Over the last decade, the assessment of student experience has gained significant prominence in Australian higher education. Universities conduct internal surveys in order to identify which of their services students rate higher or lower on importance and performance. Thus, institutions can promote highly performing areas and work on those needing…

There is a steady line of research to understand faculty diversity and its impact on the work life quality of faculty and learning outcomes of students in the U.S. higher education systems. What makes this volume unique is that, rather than treating diversity as a static and simplistic concept, the chapter authors presented information to show…

Institutional researchers might know more about non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty than leaders on many college campuses, particularly four-year institutions and research universities (Cross and Goldenberg, 2009). As such, institutional researchers play an important role in educating campus leaders about this growing segment of the academic workforce.…

This article summarizes the process of conceptualizing the third mission of higher education institutions. First, the relevant changes in the socio-economical context of higher education are enumerated and institutional responses are described. Next, the main trends in defining the third mission are delineated, and the ways in which the various…

The education of doctoral chemists contributes to the chemical research enterprise and thus to innovation as an engine of the economy. This quantitative analysis describes trends in the production and diversity of chemistry Ph.D. degrees in the top-50 U.S. Ph.D.-granting departments in the past two decades. Time series data for individual…

This study provides a multilens examination of the diversity of full-time faculty in the United States across 11 institutional types derived from Carnegie classifications, by the intersection of race/ethnicity, citizenship, and gender and to make comparisons across time. Whereas few other studies have assessed faculty diversity for the for-profit…

Online education is becoming an increasingly important component of higher education. The Sloan Foundation 2010 Survey of Online Learning reports that more than 30% of all students take at least one online course during their college career. Because of this, attention is now turning to the quality of student outcomes that this instructional method…

This article deals with the various problems related to the given title from four sections. Section "Social function of the academic research enterprise (ARE)" focuses on three problems: Framework of the research on the ARE; Functions of the graduate school in the ARE; and Centers of learning and Japanese ARE. Section "Structure of…

In this chapter, the author contemplates the future of accreditation in the changing landscape of higher education in the United States. He presents a set of proposals for how accreditation can regain the confidence of college leaders and public policymakers. He begins with the assumption that changes in accreditation--some significant in their…

Among all the students who transfer from one institution to another during their academic careers, a distinct group of "reverse transfer" students has emerged over time. Reverse transfer occurs when students begin their college careers at 4-year institutions but eventually transfer into 2-year institutions. Using student unit record data…

The Council on the Role and Status of Women in Social Work Education (WC), a volunteer committee of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), has a 37-year history. This article presents an overview of the WC from the late 1960s to September 2006 and acknowledges the needs, status, and contributions of women in social work education. Drawing on…

During the past decade, there has been significant growth in the number of international students seeking access to South African higher education institutions. Concomitant with this growth has been a need for management of the internationalisation process at higher education institutions; however, this has not always been forthcoming. This…

Identifies four trends in corporate information technology and applies them to the academic workplace and institutional research. Trends are (1) knowledge management, (2) enterprise resource planning, (3) data warehousing, and (4) electronic commerce. (Author/DB)

The purpose of this article is to analyze the present tendencies and characteristics, as well as the present and future perspectives of the process of internationalization in Latin American universities, in light of the results yielded by studies carried out in the region by the World Bank and the European Commission. Emphasis will be placed on…

Developing a rational scanning process that reaches a balance between what is needed and what is possible within the limitations of an institution's resources is discussed. The different kinds of scanning, which kind to use at each stage of the process, and why are described. (MLW)