Article+Abstracts+-+by+category


 * Lit Review Article Abstracts**

__**History of Assessment from TQM - Lean (Matt)**__

TQM and Higher Education: A Critical Systems Perspective on Fitness for Purpose

The focus of the book is to explore the introduction of the Total Quality Management movement into Higher Education. The authors provide a historic overview as well as attempt to develop an understanding of the TQM phenomenon. They explore what we can glean from the business world but are quick to point out that Higher Education must adapt the tenants of TQM to truly make it work in our environment. There is much focus put on top down acceptance of the principles of TQM in order to truly be successful. There is some attention given to assessment of student outcomes. While it is not intended to be a how to book, the authors do provide some case studies within Higher Education.
 * Total quality management in higher education : is it working? why or why not?**

The author makes a case for how institutions of higher learning can and should pursue the improvement of the student experience in higher education. This is very much a how to book that explores the process of achieving quality through five components the author lays out in a systematic approach. The first is Direction Setting, simply have a plan and know where you want to end up. The second, Process Design and Management, addresses the need for a clear understanding how your systems work and to be able to identify where your problems lie. The third, Feedback, goes hand in hand with the first two in that who is it that can tell you where you are going wrong and what those stakeholders need to be satisfied. The fourth, Enablers, looks at all those forces, person, place or things, at work the hinder our ability to achieve quality. The fifth and final component is Personal Involvement. This is where the author pulls all the concepts together by stressing the importance of buy in from all the players in the system in order to truly achieve quality.
 * Once upon a campus : lessons for improving quality and productivity in higher education**

The author makes reference of how the Assessment movement and Total Quality Management share some common threads but that inevitably the TQM is unable to shake its business roots and the belief it is a fad. Assessment was much better suited to engage academia.
 * Building A Scholarship of Assessment **

__**Trends in Higher Education - Lean and future trends (Shelley)**__

Lean Higher Education (Balzer, 2010)

//**Bringing Lean to the Office**// Author conducted two lean projects in the office of Admissions. The first had to do with handling inquiries about the university. For research purposes the beginning of the process was when the caller submitted an inquiry about the institution and the end of the process was when an admissions counselor received all the pertinent information and called the inquirer back. The initial value stream included 13 steps and took and average of two to three weeks - including approximately a 10 day wait from the inquirer's initial cal until they heard from anyone at the university. After the implementation of lean processes the time from the beginning of the process until the end was reduced to one day. The second process where the lean process was applied was the processing of student applications. The research team tried to map the process, which had approximately 88 jumbled and overlapping steps, and could not map the system. They went back to the core question of "What customer value was being created?" (p.36), and focused on "the student applicants wanted to get through the system quickly and wanted to be able to know at any time where they stood in the system" (p.36). Eventually a system was put in place that allowed "everyone in the value stream to track applicants' progress. IT developed a stoplight bar to visually track information, IT created computer interfaces so information could be shared across admissions, registrar's and financial aid offices" (p.37). Additionally IT created a web-page where all applicants could track their what information, what had been submitted, and where they were in the process at all times. "Now each piece of data is entered only once, there are fewer staff handoffs, fewer errors, less overall work, shorter wait times, and all process owners and customers have instant access to an applicant's progress" (p.37).

//**Lean Strategies for Education: Overcoming the Waste Factor**// In the environment of higher education today, budgets are shrinking and the demands and expectations of students are growing exponentially. A typical response to budget cuts is to simply reduce personnel, and the author points out that while there may be an occasion where this is the best course of action, such as redundancy, that there are other areas that should be explored for waste first. Waste as defined in the article is "anything in the process that does not add value for the customer" (Foster, 2007.p.87). The author suggests some areas to consider when looking for waste. While the author discusses 7 different types of waste, 4 of the areas pertain to our study: 1-Defects - these would include :corrections, adjustments, or inaccurate or incomplete information, which can lead to scrap or rework" (p.249). Examples would include missing or incomplete information on any type of administrative form such as: applications, registration forms, petition forms, and financial aid forms. 2- Motion - waste of motion refers to steps in a process which are unproductive, duplication, or "non-value adding". 3-Waiting - Examples in this area pertain to the customer, include waiting for a decision on an enrollment application, financial aid, waiting to see an academic adviser, administrator who needs to sign paperwork, or a checkout line. 4- Processing - the author explains that processing waste "is caused by either the excess of or lack of people, materials, equipment, and other resources needed to facilitate teaching and learning on the campus" (p.249). One example of processing waste is the requiring of multiple signatures on an academic petition form. Additionally, the author points out that "underutilizing employees by failing to tap into their education, knowledge, and expertise also poses a serious waste for the institution" (p.249).

