Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Teacher effectiveness Information technology'

Prior research has explored many facets of innovation, provided models of governance maturity, and analyzed the impact of corporate decision-making on innovation. However, there is little research on IT governance maturity in higher education or on IT innovation in organizations outside of the IT industry. Findings from previous research were ambiguous regarding whether a mature IT governance process helps or hinders innovation. This study fills a gap in existing knowledge by reviewing the literature and examining the interaction of IT governance and information technology innovation at five major U.S. universities. It provides insights into the structures and processes necessary for IT governance to facilitate technology innovation and the factors required for effective IT governance in higher education.

Highly effective IT governance processes focused on collaboration and communication were associated with greater integration of radical innovation into institutional processes than effective IT governance processes that focused primarily on the prioritization of large enterprise projects. Incremental technology innovations were pervasive among all schools studied. IT governance was found to be more effective under a delegated model of decision-making authority that empowers IT governance bodies than under a CIO-centric model. The inclusion of a faculty, students and business units in IT governance committees was associated with a stronger innovation culture.

The focus of this study was to understand how health system employees define Data Governance (DG), how they perceive its importance and effectiveness to their role and how it may impact strategic outcomes of the organization. Having a better understanding of employee perceptions will help identify areas of education, process improvement and opportunities for more structured data governance within the healthcare industry. Additionally, understanding how employees associate each of these domains to strategic outcomes, will help inform decision-makers on how best to align the Data Governance strategy with that of the organization.

This research is intended to expand the data governance community’s knowledge about how health system employee demographics influence their perceptions of Data Governance. Very little academic research has been done to-date, which is unfortunate given the value of employee engagement to an organization’s culture juxtaposed to the intent of Data Governance to change that culture into one that fully realizes the value of its data and treats it as a corporate asset. This lack of understanding leads to two distinct problems: executive resistance toward starting a Data Governance Program due to the lack of association between organizational strategic outcomes and Data Governance, and employee, or cultural, resistance to the change Data Governance brings to employee roles and processes.

The dataset for this research was provided by a large mid-west health system’s Enterprise Data Governance Program and was collected internally through an electronic survey. A mixed methods approach was taken. The first analysis intended to see how employees varied in their understanding of the definition of data governance as represented by the Data Management Association’s DAMA Wheel. The last three research questions focused on determining which factors influence a health system employee’s perception of the importance, effectiveness, and impact Data Governance has on their role and on the organization.

Perceptions on the definition of Data Governance varied slightly for Gender, Management Role, IT Role, and Role Tenure, and the thematic analysis identified a lack of understanding of Data Governance by health system employees. Perceptions of Data Governance importance and effectiveness varied by participants’ gender, and organizational role as part of analytics, IT, and Management. In general, employees perceive a deficit of data governance to their role based on their perceptions of importance and effectiveness. Lastly, employee perceptions of the impact of Data Governance on strategic outcomes varied among participants by gender for Cost of Care and by Analytics Role for Quality of Analytics. For both Quality of Care and Patient Experience, perceptions did not vary.

Perceptions related to the impact of Data Governance on strategic outcomes found that Data Quality Management was most impactful to all four strategic outcomes included in the study: quality of care, cost of care, patient experience, and quality of analytics. Leveraging the results of this study to tailor communication, education and training, and roles and responsibilities required for a successful implementation of Data Governance in healthcare should be considered by DG practitioners and executive leadership implementing or evaluating a DG Program within a healthcare organization. Additionally, understanding employee perceptions of Data Governance and their impact to strategic outcomes will provide meaningful insight to executive leadership who have difficulty connecting the cost of Data Governance to the value realization, which is moving the organization closer to achieving the Triple Aim by benefiting from their data.

The pervasive nature of technology in society is not reflected in schools. Research indicates that teachers are reluctant to integrate technology to the levels that are expected by organizations such as the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), the author of the national standards used to assess technology in schools. Included in the ISTE standards are standards for educational administrators that place the responsibility for leading the change towards integration firmly in the hands of the principals as the educational leaders of the schools.

While there is no clear definition of leadership, the common thread is the ability to create change in the beliefs and actions of followers. According to the Situational Leadership ® theory, an effective leader is one who uses the appropriate leadership strategy to create and manage change in the given situation. The LEAD other instrument is used to assess the effectiveness of leaders as perceived by their followers. The purpose of this study was to explore the existence of a relationship between effective leadership as measured by the LEAD other instrument and teachers’ levels of technology integration as measured by the Mankato Technology Survey. While not indicating causality, a positive correlation would indicate that principal leadership effectiveness needs to be further explored in the process of understanding why technology integration is not occurring at expected levels. The results of the study did not provide sufficient support to reject the null hypothesis, thus suggesting that no relationship exists between principal leadership effectiveness and the level of teacher technology integration. The lack of a significant relationship suggests that additional research is required to determine if in fact the responsibility for technology integration and comfort has been inappropriately placed on the principal, and to examine what other factors require further consideration.

