Brand Marketing: Not Your Traditional Approach

Millennials are anything but traditional when it comes to retail shopping. It should come as no surprise that Millennials prefer being able to interact with brands through digital channels versus historical marketing tactics such as circulars or in-store advertisements. Retailers also cannot rely on the traditional “quality products at a good deal” approach, an effective marketing component of baby boomers.  Instead, Millennials are forcing brand marketing strategies to become much more participative in ways such as casually engaging them on Facebook or Twitter. In fact, the entire marketing equation for Millennials has evolved to include this participative aspect:

One way for brands to become more participative is to offer loyalty and reward programs; 77 percent of Millennials reported participating in such programs and 78 percent reported being more likely to purchase from a brand with a loyalty/rewards program than a brand without one. Brands that succeed in attracting Millennials are often then rewarded for their efforts: Millennials are leaders in “word-of-mouth” recommendations. In this age of social media, “valuable brand advocates” who share opinions on- and off-line with peers are arguably the most effective marketing tool.

The Shopping Experience: A Two-Way Street

The participative and engaging approach goes beyond just selling; the entire retail shopping experience needs to be more engaging. Retailers need to make Millennials feel as if they are a part of something fashionable and trendy; something that their friends belong to – Millennials associated themselves with the statement “It’s ok if others know I am associated with it” twice as often as Baby Boomers.

The all-in-one shopping experience of major in-store retailers is becoming a thing of the past, as the ease and convenience of online shopping is putting more pressure on in-store retailers than ever. It can be far less preferable to go to a brick-and-mortar store when online purchases arrive within a few days and shipping is (often) free. Additionally, the sheer quantity of online vendors has afforded Millennials (and consumers in general) more retail options than ever before, thereby allowing Millennials to be more selective with their purchases. Millennials actually prefer to browse for products over purchasing them, and only pull the trigger after a smile of satisfaction – a retailer’s ability to “make me smile” is 33 percent more important to Millennials than Baby Boomers.

Online retailers interested in appealing to Millennial consumers need to provide them with a more shareable and social shopping experience. As the pioneers of social media, it is especially important for online retailers to offer products and advice to Millennials on social networks. Millennials want to share these things with 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 friends and followers (i.e. your potential customers). This dialog can be enhanced by a well-developed mobile strategy that engages the 50 percent of Millennials that are browsing and reviewing products via their mobile devices.

Purchasing Habits: Here and Now

Millennials live and shop in the moment, often making purchases and dealing with the repercussions later. In one survey, 52 percent of Millennials were more likely to make impulse purchases than any other generation. This is an alarming difference from the nearly 8 out of 10 baby Boomers whose purchases are driven by practical decisions. Millennials don’t stop spending in a recession either; only 20 percent of Millennials reported spending less on apparel during the most recent economic downturn.

Despite the rapid spending habits of Millennials, they put a lot of thought into the products and services they adopt. Millennials are more cosmopolitan in nature, and view their purchases through a global lens, which for example, leads to a higher preference for “green” products. These reasons are why Millennials are more likely to shop at smaller retailers with authentic cultural items than large chain operations.

Millennials do more than just purchase environmentally or socially responsible products; they donate their time and money to charitable causes. In 2011, 75 percent of Millennials donated to charity and 60 percent volunteered for a good cause. In the near future, the brands that Millennials support the most are likely to have a positive impact on the world.

The New Dialogue

Millennials are using the advancements in technology and mobile communication to change how they interact with brands. The brands that nurture these interactions and turn them into strong relationships will be rewarded in new ways. For instance, Millennials are willing to share private information in exchange for benefits – 56 percent would share their location for a discount. Ultimately, Millennials are now calling the shots, and retailers will just have to listen.

To learn more about Millennials and their shopping habits, click here.

• How initiatives to promote data use affect student outcomes,
• The details of initiatives to promote data use (e.g., district data systems), or
• A description of ways to use data, rather than an analytical examination of how data is used.

Research on the practice of data use, or “what actually happens when people in schools, school districts, and higher education interact with data in the course of their ongoing work in the situated context of their workplaces,” would help practitioners understand when and how to best use data for decision making.

Although there is little empirical research on data-driven decision making, there are numerous examples of how institutions of higher education integrate student learning assessment, evaluation of operations, strategic planning, and budgeting in order to maximize institutional effectiveness. Below are two examples of institutions that best demonstrate these characteristics.

Institution A is a rural community college with fewer than 10,000 students. Fifty-four percent of full-time students graduate or transfer within three years, as compared to the national average of 40 percent.

