The TREC-5 Confusion Track: Comparing Retrieval Methods for Scanned Text

A known-item search is a particular information retrieval task in which the system is asked to find a single target document in a large document set. The TREC-5 confusion track used a set of 49 known-item tasks to study the impact of data corruption on retrieval system performance. Two corrupted versions of a 55,600 document corpus whose true content was known were created by applying OCR techniques to page images. The first version of the corpus used the page images as scanned, resulting in an estimated character error rate of approximately 5%. The second version used page images that had been down-sampled, resulting in an estimated character error rate of approximately 20%. The true text and each of the corrupted versions were then searched using the same set of 49 questions. In general, retrieval methods that attempted a probabilistic reconstruction of the original clean text fared better than methods that simply accepted corrupted versions of the query text.     

University of California Peer Review System and Post-tenure Evaluation

The peer review system at all campuses of the University of California is a long standing program of pre- and post-tenure evaluation. All faculty are reviewed on a schedule of 2 to 4 years by department colleagues, the dean, and a campus faculty committee which normally results in a merit increase. This system of pre- and post-tenure review throughout a faculty members' career poses a substantial workload for faculty, departments, and the campus; but it is regarded by faculty and campus administrators as crucial to maintaining a faculty of very high quality. This article describes the well-established review process, which may provide ideas for those institutions planning on enhancing their approaches to peer review .     

Parent Involvement,Influence, and Satisfaction in Magnet Schools: Do Reasons for Choice Matter?

This paper explores the relationships between parents' reasons for choosing a magnet school and their levels of satisfaction, involvement, and influence with the school. Data are reported from over a thousand magnet school parents in two urban districts. The results suggest three general findings: (1) As reported in previous research, magnet school parents choose schools for a wide array of reasons and are highly satisfied with their chosen school; (2) parents' reasons for choice are important predictors of their levels of satisfaction, influence, and involvement with the school; and (3) parents who choose for values reasons, as compared to other reasons, are more likely to be involved in and satisfied with their school of choice and report that parents have influence over school decisions.     

Mission matters: The cost of small high schools revisited

With the financial support of several large foundations and the federal government, creating small schools has become a prominent high school reform strategy in many large American cities. While some research supports this strategy, little research assesses the relative costs of these smaller schools. We use data on over 200 New York City high schools, from 1996 through 2003, to estimate school cost functions relating per pupil expenditures to school size, controlling for school output and quality, student characteristics, and school organization.We find that the structure of costs differs across schools depending upon mission—comprehensive or themed. At their current levels of outputs, themed schools minimize per pupil costs at smaller enrollments than comprehensive schools, but these optimally sized themed schools also cost more per pupil than optimally sized comprehensive schools. We also find that both themed and comprehensive high schools at actual sizes are smaller than their optimal sizes.