//**Planning, Designing and Managing Higher Education Institutions**// Article focuses on 5 mega-trends that will influence the functions and process of higher education, written from a facilities perspective. 1-Society: Changing student demographics( as the demographics of students continues to change, how will higher education need to respond to meet varied student needs?), 2-Economics: Access and efficiency (we must streamline in order to control the ever increasing costs of higher education so that we are not pricing education out of the reach of most potential students), 3-Technology: Information technology and cost (technology in terms of how it impacts the faculty-student interaction and the implications for technology costs on research - today's research facilities are the most expensive to build, equip and operate, 4- Government: Accountability (institutions are being ever-increasingly required to show what students are learning, where learning is happening, and how services are provided how will these be managed, 5- Environment: Reuse, recycle, reduce (how will campuses be built, used and renovated to focus on these areas - how is waste being reduced?). Each of these mega-trends ties directly into the concept of lean higher education - the answers lie in the implementation of these concepts directly to each of these areas.

//**Comparing the Regional Accreditation Standards: Outcomes Assessment and Other Trends**//
 * FROM AUTHOR:** An analysis of the current and draft standards and relevant supporting documentation of the regional accreditation commission reveals a greater emphasis on outcomes assessment, distance education, information literacy, and encouragement for collaboration, innovation, and experimentation in teaching and learning. This article discusses the trends in the standards and makes recommendations for academic libraries. **ADDITIONAL, not from author**: Written in the context of academic libraries, the author spells out overarching trends in accreditation standards - provides strong reminder of the trend of assessment tied to each area within higher education. "The assessment of student learning is clearly a priority" (p.15). "Every commission has either a separate policy and/or statements embedded within the standards relating to distance learning and electronically delivered offerings" (p.16). North Central's March 2001 Addendum to the Handbook of Accreditation exhibits concepts of lean thinking "fostering a culture of assessment by promoting flexibility and innovation, as well as providing new services that share effective models of learning and provide new ways to work in partnership with stakeholders from higher education and the public" (p.16).

//**A case study in applying lean sustainability concepts to universities**// Article outlines a case study of 13 private and 5 major public universities. The study asked the questions: Are lean practices currently being implemented to insure the sustainability of higher education institutions? Are universities adopting the nine overarching practices and their seven components? And if the answer is yes to both of these questions, are there differences between public and private institutions in their use of these practices. Results of the surveys are provided and conclusions are drawn. 1- People believe their institutions are leaner than they actually are, 2-People feel the urgency to be lean, but successes with lean are not being leveraged in a way that the organization uses them to make further changes, 3- Lean strategic initiatives must be clearly articulated from the top - down, and require strong leadership at every level. "No school was able to demonstrate this level of leadership" (p.144).

//**Environmental Scanning and Benchmarking: Higher Education Trends**// This article focuses on institutions that have utilized environmental scanning to monitor changes in their external environment, using these changes to better meet the needs of students. Article touches on topics such as moving away from singe department processing to global enterprise processing and utilizing the internet to complement or replace some administrative functions. "The admissions process can be made more efficient by standardizing applications and redesigning work flow. Redesigning work flow, roles, and responsibilities can address the large amount of time currently spent on multiple reviews and rework" (Saccucci, 1998, p.1). A description of today's students and their expectations is given in relation to what this means for how we provide services through technology. The article ends with 7 common themes in student services: Information infrastructure, Direct information access, Integration, Cross-functional teams, Student-centered model, Anytime anywhere (technology), and implementing Pre-engineered processes.

//**Less is more: a framework for a sustainable university**//
 * FROM THE AUTHOR:** The “lean manufacturing” paradigm, which is a philosophy intended to reduce cost and cycle time significantly throughout the entire value chain while continuing to improve product performance, was first identified by researchers associated with the international motor vehicle industry. In much the same way, the application of lean thinking and cost reduction strategies is becoming evident on college and university campuses. For example, the design of coursework is becoming more standardized and contracted out to part-time instructors. The implementation of complex lean initiatives is critical for quality improvement and the sustainability of colleges and universities. However, the strategy for achieving sustainability is not clear to many decision-makers. The intent of this paper is to provide a paradigm of how a lean sustainability initiative could be developed and implemented by colleges and universities. The research for this paper is based on a review of lean principles and practices and site visits to firms in the USA possessing best practices for long-term sustainability.