• Mission Review 
  Institution A invited all faculty and staff to partake in a yearlong review of the College’s mission and goals through 17 task groups that reviewed the core themes of the mission. The task groups developed objectives and performance indicators for each theme, and the entire college community was then invited to provide feedback on the objectives and performance indicators through a web-based Wiki.

• External Factors 
  The institution stays closely attuned to the local economy and labor market to guide its planning and prepare its students to succeed in the workforce. For example, when analysis showed that the region needed more nurses, the institution doubled its program’s capacity.

• Student Outcomes 
  One recommendation resulting from the College’s yearlong review was to report and document measurable outcomes for its A.A. and A.S. transfer degrees. In response, the College expanded and updated its learning outcomes assessment database, with faculty and adjuncts reporting student learning outcomes each quarter for at least one course. A collection of administrators and faculty meet monthly to share best practices and review the program-level learning outcomes and assessments in all departments.

• Budget Development 
  Budget development at the College is an ongoing process that includes faculty, staff, and administrators. The key factor of the process is that all budget proposals are examined within the context of outcomes assessment measures, core themes, unit and divisional strategic plans.

Institution B is an urban community college serving almost 30,000 students – sixty-four percent of whom graduate or transfer within three years.

• Integrating Planning and Resource Allocation 
  After receiving feedback to “more closely integrate the resource allocation process for faculty hiring with program review and other planning processes,” Institution B modified the academic program review process to include requests for any new faculty positions or to fill vacant positions. The College’s Academic Senate ranks all of the position requests and submits the recommendations to the Executive Vice President and Education Programs and Superintendent/President, who decide if the recommendations align with institutional priorities.

• Data and Assessments 
  The College self-identified a goal of increasing access to information necessary for planning and assessment. After much research and evaluation, software was selected to provide expanded access to the College’s data dashboards. A committee formed of staff from Institutional Research and Information Technology meet weekly to create and discuss the reporting systems.

• Student Learning Outcomes 
  Another self-identified goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of the first full year of the College’s Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) implementation program. When departments conduct program reviews, they are expected to use program-level SLO data and analysis to create course improvement plans.

• Resource Allocation 
  The College also identified its planning and resource allocation process as an area for improvement and responded by: 1) Defining the process for prioritizing and processing facilities-related requests, 2) Improving the software used for departmental planning and resource requests by clarifying areas that frequently received questions, and 3) Acting on feedback to include classified staff in the program review process.

The foundations of a data-driven decision making blueprint can be gathered by the similarities shared between Institutions A and B. Strategic planning and other operational processes of both institutions are collaborative processes that involve the entire college community providing feedback at one point or another. Additionally, all planning and self-studies begin with a review of the colleges’ mission and goals – a testament to their key role in linking strategic planning, assessment, operations, and budgeting.

Critical Components of a Market Evaluation

Market evaluations gauge the validity of opportunities within a defined market. For example, an adhesive manufacturer may consider entering Brazil and find the automotive, medical, defense and aerospace markets potentially attractive. In order to validate each opportunity, the manufacturer will thoroughly examine these markets deeper and rank them according to a set of market evaluation factors.  This analysis allows the firm to prioritize its resources and improve its strategic initiatives. Market evaluations can take on many forms depending on the type and quantity of evaluation factors, but well-executed ones will address the following five.

A Case Study: Entering the Indian Market

A U.S. firm in the energy sector was exploring new growth markets internationally and tasked Hanover Research with prioritizing high-value opportunities in India. The Hanover Research team explored seven markets and determined that the automobile and aerospace were most attractive. They came to this conclusion after evaluating several factors: for the aerospace market, for example, the team forecasted thin film demand by researching the Indian government’s military expenditures and policies for aviation, growth percentages and future investments in civilian and business aviation, and overall market growth rates. Researchers also conducted a policy analysis to determine if existing regulations could pose barriers to entry. Finally, Hanover Research’s analysts assessed threat of competition by profiling major competitors and determining their market positioning.

Hanover Research determined that the aerospace and automobile markets were most attractive mainly due to favorable regulatory changes and overall market growth. The firm’s executive team used these findings to make informed decisions and avoid investments in low-opportunity markets. This case study is an example of how market evaluations enable firms to see a market with clarity, execute their strategies with conviction, and sell their products with confidence.

A Webinar Aimed to Improve Your Market Evaluation Approach

The guidelines outlined above are just the starting point. The keys to smart market evaluations require collaborative work across firm functions, skilled researchers and analysts, ample resources, and a thorough examining of the right market evaluation factors.

