Phase Two: Tangible and Electronic Artifact Collection for Leadership
Hello. Thank you for participating in the artifact collection for this communication study.
Organizational leaders constantly work towards meeting any number of strategic goals for their
organizations. The organizational goals that are the focus of this study are academic in nature. As the
leader of this organization, organization-wide academic goals that are communicated daily, weekly,
and monthly begin with and end with you. For the purposes of this study, this portion of the data
collection will be concerned with academic goal information that you send out into your organization
and any feedback regarding this academic goal information that returns to you.
You may find that you send goal information through your organization electronically, verbally oneon-one, within the confines of a meeting seen in an agenda, on paper, in a daily/ weekly/ monthly
bulletin, or over an intercom system. Parents, staff, teachers, students, immediate supervisors, your
own peer, and community members are recipients of these communications. The specific content of
the communications themselves are not important for the purposes of this study, rather the flow of
these goal communications through the actual organization system is sought.
The data collected by this tool will provide your organization with specific data that tells you how
academic goal information is being communicated through your organization. You will be made aware
of any supports or barriers to the “flow” of academic goals communicated through your organization
after it leaves and before it comes back to you. Upon the completion of the content analysis of this
data you will be provided with any information that helps to answer the following:
How does an educational organization’s communication system support the alignment of
strategic academic goal and objective information at each level of the organization?
How do individual stakeholders participate in a communication system within an educational
organization?
How are academic goals and objectives aligned at the various sub-units of an educational
organization?
Artifacts will be collected from you in two ways: Electronically and tangibly. Please see the attached
directions for data collection.
Collection Begins: ___________________
Collection Ends: _____________________
Tangible artifacts:
Please place any artifacts in the plastic bin provided. The contents will be analyzed and then returned
to you.
Electronic Artifacts:
Please include me in emails that you send out into or receive from the organization concerning
academic goals. The following email has been set up as a collection site for electronic artifacts/
questions/ concerns dealing with this study: carrielynnleonard@yahoo.com . You may find it easy to
add my email to your contacts list that you use for this purpose or carbon copy me in the address line
of emails. If you choose to add me to your contacts list, I will remind you at the end of this study to
delete my name from the contacts list. Additionally, it would be helpful to me if you could have a
practice of “return receipt” when sending out academic goal information into your organization. This
information will be useful in determining who actually is receiving the goal information. Please
forward the receipts to me if you could be so kind.

What electronic/ tangible artifacts NOT to include:
Please do NOT include any academic communications that are personal in nature. Artifacts that address individual
students, parents, staff, teachers, peers, an individual community partner, and/or anything considered private in
nature does not apply to this study.

What electronic/ tangible artifacts are IMPORTANT to the study:
Please forward any academic goal artifacts that you send out or receive that address the organization as a whole or
a significant group within the organization. For example, artifacts that you may send out or receive that concern
the ENTIRE student body, to ALL parents, to ALL staff, to ALL teachers, to ALL community partners, and/ or the
ENTIRE organization. These may include but are not limited to: Notes to yourself regarding informal conversations
regarding academics, notes to yourself taken during a formal meeting regarding academics, letters, meeting
agendas, flyers, notifications, advertisements, things for the organization to consider, professional development
opportunities, links to helpful websites, organizational-wide to- do-lists, mass mailings, weekly bulletins, daily
bulletins, activities, invitations, and reminders.
If you have any questions, concerns, need your bin emptied, or need additional copy paper please
contact me at carrielynnleonard@yahoo.com or 703-946-7957
PLEASE NOTE:
ALL artifacts will be returned immediately after content analysis. Copies are NOT made. All content
analysis records are destroyed six years after the completion of this study. You are identified by a
code during the content analysis of the data. Participant identities and codes are kept in a secure area
at ALL times. Only the researcher has access to this information. At no point during this data collection
will your identity be revealed and/ or discussed with or to anyone. It is important to note that you or
your identity is NOT the focus of this study. The nature of the system of communication that exists at
your organization is the subject of this study. For this portion of the study, the content of the
information that is flowing through the organization and its function is being examined. Thank you
again for your cooperation.