| This research defines some important factors or variables in evaluating and measuring departmental and college performance in an engineering environment. Primary and secondary measures related to four dimensions of performance (productivity, effectiveness, efficiency, and quality) for the four basic functions of university departments: instruction, funded research, scholarly activity, and service and professional activity are defined. In addition, the study allows for the inclusion of supplemental measures which account for the implicit differences among departments, and offers some tailoring capabilities for different department, college and university environments. Departmental resources and products are described, defined and measured in order to focus attention on performance, which is usually defined as a measure of products or a measure of products relative to a measure of resources.;A quantitative technique was used to aggregate the measures for each academic function into four separate performance indicators. Also, a mathematical combination of departmental resources and products was used to assess college performance. Numerical relations were developed to describe and analyze the process by which a department transforms resources into products, that is, transformation relations. Transformation relations are used to predict the primary resources required for the production of associated products in an attempt to estimate future performance.;A computerized planning support system (System for Assessment and Planning in Engineering - SAPE) for university departments and colleges was developed and used for the following functions: storing data for resources and products, assessing performance, forecasting future resources and products as well as future performance, integrating measures into indicators, analyzing trends in resources, products, measures, and/or indicators by calculating indices (ratio of a variable at two time periods), and "what if" analysis (the effect of alternative selected resource allocation patterns in products and performance).;SAPE reduces the effort and time necessary to evaluate past, present and future performance and facilitates academic planning by estimating the effect of resource allocation alternatives on future departmental and college performance. In addition, this system assists decision makers in examining variations among departments as well as in making national and regional comparisons among engineering departments and colleges. The department of Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University was used as the pilot for testing and validating the system. |
