The six regional accrediting agencies in the United States have created a set of standards based on best practices in colleges and universities. The evolving perception of an effective institution is one that uses data, assessment, and evaluation results to improve programs and services and strives for a high level of institutional quality. While…

You cannot learn anything about a college these days without hearing about what that college is doing for the planet, whether it is buying local food or shrinking its carbon footprint. A number of organizations are eager to evaluate colleges on their efforts. Grist, Sierra, and Current magazines and the Sustainable Endowments Institute all have…

Two interesting initiatives have started to develop more balanced international league tables of universities. The first initiative is being taken by UK magazine the Times Higher Education (THE), which recently entered into a collaboration with both the international academic community and research-metrics company Thomsons Reuters to create an…

Purpose: This study seeks to develop and describe the benchmarking approach of enhancement-led evaluation in higher education and to present a cross-evaluation process for degree programmes. Design/methodology/approach: The benchmarking approach produces useful information for the development of degree programmes based on self-evaluation,…

This article examines the impact of a faculty professional development effort on the understanding, confidence, and attitudes of education faculty related to program assessment activities. We applied literature on the adoption of innovations, institutional effectiveness, and professional development to a case study of a series of workshops on…

This study aims to construct ranking indicators from the perspective inside of the university and shift the ranking target from overall university quality to undergraduate education quality. In dealing with the complexity of the concept of undergraduate education quality, two-stage questionnaire survey was conducted to gain comprehensive opinions…

This article presents a way in which the innovative Nature Therapy conceptual framework coupled with creative therapeutic methods can help children develop resilience and support their coping with uncertainty and stress. It refers to the Safe Place programme that took place in 110 Israeli kindergartens, helping over 6000 children after the Second…

The theme of qualifications frameworks and their relation to quality assurance is gaining urgency in the European scene as more and more countries are completing their national qualifications frameworks and quality assurance agencies need to take important decisions on how to implement them. Some of the key features of the qualifications…

In today's accountability climate, regional accrediting bodies are requiring colleges and universities to develop and sustain a culture of evidence-based decision making and improvement. But two-thirds of college presidents in a 2011 "Inside Higher Ed" survey said their institutions are not particularly strong at using data for making decisions.…

On the surface, it would appear that procedures for administrative reviews and approvals ("xingzheng shenpi") (for institutions of higher education) have decreased today, but what has followed is an increase in administrative evaluations ("xingzheng pinggu") and administrative examinations ("xingzheng shencha"), and…

When John B. Simpson, president of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, compares the campus over which he presides to its public-university peers, the contrast can be unflattering. Buildings and laboratories need upgrading. Richer, more prestigious institutions have a leg up in attracting renowned scholars and big-ticket federal…

The present research was aimed to: 1) develop the components and indicators of organizational effectiveness for public higher education institutions under the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Thailand, and 2) develop organizational effectiveness evaluation system for these institutions. The sample included total 41 participants comprising…

The federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) program, to which $3 billion were allocated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), supports schools attempting to turn around a history of low performance. School turnaround also is a focus of Race to the Top (RTT), another ARRA-supported initiative, which involved a roughly $4…

The greatness of nations appears to be based on the level of their human capital development as the world continues its march in the knowledge economy. It has become imperative for Nigeria to remain competitive in the comity of nations in the production, transfer and utilisation of knowledge. The realisation of the importance of human capital…

The article examines globalization and higher education reforms in Israel. It critiques the expansion of the higher education sector, associated legislative changes, a sharp rise in the number of students, and the changing teleological goals of goals of higher education. The article argues that there are two options for policy change: to continue…