Institutional Assessment: A framework for strengthening organizational capacity for IDRCs research partners

PLANNING AND ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION Demonstrating Institutional Effectiveness In this era of increasing pressure on higher education institutions for accountability, Planning and Assessment in Higher Education is an essential resource for college and university leaders and staff charged with the task of providing evidence of institutional effectiveness. Michael F. Middaugh, a noted expert in the field, shows how colleges and universities can successfully measure student learning and institutional effectiveness and use these results to create more efficient communications with both internal and external constituencies as well as promote institutional effectiveness to support student learning. "How can the assessment of institutional effectiveness be used to provide a solid foundation for planning? Middaugh has crafted a comprehensive, practical guide that also explains what accrediting agencies really want and need to know about these topics." Elizabeth H. Sibolski, executive vice president, Middle States Commission on Higher Education "Only Michael Middaugh, the unquestioned national leader in this field, could write such a lucid overview of how to make institutional assessment and planning really work as a tool rather than as a tedious requirement. He helped invent and shape the focus of national assessment rubrics and now offers his insights into how to make them work for your institution." John C. Cavanaugh, chancellor, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education "Middaugh provides extremely helpful and practical guidance and insights on how colleges and universities can use assessment tools and frameworks to improve both academic programs and administrative operations. A valuable and timely book for all higher education leaders." James P. Honan, senior lecturer on education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Co-published with “While assessment may feel to constituents like an activity of accountability simply for accreditors, it is most appropriate to approach assessment as an activity of accountability for students. Assessment results that improve institutional effectiveness, heighten student learning, and better align resources serve to make institutions stronger for the benefit of their students, and those results also serve the institution or program well during the holistic evaluation required through accreditation.” – from the foreword by Heather Perfetti, President of the Middle States Commission on Higher EducationColleges and universities struggle to understand precisely what is being asked for by accreditors, and this book answers that question by sharing examples of success reported by schools specifically recommended by accreditors. This compendium gathers examples of assessment practice in twenty-four higher education institutions: twenty-three in the U.S. and one in Australia. All institutions represented in this book were suggested by their accreditor as having an effective assessment approach in one or more of the following assessment focused areas: assessment in the disciplines, co-curricular, course/program/institutional assessment, equity and inclusion, general education, online learning, program review, scholarship of teaching and learning, student learning, or technology. These examples recommended by accrediting agencies makes this a unique contribution to the assessment literature.The book is organized in four parts. Part One is focused on student learning and assessment and includes ten chapters. The primary focus for Part Two is student learning assessment from a disciplinary perspective and includes four chapters. Part Three has a faculty engagement and assessment focus, and Part Four includes four chapters on institutional effectiveness and assessment, with a focus on strategic planning.This book is a publication of the Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE), an organization of practitioners interested in using effective assessment practice to document and improve student learning.

The evaluation finds that the content of the World Bank s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) is largely relevant for growth and poverty reduction in the sense that it maps well with the determinants of growth and poverty reduction identified in the economics literature. However, some CPIA criteria need to be revised (in particular trade and finance), and one needs to be added (assessment of disadvantaged socio-economic groups). Second, the evaluation finds that the CPIA ratings are in general reliable and correlate well with similar indicators. The World Bank s internal review process helps guard against potential biases in having Bank staff rate countries on which their work programs depend. The CPIA ratings are found to correlate better with similar indicators for middle income countries than for low income countries. This could be because there is more information available on middle income countries, which increases the likelihood of different institutions having similar assessments on them. This could also be because the CPIA rating exercise takes into account the stage of development, which is more pertinent for low income countries, and which also subject the ratings of those countries to more judgment in an exercise that is already centered on staff judgment.

The enactment of 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010 was followed by devo-lution of most of the functions of the erstwhile Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Live-stock (MINFAL) to the Provinces and the MINFAL was formally abolished on June 30, 2011. Instead, a new Ministry of National Food Security and Research was established1 for better execution of un-devolved functions as well as attaining and maintaining national food security. The functions assigned to the new Ministry are at Annex-1. This devolution of re-sponsibilities to provinces led to increased attention to agriculture2 with a common notion that there is a significant untapped potential for economic growth and employment creation associ-ated with productivity improvement of traditional crops and importantly diversification to-wards high-value and climate smart agriculture, including livestock, and post-harvest value addition. Unlocking this potential for all these components requires a transformative approach that would include major policy reforms, institutional changes, and a re-orientation of public resources away from wasteful subsidies to smart subsidies and productive public investments.

This book presents a practical, effective, and systematic approach to the measurement, assessment, and sensemaking of institutional performance. Included are strategies to measure and assess the performance of Curriculum, Learning, Instruction, Support Services, and Program Feasibility as well as a meaningful Environmental Scanning method.

The regulation of potentially hazardous substances has become a controversial issue. This volume evaluates past efforts to develop and use risk assessment guidelines, reviews the experience of regulatory agencies with different administrative arrangements for risk assessment, and evaluates various proposals to modify procedures. The book's conclusions and recommendations can be applied across the entire field of environmental health.

What can an institutional research leader do to ensure their unique roles do not place them or their institution in a legally challenging situation? In this monograph, IR practitioners, legal counselors, and scholars combine their expertise to examine unique legal challenges IR professionals face, offering guidelines for operating within legal boundaries and sustaining effective IR practices. Topics covered in this volume include: using legal precedents and law as a framework for guiding practice and policies; the latest on FERPA; dealing with security breaches; a review of employment, discrimination, harassment, intellectual property, and export control laws; recommendations for limiting liability; and how accreditation may change from voluntary to a contractual or even constitutional protections effort. This is the 172nd volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Timely and comprehensive, New Directions for Institutional Research provides planners and administrators in all types of academic institutions with guidelines in such areas as resource coordination, information analysis, program evaluation, and institutional management.

"This book discusses every aspect of assessment from the broad topics of creating a culture of assessment and the institutional assessment process to the more specific topics of assessing student learning at the course and program levels and assessing teaching effectiveness. The book models assessment at the institutional level, the course level, and throughout the law school (experiential learning programs, legal writing courses, centers and concentrations, extracurricular activities, non-academic offices). In addition to explaining the assessment process generally and in a variety of specific contexts, this book provides example assessment documents and tools that law schools can adapt as necessary. Moreover, the book offers suggestions for law schools on peer, student, and self-assessment of teaching effectiveness, both formative (ongoing teaching development) and summative (personnel decisions). Administrators, new professors, and seasoned professors will find guidance and advice on all aspects of assessing teaching and student learning"--