Argues that school boards should use outside "management auditors" to help assess operational effectiveness, especially in five areas: internal financial auditing, personnel and payroll, purchasing, construction and repairs, and data processing. Suggests guidelines for hiring management auditors and lists 11 firms that perform management…

Discusses issues in the quality assessment of extension programs, including clarifying extension's mission, defining "university level," strengthening institutional links, maintaining instructional quality, and dealing with unprepared students. (SK)

Examines the philosophy of accreditation espoused by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and outlines the accreditation actions taken by its Commission on Institutions of Higher Education during 1980. Lists the colleges accredited by the commission and/or proposed for accreditation candidacy. (JP)

Demands from state level agencies for greater accountability, less academic program duplication, and greater cost containment have pushed U.S. colleges toward greater seriousness, and more competence, in planning. A prominent factor in greater effectiveness in planning models is integrally relating planning, management, and evaluation. (MLW)

Assessment of learning organizations is not a scientific but a political endeavor, better served by heuristic measures. These measures assess conditions in which there is high probability that learning is occurring, enable participants to assess the learning climate, and make the learning climate a focus of inquiry. (SK)

Discusses the use of performance indicators by higher education institutions for internal assessment as well as external reporting. Describes the balanced scorecard developed by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton in 1992, a set of measures that allow for a holistic, integrated view of business performance. Explores how to create and use the…

Describes what higher education facility accreditation is and presents an overview of the process focusing on institutional accreditation. Each step of the accreditation process is detailed along with how the facilities can play a role. Also provided is an outline of the typical areas related to each of five criteria for institutional…

Discusses the notion of continuous quality measurement for outcomes assessment in higher education and describes a technology-based continuous quality measurement system (QMS) that has been developed and implemented at the University of Louisville. Discusses the role of QMS in the university's quality improvement scheme and its initial impacts on…

The Ready School, a concept endorsed by the National Education Goals Panel, focuses on getting schools ready for children to supplement the traditional approach of getting children ready for school. The author cites 10 qualities associated with Ready Schools and describes the eight-dimension Ready School Assessment project now being tested by the…

This dissertation explores the formal theologies and organizational readiness for change with a view towards adopting missional prototypes for theological education across a school's (system's) tradition, curriculum, and structure. The research assessed five theological schools in the United States through an exploratory, action-oriented,…

The present report is a product of two ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) seminars, held in 2007, on current trends in European Quality Assurance. The first seminar, hosted by the Bulgarian National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (NEAA), examined the situation in South-Eastern Europe. The second seminar…

In July of 2007, the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University was contracted by the state legislature to conduct an evaluation of the Indiana charter schools. The current study reports the results of an evaluation that has been designed to ensure that all objectives of the provisions of HEA 1001-2007 are fulfilled.…

Accreditation is a mark of distinction indicating that an institution has met high standards set by the profession, and an increasingly important feature of the accreditation process in higher education is "outcomes assessment." This article presents two rubrics for evaluating the quality of an institution's outcomes assessment system. One rubric…

The Indiana General Assembly passed charter school enabling legislation in 2001, and the first charter schools opened their doors for the 2002-03 school year. As of fall 2008, 49 charter schools are operating in Indiana. A total of 17 of these schools are sponsored by the City of Indianapolis, Office of the Mayor, 29 schools are sponsored by…

Evaluation capacity building, or ECB, is an area of great interest within the field of evaluation as well as in Extension evaluation. Internal Extension evaluators have long offered training and technical assistance to help Extension educators conduct evaluation. Today ECB in Extension encompasses myriad activities and processes to advance…