Purpose: Providing higher education institutions (HEIs) with a tool for self-assessing their social responsibility (SR) that generates the information and knowledge necessary to a strategic approach to adopting the Green Paper recommendations about the SR of HEIs. Setting out the collaborative policy development process to construct the tool…

This article outlines a case study of creating a system of quality assurance in Belize while also building the capacity of teaching staff in order to support the process of establishing quality standards in tertiary education. This case study outlines the process of establishing the first quality assurance system in the nation's history as well as…

The accreditation process and the federal role in shaping it are clearly of critical importance for ensuring all students have access to quality postsecondary options. And yet, due to the complexity of the relationship among the federal government, accreditors, and institutions, and the opacity of the accreditation process itself, there is little…

This article describes efforts in Massachusetts and the Multi-State Collaborative to Advance Learning Outcomes Assessment (MSC) to develop a statewide system for learning outcomes assessment that does not rely on standardized testing and that is designed to transcend the traditional tensions and boundaries between campus-based formative and…

As educational attainment grows increasingly more essential to individual and societal prosperity and simultaneously more expensive, policymakers' appetite for evidence of the return on the investment in a college education has swelled and they increasingly want to equip prospective college students and their families with concrete information…

A new federal initiative calls for a College Scorecard which will include a yet to be determined measure of graduate earnings. In this paper we examine the political context that drives this initiative and examine the nascent efforts of four states to develop statewide systems to measure the labor market outcomes of higher education. We propose…

This report is published as the result of a range of investigations and debates involving many universities and colleges and a series of meetings, presentations, discussions and consultations. Interest in a grade point average (GPA) system was originally initiated by a group of interested universities, progressing to the systematic investigation…

This issue of "Legislative Review" takes a look at the news in higher education from February 21 to 25, 2011. This Legislative Review reports that: (1) HB 1003, the University System budget bill, was approved February 23 as amended by the House Appropriations, Education and Environment Division on a vote of 64-29; (2) Sponsored by…

In late 2007, Jobs for the Future (JFF), working with the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, launched "Investing in Student Success", a one-year pilot program. The pilot, conceived of as part of the "Making Opportunity Affordable" initiative and funded by Walmart Foundation and Lumina Foundation for Education,…

Action research can play an important role in institutional research endeavors to improve the quality of organizational performance in higher education. This article outlines how the action research perspective informed a research design that integrated fragmented and isolated student success initiatives at a large urban two-year institution where…

In 1998, the Utah State Board of Regents ordered a sample administration of American College Testing's Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP), a test of general knowledge, for Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) students. The pilot test was administered to 3,148 Utah college students who were completing their sophomore year at one…

Recent Government policy has been strongly in favour of encouraging entrepreneurship and partnerships with industry. A flagship project backed by 68 million British Pounds was launched by Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1999. Due diligence exercises by the DTI failed to ensure that value for money was obtained. What had been planned…

Reported are the execution and outcomes of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) Performance Funding Project at Tennessee Technological University, a pilot project seeking to explore the question of whether it is desirable and possible to allocate state funds to community colleges and universities on a performance effectiveness…

This publication provides research-based discussion in 20 chapters of possible extension of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award to honor high performing colleges. Chapters are organized into two volumes, the first exploring a broad range of issues from a scholarly point of view and the second emphasizing the practical application of a…

The Performance Funding Project of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to improve the current appropriations formula in Tennessee is discussed. The major project objective is to explore the feasibility of allocating some portion of state funds on a performance criterion, as compared to allocating funds solely on an enrollment criterion. It…