Recent changes in European higher education have accompanied a strong desire and need by national ministries to have comparable data across institutions and a growing recognition from campus leaders that effective planning and decision-making requires reliable institutional data and analyses. This has induced changes and restructuring of duties…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Expectations for Assessment Reports: A Descriptive Analysis (Keston H. Fulcher, Matthew Swain, and Chris D. Orem); (2) Editor's Notes: A Surprising Reaction (Trudy W. Banta); (3) Getting SMART with Assessment: ACTION Steps to Institutional Effectiveness (Eric Daffron…

A field experiment is described on the use of computer-related instruction at the college level in political science. The program modules are designed to: (1) teach a substantive body of knowledge in an introductory American government course; (2) introduce students to the basic methods of data analysis; and (3) teach elementary techniques of…