According to Gartner Inc., $3.7 trillion dollars was spent in the United States alone in 2013 on IT services. The continued anticipated growth of United States IT spending will reach as high as $3.9 trillion in 2014, representing an average increase in spending of 4.1% between 2013 and 2014. A significant percentage of those investments were lost to waste and failed projects. The combination of rising costs and losses has driven a considerable amount of research on the impact of successful project management on the value that IT creates within an organization. The results of a recent study confirmed a significant relationship between the success of an IT project and the quality of the IT department’s technical efficiencies and processes. Recent studies have also demonstrated a link between enterprise architectural planning and an organizations ability to manage IT investments. This study on IT managers’ perceptions of the business value of IT and the effectiveness of enterprise architectural planning as moderated by age, gender, and education, used a non-experimental quantitative design and a random sample provided by the SurveyMonkey contribute panel to obtain 109 survey responses. The use of a random sample and the size of the study were intended to allow for the generalizability of the results within the geographic region of the United States. A bootstrapped hierarchical linear regression statistical methodology was employed using SPSS as the data were not normally distributed. Ethical considerations were mediated according to the requirements outlined in the Belmont Report (2014). This study found a statistically significant relationship between IT managers’ perceptions of the business value of IT and the effectiveness of enterprise architectural planning as moderated by age, gender, and education. The results of the study support existing research on the topic of the perceived business value of IT and enterprise architectural planning.

The researcher explored the lived experience of adult online college honor students (AOCHS) with the goal of describing critical factors that support academic success. The study addressed a gap in the literature concerning how the technology and virtual context of adult online college education are perceived, interpreted, and employed by the most successful students in undergraduate online college degree programs. Participants described how they perceived their online learning experience, what meaning they attribute to this experience, and what strategies they employ to achieve academic success in the online learning environment. The study was based on Deming’s total quality management philosophy, Nonaka’s theoretical context for knowledge generation, and the community of inquiry (CoI), a conceptual framework for online education. An online questionnaire and individual telephone interviews were used to gather qualitative data, which were analyzed using thematic coding and analytic induction to address the study’s purpose and answer the research questions. Follow-up interview subjects were purposefully selected to provide a heterogeneous sample based on self-reported demographics, priorities, and motivations. Results showed that honor students’ expect that the technologies and user interfaces in online college classes should be as engaging and effective as social media, online entertainment, and Internet commerce technologies that they use in their nonacademic lives. That online instructors should be active and encouraging participants in the learning process. And that students’ personal, academic success is supported by a mature self-image and work ethic, effective time management and workload planning, clear and timely communication with faculty members, positive collaboration with classmates, and fluent use of learning technology.

This study analyzed the meta-data collected from a honeypot that was run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a period of 5 years. This analysis compared the use of existing industry methods and tools, such as Intrusion Detection System alerts, network traffic flow and system log traffic, within the Open Source Security Information Manager (OSSIM) against techniques that were used to prioritize the detailed analysis of the data which would aid in the faster identification of attackers. It was found that by adding the results from computing a Hilbert Curve, Popularity Analysis, Cadence Analysis and Modus Operandi Analysis did not introduce significant or detrimental latency for the identification of attacker traffic. Furthermore, when coupled with the traditional tools within OSSIM, the identification of attacker traffic was greatly enhanced. Future research should consider additional statistical models that can be used to guide the strategic use of more intense analysis that is conducted by deep packet inspection software and broader intelligence models from reviewing attacks against multiple organizations. Additionally, other improvements in detection strategies are possible by these mechanisms when being able to review full data collection.

Information Technology (IT) professionals use the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) process to better manage their business operations, measure performance, improve reliability and lower costs. This study examined the operational results of those data centers using ITIL against those that do not, and whether the results change when traditional facilities engineers are included in the process. Overall, those IT departments using ITIL processes had no statistically significant improvements when compared to those who do not. Inclusion of Critical Facilities (CF) personnel in the framework offered a statistically significant improvement in their overall reliability of their data centers. Those IT departments who do not include CF personnel in the ITIL framework have a slightly lower level of reliability than those who do not use the ITIL processes at all.