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This chapter compares faculty self-assessment of teaching with student opinion of instruction in an online environment, in order to determine the level of agreement between faculty self-assessment and student assessment, in areas of overall program strength and directions for individual and whole-group professional development. A faculty self-assessment of teaching inventory based on established guidelines was administered to participating faculty in the Master of Library Science program at East Carolina University, and scores were compared to students’ ratings of instruction for one academic year. Scores were corrected for bias, tabulated, and Pearson correlation and t-scores were calculated. The method used produced an effective benchmarking and diagnostic tool, and indicated directions for instructional improvement. Because the study was for the express purpose of internal, formative evaluation, model data tabulations are presented as examples only. Data from the actual study are not presented. Limitations of the study are that items on student evaluation of teaching surveys may not always lend themselves to concept mapping, and that data were collected only for one academic year in a single program. The chapter contributes a method that is replicable and scalable, demonstrates that data are relatively easy to acquire, and that procedures are simple to implement, requiring only basic statistical tests and measures for analysis. Results can be interpreted and understood without extensive knowledge of quantitative methods. There are few studies that compare students teaching evaluations with faculty self-evaluations, and none that specifically address it for library and information science education programs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of faculty autonomy in sustaining a successful information literacy program.

Faculty members were given the opportunity to create courses that integrated and assessed information literacy as part of a course grant program associated with an institutional assessment mandate. This case study analyzes course grant proposals, course assessment methods and results. It also presents results of a follow-up survey of faculty participants to see if they continued to integrate information literacy in other courses. Results are situated in the context of self-determination theory to better understand the role of autonomy in faculty motivation and participation in an assessment program.

Defining and integrating information literacy themselves allowed faculty to align information literacy with their own course goals. Supporting faculty in choosing their own assessment methods for these integrations also provided program administrators with new information about faculty members’ teaching and learning practices and values. Results of a follow-up study confirmed that faculty continued to integrate information literacy in their courses of their own accord, underscoring the importance of an autonomy-supportive program structure.

This paper provides evidence for information literacy advocates that faculty autonomy can be a strength, not an obstacle. It demonstrates ways to incorporate and allow for autonomy within program constraints and introduces librarians to self-determination theory, a way of thinking about motivation that can help librarians pursue more effective collaborations with faculty.

This paper aims to describe a two-stage sustainability curriculum assessment, providing tools and strategies for other faculty to use in implementing their own sustainability assessments.

In the first stage of the five-year curriculum assessment, the authors used an anonymous survey of sustainability faculty and requested data that would verify the survey’s self-reporting: updated sustainability syllabi, and answers to the question, “where have you integrated the three aspects of sustainability – biological systems, social systems, economic systems – into this course?” Finding that the self-reporting results did not match the evidence on the syllabi, the authors interrogated their methods from the faculty workshop trainings for sustainability curriculum transformation.

The authors’ workshops had not provided clear definitions for “sustainability” and the learning outcomes expected in sustainability courses. They had also not addressed the role of transformative pedagogy in teaching a holistic approach to sustainability. The research identified and transcended five key barriers to implementing sustainability curriculum: an over-reliance on faculty volunteers, unclear and unenforced expectations about sustainability implementations, a failure to recognize and circumvent institutional and philosophical barriers to teaching sustainability’s interdisciplinary approach through disciplinary-based curriculum, conceiving of sustainability pedagogy as transmission rather than transformation, and overlooking the ecology of educational systems as nested within the larger sociopolitical environment.

This study confirms the limitations of faculty self-reporting unless augmented with verifiable data.

Sustainability educators can use this research to devise curriculum or program assessment on their campuses: the mixed-methods approach to data collection, the inquiry into sustainability workshop trainings, the elements required on sustainability syllabi for building a coherent sustainability studies program, the resources for practicing a transformative sustainability pedagogy, and the barriers to sustainability implementation along with strategies for surmounting these barriers will all be of use.

This paper explores and combats root causes for an all-too-common disconnection between positive faculty self-assessment and syllabi that do not fully integrate sustainability across the disciplines.

To analyze the main elements of continuous improvement (CI) in higher education and the concerns of academia's stakeholders in the implementation of such an approach. Suggests guidelines for the development of a culture more receptive to the implementation and maintenance of a CI approach in higher education.

A review of published literature (1982‐2004) facilitates identification of elements of CI, and concerns of academia's stakeholders for the adoption of a CI approach in higher education. The reviewed sources are grouped into three major sections: the CI approach, implications of CI, and an illustrative example – EQUIS.

The adoption of a CI approach in higher education requires not only upper administration commitment, but also uncovering the current underlying culture and examining the appropriateness of the objectives to adopt CI. A culture of a long‐term commitment to CI implies engaging the administrative and academic systems and all the stakeholders of the institution. This was identified as a major road‐block for quality initiatives.

