds generated in social tagging systems can capture the collective knowledge of communities. Using as a basis spreading activation theories, information foraging theory, and the co-evolution model of cognitive and social systems, we present here a model for an "extended information scent," which proposes that both collective and individual…

Business students taking data mining classes are often introduced to artificial neural networks (ANN) through point and click navigation exercises in application software. Even if correct outcomes are obtained, students frequently do not obtain a thorough understanding of ANN processes. This spreadsheet model was created to illuminate the roles of…

Timely identification and reporting of rare infectious diseases has important economic, social and health implications. In this study, we investigate how different stakeholders in the existing reporting system influence the timeliness in identification and reporting of rare infectious diseases. Building on the vision of the information supply…

The silo is a well-worn metaphor in information systems used to illustrate separateness, isolation, and lack of connectivity. Through the many iterations of system development, libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) have sought to avoid silos and find the sweet spot between interface design and metadata interoperability. This effort is being…

Introduction: To provide valuable services in the future, libraries will need to create better information systems and set up an infrastructure more in line with the current technologies. The "Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records" conceptual model provides a basis for this transformation, but there are still a number of…