//**An exploratory study of best lean sustainability practices in higher education**// A summary article, almost as a followup to the //**A case study in applying lean sustainability concepts to universities**// piece, this work summarizes lean concepts, touches on the movement from TQM to lean thinking, the tie in to benchmarking, and gives insight into how universities currently view "lean". Each question asked on the questionnaire given to the 18 participating schools is summarized with some of the more common themes highlighted. In summary the authors stress that higher education as a whole needs to become more educated about the true mean of lean. "They considered their institutions lean because they effectively and efficiently utilized their financial and human resources. The research indicates this is not lean thinking, but merely short-term, short-sighted savings" (p.235). The article emphasizes that becoming lean requires "evaluating processes to rework them to deliver the most value to customers" (p.235). In conclusion the author applies Womack lean thought processes at a macro level to create the following scenario for an academic institution: "The institution would define its niche and be able to provide a product second to none to meet the demand of its students. Each school would develop a map of its administrative and academic processes to efficiently and cost-effectively deliver the value that the student expect from his/her educational experience. Technology would provide a valuable transport mechanism to the flow of information. Processes would be streamlined and waste would be minimized through outsourcing functions that are not contributing to the core mission of the college. Imagine a collaborative, higher education environment where duplicate functions do not exist but have shared resources with other institutions" (p.237).

//**On the horizon: Technologies Coming to Your School Soon**// Each year the New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiative collaborate to provide a comprehensive review of emerging technologies on learning, called the Horizon Report. The four critical issues for 2010 were identified as: "1- the abundance of resources and relationships induced by open resources and social networks increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in "sense-making", coaching, and credentialing, 2- more and more,people expect to be able to work, learn, study, and connect with their social networks, whenever and wherever they desire, 3- technologies are becoming more decentralized, and 4- students are increasingly seen as collaborators, and there is more cross-campus collaboration" (p.114). Each trend is explored and then 4 critical challenges are identified and explored. The four challenges are: 1- The role of the academy, and how students are prepared for their future lives, is changing, 2- New scholarly forms for writing, publishing and research are emerging, but the ways in which these contributions are measured have not been updated to include modern technologies, 3- Being technology savvy is increasingly important, but many faculty find their knowledge of technology falling further and further behind, 4- there is a greater push for innovative technologies on campus, but less financial resources available to make it happen. Finally, 6 emerging technologies are discussed: "2 near term (within the next 12 months) - mobile computing and open content, 2 midterm (2 to 3 years from now) - e books and simple, augmented reality, and 2 far term (4 to 5 years away) - gesture based computing and visual data analysis" (p.114). . //**Global, Mobile, Virtual, and Social: The College Campus of Tomorrow**// An overview of trends that will lead higher education into the future. Focus of the globalization of education - implications for areas such as standardization of the content of courses and how institutions are accredited, how information is provided to students (distance education, impact of technology, new ways constantly evolving), and the role of faculty members in the learning process. "Colleges and universities are being challenged to re-examine their historical approaches and enter into discussions that create a great amount of discomfort and discord within the complex perspectives of different academic disciplines" (p.47).

//**Getting Lean**// Written by Bob Emiliani who has worked at the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechic Institute's Hartford, Connecticut campus since 1999, this editorial piece discusses the importance of business schools teaching and exhibiting lean concepts. Emiliani points out that many people in higher education view lean as a manufacturing concept and not applicable to higher education. However, he believes that "lean management can help improve individual courses and degree programs, enhance student services, and differentiate their programs from others in the marketplace" (p.56). Emiliani saw that there was a large amount of waste in systems at Lally including the admissions process, advising, curriculum, degree programs, and student services. He challenges institution leaders to look at lean as a way to keep their programs current and competitive.

//**Who's on the Line? Gauging the Most Pressing Issues Facing Higher Education**// In the past institutions of higher learning have spent enormous sums to hire private consultants and management experts to provide advise and direction for their institutions. However, history has shown that these individuals did not always have a deep enough knowledge of higher education institutions or a true commitment to the purposes of the institution to truly provide appropriate assistance. The Learning Alliance for Higher Education was created to provide "educational research and leadership support services to presidents of accredited, non-profit, two- and four-year colleges and universities" (p.57). The Alliance provides senior administrators of institutions "timely access to expertise, current research, and market data" (p.57). 32% of the users of Alliance services are Presidents and Chancellors with an additional 16% comprised of the advisers and executive assistants to these individuals. The report states that "more than any other, their concerns related to the administrative issues of management, organization, and process (39 percent). Topics that were high on the priority list only five years ago - faculty/teaching (9 percent) and student issues (12 percent) - are now lower on the agenda" (p.59). Specific issues of interest included the "pros and cons of IT outsourcing, outcomes assessment regarding learning outcomes, integrated administrative management systems, successful institutional change, setting metrics for restructuring, and evaluation of administrative structures" (p.59).