If you would like further expertise on international market evaluations, we encourage you to join Hanover Research’s upcoming International Market Evaluations webinar on Wednesday, June 12^th, at 1PM EST. You will learn how to execute market evaluations effectively and hear real case studies on how carefully executed market evaluations shaped entry strategies. This is a free webinar. To register, visit http://bit.ly/MICWebinar1

Firms face tremendous risk when entering into an international market through an organic growth and/or merger and acquisition strategy. How do successful firms mitigate the risk of failure? They enter an international market knowing if there are viable opportunities for growth, who are the major players, what political and legal trends could impact the business, and how the distribution channels are shaped.

About the Webinar: International Market Sizing

This webinar will focus on how B2B firms can access new markets and gain competitive advantage globally. This component of Hanover Research’s 2013 webinar series is designed to help you make your market research count. In addition to reviewing the importance of growth through international markets, Hanover will present its own innovative approaches to international market research, share case studies taken from client engagements, and discuss strategies for transforming B2B market research into an effective tool for growing your international presence.

What You’ll Learn During This Segment:

• Effective strategies for evaluating new international opportunities
• Creative approaches to performing market research/competitive intelligence in B2B

Join Us. Registration is FREE!

• When: June 12^th, 2013.
• Time: 1:00 – 2:00 PM EDT.
• Cost: FREE!
• Click here to register:http://bit.ly/MICWebinar1

About Hanover’s 2013 Webinar Series

Make Your Research Count

Hanover Research’s 2013 webinar series is designed to present insights on how your company can make your market research count. This webinar series will explore a 5-pronged, comprehensive approach to market research involving market assessment, product management, customer knowledge, brand and marketing strategy, and data insights. This series presents a comprehensive approach to market research, as proven time and again, a piece-meal approach to market research is not effective.

Building on Hanover Research’s extensive research capabilities, each live, complimentary segment of the webinar series will present market research trends and innovative research approaches from Hanover Research’s experienced market researchers.

The following webinar segments are included in this series:

• B2B International Market Evaluation
• Maximizing Product Effectiveness
• B2B Customer Retention
• Keys to Understanding Brand Satisfaction in B2B
• Leverage Your Data: The Power of Predictive Analytics in B2B

To learn more information about the second webinar in this series, see the information below.

Maximizing Product Effectiveness

July 23^rd at 1pm EDT

Click here for more information on the webinar and to register

Further details and registration information for the final three webinars in this powerful series will be upcoming.

Prevalence of Security Measures

Public schools use a variety of practices and procedures to promote the safety of schools and staff by monitoring behaviors either internally or externally, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Externally, practices such as locked or monitored doors or gates are intended to limit or control access to school campuses, while practices such as metal detectors, security cameras, and regulating access to social networking websites are intended to monitor or restrict students’ and visitors’ behavior on campus. As shown in the chart below, the most common types of security measures are locked buildings and grounds, requirements for faculty and staff to wear ID badges, video surveillance cameras, and electronic notification systems.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

Many of these security measures have increased in prevalence in just the last decade; according to the NCES, between 1999-2000 and 2009-2010, there was an increase in the percentage of public schools reporting the use of the following safety measures:

• Controlled access to the building during school hours (from 75 to 92 percent)
• Controlled access to school grounds during school hours (from 34 to 46 percent)
• Faculty required to wear badges or picture IDs (from 25 to 63 percent)
• The use of one or more security cameras to monitor the school (from 19 to 61 percent)

In addition to these, the NCES also reports that the use of security personnel on campus has increased over the same period, with over two-thirds of students now reporting that their middle or high school has at least one security guard or assigned police officer. Many of these school security officers are armed, with the New York Times reporting that as many as one-third (23,200) of all public schools had armed guards in the 2009-2010 school year, including schools in Albuquerque, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and St. Louis. The use of armed guards within these districts may vary by school level; for instance, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (North Carolina) uses armed guards at its 28 high schools, but not at its 88 elementary schools.

Effectiveness of Security Measures

Overall, the available literature on the effectiveness of these security measures has produced only mixed findings. A 2006 RAND Corporation study found that only a handful of security measures, such as metal detectors, security guards, and student conduct regulations, have been evaluated, and “even fewer have been deemed effective or even promising.” Furthermore, a 2011 review of scholarly literature on school crime prevention concluded that “despite these well-intended efforts of prevention practices, the literature remains mixed as to their effectiveness in reducing both actual crime and fear of crime.”

Police and School Resource Officers

Use of security guards and police officers ranks among the most common physical surveillance measures currently used in schools. The responsibilities of school resource officers typically range from assisting administrators with student discipline issues to patrolling school grounds, and there have even been noted cases of campus officers successfully intervening in school shootings. Overall, however, the benefits of security guards have been widely contested in the relevant literature.

