Development of a basic information system for vocational education through Project EDNEED (Empirical Determination of Nationally Essential Educational Data) is summarized in this first volume of a five-volume final report. Objectives of the project were to (1) determine the extent to which selected data questions represent the vocational education informational needs of users at the national, state and local levels, (2) prioritize the data questions according to their degree of relative importance across levels and within levels by use of the categories of planning, operation, evaluation, finance and budgeting, reporting requirements, and public information, and (3) determine similarities in information needs across levels and use categories. Procedures for the four operational phases of the project are summarized along with brief descriptions of the accompanying volumes entitled "Project EDNEED Classification of Information"--Volume II; the EDNEED Lexicon--Volume III; Issues and Recommendations, Reports of Project EDNEED Conferences--Volume IV; and Data Analysis: Procedures and Results--Volume V. (Volumes II and III are products of the project; Volumes IV and V present detailed results of the project.) Interpretation of results are given and implications are discussed. A bibliography and a source list are appended. (TA)