This chapter introduces the Borough of Manhattan Community College's Institutional Effectiveness Assessment Plan and the Shults Dorimé-Williams Taxonomy as resources for the enhancement of assessment within administrative, educational, and student support units.

This article presents results of a study the author recently conducted on the role of traditional institutional research (IR) offices in support of accreditation activities and institutional effectiveness. The purpose of the study was to confirm or disconfirm the utility of a theoretical model developed by Brittingham, O'Brien, and Alig (2008) of…

Never before have community colleges received so much attention and recognition. From modest beginnings at the start of the twentieth century, community colleges have become the largest, most affordable, and most responsive sector of American higher education. Policy makers, media, and the public in general seem to have only now discovered…

The origins of institutional effectiveness are traced, its evolution within community colleges is described, the use of the term "institutional effectiveness" is analyzed, and a practical, operational definition of the term is presented. The author hopes that this definition and the discussion in this article prove useful to community college…

Policymakers, administrators, and institutional researchers should recognize the critical stakeholders in the area of institutional effectiveness at the community college, their differences in perceptions about institutional effectiveness, and ways to negotiate these differences in perception. This article identifies the different stakeholders in…

Student success is at the heart of both institutional effectiveness and the community college mission, yet measuring such success at community colleges is problematic. This article highlights three efforts to grapple with this problem--a multistate work group of system- and state-level policymakers to create an improved set of student success…

Heightened national goals for degree attainment in the United States means increasing prominence for community colleges, which entails greater scrutiny in the form of accountability. Technology and a new generation of accountability measures appropriate to the distinctive community college mission are available to meet this challenge. This article…

This chapter examines the job outlook for occupations where the most important path to entry is through programs typically found at the community college: an associate degree or postsecondary training but less than a degree. The discussion draws on labor market projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the federal agency charged…

Describes Project SYNERGY, a multi-year, multi-institutional collaborative project designed to address the problems of underprepared college students. Analyzes three major components of the project: faculty development, technology products, and outcomes evaluation. Contains two figures. (JDI)

The views of state legislators and agencies that govern higher education must be considered along with institutional perspectives on approaches to assessment of student learning outcomes. This chapter provides a review of performance indicators from twenty-nine recent state reports and discusses their implications for the assessment of student…

This chapter provides an overview of the League for Innovation in the Community College's project on learning outcomes. The 21st Century Learning Outcomes Project was a three-year project involving sixteen diverse community colleges that supported the development of practices for assessing and using student learning outcomes to improve student…

While the assessment movement has spanned more than two decades, there is great variation in its degree of implementation among community colleges throughout the country. Building on literature in the field, this chapter discusses and gives examples of concepts and major areas involved in the assessment of student learning at the institutional…

This chapter is designed to acquaint the reader with the context for accreditors' increased emphasis on student learning outcomes as a key indicator of institutional quality and on the use of learning assessment as a key strategy for guiding institutional improvement. It articulates accreditors' expectations for the presentation of evidence that…

Although community colleges have made significant strides in assessing student learning outcomes, there are a number of significant challenges that need to be addressed in order to realize fully the anticipated benefits of these efforts. This chapter identifies these major challenges and provides specific suggestions that can be used by community…

Provides a comprehensive perspective on assessment in community colleges, indicating that there is great variance among institutions in the extent and sophistication of their assessment practices. Suggests that there are three categories of outcomes: student performance at community colleges, transfer institutions, and occupations; student…