The IAIMS initiative at the University of Maryland at Baltimore

With support from the National Library of Medicine, the University of Maryland at Baltimore is creating an Integrated Academic Information Management System (IAIMS) that will serve as a prototype for academic health centers. A campus-wide undertaking, the IAIMS initiative at Maryland is characterized by its functional comprehensiveness and its planning model. The resulting strategic plan is serving as a guide in the ongoing model development within an interdisciplinary Hypertension Center.     

A Delphi study to determine nursing research priorities in the North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust and the corresponding evidence base

The aims of the study are to identify and prioritize research questions of importance to nurses in North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust and to investigate and describe the existing evidence base for the highest priority questions identified. The consensus method known as the Delphi technique was used. Systematic searching of the literature for each question identified from the research priorities enabled the existing evidence base to be characterized. The following priorities were identified as the most important (in descending order of importance): Recruitment and Retention of Nursing Staff; Staff Stress & Morale; Training & Education of Nursing Staff; Infection Control; and Pain Management. The Delphi technique proved a useful method to determine and prioritize research areas in nursing.     

Effects of students' race,physical attractiveness,and dialect on teachers' evaluations

The study was designed to assess the effects of a student's race, dialect, and physical attractiveness on teachers' evaluations. The students were of two races, black and white; three physical attractivenss levels, high, middle, and low; and they spoke one of two dialects, Black English or Standard English. Sixty-eight, white, elementary school teachers listened to each student's response and rated the student in terms of personality, quality of response, and current and future academic abilities. Analysis of the results showed that all main effects and interactions were significant. Generally, black students, Black English-speaking students, and low attractive students were rated lower. The results also revealed that teachers' ratings in the different areas were highly consistent with one another. Discussion centered around the results' implications for determining the cause(s) of black children's failure in school. The results provide some support for attributing these children's academic failures to their race and dialect rather than to their actual performance.     

The effects of school quality on income

This paper uses a unique data set created by merging the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with school data from the Common Core of Data to examine the relationship between school expenditures and earnings. I find that school expenditures are related to earnings, and also positively affect the returns to schooling. This is particularly important given recent papers that have found no effect because this study is able to observe wages at later ages and is estimated for males and females. Robustness estimates find that if the sample were only observed at young ages, or estimated for white males, as has been done previously, the results would not hold. Therefore, it appears that even using an individual-level data set with students educated in this half of the century, school spending affects earnings.