//**The Future of Learning: 12 Views on Emerging Trends in Higher Education**//
 * Authors Note:** In 2005, Herman Miller, Inc. a Zeeland, Michigan-based furniture manufacturer, convened a series of leadership roundtables in an attempt to predict what trends would affect higher education in the year 2015. Representatives from research universities, state colleges, community colleges, private institutions, and architectural and design firms participated in exercises designed to brainstorm about the future. The collective thoughts were combined into a list of 12 predictions, which were revised in 2009 to reflect the current global economic situation. **Not in Authors Note:** The 12 predictions are: "1-Globalization will influence and shape all aspects of teaching and learning, 2-The wide range of ability, preparedness, background, opportunity, and motivation of higher education students will require more varied and holistic approaches to inclusive learning, 3-The demand for more experiential, outside learning opportunities will require faculty to respond thoughtfully and proactively, 4-Colleges and universities will be expected to deliver more education in less space-to increase their learning per square foot, 5-Advancements in technology will drive ongoing changes in all aspects of college and university life and offer new opportunities to enhance and broaden learning experiences, 6-Interdisciplinary learning will become increasingly common and popular, 7-Students will take much greater control of their own learning as proactive producers and managers of their own learning solutions, materials, and portfolios, 8-The average age of students will continue to rise, the mix of cultures, ages and learning styles will become increasingly varied and rich, 9-Competition for students and resources will force colleges and universities to sharpen their brands and incentives to distinguish themselves in new ways, 10-Colleges and universities will become increasingly important parts of regional economic development, both in creating growth and taking advantage of it, 11-The structures of educational institutions and the types of employment relationships between them and faculty will continue to multiply; Inequities among faculty will cause tensions, 12-Accountability and assessment tools will continue to become common in defining institutional effectiveness.

//**Stepping Back from Lean**//

//**State-of-the-art in lean design engineering: a literature review on white collar lean**//
 * Authors Abstract:** Lean is usually associated with the ‘operations’ of a manufacturing enterprise; however, there is a growing awareness that these principles may be transferred readily to other functions and sectors. The application to knowledge-based activities such as engineering design is of particular relevance to UK plc. Hence, the purpose of this study has been to establish the state-of-the-art, in terms of the adoption of Lean in new product development, by carrying out a systematic review of the literature. The authors’ findings confirm the view that Lean can be applied beneficially away from the factory; that an understanding and definition of value is key to success; that a set-based (or Toyota methodology) approach to design is favoured together with the strong leadership of a chief engineer; and that the successful implementation requires organization-wide changes to systems, practices, and behaviour.

//**Characteristics of a Work Organization from a Lean Perspective**//

//**A Web-Based Lean Simulation Game for Office Operations: Training the Other Side of a Lean Enterprise**//

//**The Relative Merits of Lean, Enriched, and Empowered Offices: An Experimental Examination of the Impact of Workspace Management Strategies on Well-Being and Productivity**//

//**Longitudinal Effects of Lean Production on Employee Outcomes and the Mediating Role of Work Characteristics**//
 * ARTICLE ABSTRACT:** The author discusses results from a 3 year quasi-experimental field study (N 368), which suggest negative effects on employee outcomes after the implementation of 3 lean production practices: lean teams, assembly lines, and workflow formalization. Employees in all lean production groups were negatively affected, but those in assembly lines fared the worst, with reduced organizational commitment and role breadth self-efficacy and increased job depression. A nonequivalent control group had no negative changes in outcomes. Mediational analyses showed that the negative effects of lean production were at least partly attributable to declines in perceived work characteristics (job autonomy, skill utilization, and participation in decision making). The study also shows the longitudinal effects of these work characteristics on psychological outcomes. Implications for lean production, work design, and employee well-being are discussed. **Not in Abstract:** While this research was conducted in a factory setting, and not in an environment of higher learning, a few key thoughts can be pulled out regarding the implementation of lean in the workplace. It is essential to remember to include the feedback of employees continually throughout the process and after implementation. Examples such as allowing employees to stop the line, allowing employees to move with the product through production so that they were able to use their specialized skill set - for some the reason they enjoyed their job - have important implications for employees feeling heard, respected, and appreciated, rather than streamlined to the point of being viewed as a machine. This study showed that employees find value and esteem through job autonomy, skill use, and participation in decision making (p.629).

__**Workflow Programs Implemented and How it Worked (Anna)**__

__**Student Satisfaction with Systems (Brenton)**__

Exploring Complex Phenomena: Grounded Theory in Student Affairs Research

Evaluating the ‘Student Experience’: An Approach to Managing and Enhancing Quality in Higher Education

Measuring customer satisfaction in higher education

Graduate Student Satisfaction Survey University of Maryland Baltimore County Spring 2000

Student Satisfaction Survey For CAPP Report Calhoun Community College

Business Student Satisfaction, Intentions and Retention in Higher Education: An Empirical Investigation