Discusses the implications for higher education nationally of the Urban Universities Portfolio Project (UUPP), placing the UUPP within a national agenda to focus attention on student learning, and examining how portfolio development worked from both the "inside out" and the "outside in" to renew this focus. (EV)

The use of student outcomes data in higher education is discussed. Consideration is given to a widely recognized taxonomy of student outcomes developed by Alexander Astin and his associates, and a classification of outcomes developed by Oscar Lenning and his associates at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS). Issues…

Successful implementation of assessment requires effective administrative leadership to get started, convert data to information, and use the information in making improvements. Assessment may pay its greatest long-term dividends as an organizational device for directing scarce reserves of institutional attention to teaching and learning. (MLW)

Techniques for conducting student-attrition studies using the Student-Outcomes Information Service (SOIS) are outlined. General concepts to effectively guide an institutional research effort are discussed, with attention to better defining student attrition and a summary of results of recent research on the reasons why students withdraw from…

Approaches to college student monitoring have been shaped by changing contexts and evolving technical capabilities, beginning with retention studies and developing into fully relational databases for cohort tracking. Institutional researchers should know this history and be aware of the specific demands for information that future tracking systems…