Higher education today is a complex, demanding, and competitive reality. Its constituents--students, administrators, faculty, and public--are drawn from diverse sectors of society. Its 'arena' comprises institutions that receive decreased funding, are hounded with increased demands for accountability, and experience declining public support, recognition, and appreciation. The academy, that once-protected sanctuary of research, discovery, teaching, and learning, is now constantly threatened by the very society that once bestowed its lofty rank upon it. The results are a compendium of problems--increased tuition, crowded classrooms, outdated facilities, unprepared graduates, inaccessible faculty, and inappropriate courses--an effect exacerbated by social conversation and the popular press. In efforts to reverse the downward trend, colleges and universities often implement market-based strategies. However, within higher education's walls and opposing the quick-fix approach, are those who hold fast to the scholarly tradition and who reject such strategies. The resulting tensions, although sometimes good, are often threatening and destructive. Excellence in education is the context-bound concept about quality of higher education. Excellence in Higher Education is as old as university, but now-a-days the concept is widely emphasized and its meaning has been redefined on the basis of different values and goals, especially those related to market. Excellence has become the meter on which institutions are assessed and public funding allocated, the tool by which worldwide comparisons and rankings of institutions are built, and a marketable brand used by higher education institutions to present themselves. This book offers an international and comparative view on excellence in higher education, ranging from policies to practices, mainly based on research results and empirical evidence, aiming at questioning the concept and its uses which are not only social constructions but also political ones. Far from being a neutral or technical concept, excellence is heavily infused with values which must be traced, analysed and made critical to understand its impacts, backlashes and unintended outcomes on higher education systems, institutions, academics and students. The book is addressed to an international audience and in particular to higher education scholars and professionals. Those who are involved in higher education assessment, members of professional bodies and organizations in the higher education field, students in education, but also policy makers and the public opinion at large will profit from the works of a selected group of scholars coming from a variety of countries. A sense of disquietude seems ever present when discussing new digital practices. The transformations incurred through these can be profound, troublesome in nature and far-reaching. [This book was published by A.P.H. Publishing Corporation.]