A computerized expert system was constructed for the prediction of environmental impacts resulting from a single clear-cut logging operation in Southeast Alaska. The knowledge base for the system was derived from the pertinent literature and from practicing professionals in the fields of forestry, wildlife, hydrology, soils, and biology. The system contains 62 if –then rules and operates on MS-DOS personal computers with at least 640 K of random access memory and a high-density disk drive. The system gathers input information about the proposed clear-cut operation by asking 22 yes or no questions to which it responds with qualitative predictions of the environmental impacts in the areas of soils, streams, fisheries, biodiversity, and wildlife. The system was validated by additional experts and prospective users to be accurate and easy to use, specific predictions are limited so however, the depth of the system may be inappropriate for intensive environmental impact assessment. The system was determined by the reviewers to be very appropriate for educational uses and broad-based initial management decision-making.

Educators, parents, and concerned citizens have always taken a special interest in education and the outcomes thereof.This interest, however, started mushrooming in the 1960s (Keefe, 1987; Sharan, 1990). During this time research centered on various instructional methods. Much of this research tended to use cooperative learning as an instructional method. David and Roger Johnson and Robert Slavin have been very active in cooperative learning research and its implementation. For the most part, cooperative learning research has been directed toward the elementary and secondary levels of education. These studies have shown positive results regarding student achievement, race, and social relationships, mainstreaming, and other positive student reactions. The major purpose of this study was to investigate cooperative learning as an instructional strategy at the college level. Measurements were made involving achievement, computer anxiety, attitude toward Computer Science, and the relationship between a student's field independent/dependent nature and achievement, Attitude was measured using the Purdue Master Attitude Scale, while anxiety was measured using the Test Attitude Inventory-Worry Scale. Achievement was measured from the scores on written tests, performance tests, and quizzes. Lastly, field independence was calculated from the score that each student obtained on the Group Embedded Figures Test. The subjects consisted of students enrolled in two general education classes and two database software classes. Anxiety, attitude, and the student's field independent or field dependent nature played no role in a student's overall achievement in any of the classes. The general education students taught via cooperative learning had statistically higher achievements than did the students who were taught using the lecture method of instruction. The achievements of the students in the database classes, were slightly higher in the class taught using cooperative learning. However, the differences in achievement between the two classes could not be substantiated statistically. The conclusions, findings and recommendations for further research are presented. in summary, cooperative learning helped general education students in overall achievement, while at the same time it did not adversely affect the vast majority of the other students.

The offering of online classes has been growing at an incredible rate. Many institutions coerce their instructors into teaching online classes even if they are not prepared. If teachers are unprepared when they teach, there is a negative effect on the students and can jeopardize the reputation of the institution. In order to teach over the Internet, instructors need to learn new competencies. Students in online classes are usually not traditional students. In addition, there can be miscommunication in online classes, because there are no visual cues. Instructors need to learn new communication strategies as well as teaching strategies for reaching the online student. The goal was to determine the specific training needs of college online instructors and to incorporate the findings in a faculty development handbook for quality online instruction across the curriculum. A search of the literature was completed and a survey was given to hundreds of online college instructors. The survey revealed what instructors believe is important in the training process and which specific skills were needed but not taught to them. Open-ended questions allowed the sharing of practical advice. An expert panel of experienced online instructors reviewed the survey before it was administered. They then reviewed the handbook contents to make sure it was worthwhile and relevant. The handbook, built into the concluding chapter, is generalizable to all instructors who teach online classes for a college or university. The practical strategies compiled from hundreds of experienced online instructors can be invaluable to new online instructors.

