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This chapter acknowledges the current dearth of direct evidence of student learning and discusses the limited value academic and co-curricular transcripts (CCTs) provided to students, educators, and employers.

This chapter studies the myriad outlets in which students acquire useful academic and non-academic skills outside of the grade point system. Disadvantages in the arbitration and secular nature of the common transcript are also addressed.

Exploring and responding to the concerns from a diverse chorus of higher education constituents and calls for increased accountability and improved student learning in higher education, this chapter proposes the development of an outcomes-based CCT, as an extension of the traditional CCT, to take advantage of the rich and numerous learning opportunities within the living laboratory of co-curricular experiences where students repeatedly demonstrate and hone their skills and competencies throughout their collegiate experience.

The chapter discusses a number of examples and models of what such a program might look like and provides insights and suggestions as to how it could be implemented thoughtfully and effectively. It also explores several of the benefits and challenges associated with implementing an outcomes-based CCT.

This chapter describes an alternative model to out-of-the-classroom learning which has been highly successful in assisting students in New Zealand to make the transition to either the workplace, or to higher qualifications.

The final paper within the New Zealand Diploma in Business is ‘Applied Management’ in which students work in groups to design and implement a semester-long research inquiry with a host organisation. The authors discuss the challenges and strategies associated with delivering this paper and reference three current studies which relate to this student cohort: the first about students’ perceptions of cooperative learning in groups, and the alternate selection and assessment techniques the university has been trialling; the second about a Māori mentoring pilot pairing students with mentors in the workplace; and third, examining students’ experiences and expectations of the Diploma as a pathway into degree study.

Our story offers an example of how a focus on quality and accountability to local business stakeholders has created a successful co-curricular learning environment, and suggests the value of combining the three strands of research, teamwork and co-curricular projects.

While the context is of a small, regional institute, many of the elements of good practice will be transferable to other higher education providers.

This chapter argues that promising opportunities for digital education in the humanist tradition can be found in college co-curricular programs that connect critical thinking, creativity, digital technology, and global writing to public service and community citizenry. In this chapter, digital literacy co-curricular programs, which in simple terms merge digital technology and public writing, are titled “digital activism” because they give students opportunities to bring their academic learning to real-world experiences in ways that are meaningful to students and that benefit the college community. This chapter presents an ethnographic case study of one co-curricular digital activism program at a small private Midwestern university. Information was collected from description of interactions with the program’s team as well as from scholarly literature on digital technology, digital literacy, and technology’s impact on young adults. This information provided valuable background and context to the study. The case study highlights the stages of the program’s development and the outcomes of the program after its one-year pilot initiation. Case study findings show that co-curricular digital activism programs can positively impact students by offering them the freedom to develop rich collaborations, the responsibility to make conscious, ethical choices about how they share knowledge, and a platform to teach their peers, as well as other internal stakeholders, about issues that matter to them. This chapter supports the notion that co-curricular digital activism programs can empower students to use teaching and learning to shape their college communities into vibrant places of respect and mutuality.

Companies are looking for certain employability attributes and personality traits while recruiting and selecting suitable candidates for their organizations and there is a mismatch in what the higher educational institutes are grooming the graduates. There is therefore a need for proactive management of career development of students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This research involved an exploratory study on a database of 445 students enrolled and passed out from the five batches of two years business management course from 2012 to 2016 in a business school in India, to identify the parameters which led to generating good placement package for them. The impact of independent variables of live industry projects, communication skills, academic performance, classroom attendance and co-curricular activities on the placement package was studied using stepwise regression analysis.

The study revealed that industry projects, co-curricular activities, communication skills and academic performance were the key enablers which helped the students become industry ready and employable.

This research involved the study of effect of only four independent variables- academic performance, communication skills, participation in live industry projects and co-curricular activities on the placement package received by the students. There is a scope of extending this study by considering the effect of other variables such as educational background (graduation stream, performance in that stream, scores attained in competitive exams, etc.), family background (family income, occupation of parents and their qualification, family size, etc.), geographical background (rural, urban or semi-urban) and work experience on the final placement package received by the student.

Employability depends on a multitude of factors which can be broadly put under three categories of knowledge, skills and attitude (Khare, 2014). Universities need to work right from the first year toward developing a wider range of employability skills rather than focusing only on developing generic competencies in the students. The results of regression analysis indicate that the impact of different predictors for a good placement package vary in strength and a student needs to focus on balancing all of them in order to get a good placement. Educational institutes can replicate this study to identify the overall employability of their students.

With the increase in demand from industry for work ready graduates, there is a huge pressure on educational institutes to prepare their students for the corporate world. Such studies would help the institutes in focusing on various parameters which would ultimately assist students pursuing courses in post graduate level like business management or other master courses in getting good placements.

