This paper discusses empirical comparisons of higher education institutions across world regions. It argues that institutional data systems have the potential for complementing global comparisons promoted by rankings by providing sensible information on institutional size, budgets, staffing, enrolments and activity profiles. With this perspective…

University rankings have become commonplace in higher education. Traditional quantified rankings do not merely measure educational performance: they equally grant status, enforce competition between institutions, and are emblematic for the ongoing capitalization of higher education. Drawing on the field of Science and Technology Studies, this…

The technological capacity that now exists to gather and store large amounts of data has improved access to information related to the academic performance, demographic profile and welfare needs of young people in a school. Improvements in data management techniques, statistical data analysis and software packages have made retrieving and…

Purpose: This study aims to analyse and evaluate the methodology followed by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE-IR), as well as the coverage obtained and the data offered by this ranking, to determine if its methodology reflects the degree of sustainability of universities, and whether their results are accurate enough to be used as a…

This article examines how knowledge transfer (KT) indicators affect analyses on efficiency in the Higher Education sector, taking into account the characteristics of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). After revising the concept of third mission as a field for data development and its importance in assessing university performance, we…

During recent years, we have seen an increase in the complexity of school leadership as knowledge work. The new forms of knowledge available to school leadership, such as performance data and survey-based data, raise the expectation that leaders make relevant use of these knowledge resources. Theory and policy claim that new knowledge is of…

"Bloomberg Businessweek" ranks U.S. undergraduate business programs annually. These rankings provide a convenient overall measure of quality, which is important in today's environment of concern about higher education costs and employment after graduation. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has advantages over previous regression…

Establishing institutional effectiveness has beleaguered U.S. higher education institutions for thirty years. One key element of institutional effectiveness is the ability of an organization to use data for effective decision-making. This study provides new insight into this critical component of institutional effectiveness by examining the…

Recent changes in European higher education have accompanied a strong desire and need by national ministries to have comparable data across institutions and a growing recognition from campus leaders that effective planning and decision-making requires reliable institutional data and analyses. This has induced changes and restructuring of duties…

The purpose of this paper is to offer an analytic perspective to policy makers and educational practitioners regarding how to use longitudinal achievement data to evaluate schools. The authors further discuss the potential practical applications of their models for superintendents, researchers, and policy makers. The premise of the study is that…

This article presents the findings of a survey, conducted on league tables and rankings systems worldwide, including seventeen standard ones and one non-standard league table. Despite the capacity of existing league tables and rankings to meet the interest of the public of transparency and information on higher education institutions, ranking…

This report from the Charter School Achievement Consensus Panel, a group of nine researchers convened by the National Charter School Research Project, examines the existing research on student achievement in charter schools and details how future research could be improved. The panel reviewed and rated more than 40 evaluations of charter school…

This analysis of survey activities of the Accreditation Council for Services for Mentally Retarded and Other Developmentally Disabled Persons (ACMRDD) is designed to provide program administrators and state agency officials with comprehensive descriptive information on 296 surveys conducted by the council from 1980 through 1984. Part I of this…