The education faculty aims to assess departmental effectiveness by analyzing the relationship between service levels, output variables, and input variables. This objective is coupled with the formulation of faculty development strategies tailored to enhance efficiency while accommodating individual professionals' unique requirements and…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine how faculty chairs at a large, Midwestern community college understand and engage with the assessment of student learning outcomes within academic programs. This study was informed by two conceptual paradigms of assessment: accountability and improvement. Sensemaking was used as a…

Changes, improvements and innovations in university organisations regularly end up in sluggish processes and get stuck 'somewhere' in the organisation. It is argued that cooperation and mutual influencing of work processes between academic and professional employees of different departments can have a positive effect on these innovations. Because…

Background: The provision of graded accreditation and autonomy of colleges has been made in the national education policy (NEP) 2020 which will be applicable for all types of higher education institutions in the country. The authors have noticed that there are very few diploma engineering programmes having accreditation and that too will expire…

Little is known about how the complex notion of higher education quality is understood and (strategically) handled by a specific group of key university actors: directors of educational programmes. A framing analysis of in-depth interviews was conducted to explore how bachelor-programme directors in Dutch social science departments understand and…

A key way that colleges and universities seek to improve student learning is by providing instructional development to faculty. Yet today, the majority of college faculty are non-tenure track, adjunct faculty who have limited access to instructional support, and have traditionally not participated in such teaching improvement efforts when offered.…

Many current science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives and projects aim to scale change and encourage more departments, units, and institutions to engage in the evidence-based teaching practices that enhance student learning and outcomes. The authors of this article examined change strategies and networking efforts in a…

The purpose of the article is to justify the increasing role of a university department in achieving the major objective of higher education, namely to train highly qualified specialists for the national economy. The article contains some of the results of monitoring (questionnaire) of 350 heads of departments of Russian universities, as well as…

Universities of applied sciences in Finland are higher education institutions with emphasis on practical working life skills and strong links with working life. Students typically study in field-specific groups where they receive language and communication instruction alongside their professional courses. The development of language and…

In recent years, there have been numerous attempts to improve the quality of higher education in Africa, but there is limited knowledge about the impact of these initiatives on student learning. The results of a study published in 2015 offered some initial data in this regard by identifying a lack of improvement in the critical thinking ability of…

Background: A report from the American Society for Engineering Education (Jamieson & Lohmann, 2012) identified career-long professional development for faculty, teacher training in graduate programs, departmental climates that value and support educational innovation, and reward systems that recognize achievements in educational innovation as…

Following the release of the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) in 2011, many institutions of various types tried out different ways to use the DQP. Although over 680 institutions have used the DQP to date, until now the impact of the DQP on institutions and students has not been documented in a systematic manner. To determine the effects of DQP…

University rankings historically have been based on a number of criteria, the most common being research output and quality. Different approaches have been developed which are surrounded by controversy; nevertheless, university rankings remain popular. It can be noted that due to the global economic recession, they receive further interest since…

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals generate a stream of scientific discoveries and technological innovations that fuel job creation and national economic growth. Ensuring a robust supply of these professionals is critical for sustaining growth and creating jobs growth at a time of intense global competition.…

The recommendations and questions in this report enumerate key factors that may help a department answer the most important question about a graduate program: does it give its students the time and resources necessary to complete their degrees in a timely fashion? This document offers best practices in seven general areas for improving the…