While some sources have argued that school officers serve as a deterrent to violence, others are far more skeptical. For instance, a post-Columbine study of 37 school shootings by the U.S. Secret Service, in 2002, found that, despite prompt police responses, only a little more than a quarter of these attacks were stopped by law enforcement intervention – in most cases, the attack was stopped by teachers or school staff, by other students, or by the shooter ceasing of his own volition or committing suicide. On the other hand, a recent study of data from the NCES found that the presence and number of school resource officers is significantly associated with a lower incidence of serious school violence. Overall, there seems to be no unanimous agreement regarding the effects of school officers, and the decision to deploy such personnel will depend on the circumstances of the individual school or district.

Physical Access Barriers and Technology-Based Security

In addition to personnel-based security, districts are increasingly using physical access control mechanisms and other technology-based security tactics to protect students. Examples of common safety measures include video surveillance cameras, closed circuit television systems, weapon detection systems (such as metal detectors), and access-control systems (such as electronic key cards). As with the use of security officers, there are both benefits and drawbacks associated with physical and technology-based safety measures. The 2006 RAND study, for instance, reported that the use of weapon detection systems (e.g., metal detectors, locker searches) appears to deter students from bringing weapons to school, but raised the question of whether such measures “can prevent a well-planned incident” or a determined shooter; this hypothesis was confirmed in the recent study of NCES data, which found that, although “the installation of weapon-detection devices appears to stymie generalized violence,” these systems have “no significant impact in preventing serious violence.”

The general consensus appears to be that if districts can afford physical barriers and have the personnel to operate them, security measures such as weapons detectors, surveillance cameras, and access control mechanisms can serve as an effective deterrent for campus violence. However, as with security officers, the key for any school is to examine their options based on the emotional climate and the culture of the individual school, because different schools will have different threats and vulnerabilities. In other words, there is no universal set of school security guidelines, and each school district must make its own decision based upon local circumstances.

Which security measure would you feel most comfortable implementing? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The Sequestration Affects Us All

Currently, the effects of the sequestration span the entire breadth of government spending. According to the OMB memo released on March 1^st, 2013, in addition to the Medicare cut, the government will be facing:

• 7.8% reduction in discretionary defense spending;
• 5% cut to discretionary domestic spending;
• 5.1% reduction to domestic mandatory programs.

Hitting the Healthcare Industry Hard

For health care providers, the pain of sequestration is felt acutely. Starting this month, Medicare reimbursement to providers across settings will be cut by 2%, resulting in an $11 billion reduction in Medicare revenues.

Under sequestration, programs that incentivize innovation and risk prevention, as well as those targeting the population the most in need of support – seniors – may be hit the hardest. Many health sector leaders admonish both the executive and legislative branches for failing to produce thoughtful fiscal policy and allowing the sequester to broadly slash programs to achieve short term savings. According to the OMB budget released on September 2012, hospitals’ Medicare reimbursements will be reduced by $5.8 billion, and prescription drug benefits will be cut by $591 million in 2013.

On the research and preventive side, NIH faces cuts of over $2.5 billion, the FDA expects $318 million less, and CMS is anticipating program management funding to be reduced by $63 million. As a result, many public health initiatives are suffering a disproportionate share of the funding loss. Preventive services like HIV/AIDS testing will be significantly reduced over 10 years. According to APHA executive director Georges Benjamin,

“[s]equester means 424,000 fewer HIV tests conducted by CDC’s health department grantees, 7,400 fewer patients having access to HRSA’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program that provides life-saving HIV medications and about 25,000 fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings for poor, high-risk women.”

What This Means for Grants

For the grant landscape, the cuts will mean higher competition among remaining programs. Major funders of innovative programs focused in telemedicine, community health centers, cancer institutes, and patient centered workforces will experience significant budget cuts. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) will receive $605 million less in 2013. Similarly, the CDC anticipates losing $490 million and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services will see $275 million disappear from budgets. In HHS’s memorandum to grantees Sherry Smallwood, Chief Grants Management Officer, states,

“At this time, the Department of Health and Human Services and CDC are taking every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but based on our initial analysis, it is possible that your grants or cooperative agreement awards may be affected. Examples of this impact could include: not issuing continuation awards, not awarding incremental funds on multi-year awards, or negotiating a reduction in the scope of your awards to meet the constraints imposed by sequestration. Additionally, plans for new grants may be re-scoped, delayed, or canceled depending on the nature of the work and the availability of resources.”

