Community Indicators for Your Community

Real, lasting community change is built around knowing where you are, where you want to be, and whether your efforts are making a difference. Indicators are a necessary ingredient for sustainable change. And the process of selecting community indicators -- who chooses, how they choose, what they choose -- is as important as the data you select.

This is an archive of thoughts I had about indicators and the community indicators movement. Some of the thinking is outdated, and many of the links may have broken over time.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

US Department of Education Publications

Some more information to pass along to anyone interested in education data and other information:

As a valued customer of ED Pubs, we are sending you this email to let you know of our recently redesigned web site, http://edpubs.ed.gov.

In an effort to serve you better, the U.S. Department of Education's ED Pubs (Education Publications) web site has undergone an extensive redesign. The web site combines bold colors, strong lines and a greater amount of “white space” to give it an eye-catching, modern look. The shopping process has been improved by adopting the latest in eCommerce "shopping carts," making it easier to order publications and provide concise, accurate shipping information. The capabilities of "your account" have been extended to realize a more user-friendly environment tailored to your preferences. Please visit us at http://edpubs.ed.gov to see for yourself. If you had previously registered on the site, no need to re-register, your user name and password will work and your order history is still available!

New features include:

News—this section highlights one or two "newsworthy" items, such as information about new pub releases, announcements by Secretary Spellings, etc. The items will have relevancy to publications and the ability to quickly find all publications related to a "news" item. Check back often because the information will be updated regularly.

Featured Items—this section highlights 3-6 publications that are orderable directly from the home page. Each item displays a thumbnail image and title. By clicking the title you can view the publication’s detailed information page. Featured items will be updated every 1-2 weeks.

Hot Topics—this section lists items in response to current events, key ED initiatives, and other timely information. By clicking on a hot topic the system will run a search and find all publications that relate to the topic.

Find Publications By—the links to audience, education level, language, publication type, and subject allow you to quickly find publications related to the groupings. For example, a principal could click on audience and then select "principals" to find all publications that are intended for him/her; a teacher searching for posters could click on publication type and then select "posters" from the list of terms.

Students/Parents/Teachers/Administrators—these menu items listed near the top of the page allow you to quickly find publications that are intended for you. In order to make the search results more manageable you can further refine your group by education level (e.g., elementary, middle, high, college/university, etc.) and subject (e.g., English, math, science, and social studies).

EspaƱol—this section links to publications that are written in Spanish and a Spanish version of the FAQs.

Breadcrumbs—this tool aids you in navigating the site. It is listed below the header and before the main content. You can click on any item in the breadcrumb trail and return to that page.
Zoom—this allows you to quickly view a larger publication cover image.


Quantity—the ability to add the desired number of copies from any page. The system will validate the quantity entered and let you know if the number is above the maximum that is allowed. Over the next several months, we will continue to fine tune the site and we encourage you to check back frequently to see our progress, check out the latest news items, and browse the new arrivals.

Of course, if you have any problems or questions please feel free to call us at 1-877-4ED-PUBS (433-7827). Our professional, knowledgeable Customer Service Representatives are available to assist you Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 6:00pm EST. If you aren’t able to call during this time, please feel free to leave us a voicemail or simply send an email to edpubs@edpubs.ed.gov. You can expect a response within 1 business day.

Have a great day!

U.S. Department of Education

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