Purpose: Colleges and Universities have been established to provide educational services to the people. Like any other organization, the school has processes and procedures similar to business or industry that involve admissions, processing of data, and generation of reports. Those processes are made possible through a centralized system in…

The development of a complex, highly computerized system of performance indicators by the State University of New York provides the means to monitor internal progress, report to a skeptical public, and compare the system's performance with a national sample of institutions. The system is described here, and the performance indicators and data…

Evaluation systems aimed primarily at helping administrators and faculty in the governance and administration of institutions (for improvement in curriculum, services, or research or reallocation of resources) are discussed. A formal evaluation system involves the establishment, maintenance, and operation of an information system. (MLW)

Working with users through an "information center" offers an alternative to formal application systems development, and the backlog of application development projects has made this approach attractive at many institutions. Guidelines used at Loyola University of Chicago are presented. (Author/MLW)

The Florida Board of Regents conducts periodic evaluations of university degree programs and of the universities' performance on a set of quality indices. These Evaluations require large amounts of compatible data from all the institutions in the system. A data management process that can support such evaluations is described. (AUTHOR/MLW)

Stanford University's use of a risk assessment methodology to improve the management of systems development projects is discussed. After examining the concepts of hazard, peril, and risk as they relate to the system development process, three ways to assess risk are covered: size, structure, and technology. The overall objective for Stanford…

PULSE, an executive information system at Dickinson College, has enabled college offices such as admissions, registrar, and development and financial aid to communicate to all senior officers in an accurate, timely, and consistent manner. The system's development and implementation are described. (MLW)

Stanford's Terminals for Managers Program was undertaken with two objectives: (1) to create a decision support system that would demonstrate the functional, technical, and economic value of electronic mail and other information technology services for university administrators, and (2) to educate these executives in information technology and…

Needs assessment is not in and of itself a complicated, difficult, or expensive process but is simply one facet of good institutional management closely related to other management processes. Needs assessment is an integral part of: (1) institutional decision making and management information systems; (2) institutional planning, which should be…

Origins of Australia's university quality improvement program are outlined, and its design is examined. Issues discussed include implications of the program for individual institutions, its proposed method of redistributing research funds, and potential problems associated with performance appraisal. (MSE)

The issues and processes that were important in the selection and implementation of an administrative computer system at Marymount Manhattan College are described. System analysis, system design, selection criteria, institutional decision processes, implementation steps, user acceptance, and organizational impact are discussed. (Author/MLW)

A major information systems planning study undertaken by Boston University and recommendations that were made to enable the university to meet the new demands and changing priorities of educational management are discussed. (BH)

The development of a Planning, Management, and Evaluation (PME) system at Voorhees College, is described. The project at the small, liberal arts college was supported by an Advanced Institutional Development Program (AIDP) grant. Primary objectives were to decrease the responsibility of the college's chief officer and to upgrade the academic…

The differentiation between efficiency and effectiveness in evaluating the performance of institutions of higher learning is examined and the role of management information systems in the decision-making processes of such institutions is explored. While efficiency is primarily concerned with cost minimization concepts, effectiveness is concerned…

Factors related to the contextual aspects of educational administrators' information needs were studied in a statewide survey of 199 administrators of adult and community education programs. Attention was directed to: varying preferences for different information sources, the effects of different decision or program development tasks on…