Uncertainty Ahead

There remains a vast amount of uncertainty. Earlier this month, President Obama released of his proposed budget for FY2014. While most are certain that this budget will not be approved, the contents indicate a tactical shift to appease conservatives’ demand for more budgetary reductions. Although the President’s budget proposal would replace Medicare cuts slated by the budget sequester for 2014, it does not affect the $85 billion in sequester cuts already in effect for FY 2013. Altogether, the $3.77 trillion budget proposal aims to replace planned cuts from budget sequestration and reduce the federal deficit by nearly $1.8 trillion over the next decade. The President’s budget is projected to reduce federal health care spending (including Medicaid) by $401 billion across 10 years.

How Health Care Grant Seekers Can Prepare

The current landscape has required fundraising arms of hospitals to become more creative and prescriptive when asking for financial support. Health sector grant seekers can start building the case for funding in areas that are expected to remain attractive to federal and foundation grant seekers. In particular, funders will continue to support model programs that demonstrate innovative, unique solutions for critical gaps and disconnects in the health care delivery system. Here are a few examples:

1. Improving through-put efficiency, health outcomes and healthy lifestyle/health management for the newly insured populations. Specifically, via the Emergency Department, urgent and retail care, and primary care outpatient settings as initial “points of entry.”
2. Coordinating community-wide efforts to improve population health in a finite geographic area. These projects are most competitive for funding if the effort has active involvement and buy-in from several community sectors such as the government, faith-based organizations, local business, and schools.
3. Developing health information technology to improve communications and decision-making by providers and patients and then using that data to drive evidence based outcome improvements.
4. Promoting inter-professional collaboration and development of the nursing and clinical workforce through targeted training, logistics and protocols.

These initiatives outlined above reflect the programs that the federal administration have pinpointed as crucial to our industry’s care transformation. Although the dollars are tighter, there is still funding for institutions that are able to truly demonstrate community impact as well as the need to further their program. With the uncertainty in federal funding landscape, providers need to look to private foundations that have begun to fund initiatives that they may not have before. Many local and corporate funders have begun to mirror the administration’s priorities in their own mission statements. While the funding dollars continue to decline, the truly innovative health care provider will continue to see success with the right strategic vision.

The Skills Employers Want and the Skills Undergraduate Business Programs TeachSource: BizEd

On the other hand, researchers have also found some gaps in the skills graduates are bringing to their first jobs, such as a lack of soft skills and hands-on experience. And regardless of how well they are preparing their graduates today, good business schools are ever-sensitive to the need to adapt their curriculums to the changing needs of employers. To learn how business schools can best meet these challenges, Hanover Research recently examined the practices of the most innovative undergraduate business programs. One of the most important trends that emerged was a tightening integration of the elements of the business curriculum with a liberal arts foundation.

The Need for Soft Skills

In the years since the global financial crisis of 2008, employers have begun to emphasize a need for employees with both specific business know-how and broader problem-solving skills. In other words, organizations are actively seeking out workers with both technical proficiency and a range of soft skills, as indicated by the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ most recent survey of employers, which found that employers are far more likely to prefer a combination of hard and soft skills than only one or the other in isolation, as shown in the chart below.

Which is more important for recent college graduates who want to pursue advancement and long-term career success at your company?Source: Hart Research Associates

Unfortunately, a major study from the Carnegie Foundation recently found that undergraduate business education is often “too narrow, fails to challenge students to question assumptions, think creatively, or understand the place of business in larger institutional contexts.” The problem is less one of coverage – most undergraduate programs require at least some liberal arts or general education foundation – than of integrating the soft skills learned in liberal arts, the general organizational knowledge covered in fundamental business courses, and the technical skills students pick up in functional business courses.

Experimenting With the Curriculum

Some institutions are already tackling these problems. The undergraduate business curriculum at Santa Clara University is commonly cited in discussions such as these, but other colleges have taken similarly innovative approaches to weaving a curriculum together that relates business, technical, and liberal arts skills to each other. At Franklin & Marshall College, students interested in business choose a major in Business, Organizations, and Society, an integrated curriculum in which students “learn ‘how to think’ about alternative approaches to resolving issues, not simply ‘how to do’ problems,” although skill components also form an important part of the program. Similarly, Philadelphia University’s business major provides a “liberal arts-infused, professional education program” based on the University’s practice-oriented Nexus Learning model. Collectively, colleges and universities such as these have recently banded together in the Aspen Undergraduate Business Education Consortium, which is seeking to “further the integration of liberal learning and business education.”