The main objective of performance measurement in public organizations is to support better decision-making by management, leading to improved outcome for the community, and to meet external accountability requirements. There are different performance measurement models to measure the e-Government initiatives and different studies differ in identifying the key factors and measurement indicator. Many measurement instruments take a too simplistic view and focus on measuring what is easy to measure. Much challenge faced by the existing e-Government studies is understanding what citizens, businesses and government agencies wants and how to measure the return on government's Internet investment. Government administrations, international organizations and consultancy firms have done many e-Government benchmarking and performance studies. The results of these studies vary because most of the e-Government studies are assessed from only one perspective of either citizens, businesses or public officials. Issues analyzed by different evaluations lead to different outcomes and give only part of the answer to what is the level of e-Government in a given country or local community. The main aim of this research was to evaluate the impact of e-Government and its instruments of measurements to develop an e-Government performance measurement framework. The combined research methodology of literature research and case study were chosen to answer the goal of this research. This research analyzed the existing literature on performance measurement models from private and public sector and also the e-Government performance models proposed by many governmental and international organizations. Proposed model was validated with a number of national government Strategies with an illustrative case study approach using documentary analysis. Many of the performance studies are used as the main determinants of public opinion on e-Government and for developing e-Government strategy, it is very important that, what is being measured is crucial for the further development of e-Government.

The use of online Canadian pharmacies has grown over the past decade due to lower cost medications and ease of use. In order for these firms to gain business and marketing information, they collect a variety of consumer data. This has raised concerns among consumers as to privacy issues of the data collected by these online firms. However, researchers have not effectively examined how online consumers value specific privacy factors when deciding whether to use the sites. Also, studies have not determined if many of these sites have comprehensive privacy policies that indicate if they protect consumers' data for a variety of factors. This research included a study of 25 major online Canadian pharmacies to determine the completeness of privacy policy factors among this population. This survey showed the majority of sites did contain a privacy policy. However, the comprehensiveness of policies differed vastly among the sites. This dissertation also included an investigation of consumers' views of the privacy policy factors they feel are important when deciding to use these pharmacy sites. Results of a survey of 147 users of medical Web sites showed that consumers were concerned about privacy on these sites, with opt-in, security and consumer/licensing issues of high importance. However, the study also showed that for consumers who actually used an online pharmacy during the past year, cost savings, rather than privacy issues were the principal concern. This dissertation created an instrument that online firms can use to evaluate consumers perceptions of privacy policies, as well as which policies are important to include on a Web site.

A distance education system has been designed for Nova Southeastern University (NSU) . The design was based on emerging low cost video technology. The report presented the design and summarizes existing distance education efforts and technologies. The design supported multimedia electronic classrooms, and enabled students to participate in multimedia classes using standard telephone networks. Results were presented in three areas: management, courseware, and, systems. In the area of management, the report recommended that the University separately establish, fund, and staff the distance education project. Supporting rationale was included. In the area of courseware, the importance of quality courseware was highlighted. It was found that the development of distance education courseware was difficult; nevertheless, quality courseware was the key to a successful distance education program. In the area of systems, component level designs were presented for a student system, a university host, and a support system. Networks connecting the systems were addressed. The student system was based on widely available multimedia systems. The host system supported up to sixteen participants in a single class. The support system was designed for the development of courseware and the support of future projects in distance education. The report included supporting Proof of Principle demonstrations. These demonstrations showed that low cost video systems had utility at speeds as low as 7. 2 kbps. They also showed that high quality student images were not crucial to the system. The report included three alternate implementation strategies. The initial capability could be operational in 1997. A multi-session, 2000 user system was projected for early in the next century.

The problem expounded by this study was the development of a reliable methodology for processing and maintaining historical records on students’ evaluations of instructors and courses. Two additional factors were critical to the study. First, to give the study the merits of students’ evaluations of instructors. Second, as an outcome of the study, a project was designed and developed that would satisfy the problem. The final project, a computerized system written in a commercial programming language by Ashton-Tate called DBASE III Plus, was developed and named “ICES”—an acronym standing for Instructor/Course Evaluation System. The data base structure and language of dBASE available to users, many books are available on the into additional projects is one of the easiest on the market. Equally important, research of universities in the United States regarding software.

This paper examines the quality of education as it relates to the Iowa Communications Network (ICN). It reviews the literature to determine a working definition of quality that was used to create a list of characteristics desirable in teachers who use technology. A list of such teachers was solicited from three administrative committees of the ICN and from the directors of the state's 15 area education agencies. Four teachers were selected from the list and their approach to creating programs for delivery over the ICN was examined. Personal interviews were used to discover commonalities among the four teachers' approaches to distance education that had led to their success. These commonalities, along with the working definition of quality, were used to develop a set of guidelines that can be used by developers of future ICN offerings. The guidelines contain information on designing courses for distance education, overcoming obstacles, use of collaborative techniques, and distance learning methodology. The guidelines were developed into a small booklet that will be distributed to teachers and administrators across the state of lowa.

