CAN DATA QUALITY HELP OVERCOME THE PENGUIN EFFECT? THE CASE OF ITEM MASTER DATA POOLS

The diffusion of standards is characterized by network effects, path dependency, and the penguin effect. Particularly the latter, also referred to as excess inertia, is a frequent inhibitor of the adoption of standards, even if they could provide benefits. This is particularly true for item master data pools that suffer from little adoption in many industries as benefits can only accrue if many firms use them. At the same time, data pools show the potential to improve the quality of item master data by pooling the efforts on data quality assurance. This paper addresses the question whether an improvement of item master data quality can contribute to overcoming the penguin effect by data pools. The theoretical considerations are supplemented by an exploratory qualitative research among the leading retailers in the Austrian food and drug sector. The findings suggest that data quality improvement can be one way to encourage the use of data pools and thus overcome the penguin effect in adoption

Assessing Tools for Coordinating Quality of Master Data in Inter-organizational Product Information Sharing

Product information sharing, i.e., inter-organizational transfer of master data relating to products, is a problematic, error-prone, labor-intensive, and costly process in many companies. This paper presents findings of a focus group interview and case studies at three wholesale trading companies that share product information with hundreds of suppliers. We identify and assess coordination mechanisms and tools used to facilitate product information sharing. Spreadsheet files, e-mail messages, telephone calls, and personal meetings are predominant coordination tools. EDI connections, product identification and classification standards, online product catalogs, and data pools are not widely adopted in the trading organizations covered by our study. Reasons for the low adoption rate are that employees responsible for master data quality are either unaware of these resources or that they are convinced that the tools are too cost-intensive or not flexible enough

The Road Ahead for State Assessments

The adoption of the Common Core State Standards offers an opportunity to make significant improvements to the large-scale statewide student assessments that exist today, and the two US DOE-funded assessment consortia -- the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) -- are making big strides forward. But to take full advantage of this opportunity the states must focus squarely on making assessments both fair and accurate.A new report commissioned by the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy and Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), The Road Ahead for State Assessments, offers a blueprint for strengthening assessment policy, pointing out how new technologies are opening up new possibilities for fairer, more accurate evaluations of what students know and are able to do. Not all of the promises can yet be delivered, but the report provides a clear set of assessment-policy recommendations. The Road Ahead for State Assessments includes three papers on assessment policy.The first, by Mark Reckase of Michigan State University, provides an overview of computer adaptive assessment. Computer adaptive assessment is an established technology that offers detailed information on where students are on a learning continuum rather than a summary judgment about whether or not they have reached an arbitrary standard of "proficiency" or "readiness." Computer adaptivity will support the fair and accurate assessment of English learners (ELs) and lead to a serious engagement with the multiple dimensions of "readiness" for college and careers.The second and third papers give specific attention to two areas in which we know that current assessments are inadequate: assessments in science and assessments for English learners.In science, paper-and-pencil, multiple choice tests provide only weak and superficial information about students' knowledge and skills -- most specifically about their abilities to think scientifically and actually do science. In their paper, Chris Dede and Jody Clarke-Midura of Harvard University illustrate the potential for richer, more authentic assessments of students' scientific understanding with a case study of a virtual performance assessment now under development at Harvard. With regard to English learners, administering tests in English to students who are learning the language, or to speakers of non-standard dialects, inevitably confounds students' content knowledge with their fluency in Standard English, to the detriment of many students. In his paper, Robert Linquanti of WestEd reviews key problems in the assessment of ELs, and identifies the essential features of an assessment system equipped to provide fair and accurate measures of their academic performance.The report's contributors offer deeply informed recommendations for assessment policy, but three are especially urgent.Build a system that ensures continued development and increased reliance on computer adaptive testing. Computer adaptive assessment provides the essential foundation for a system that can produce fair and accurate measurement of English learners' knowledge and of all students' knowledge and skills in science and other subjects. Developing computer adaptive assessments is a necessary intermediate step toward a system that makes assessment more authentic by tightly linking its tasks and instructional activities and ultimately embedding assessment in instruction. It is vital for both consortia to keep these goals in mind, even in light of current technological and resource constraints.Integrate the development of new assessments with assessments of English language proficiency (ELP). The next generation of ELP assessments should take into consideration an English learners' specific level of proficiency in English. They will need to be based on ELP standards that sufficiently specify the target academic language competencies that English learners need to progress in and gain mastery of the Common Core Standards. One of the report's authors, Robert Linquanti, states: "Acknowledging and overcoming the challenges involved in fairly and accurately assessing ELs is integral and not peripheral to the task of developing an assessment system that serves all students well. Treating the assessment of ELs as a separate problem -- or, worse yet, as one that can be left for later -- calls into question the basic legitimacy of assessment systems that drive high-stakes decisions about students, teachers, and schools." Include virtual performance assessments as part of comprehensive state assessment systems. Virtual performance assessments have considerable promise for measuring students' inquiry and problem-solving skills in science and in other subject areas, because authentic assessment can be closely tied to or even embedded in instruction. The simulation of authentic practices in settings similar to the real world opens the way to assessment of students' deeper learning and their mastery of 21st century skills across the curriculum. We are just setting out on the road toward assessments that ensure fair and accurate measurement of performance for all students, and support for sustained improvements in teaching and learning. Developing assessments that realize these goals will take time, resources and long-term policy commitment. PARCC and SBAC are taking the essential first steps down a long road, and new technologies have begun to illuminate what's possible. This report seeks to keep policymakers' attention focused on the road ahead, to ensure that the choices they make now move us further toward the goal of college and career success for all students. This publication was released at an event on May 16, 2011