As this movement gathers force, institutions seeking better integration of the business curriculum should foster a model that explicitly and continually links students’ learning of business skills to their use of various arts-and-sciences disciplines that provide a larger, complementary view of the world. Institutions will have to change how courses are designed and what is actually delivered in the classroom to produce a more fully integrated undergraduate business curriculum. Transitioning away from function‐based, stand-alone courses to blended learning is a challenge. Faculty will have to modify course material to incorporate the many different factors that go into real world business decisions, such as ethics, technology, diversity, and organizational behavior. A better integrated business curriculum will also require instructors, many of whom have specific areas of expertise, to bridge divides that exist in courses like accounting and organizational leadership. Despite these challenges, however, the benefits to students – and society – of producing more well-rounded business graduates seem inescapably clear.

Overview and Definitions

The term “year-round calendar” is usually defined as a modified educational schedule that groups instructional days into smaller units with more frequent breaks throughout the year. More often than not, year-round schedules do not add days of instruction to the approximately 180 days typical in a traditional school year. Most year-round schedules simply group the instructional days into smaller units with more frequent breaks throughout the year.

There are two main models of the year-round calendar: either single track or multi-track. A single-track structure provides a balanced calendar for a more continuous period of instruction; all students and faculty follow the same instructional and vacation schedule. Multi-track year-round education enables a school to make greater use of its facilities by staggering the attendance schedules of the students, teachers, and staff by groups so that one vacations while the others study and work. Schools may find this model favorable because it allows schools and districts to increase capacity without incurring additional capital or building costs. On the other hand, the characteristics of multi-track calendars make it potentially more complicated to administer.

Benefits of a Year-Round Calendar

The primary motivation for many schools and districts in adopting year-round schedules, and particularly multi-track schedules, may be financial, as these schedules can lead to reduced costs. The California Department of Education’s Year-Round Education Program Guide, for instance, highlights some cost savings of year-round education:

• Avoided Costs: capital outlay for additional facilities; avoided extra‐site operation and staffing, including classified, certificated, and administrative personnel, furniture, supplies and equipment, utilities and maintenance, and transportation.
• Potential Savings: additional average daily attendance (ADA) generated; shared materials (library, computer, audio visual, science resources, textbooks); benefits (calculated on a 12‐month basis for most employees), reduced absenteeism (additional ADA and decreased requests for substitute teachers); and decreased vandalism.

Beyond financial benefits, it has also been argued that year-round schedules can improve student achievement. Research has found that year-round education at least holds its own in this area, producing achievement gains “generally equal to and in many cases better than the traditional calendar structure.” Advocates of year-round calendars have suggested that such systems reduce teacher burnout and decrease the likelihood that students will become stressed, demonstrate ill-discipline, or drop out, and that these schedules may lead to better student retention, as well as improved achievement rates.

And while research in Virginia schools found that state test scores for the general student population only improved at the same rate in year-round schools as in traditional schools, it also showed that “black, Hispanic, limited-English proficient and economically disadvantaged students [at year-round schools] improved at a faster rate than their peers at traditional calendar schools.” For instance, black students at 74 percent of the year-round schools studied improved their English test scores faster than the average at traditional schools, and 65 percent improved their math test scores faster than the traditional school average. Possible factors in these improvements are decreased summer learning loss and supplemental instruction time for these students during  intersessions.

Costs of a Year-Round Calendar

Although the increased cost of implementing a year-round calendar system appear to be modest – about a 3 percent increase in annual school expenditures – it has clearly discouraged some schools from employing such a system. The primary cause of these higher costs appears to be remedial or supplemental instruction offered during intersession breaks, but the California Department of Education’s Year-Round Education Program Guide makes note of a number of other areas where year-round education requires greater resources, including:

• Transition Costs: administrative planning, staff development, communication, storage units, storage space, and air conditioning.
• Operational Costs: expanded office and administrative staff; increased utilities, maintenance, and transportation costs.

In Virginia, costs have played a role in deterring year-round education. Of the eight intermediate school divisions in the state, all have discontinued year-round calendars at some or all of their schools between 2000 and 2012, and six of the divisions stated that “cost-related issues” were a reason behind these decisions.

