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The purpose of this paper is to present the full range of choices that academic institutions presently have for attending to educational results.

The approach takes the form of a systematic comparison of the eight models currently available to colleges and universities for attending to educational results, relative to four necessary organizational purposes: individual student improvement, individual student accountability, organizational improvement, and organizational accountability.

This is a time of innovation, not of standardization. As new choices become available, the standard for accountability for educational results continues to rise.

The choices, ranging from established practices to expected alternatives to unexpected innovations, differ significantly in their capacities.

The aim of this paper is to describe how a college or university can develop the organizational capacity to focus on student learning outcomes. It seeks to show how the consistent application of this capacity would provide not only a response to external expectations, but also unexpected benefits that, when taken together, would create a significantly better academic institution.

Six years of research and development, primarily as part of an expanding collaborative endeavor between participating colleges/universities and an independent academic R&D firm, has provided a laboratory for iteratively creating and testing new academic processes and supporting technologies.

Five essential elements of outcomes assessment, when incorporated into a system‐supported academic process, can enable an institution to generate data on actual student learning directly out of its regular program wherever and whenever it chooses to do so, with seven significant benefits.

The organizational capacity described in this paper directly overcomes organizational invisibility of student achievement within its educational program – a century‐old deficiency within higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to identify approaches that have worked well into gaining faculty support and administration support for institutional attention to assessment and learning outcomes

Reflection on ten years of sustained attention to assessment and outcomes at Buena Vista University provides insight into what has made a positive difference.

The paper finds that for incrementally bringing faculty on board, five strategies have been useful: capitalizing on the familiar, using embedded assessment, initiating substantive discussions, avoiding the “accrediting agency” argument, and identifying early adopters. Administrative leadership and administrative structures were both required to move this forward. Given this attention, there are benefits for faculty, for administration and for students.

Ten years of sustained endeavor at a liberal arts college provide numerous insights, especially on faculty acceptance, that are likely to be applicable in other academic institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to directly assist external stakeholders in their conversations with educators.

The paper's design is a practical review of the varied interests of external stakeholders, essential terms, the most prominent recent organizational initiatives for accountability, and the most effective kinds of questions.

Conversations about accountability are most productive when they are practical and focused.

The paper presents a valuable primer for external stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Kirkwood Community College uses a learning outcomes information system (eLumen Achievement) in any wireless or even nonwireless setting to directly improve student learning by evaluating student performance and providing feedback in real time.

The paper describes how, unlike more conventional users of eLumen Achievement, Kirkwood Community College chose both to engage students in outcomes assessment and to take advantage of the latest technologies.

The paper finds that both instructors and students are pleased with the new practice.

The authors believe that Kirkwood Community College is the first college in the country to combine the use of a generic learning outcomes information system with wireless tablet PCs to capture and communicate data on student performance evaluation in real time.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the way(s) in which the introduction of systematic outcomes assessment throughout a university has begun to transform its academic culture.

The college is incrementally introducing system‐supported evaluation of student work. It began with general education, working with interdisciplinary faculty committees to define common learning outcomes with shared rubrics, and using these in all courses designated as general education. The use of this approach is now expanding into the majors and specific programs.

The paper finds that the process by which general education and program outcomes and rubrics have been defined has already led to a change of focus – with more clear emphasis on what students should demonstrate – and a shared sense of ownership in the learning outcomes and rubrics.

Concordia University (Saint Paul) is one of the first colleges to methodically introduce this system‐supported approach across the institution.

The purpose of this paper is to show how standards drive what is taught in education. International standards, for example in the areas of science and math, and US standards such as the Scholastic Aptitude Tests become ends in themselves and drive the content of education at all levels. The question asked here is whether or not the current system of education, in an internet age, has outlived its usefulness. Are there other options and other measures better suited?

The paper provides an overview of the education system and how consideration is made to progress in a changing environment.

The paper points out that, as with addicts, fear of changing puts education in a spiral which could lead to a collapse unless the courage is found to make a transition from the present, age‐cohort‐driven model to one which acknowledges the differing rates of change inherent in individuals as they grow through life.

The paper challenges current paradigmatic thinking at a time when we have a window for change. It questions whether a return to the successes of science and technology in maintaining country economic/political hegemony may need to be rethought in light of the current world situation.

The purpose of this paper is to broadly describe and provide insight into the national dialogue in the USA concerning accountability for educational results in academic institutions.

The approach takes the form of a thorough survey of the key questions, current issues, and organizational players in this national dialogue.

Policy makers and educators should use the present opportunity to work together, focusing not on narrow one‐size‐fits‐all measures but on the improvement of a new generation of complementary approaches.

The paper presents a clear articulation and discussion of the key questions that are driving the national dialogue on this topic.

The aim of this paper is to describe how academic institutions that focus improvement of student learning do much better than those that focus on compliance and assessment.

A reflective observation of institutional interaction with the North Central Association Higher Learning Commission, especially the 264 colleges and universities that have participated in the Commission's assessment workshops, provides insight into the characteristics that make the most positive difference.

The paper finds that academic institutions do better when: assessment is best understood as the means and student learning itself as the end; shared responsibility and collective capacity are intentionally developed; internal leaders, of different types, are identified and developed; collaborative processes that actively engage people replace concerns about buy‐in; institutions jump in and learn as they go along; program review becomes an area of shared faculty/administration interest; changed, parallel or separate core processes permit attention to enduring issues; and institutions begin wherever they chose to begin and from there develop the means to complete a full cycle of outcomes assessment. Another more recent emphasis is the need to inform the public and other stakeholders about what students are learning.

This paper draws on the insights of those who work at the Higher Learning Commission, who share the unusual perspective of having experience of dealing with hundreds of academic institutions.