Traditional teaching methods struggle to convey three-dimensional concepts effectively. While 3D virtual models and virtual reality platforms offer a promising approach to teaching anatomy, their cost and specialized equipment pose limitations, especially in disadvantaged areas. A simpler alternative is to use virtual 3D models displayed on…

Using a survey of college of business deans, the authors investigate perceptions of published rankings of academic programs. Published rankings have become quite prominent, and anecdotal evidence suggests great efforts are being undertaken to be included in rankings or enhance rankings. The authors conducted a survey of business school deans to…

The assessment movement that has emerged on American college campuses over the last twenty years emphasizes the need to carefully articulate the particular outcomes colleges seek for students, and it demands that faculty and administrators provide evidence of their students' success with respect to these outcomes. It also requires that this…

Cost-effectiveness analysis is rarely used in education. When it is used, it often fails to meet methodological standards, especially with regard to cost measurement. Although there are occasional criticisms of these failings, we believe that it is useful to provide a listing of the more common concerns and how they might be addressed. Based upon…

We review the value of cost-effectiveness analysis for evaluation and decision making with respect to educational programs and discuss its application to early reading interventions. We describe the conditions for a rigorous cost-effectiveness analysis and illustrate the challenges of applying the method in practice, providing examples of programs…

This article presents the findings of a recent survey of natural resource webinar providers. Respondents were asked a range of questions regarding their webinar services. Findings showed that respondents most commonly marketed their webinars through email or websites and targeted an audience of professionals. Respondents noted that the greatest…

Surveys and benchmarks continue to grow in importance for community colleges in response to several factors. One is the press for accountability, that is, for colleges to report the outcomes of their programs and services to demonstrate their quality and prudent use of resources, primarily to external constituents and governing boards at the state…

The need for educational programs to show their return on investment is exemplified in the intense debate surrounding gainful employment programs--defined as programs that lead to gainful employment in a recognized occupation and theoretically differ from programs that offer education in the liberal arts or prepare students for further education.…

School nutrition directors face challenges on many fronts, from changing nutrition standards to addressing community interest in sustainability and local food sourcing. Programs are constantly changing to meet these new demands. How does a school business administrator know which changes will affect his/her school nutrition program positively? The…

An approach toward integrating evaluation into a program at its inception is presented as a way to increase utility and cost-effectiveness. Examples illustrate that such integration, combining internal and external evaluation, is preferable to independent and separate evaluation in terms of the cost to stakeholders. (SLD)

Described back-end synthesis as the creation and integration of the secondary intervention required for efficient and cost-effective implementation of performance improvement programs. Involving analysis, design, evaluation, revision, and implementation, this process is related to front-end analysis, and a sample application in a performance…

After a discussion of the underutilization of cost analysis in education, this article offers several explanations for the relative scarcity of cost-based evaluations in education and considers the potential for greater use of such studies. Developing frameworks to unpack costs may be a way of bringing about greater use of cost-based evaluation.…

This article reviews experiences in the United States over the past 15 years in developing standards to guide and assess the work of professional evaluators. It introduces the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation's "Program Evaluation Standards" and overviews the Committee's project to develop "Educational…

Not all data for a program evaluation may be equally valuable, and costs of collection may vary when using several methods to obtain data from several sources. An approach to maximize information yield for a fixed, limited budget using a mathematical technique known as linear programming is described and generalized. (Author/CM)

The role of evaluation in electric utility demand-side management (DSM) programs is explored, including the importance of evaluation in determining financial incentives that a company will earn for DSM programs. A hypothetical example is presented of the types of problems that might arise when evaluations are subject to litigation. (SLD)