Beyond the financial costs associated with a year-round calendar, these systems can place additional, non-financial burdens on stakeholders, including:

• Parents and families. Some argue that year-round schedules place a burden on families due to more irregular vacation schedules and, in multi-track calendars, different schedules for children in the same family.
• Teaching staff. Organizational difficulties for teachers seem to arise more frequently with multi-track versus single-track calendars. Because school facilities are being used by different groups at different times, teachers must often become mobile. The lack of a long summer vacation can also prevent teachers from enrolling in professional development courses.
• Administrators. In Virginia, some administrators found scheduling professional development and extracurricular activities more difficult with year-round calendars.
• Extracurricular activities. For single-track schedules, extracurricular events may sometimes occur during intersession breaks, which requires advance planning by administrators for transportation and other needs. However, multi-track calendars pose more substantial scheduling complications. For example, an individual participating in sports in a multi-track school may have other members of their team on different tracks, making it hard to coordinate practice sessions. Additionally, even if students within a year-round system can coordinate their schedules, they may still be out-of-sync with other schools in a district, potentially posing obstacles in terms of scheduling competitive matches.
• Facility maintenance. Facility maintenance can become more difficult with a multi-track year-round calendar system, since all of the facilities are in near-continuous use.

Overall, the available research suggests that year-round schools are at least as effective for student learning as traditional schools, and may be even more effective for disadvantaged student populations. However, the research base is not extensive and in some cases is poorly designed, making it difficult to draw definitive conclusions. Financially, some districts may find year-round schedules appealing, particularly in multi-track systems which maximize the use of available facilities and reduce the need for new construction. However, additional administrative and instructional costs, such as intersession support for struggling students, should be factored into any financially based decision to adopt year-round schooling. This balance of factors no doubt explains why year-round schooling has yet to become – and may never become – universal, but for the right situation, year-round calendars can be an appropriate approach for school leaders to consider. 

Given the chance, would you consider implementing a year-round calendar system? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Why Would an Internet Retailer Print a Catalog?

Brand equity: Can your customers touch your brand?

One of the most important considerations of whether or not an internet retailer should print a catalog is brand equity. Internet retailers constantly struggle to create engaging brands in the digital realm. Print catalogs provide these retailers the opportunity to interact with customers in a tangible format. Customers can actually touch and feel a printed catalog. People will sit around coffee tables and talk to one another about the products that they like, which is a rare experience for online shoppers. Offering this social interaction to customers can be an effective way to grow a brand’s equity.

The internet can often come up short for providing meaningful interactions with brands. Time spent on websites is decreasing, which leads to one-off searches and minimal interactions. This growing trend is causing one-time customers to become the norm for a number of e-commerce sites. E-mail marketing perpetuates this problem by only offering a glimpse into a particular product or promotion. Also, consumers do not seek out catalogs on the internet. Digital catalogs are typically difficult to find and do not lend themselves to direct customer interaction. Print catalogs allow retailers to perform targeted marketing campaigns, which are unrivaled in performance by their digital counterparts. Print catalogs can clearly deliver on brand equity, but can they deliver on cost as well?

Catalog Costs: Digital vs. Print

There are two main cost drivers of a catalog. The first cost driver is developing the content. The second cost driver is production and distribution. What may come as a surprise to many is that the difference in cost of digital and print catalogs is only marginal. Developing the content for a catalog occupies roughly 70 percent of the total cost. This is the creative side of things, and can often require much more sophisticated forms of technology for digital. Digital catalogs will use videos and 360° product views, while print catalogs will use content that is more cost effective. On the other hand, the cost of producing and distributing a print catalog is more burdensome with printing and postage, while digital catalogs are easily circulated through email and other digital avenues. There are also more than just economic costs of catalogs; it is important to consider the environmental costs.

Most would assume that paper catalogs have a higher carbon footprint. However, when taking a closer look, many catalogs are made with recycled paper and the new paper being produced in the United States is being done so more responsibly. Currently, 50 percent of the world’s paper is produced with the Forest Stewardship Council’s certification, which ensures that the trees are being managed sustainably. Digital catalogs, on the other hand, are tied to a less obvious form of carbon footprint. The digital catalogs are hosted on servers and viewed by personal computers. The electricity that powers these machines is most likely having a negative impact on the environment. Currently, 40 percent of the electricity produced in the United States is generated by burning coal.

When Does it Make Sense to Print a Catalog?

Internet retailers span across a large number of industries, offering different products and targeting different consumers. It may be difficult to know if the return on investment will outweigh the cost of the catalog. In some cases, the first catalog will break even and then subsequent runs are profitable. This may not be the experience of every retailer, however. With this in mind, how is a company able to tell whether or not they will endure a similar fate? Three questions should help retailers better understand their potential for success.    

1. Do the products benefit from being photographed?
2. Is the company selling a lifestyle?
3. Does the competition print a catalog?

