Page 658 - Encyclopedia of Business and Finance

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Records Management

reading ability of students, and (b) a pretest developed Salzman, G. G. (1979). A descriptive study of the reading, writing,
from technical terms the material contains. and mathematics tasks of beginning office workers. Doctoral
dissertation. Columbus. OH: The Ohio State University.
For classroom use, the following adaptation of the
Schmidt, B. J. (1982). “Job-related Reading Skills Developed by
Cloze technique is recommended by Popham, Schrag, and
Business Students.” The Journal of Vocational Education
Blockhus. Research, 7(4), 29-38.
Schmidt, B. J. (1987). “Preparing Business Students to Read
1. Randomly select reading material in six to nine pas-
Office Documents.” The Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, (29) 4,
sages and delete every fifth word in each passage.
111-124.
Stop when 20 words have been deleted.
Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (1992).
2. In place of each word deleted, substitute an under- Learning A Living: A Blueprint for High Performance. Wash-
score. ington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor.
Taylor, H. P., and Hancock, D. O. (1993, September). “Strate-
3. Have the material typed, and instruct students to gies That Reinforce Academics across the Business Curricu-
place in each blank a word that makes sense. No lum.” Delta Pi Epsilon Instructional Strategies, 9(4).
guessing or time restrictions permitted. Taylor, W. L. (1953). “Cloze Procedures: A New Tool for Mea-
4. Analyze the answers and give credit for each substi- suring Readability.” Journalism Quarterly, 30, 415-433.
tution that approximates the original meaning.
Determine a raw score for each student and convert B. June Schmidt
that raw score to a percent by dividing the actual
number of correct answers by the possible number
of correct answers.
5. Determine the level at which the students compre- RECESSION
hend the material by using the following scale. A SEE Business Cycle
score of 0 to 30 percent equals the “frustration”
reading level, a score of 3l to 49 percent equals the
“instructional” reading level, and a score of 50 to
100 percent equals the “independent” reading level. RECORDS
MANAGEMENT
Some technical materials do not lend themselves to
the use of the Cloze test. For these materials a pretest Advancements in technology and the reproduction of
based on technical terms from the material can be devel- electronic documents have caused organizations to change
the way they think about records management. The
oped to provide insight into the extent that students can
understand the material. If a student answers less than half Emerging Technology Advisory Group of the Association
of the items on the test correctly, the instructor may for Information and Image Management (AIIM) identi-
assume that the student will have difficulty reading the fied the top-five emerging technologies entering into the
twenty-first century. These technologies have become
material.
management concerns and, therefore, concerns of records
Students need technical reading skills for the business managers:
world. Furthermore, all teachers are expected to reinforce
academic competencies in their instruction. The proce- 1. Electronic-mail (e-mail) management
dures discussed here can help teachers meet the challenge 2. E-mail
of teaching technical reading skills, those essential for
3. Knowledge management
reading in business.
4. Records migration
SEE ALSO Listening Skills in Business; Speaking Skills in
5. Customer relationship management
Business; Writing Skills in Business

DEVELOPING AN EFFICIENT
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SYSTEM
Popham, E. L., Schrag, A. F., and Blockhus, W. (1975). A Teach-
ing-Learning System for Business Education. New York: Procedures for maintaining data in some form have been
McGraw-Hill. essential for centuries. Records serve important functions,
Ross, N. (1977). An Analysis of the Nature and Difficulty of Read- particularly in efforts to minimize risks. Some of these
ing Tasks Associated with Beginning Office Workers. Doctoral risks include litigation, regulatory noncompliance, natural
dissertation. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University. disasters, criminal activities, and pirating of resources.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE, SECOND EDITION 635