This chapter explores the concept of an entrepreneurship education ecosystem. The concept of ecosystem comes from the natural sciences, but is increasingly applied to regional development, or clusters, which focus on firm inter-organizational relationships. Building on the idea of the university is a key player in a local entrepreneurship ecosystem, this chapter provides a framework for examining a school’s role in this process. A typology is presented that articulates roles that schools may pursue in developing their own internal entrepreneurship education ecosystem.

In this chapter we argue that inquiry-based learning can be efficacious in providing diverse and flexible levels of challenge to promote educational growth across a variety of populations. In this way, we position inquiry-based pedagogy as a way to support equality within education, as the practice promotes the academic and personal development of each unique student. We ground our argument in a philosophical approach that advocates for equality of educational growth as the principal guiding and evaluating measure. We outline how a university can take a scaffolding approach to embedding research-focused, inquiry-based learning throughout the curricular and co-curricular landscape of an institution, presenting an approach that facilitates students’ growth toward open inquiry and the highest levels of scholarship. Within an era of scarce resources, we focus on programs representing a wide range of cost and scalability so that they can be implemented to best suit individual institutional needs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the enacted mental models, the types of thinking and action, of assessment held by faculty and staff in higher education.

This research approaches the question: in what ways are “learning outcomes assessment” understood (thinking) as part of a system and assessed in the individual’s work (practice)?” Interviews and concept maps were used to identify influences, descriptions of actions, and connections to environments for 12 participants, known to have engaged in learning outcomes assessment.

By connecting individual perspectives to broader organizational understanding, a goal of this research was to identify and analyze how educators understand and practice learning outcomes assessment in higher education. Influences on assessment presented in the literature are confirmed and several behavioral types are defined and categorized.

The findings focus attention on the ways individuals act on influences in systems of higher education. The findings yield opportunities for new ways to utilize assessment knowledge. The study is small and has implications for similar type institutions.

Faculty and staff can use these findings to create training and development protocols and/or adjust their own practices of assessment. Assessment professionals can apply findings to consulting on an array of assessment projects and with staff who have varying skill levels.

The ways in which assessment is practiced is deeply influenced by training but is also shaped heavily by current environments and accountability structures. Policies and practices related to such environments can make a difference in preparing for scaled-up assessment practices and projects.

This research offers insight into possible archetypes of assessment behaviors and presents applied influences on assessment.

While assessment and user experience (UX) have been identified as areas of growing focus in all types of libraries, there is currently little infrastructure to prepare students for these roles (Applegate, 2016; Askew and Theodore-Shusta, 2013; Nitecki et al., 2015; Oakleaf, 2013; Passonneau and Erickson, 2014). As a step toward addressing this gap, a team from an American Library Association-accredited master’s program situated at a large public land-grant institution (LGU) worked with practitioner partners from academic libraries and information agencies to develop a new model for preparing information professionals with assessment and UX expertise. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In fall of 2015, faculty members applied for funding from the US Institute for Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarians program for a program to develop formalized assessment and UX training in Library and Information Science (LIS) education. The student cohort would have interests in two areas: academic libraries and specialized information agencies. The two groups would complete much of the same coursework, earn the ALA-accredited master’s degree and have the opportunity to engage in co-curricular activities focused on UX and assessment. However, each sub-group would also pursue a subject-specific curriculum. In April 2016, IMLS funded the program.

In addition to reviewing the literature related to best practices in curriculum development, the authors describe the process of designing the program, including the curriculum, co-curricular mentoring and practicum opportunities, and the tools developed to evaluate the program’s effectiveness.

At a time in which the library practitioner and LIS educator communities are contemplating how best to prepare professionals with much-needed expertise in assessment and UX, UX-A represents an innovative approach in professional preparation. Although the UX-A program is grant-funded, several of the program components could be adapted and incorporated without such support.

This paper discusses the structure and history of the program, issues related to developing a new curricular program for LIS education, and the educational and professional development needs of the assessment and UX professional community. It includes an extensive review of literature related to LIS curriculum development, practica, and professional mentoring, as well as suggestions for implementing elements of the program in other settings.

While Washington University in St. Louis (the University) has enjoyed success in recruiting higher numbers of low-income students, it has not achieved comparable results in ensuring an equally successful college experience for this underrepresented group. Data shows that low-income students, as compared to their financially unaided peers, have an inequitable undergraduate experience at Washington University that includes performance gaps in STEM-intensive curricula and less-robust co-curricular experiences. This chapter presents the outcomes of a report entitled “Honoring Our Investment” that focused on how, from an institutional perspective, to best support the academic and co-curricular success of low-income students at Washington University. The Undergraduate Representatives to the Board of Trustees of the 2015–2016 academic year wrote this report and compiled information, research, and data about the low-income student experience as part of a dialogue focused on improvement. Additionally, this chapter recommends changes for improving outcomes.