For some companies, the reasoning will come down to web traffic. After a print catalog has been sent out, there is a clearly defined spike in the number of visits to a company’s website. For other companies, like distributors, only 30 percent do not print a catalog, suggesting that they need to do so in order to remain relevant in the space.

Businesses must decide if a print catalog is the best strategy given its industry and target customer. The internet has become the primary mechanism for making purchases, and a print catalog can help internet retailers grow revenue and brand equity. For many companies operating in the digital marketplace, they may deem it prudent to combine their marketing strategies – and come to find that catalogs and the internet go hand in hand. 

Almost uniquely among academic fields, education hosts two kinds of doctorates: the Ph.D., and the Doctor of Education, or Ed.D. Although the Ed.D. has a distinguished lineage, originating at Harvard University in the early 20th century, angst over the legitimacy or necessity of the degree has an equally venerable history, dating from a study published in 1931, just ten years after the granting of the first Ed.D. The conventional explanation for the maintenance of two doctorates in the field of education has been that the Ed.D. is for practitioners, the Ph.D. for researchers. Thus, those attempting to tease out the difference between the two doctorates look to distinctions such as whether candidates aim to work in administrative leadership (Ed.D.) or to conduct research or teach at the university level (Ph.D.).

The actual history of the Ed.D., however, suggests that Harvard only created the degree because its Arts & Sciences faculty at the time resisted granting a Ph.D. in a professional field; although the Ed.D. appeared to be a distinct degree, it was “developed within the format of the Ph.D.,” essentially replicating many of the features of the research degree, including the three key components of graduate coursework, a qualifying exam, and a dissertation. In another telling, the Ed.D.’s founders wanted a more distinctly practice-oriented terminal degree, but were forced to include research elements, such as the dissertation, to “placate” the university’s research-focused president.

Regardless of what actually happened at Harvard 90 years ago, the Ed.D.’s role has remained confused throughout its history, as some institutions have used it to train researchers and others to prepare practitioners. And when Harvard itself recently announced that it would finally begin offering a Ph.D. in education, while phasing out its esteemed Ed.D. program, a familiar question arose anew: is the Ed.D. necessary?

Reform or Obsolescence?

At least one expert has answered this question in the negative. In the wake of Harvard’s decision, Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College at Columbia University, expressed a desire to see the Ed.D. “fade away” altogether, possibly to be replaced by a terminal degree for educational administrators modeled on the M.B.A. Levine originally floated this idea in his extensively researched 2005 report on educational leadership for the Education Schools Project, which proposed the complete elimination of the Ed.D. for school leaders, calling the degree a “back door for weak education schools to gain doctoral granting authority” and a “meaningless and burdensome obstacle” for educators seeking to take on school leadership roles. The proposal was complemented by recommendations to introduce an M.B.A.-style Master’s of Educational Administration (or, M.E.A.) for practitioners and to reserve the Ph.D. for those intending careers in education research.

The suggestion that the Ed.D. be eliminated, however, proved to be the “most controversial element” of the Levine report, meeting resistance from education schools, school superintendents (many of whom hold the Ed.D.), and current students in Ed.D. programs. And other researchers, including Lee Shulman, former president of the Carnegie Foundation, have responded to Levine’s proposal by reaffirming that the “highest professional degree in education deserves to be a doctorate,” while granting that such a degree needs to be more clearly distinguished from the Ph.D. Towards that end, a group of researchers and education schools has been working since 2007 under the aegis of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) to develop a more distinct and effective education doctorate for practitioners.

The CPED’s principal aim is “to reclaim the education doctorate and to transform it into the degree of choice for the next generation of school and college leaders.” The initiative first brought together faculty from over 20 participating education schools, including Penn State University, the University of Southern California, and others, to discuss key concepts for the reform of the Ed.D., such as the use of capstone projects in place of the dissertation. The faculty then returned to their campuses to experiment with reform measures, before reconvening to share insights. Some of the key outcomes of the project have included the development of concepts such as the capstone course or “laboratories of practice” that allow doctoral students to develop the applied skills they need to become what the CPED calls “Scholarly Practitioners.” In 2010, the consortium won grant funding to study the effects on member institutions of the CPED’s work, an assessment that remains ongoing.

Whether the CPED’s work will be able to qualm the concerns about the Ed.D., however, remains to be seen. For one, the decision by Harvard, as a top-tier university, to eliminate its own Ed.D. has raised the question of whether other institutions might not follow suit, and either abandon the Ed.D. or convert it outright to a Ph.D. Regardless of whether the Ed.D. takes the direction of reform or obsolescence, however, one thing seems sure: the education doctorate of this century will look very different from that of the last.