Revisiting Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education

(Paperback)

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Revisiting Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education complements rather than updates Hernon and Dugan's 2004 Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education. As with its predecessor, it offers a cross-campus diversity of voices: contributors hail from various segments of higher education, including officers of institutional accreditation organizations, an academic vice president, academic deans, a higher education consultant, faculty members, and librarians. Individually, they shed light on how their corner of the higher education universe views, facilitates, and substantiates outcomes assessment. Together, they document what is known about outcomes assessment in the middle of the first decade of the new century, as institutions and their programs take ever firmer steps from anecdotal evidence to more rigorous diagnosis and reporting. The current interest in outcomes assessment represents a major shift in recent decades in attitudes about evaluating education. Outcomes assessment deals not only with assessment, but with accountability, usually in terms of accomplishing goals defined as desirable by the institution in question. It questions the results of educational processes, and focuses the argument on what students, faculty, and administrators demonstrably do. Revisiting Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education complements rather than updates Hernon and Dugan's 2004 Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education. As with its predecessor, it offers a cross-campus diversity of voices: contributors hail from various segments of higher education, including officers of institutional accreditation organizations, an academic vice president, academic deans, a higher education consultant, faculty members, and librarians. Individually, they shed light on how their corner of the higher education universe views, facilitates, and substantiates outcomes assessment. Together, they document what is known about outcomes assessment in the middle of the first decade of the new century, as institutions and their programs take ever-firmer steps from anecdotal evidence to more rigorous diagnosis and reporting. For faculty, administrators, and librarians at all academic institutions; accreditation organizations and associations, including program accreditors; program officials in national associations; and other stakeholders, including members of state and other governments wanting to see what academe is doing to link accountability with continuous quality improvement.

Reviews

Over the last decade, the trend in outcomes assessment has shifted clearly into the world of higher education, and as a result, many colleges and universities are struggling to define and measure institutionally specific learning outcomes. Unfortunately, until recently few road maps existed to guide institutions in this process. However, the authors of this book have produced a text that, together with Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education (2004), provides a rich overview of what is currently known about outcomes assessment. In particular, the authors here provide a variety of cross-disciplinary perspectives from officers of accrediting organizations, academic vice presidents, deans, librarians, and faculty members, affording numerous examples of higher order outcomes as well as the processes that generated them. More importantly, the authors begin their treatise with a framework for outcomes processes so that readers have a solid theoretical framework for the multiple perspectives that follow. They end with a discussion of the future directions in outcomes assessment, including a research agenda for the future. This book is a must read for those interested in linking accountability with continuous process improvement. Highly recommended. Researchers, faculty, and practitioners. * Choice *

Author Bio

Peter Hernon is Professor at Simmons College, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, where he teaches courses on government information policy and resources, evaluation of information services, research methods, and academic librarianship. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University and has taught at Simmons College, the University of Arizona, and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is coeditor of Library & Information Science Research, founding editor of Government Information Quarterly, and for nine years, has been editor of The Journal of Academic Librarianship. He is the author of more than 240 publications, 44 of which are books. Among these are Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education (Libraries Unlimited, 2004), The Next Library Leadership (Libraries Unlimited, 2002). Robert E. Dugan is Director of the Mildred F. Sawyer Library at Suffolk University. In a career in librarianship of more than 30 years, he has been a reference librarian, director of public libraries, head of statewide library development, a state librarian, an associate university librarian, and college library director. He has coauthored eight books and more than 50 articles on topics such as information policy, technology, outcomes assessment, and library management and operations. Candy Schwartz is Professor at Simmons College, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, where she teaches courses in the organization of information resources, including subject analysis, classification, Web development, information architecture, and digital libraries. Dr. Schwartz received her Ph.D. from Syracuse University. She is the coeditor of Library & Information Science Research, has published articles in journals such as The Journal of Academic Librarianship and the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and is the author or co-author of several monographs. Dr. Schwartz has held numerous offices in the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIST), including Director and President, and has received local and national ASIST awards for teaching and service.