The community college environment is complex and dynamic, requiring constant monitoring. To ensure that workforce education, a core component of community colleges' missions, remains aligned with colleges' environments, responsive to employers' needs, suited to students' interests and abilities, and current in content and technology, it is…

"Characteristics of Excellence in Undergraduate Research" ("COEUR") is based on the collective experience, over many years, of Council on Undergraduate Research members who have engaged undergraduate students in research, developed undergraduate research programs, mentored new faculty to include undergraduate research in their…

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…

Achieving the Dream colleges engage in a process of institutional improvement to increase student success. A central component of this process is engaging internal and external stakeholders to help develop and implement interventions or changes in programs and services that improve student success. To determine whether these interventions do…

Institutional research in the junior-community college is discussed as related to the following questions: (1) What is institutional research? (2) Why has there been such an emphasis on it in recent years?; (3) What should be the goals and guiding principles of a community college institutional research operation? (4) Where should the…

Reviews developmental education programs stressing the need for institutional research to determine the viable parts of such curricula in view of cutbacks being made of costly programs. Discusses factors causing insufficient skills in students, considers program evaluation, and reviews six established developmental programs. (MB)

Describes LONESTAR, a longitudinal tracking system developed for a consortium of Texas community colleges in response to a new state mandate on remedial education. Looks at the features of LONESTAR that respond to short-term reporting requirements and facilitate long-term tracking of students. (DMM)

The portfolio approach to evaluation can be a useful method of screening and comparing educational programs in terms of their productivity and potential. In the field of investments, portfolio analysis consists of identifying the relative strengths of assets in terms of the dimensions of return and potential for growth. College programs can be…

In January 1997 the Institutional Research Council of the Connecticut Community-Technical Colleges was charged with developing a model for measuring system performance of the colleges. This document reflects Phase I of the process. Effective institutional research (IR) looks at resources, processes, and outputs for learners, programs, the…

Describes a method of evaluation which ensures maximum yield. Mentions common pitfalls in evaluation procedures and proposes Reality-Based Evaluation (RBE) as a safeguard against them. Outlines RBE and concludes that evaluation results must play an active role in bringing about change. (JG)

Because community college administrators are under increasing pressure to curtail or eliminate programs due to reduced resources, the need for institutional research in the area of evaluation of educational and support programs arises. There are three basic approaches to program evaluation which are used in most public educational institutions:…

The results of an evaluation of the Medical Assistant Program's first year are presented. Specifically, the matriculation, course enrollment, and program completions for the first year are compared with goals established at the program's inception. The evaluation findings were: (1) the program was offered as planned; (2) the discrepancy between…

A follow-up study of 1975 Los Angeles City College nursing program graduates was conducted to determine the degree of success achieved by the graduates on the State Board Test Pool Examination, to compare the achievement of 1975 graduates to that of 1974 and 1973 graduates, to assess their degree of success in obtaining employment, to determine…

Accepted guidelines for academic program review often clash with the needs of administrators, who require timely and frequent information for monitoring the quality of academic programs. A method is described for developing key indicators that permit annual scanning of all programs. The goal was to develop indicators that would flag programs…

In an effort to meet the need for a more comprehensive program evaluation, staff at Moraine Valley Community College developed a questionnaire and interview schedule to obtain feedback from employers concerning career programs. Questionnaires were sent to all employers who hired graduates of occupational programs between 1969-71; over 80% returned…