REACHING A HIGHER LEVEL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION: THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SUBSTITUTION STRATEGIES ON PROCESS EFFICIENCY

Firms frequently apply more than one information system for their processes and data exchange. This variety is often due to the existence of legacy systems and can cause large inefficiencies. At present, most consumer goods firms aim at replacing non-integrated information flows with electronic data interchange. In doing so, firms constantly increase their level of information systems (IS) integration. However, firms have to decide whether they replace non-integrated legacy systems incrementally or radically. The paper investigates this issue from a conceptual viewpoint that combines the information technology (IT) substitution perspective with the concept of levels of IS integration. An empirical case study investigates two alternative IT substitution approaches, i.e., an incremental and a complete IT substitution, in respect of their impacts on process efficiency improvement. The results indicate that the complete IT substitution achieves significantly larger efficiency gains due to the impact of IS integration levels

A Well-Being Ranking of US Colleges: Enabling Students to Choose a Life of Flourishing and Encouraging Schools to Measure It

Well-being is related to and predictive of a whole host of positive outcomes. Despite well-being’s demonstrable downstream effects in domains such as education, health, and the workforce, it is not overtly taken into account in popular rankings of U.S. colleges. Research has demonstrated that these rankings not only impact the choices made by applicants but also affect the strategic and financial decisions made by the colleges themselves. Given well-being’s utility, the current state of college rankings, and the demonstrated impact of these publications, an opportunity exists to supplement the field with a well-being ranking of U.S. colleges. I propose a ranking methodology that leverages big data analyses, technology-based behavioral measures, and self-report questionnaires. It is my hope that such a college ranking would enable students to choose a life of flourishing and encourage schools to better support the well-being of their communities. What we measure matters: we pay attention to what we measure, we can evaluate the impact of what we measure, and we can improve what we measure. Well-being is worth paying attention to, evaluating, and improving

Public street surveillance: A psychometric study on the perceived social risk

Public street surveillance, a domain of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), has grown enormously and is becoming common place with increasing utilization in society as an all-purpose security tool. Previous authors (Ditton, 1999; Davies, 1998; Horne, 1998; Tomkins, 1998) have raised concern over social, civil and privacy issues, but there has been limited research to quantify these concerns. There are a number of core aspects that could relocate the risk perception and therefore, social support of public street surveillance. This study utilized the psychometric paradigm to quantitatively measure the social risk perception of public street surveillance. The psychometric paradigm is a method that presents risk perception in a two factor representation, being dread risk and familiarity to risk. Four additional control activities and technologies were tested, being radioactive waste, drinking water chlorination, coal mining disease and home swimming pools. Analysis included spatial representation, and multidimensional scaling (MDS) Euclidean and INDSCAL methods. The study utilized a seven point Likert scale, pre and post methodology, and had a target population of N=2106, with a sample of N=135 (alpha=0.7)

The Anchor of Life: Triumphs and crises in the Australian wheat- growing, flour milling and bread industries from 1880- 1939.

The scope of this thesis is Australia from the late nineteenth century to 1939, viewed through the lens of three interrelated industries – wheat-growing, flour-milling and bread-baking. Authoritative literature on wheat-growing is abundant, but literature on bread-baking and flour-milling is scant, so this thesis aims to add to the literature by explicating the interconnectedness of these three kindred industries. In the period covered, Australia achieved its sought-after wheat surplus, but as the title suggests, these industries lurched through cycles of triumph and crisis as breakthroughs were achieved only to suffer unforeseen setbacks, culminating in some of the industry coming to near collapse. This thesis argues that Australia's shift from chronic under-production of wheat as an insular socio-economic outpost of Britain, to a sovereign nation-state operating in a global grain and flour market profoundly altered the production, supply, price and quality of flour-based staples to Australian and international customers and consumers. Starting in the last decades of the nineteenth century, this thesis examines three major historical turning points in the process