Governments and school communities are heavily investing in information technology (IT) assuming that this will prepare their children for the workforce and in future life. This research aimed to establish an IT investment effectiveness model in the educational, domain easily applicable to schools in assessing whether their IT investments were effective. Literature research revealed a dearth of information on IT investment effectiveness in the area of education and it was therefore deemed necessary to implement an interpretive approach. Consequently a qualitative combined research methodology involving literature research, interviews, and a modified Delphi Survey I was undertaken. An initial starting point investigated the extensive business literature in IT effectiveness and IT investment particularly in small business, as most schools due to their size and budget can be categorised as thus. The information gleaned from the literature assisted in establishing a questionnaire for the interviews. Participants were selected from thirteen Victorian State, private and Catholic secondary schools that were perceived as expert in the area of IT. An in-depth three stage analysis of the interview data revealed twenty-four initial key issues. These key issues were then circulated to the participants who were requested to rate each issue using an interval scale. They were also asked to add or delete any issues, giving a rationale for their action. Participants underwent a two round process of highlighting and reassessing the key issues and the Delphi Survey was found to be valid as two new issues not identified from the interview process were raised. Based on their responses ten key issues were derived: the Principal, teachers, curriculum and IT planning, technical support, the students, the actual use of IT, training and personal development, the school council, budget, and the Learning Technologies Committee. These key issues revealed themselves as indicators or determinants of IT investment effectiveness exhibiting organisational or individual perspectives. The analysis of previous research, together with the current research findings enabled the development of a functional Model of IT Investment Effectiveness which can now be used by schools to assess their IT investment effectiveness. Finally the schools surveyed were utilising the best business IT practise and were treating IT as a strategic issue with their IT goals closely aligned and based upon the goals of the school.

The engineering design process and the advancement of future computer-aided-design systems need new design aids to be used during the conceptual design phase. This design phase is where information gathering and understanding of the problem are developed, analyzed and broken into small more manageable elements. These elements consist of customer requirements and engineering specifications, many of which are converted into functional expressions that need to be satisfied. Of these elements, it is at the most basic level of the functional expression that the beginning form of a product is developed. Upon that initial form, consisting of the basic envelope (area domain) of the product and defined by form features, components and assemblies are added to fulfill the functional requirements of the product. This dissertation develops the architecture of a Function Driven Mechanical Design Solution Library for the most primitive design structure - the feature. Each feature has functional expressions associated with it, which represent the fundamental information about the structure. The implementation uses the functionality a feature inherently possesses to obtain solutions. By using a feature's functionality for the search criteria during the design of mechanical components, the design engineer has access to a wider variety of design solutions than traditional libraries are capable of finding, and a more in depth understanding of the design. / Graduation date: 1995

Richard A. Flower. / Originally presented as the author's thesis, (Ph.D.). M.I.T. Dept. of Electrical Engineering, 1974. / Bibliography: p. 66.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-66). Also available in electronic version.

Evidence Based Practice (EBP) is a relatively new approach that professionals are using to cope with the ever-growing body of literature in their fields. The goal of EBP is to effectively use this body of literature to improve professional practice, thus improving the quality of services. A major component of EBP is asking a focused, well-built question, referred to in this paper as an Evidence Based Practice Question (EBPQ). This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study that examines the use an EBPQ to respond to reference questions emailed to a university library reference desk. A purposive sample of 30 randomly selected reference emails was divided into two groups, the EBPQ group and the control group. The professional searcher who conducted the searches used the same approach in responding to each emailed reference question, except that the EBPQ group searches were guided by EBPQs, and the control group’s responses were not. The results indicate that searches guided by using EBPQs are more focused, apply more resources to the search process, and take less time than searches not guided by using EBPQs. These conclusions suggest that EBPQs appear to be useful for improving that search process and that further research is warranted.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Thesis (M.S.)--California Polytechnic State University, 2010. / Title from PDF title page; viewed on March 18, 2010. Major professor: Alexander Dekhtyar, Ph.D. "Presented to the faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo." "In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree [of] Master of Science in Computer Science." "January 2010." Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-74).

Thesis--Rutgers. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-91).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-69).