A typology of budget-driven program reviews is categorized by two variables: the locus of responsibility and the timing of the review. When a budget-driven program review is first implemented during a crisis, the range of financial and administrative options are high, yet buy-in and match to mission are low. When a budget-driven program review is…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evaluates research studies that look at the effectiveness of education programs, products, practices, and policies, which the WWC calls "interventions." Many studies of education interventions make claims about impacts on students' outcomes. Some studies have designs that enable readers to make causal…

The ultimate goal of gifted education programs is to cultivate students' competences through challenging, enriching, and engaging opportunities for talent development. The purpose of this review is to present two main approaches of enrichment programs for gifted learners in Taiwan: the programs following the law and the alternative programs…

Extension educators have been challenged to be cost effective in their educational programming. The cost effectiveness ratio is a versatile evaluation indicator for Extension educators to compare the cost of achieving a unit of outcomes or educating a client in similar educational programs. This article describes the cost effectiveness ratio and…

While many students who start at a community college intend to transfer and complete a bachelor's degree, most of them are not successful. One of the impediments to improving outcomes for these students has been the lack of widely available measures of institutional effectiveness in serving transfer students. In the publication "Tracking…

The University of Missouri Extension needed to develop an annual program review process that collaboratively engaged county-level stakeholders. The results from the first 2 years highlight the results, challenges, and implications of the design process. The annual review process needs to be adaptive, responsive, and reflective from year to year…

The "Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area" (ESG) were adopted by the Ministers responsible for higher education in 2005 following a proposal prepared by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) in cooperation with the European Students' Union (ESU), the…

One major problem in developing school district budgets immune to cuts is the model administrators traditionally use--an expenditure model. The simplicity of this model is seductive: What were the revenues and expenditures last year? What are the expected revenues and expenditures this year? A few adjustments here and there and one has a budget.…

Preschool education is increasingly being recognized as an integral part of efforts to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn and as a way to help close the achievement gaps that exist at the time children enter kindergarten. Such efforts are growing across the country. According to the most recent data, 54 different preschool…

This testimony discusses the findings from our recent work on fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication in federally funded programs that support teacher quality. We recently issued a report addressing fragmentation, overlap, and potential duplication in federal programs that outlined opportunities to reduce potential duplication across a…

Purpose: Linking Open Data (LOD) provides a vast amount of well structured semantic information, but many inconsistencies may occur, especially if the data are generated with the help of automated methods. Data cleansing approaches enable detection of inconsistencies and overhauling of affected data sets, but they are difficult to apply…

The purpose of this article is to identify key ways in which program review provides information and documentation demonstrating that a community college is effective. This is accomplished through both the program review process (the means by which reviews are conducted) and the product (program review reports and supporting evidence). The various…

Over the last 10 to 15 years, each province and territory in Canada has introduced curriculum based on clearly defined learning goals. They use different labels--for example, "learning outcomes" in Manitoba and Alberta, "expectations" in Ontario--but all are intended to be "standards-based" systems where the focus is…

Recent changes in the higher education landscape have called for greater access and accountability in a number of areas, most particularly distance learning. While there is a very significant instructional aspect to this equation, providing effective support and services to students enrolled in online education is becoming comparatively important,…

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), a commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), accredits Wyoming's seven community colleges. Institutional accreditation is a voluntary process that serves the critical purposes of quality assurance and institutional and program improvement. Colleges that are accredited by the HLC…