There is a wide range of stakeholders to consider and some stakeholders have diverse objectives in pursuing a CI approach. Future research should explore these agendas to identify core issues needing to be addressed to speed up the shift towards a CI culture.

Required accreditations in colleges and universities offer an increasingly important role to a CI approach in higher education and its impact on academic stakeholders.

This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers practical help to colleges of business seeking accreditations and institutions of higher education pursuing CI initiatives.

The history of continuous improvement, particularly requirements to close the feedback loop, was explored through an analysis of experiences at St. Cloud State University (SCSU). A method for generating evidence of the use of assessment data is provided. Several program improvements tied to this example were cited, including increasing the number of program area reports, adding to the number of qualitative studies, and strengthening advisement. Difficulties encountered with the system included institutionalizing the approach, response rates, and workload issues.

The benefits of an educational shift to graduate attribute development have been foregrounded in the educational literature since the early 1990s. Attribute mapping in documentation with no change to assessment constitutes a surface approach. This paper aims to use as an example a deep approach that uses software to facilitate staff and student engagement.

In 2002 the author developed online criteria‐based assessment software ReView, together with a process involving the constructive alignment of assessment tasks. This was used in an academic development context to assist staff to integrate graduate attribute development through the assessment of student work. The time‐saving features of the online software, colour‐coded feedback about attribute development and its facilitation of students' self‐assessment were significantly successful parts of this approach.

A time‐saving strategy using software as a facilitator can encourage change to assessment practices. The inclusion of discipline content as part of attribute‐related assessment criteria assisted staff engagement with a developmental approach to attributes. Top‐down directives need bottom‐up processes and both are assisted by factors such as external accreditation and course reviews.

The paper clarifies graduate attribute terminology issues and identifies problems with “top‐down directives”. It describes innovative online criteria‐based assessment software used to facilitate graduate attribute integration and student self‐assessment. Assessment processes that give students a progressive portrait of their attribute development are few and far between. This paper offers data about one successful approach to this issue.

This study aims to identify various teachers’ professional activities (TPAs) and classify these TPAs according to their relative importance for the professional development of teachers.

The systematic review of the literature had been conducted to identify various TPAs in the institutions. Later, an empirical research had been conducted through confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS 20.0 to classify these TPAs according to their relative importance using the natural gap in standardized beta (β) values. In total, 96 administrators of 35 technical institutions of Punjab (India) offering engineering and management programs and 93 veteran educational experts had responded in a field survey.

The results of the study identified eight TPAs and further revealed that “regular self-assessment,” “adopting a creative problem-solving approach” and “developing deep commitment to make the difference” qualify among the “most important” activities for the professional enhancement of the faculty.

The study highlights different TPAs that they must establish, raise, promote, encourage and organize for their development. The study further classifies different activities according to their relative importance. The institute can evaluate their resources, budgets and efforts according to the relative importance of such activities. The classification of TPAs would help faculty to increase their efficacy.

The current study examined several aspects of validity evidence for the Faculty Readiness to Teaching Online (FRTO) scale.

Data were collected from 307 faculty in higher education. Construct validity was evidenced through an exploratory factor analysis and a reliability coefficient. Differential validity was explored using the differential item functioning analysis to explore potential bias in items due to gender and age. In addition, convergent validity was tested by correlating FRTO with years of teaching online, the primary modality of instruction and whether there is required training in online teaching by the institution.

The findings from validation showed that new factors emerged and also demonstrated differences based on instructors gender and age, as well as based on teaching experience and primary modality of teaching.

The findings confirmed the previous study's results (Martin et al., 2019) and provided some modifications to the instrument. The factor structure did not conform to the original four factors proposed in the instrument; instead, the newly loaded factors were course design and facilitation, course technologies, course expectations and resources and time management. The revised instrument can be presented and discussed at online teaching professional development programs to help faculty understand the core competencies they need to better instruct students.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the best practices of industrial engineering (IE) programs that could be learnt and used at other educational institutions.

Nine IE programs in the USA are benchmarked using a conceptual framework that considers an educational program as a system consisting of a purpose, a curriculum, resources, and quality processes. The information used in benchmarking is collected from the program self-study reports, course catalogs, and websites which are available on the internet.

It is found that in spite of their diversity in history, missions, sizes, and reputations, the studied programs are rather unified in terms of purpose definition, curriculum formation, resource selection, and quality process usage. From the analysis, a template of IE curriculum is proposed.

As the selection of the studied programs is based on the availability of the information, the findings may not be representative for IE programs in the USA. Future work can aim at comparing IE programs from various countries.

The findings could be used as benchmarks by IE schools interested in the improvement of operations.

A conceptual framework for benchmarking is proposed and proves useful for comparing educational programs. The findings represent the current best practices at IE schools in the USA.