Governments in many countries have funded independent agencies to undertake quality audits of higher education institutions. Such agencies ensure that universities and other higher education providers have effective systems and processes to assure quality assurance in core and support areas. While external quality audits have been in place for a…

This study sought to understand and improve effectiveness in institutional research (IR) by interviewing, observing, and analyzing resumes of IR practitioners who have been identified by their colleagues as particularly effective in having an impact on decision-making, planning, and policy formation. Ten themes for effectiveness in IR were…

This paper presents a procedure by which institutional researchers can determine whether gender-salary discrimination exists at an institution of higher education. The procedure utilizes a statistical quality control tool, which is referred to as setting the process aim. This procedure is based on the premise that salaries are determined by a…

A strong institutional self-study will focus on five questions: (1) Is the school meeting its declared purpose? (2) Is the study objective? (3) Does it show an intent to improve the institution? (4) Does it help enhance the institution's distinctiveness while maintaining programatic balance? and (5) Does it see self-renewal as ongoing in the…

A framework is presented for understanding how errors arise in institutional research, and principles are suggested to avert errors in work processes of institutional research offices. Error is defined as a product which fails to meet professional standards, has unacceptable process limitations, or is unacceptable to a client. The following four…

Teaching portfolios, now largely used for evaluation of college teaching, can also be viewed as a form of action research, opening their use to other purposes, including examination of institutional, faculty, and student needs and demands; the dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality in structuring classroom interactions; and the relationship of…

The Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities (UECU) was developed as an alternative form of postsecondary education, fostering the development of university without walls programs at a number of institutions and initiating its own undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Its commitment is to personalized, self-directed, lifelong…

This book, written from a British perspective, presents 17 papers on quality assurance in teaching at the university level. The first eight papers address issues of assuring quality and include: (1) "Quality Assurance for University Teaching; Issues and Approaches" (Roger Ellis); (2) "A British Standard for University…

Research and instructional role strains are identified, based on the use of large-scale mail surveys for college self-study that are used to teach introductory research methodology. The two organizational hierarchies, the research model and the instructional model, are examined. Experiences at Northwestern University, Northeastern Illinois…

The article presents the research on study quality state at three Lithuanian universities. The research was performed during the spring semester in 2003. Research participants were 669 students, 227 teachers, 126 administration officers and 359 graduates. The outcomes of the research did not aim at revealing the state of study quality in a…