Higher education leaders face growing pressure to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of not only their institution but also each academic program offering. With increasing accountability and limited time for meaningful reflection on student learning and development, now is the time to rethink how a quasi-annual academic program review…

Learning outcome assessment is a fairly recent trend in higher education that began in the 1980s (Lubinescu et al., 2001). Today, many faculty perceive assessment reporting to be tedious, time-consuming, and irrelevant busywork (Wang & Hurley, 2012). Unfortunately, this systematic process created to use empirical evidence to measure, document,…

Rankings of universities and colleges are common and controversial. However, few rankers produce useful lists that assess and compare journalism and mass communications programs. The few currently available involve superficial reputational surveys or are less than transparent about their methodology. To determine potential criteria for a useful…

In 2011, Southampton Solent University, a post-1992 university in southern England, introduced a new marking scheme with the aims of changing marking practice to achieve greater transparency and consistency in marking, and to ensure that the full range of marks was being awarded to students. This paper discusses the strategic background to the…

Research on school leadership shows that principals can significantly impact student achievement by influencing classroom instruction, organizational conditions, community support and setting the teaching and learning conditions in schools. Moreover, strong principals provide a multiplier effect that enables improvement initiatives to succeed. The…

Since the mid 1970s, a series of international declarations that recognize the critical link between environmental sustainability and higher education have been endorsed and signed by universities around the world. While academic initiatives in sustainability are blossoming, higher education lacks a comprehensive evaluation framework that is…

This research investigates the reliability and validity of three major publications' rankings of MBA programs. Each set of rankings showed reasonable consistency over time, both at the level of the overall rankings and for most of the facets from which the rankings are derived. Each set of rankings also showed some levels of convergent and…

An educational environment characterized by shrinking fiscal and physical resources has spurred many institutions to undertake comprehensive academic program review. Such a process assesses the performance of programs and prioritizes them for de-emphasis, maintenance, or enhancement. How can applied learning be properly acknowledged within program…

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…

The California Postsecondary Education Commission is directed by state law to review and comment on new academic program proposals from the University of California (UC), the California State University (CSU) and the community colleges. Program review is one of the CPEC's primary responsibilities--it coordinates the systems' long-range plans,…

The term "institutional effectiveness" was developed in response to accreditation, and this emphasizes the large extent to which accreditation drives institutional effectiveness efforts on community college campuses. There are two general types of accreditation. "Institutional accreditation" is the process by which institutions of higher education…

The Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC), founded in 1997, is dedicated to improving academic degree programs for professional educators--those who teach and lead in schools, pre-K through grade 12. TEAC accredits undergraduate and graduate programs, including alternate route programs, based on (1) the evidence they have that they…

The Teacher Education Accreditation Council's (TEAC's) "Guide to Accreditation" is primarily for the faculty, staff, and administrators of TEAC member programs. It is designed for use in preparing for both initial and continuing accreditation. Program personnel should understand and accept all the components of the TEAC accreditation process…

The Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) "Guide to Accreditation" includes a full description of TEAC's principles and standards, the accreditation process and audit, and detailed instruction on writing the "Brief." This revision includes expanded information on (1) preparing an "Inquiry Brief Proposal" and the audit of the "Inquiry…

National Board of Accreditation (NBA), a body constituted by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is responsible for the accreditation of Technical education programmes in India. NBA evaluates the performance of engineering programmes quantitatively by assessing 70 variables grouped under a set of 8 predefined criteria, and…