The growing calls for accountability within higher education have mobilized student affairs divisions to develop practices that provide evidence of student learning and development. In order to do this effectively student affairs divisions understand the importance of creating, managing, and sustaining a culture of assessment. The purpose of this…

Researchers using qualitative methodologies appear to be particularly prone to having their study designs called into question by research ethics or funding agency review committees. In this paper, the author considers the issue of communicating qualitative research study designs in the context of institutional research ethics review and offers…

From the excesses of Wall Street to the whole mortgage mess, the issue of accountability has become part of a heated national conversation. It is a debate to which higher education is certainly no stranger. But now, with tuition rates at private and public schools rising precipitously--and state budgets shriveling--the cries for increased…

By applying multilevel models with random effects, the authors reviewed and synthesized findings from 30 studies that were published in the last 20 years exploring the relationship between the Educational Testing Service Major Field Test for a Bachelor's Degree in Business (MFTB) and related factors. The results suggest that MFTB scores correlated…

We highlight three ways of conceptualising and enacting academic development: firstly as authentic, practice-based activity, secondly in terms of a new transformative paradigm for academic development units (ADUs), and thirdly as a space for disruption. We illustrate these conceptualisations through our investigation of the practice of internal…

This review essay discusses the history, evolution and development of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and traces the growing impact of its education work. The essay is in four main sections. The first discusses Carrol and Kellow's "The OECD: A Study of Organizational Adaptation" (Edward Elgar) and…

The literature suggests that collaborative approaches to leadership, such as distributed leadership, are essential for supporting educational innovators in leading change in teaching in universities. This paper briefly describes the array of activities, processes and resources to support distributed leadership in the implementation of a network,…

This study analysed accreditation exercises of universities undergraduate programs in Nigeria from 2001-2013. Accreditation is a quality assurance mechanism to ensure that undergraduate programs offered in Nigeria satisfies benchmark minimum academic standards for producing graduates with requisite skills for employability. The study adopted the…

This study examined institutional researchers' use of qualitative methods to document institutional accountability and effectiveness at two-year colleges in Texas. Participants were Institutional Research and Effectiveness personnel. Data were collected through a survey consisting of closed and open ended questions which was administered…

The English Funding Council has announced its intention to invite tenders for the contract currently held by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), and the Australian government is promoting a Bill to curb the activities of the equivalent body, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. This article compares the two…

In the not-too-distant past, using surveys to gauge public opinion was a costly and time-consuming activity that districts generally had to outsource. Today, with the advent of online survey tools such as Survey Monkey and Zoomerang and an increasingly Internet-connected society, surveys have become a useful and accessible tool for school…

The following article argues that the research compliance system has some flaws that should be addressed, particularly with regard to excessive emphasis of and reliance upon formal regulations in research administration. Ethical formalism, understood here as the use of formal rules for the determination of behavior, is not an optimal perspective…

This final chapter provides observations about institutional research in community colleges derived from the preceding chapters and the issue editors' own experiences. Taken as a whole, the chapters in this issue, as well as the editors' experiences, suggest several observations about institutional research in community colleges. These include the…

This article uses findings from the 2012 Tuition Discounting Study (TDS) conducted by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) to provide a framework for institutional researchers to develop and adapt their own custom tuition discounting definitions and formulas. Under tuition discounting, colleges and…

The process of building a culture of evidence involves using data to understand where students are experiencing problems, designing strategies for remedying those problems, implementing them, and then evaluating the effectiveness of those implemented strategies. This case study is about two programs that were implemented within the last two years…