Software architecture appeared in the early 1990s as a distinct discipline within software engineering. Models based on software architecture attempt to reduce the complexity of software by providing relatively coarse-grained structures for representing different aspects of software development. A software architecture typically consists of various components and connections arranged in a specific topology. Elements of the topology can serve as abstractions on (for example) modules, objects, protocols or interfaces. The meaning of the topology depends on viewpoint. Software architectures' can be described using an architecture description language (ADL). The key goals of ADLs are to communicate alternate designs to the different individuals involved in software development (such individuals are referred to as "stakeholders"), to detect reusable structures, and to record design decisions. A major problem in software architecture has been the difficulty of creating different representations of an architecture to accommodate differing viewpoints of stakeholders. Ideally, different viewpoints would be conveyed in a way that is both comprehensive enough for specialists but consistent enough for generalists. The representation problem has been one of reconciling and integrating different viewpoints. This dissertation provided a solution to the representation problem by creating a tool for three-dimensional visualization of software architectures using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). Different architectural viewpoints were first defined in an ADL called the Visually Translatable Architecture Description Language (VT ADL). When VT ADL was translated into VRML, software architectures were embodied within three-dimensional "worlds" through which stakeholders may navigate. Each viewpoint was a separate VRML world. A viewpoint could be related to other viewpoints, representing different facets of software architectures, to reflect different stakeholder requirements. Traceability from design to requirements was possible through VRML hyperlinks from the visualized architecture. The goal of the dissertation was to develop a prototype for demonstrating the visualization technique. Based on the successful results of two visualization case studies, we concluded that the goal was achieved. Refinement of the prototype into a polished visualization tool was recommended. In future research, the refined version should be used for realistic evaluation of the technique in an actual software development environment.

A preliminary causal-comparative study was conducted in an elementary suburban school in Massachusetts to investigate the impact of electronic portfolio assessments in student's intrinsic motivation and computer interest. The target population were two groups of fourth grade and two groups of fifth grade students for a total of 77 subjects. They were trained and introduced to electronic portfolio assessments, a program which lasted for the entire school year. The students used Hyper Studio, a multimedia software program developed and marketed by Roger Wagner Publishing, Inc. It was the intention of the elementary school program directors and teachers that students would take a proactive and self-administered approach to the management of portfolios. Participants were tested before initiation of the program and post-tested six months later using the "Children's Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory" "(CAIMI)," a Likert scale test developed by Adele Eskeles Gottfried, Ph.D. at California State University, Northridge. They were also given a pre-test and post-test computer interest Likert scale inventory adapted from a test named Moe Computer Educational Survey "(MCES)." This test was developed at South Dakota State University by Daniel J. Moe as part of his research and graduate work. The MCES test was used to determine if there had been a change of computer interest by girls after participation in the computer-based electronic portfolio assessment program. The motivation and interest pre-and post-test results were analyzed with t-tests (p < .05 for motivation, p < .01 for interest). There were no significant treatment effects. There were score increases at the lowest level of the motivation pre-test scoring level but no increases at the highest pre-test scoring levels. Thirty-four students (48 percent) showed an increase in intrinsic motivation scores, while thirty-seven students (52 percent) showed no change or experimented a decrease in scores. As a result, it was concluded that other factors, including subject maturation and teachers' skills in identifying and working intensely with the students who displayed symptoms of initial low motivation may have contributed to the increases. The study was inconclusive because it did not provide evidence to support the hypothesis that there was a change in intrinsic motivation or interest of all the students as a result of their participation in the electronic portfolio assessment program in the Massachusetts suburban elementary school. For confidentiality reasons, fictitious names were used to describe the suburban locality and the experimental school. The locality was named Best borough and the school site Pioneer.