Examination of the history of use of performance indicators in three European national higher education systems (Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) suggests that their role at the national level is declining at the same time that institutions are moving toward more broad-based quality assessment strategies. (Author/MSE)

A discussion of public pressures to measure and describe college faculty work looks at public concerns about higher education, causes of decline in public support, the public's solution, faculty reactions, the nature of resulting research on faculty workload, and how these issues are likely to evolve. (MSE)

Four conditions or trends external to higher education that will have a significant impact on the role of college and university faculty are examined, including: changes in governmental financing of the social agenda, global demographic and environmental changes, growth and interest in privatization of public structures, and development of…

The current practice of assigning and assessing college faculty workloads is analyzed briefly, and issues involved in developing a new process consistent with a broadened definition of faculty work are discussed. The professional portfolio is suggested as a structure for assigning and assessing faculty responsibilities in a collaborative and…

A study found few gender differences in young college faculty's (n=115) reasons for acceptance, rejection, or resignation of academic positions. Results imply academic recruiting should focus on quality of academic life in the department or institution, accommodating family members' needs, and job security in the form of longer, tenure-track…

The experience of Coastal Carolina College (South Carolina) suggests that, although the small college often has the same academic reporting demands for intercollegiate athletics as a large institution, the nature of the institution creates different recordkeeping and reporting challenges. Computerization and active institutional research staff…

Efforts to assess quality of academic life at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) resulted in a plan to merge qualitative and quantitative measures and uncovered political, logistical, and fiscal issues in collection and use of the two kinds of data. Although qualitative databases are costly, they are also very useful in different ways. (Author/MSE)

A study of job satisfaction at a college registrar's office investigated overall job satisfaction, physical working environment, motivational culture, and worker needs. Findings included significant differences in satisfaction between registration and admissions units. Recommendations for improved sampling, choice of variables, and research design…

Discusses the growth of the assessment movement, reviews the different measures of student performance being requested by state agencies, and describes institutional responses to state mandates. Offers guidelines for implementing an effective assessment program. (DMM)

Provides an annotated list of articles on use of teams in higher education, including organizing concepts for effective team-building, administrative strategies and effectiveness, case studies of teams at work, and lessons learned from the business context. (MSE)

A survey of 452 public and private two- and four-year colleges and follow-up interviews at 32 institutions investigated the integration of academic program review into other institutional decision-making processes, particularly those of planning, budgeting, and student outcomes assessment. The extent to which this effort has been successful is…

This handbook gives a broad overview of the practice of institutional research in higher education. The first of the handbook's four chapters describes how to define the context for institutional research by looking at where the institution is now, where it is going, and how it can arrive at its desired end. Chapter 2, which discusses how to…

Developed to help colleges enhance the effectiveness of their institutional research efforts, this workbook provides strategies for increasing effectiveness and examples of techniques and research from Maryland's Prince George's Community College (PGCC). First, an introduction summarizes the changing responsibilities of institutional research and…

Program evaluation can be understood as the process of looking at how all aspects of a program or department have been functioning as the basis for informed planning and decision making. Although the objective dimensions used in evaluations can vary, methodologies can be categorized according to the four category framework (i.e., describing…

In response to conflicting centralization and decentralization pressures, the University of Minnesota institutional research office responded with a "virtual enterprising"--a group of organizationally distinct units acting as if they were a single unit. The four elements in this organizational approach were: (1) "soft control"…