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The starting point for innovation in higher education must include assessment, evaluation, and description of the present situation. A national study of what constitutes the core values of American academic life today should be undertaken. In the evaluation of innovation, it is important to broaden the unit being studied to include legislators and taxpayers, as well as students, faculty and administrators. Innovations proposed must be considered in light of their impact on all participants. The quality of the educational experience rather than the amount of specific information transmitted should be evaluated. Related documents are EA 002 536 and EA 002 551. (MLF)

Social science data, existing in a format that can be manipulated by computing machinery, can be used for many purposes in addition to those for which they were initially collected. Scholars and government planners should hve ready and equal access to such material and these groups will be best served if they are informed regarding the characteristics of the materials available to them and the means for their proper utilization. Several barriers prevent the realization of this goal. Foremost among them is the absence of a central organization that will co-ordinate the activities of diverse independent efforts; establish standards for processing, documenting, and storing data; work toward developing procedures for servicing the needs of users; disseminate information pertaining to the operations and contents of social science data archives; provide a common meeting ground for professionals engaged in the management and development of these archives; and help to secure funds to accomplish these tasks. The study report is concerned with overcoming the barriers to realizing the fullest utilization of machine readable social science data. (Author)

A “build it and they will come” approach to many university digitization initiatives has precluded systematic investigations of the demand for these resources. Those who fund and develop digital resources have identified the general lack of knowledge about the level and quality of their use in educational settings as pressing concerns. The purpose of our research was to map the universe of digital resources available to undergraduate educators in a subset of users in the humanities and social sciences (H/SS), and to examine how understanding use and users can benefit the integration of these resources into undergraduate teaching. Why study users? There are myriad reasons cited for undertaking and conducting user studies. They may range from product design and usability testing, to policing web sites, to facilitating policy and investment decisions. For our purposes there were three interrelated rationales for conducting the present research: (1) addressing questions of strategic planning and investments in digital resource provision and use, (2) identifying the special needs of the humanities and social sciences, particularly as they relate to the future of liberal education in a digital age, and (3) sharing effective strategies for understanding the array of uses and users across a wide variety of educational digital resource initiatives.