Benchmarking
Benchmarking Projects and Resources
Benchmarking creates formal opportunities for institutions to learn from one another, share good practice, and compare with one another. There are varying definitions of benchmarking and below we have gathered a number of articles and examples. Feel free to contact us if you know of additional resources or assessment tools.
Brinkman, P.T. (Ed). (1987). New directions for institutional research: No. 53. Conducting interinstitutional comparisons. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
*Commonwealth Higher Education Management Service, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (1998). Benchmarking in Higher Education (ED-98/SW/12). Retrieved from: unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001128/112812eo.pdf
A report from UNESCO from 1998 describing the concept and emerging practice of benchmarking, with case studies from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany.
*Flores, S.M. (2006). Benchmarking: An essential tool for assessment, improvement, and accountability. New Directions for Community College, No. 134. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
"This volume provides the reader with an increased understanding of benchmarking in the community college sector. This volume provides four examples of national benchmarking initiatives designed specifically for two-year institutions; describes how the data from those initiatives are being used for assessment, institutional improvement, planning, management, and decision making; and discusses benchmarking's costs, benefits, and limitations."
*Resnick, L. B., Nolan, K. J., and Resnick, D. P. “Benchmarking Education Standards.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1995, 17(4), 438–461.
Teeter, D.J., & P.T. Brinkman. (2003). Peer Institutions. In W.E. Knight (Ed.), The primer for institutional research (pp.103-113).Tallahassee, FL: Association for Institutional Research.
This short chapter on peer institutions discusses the success and failures of comparing and benchmarking, the types of comparison groups and methods for developing peers for an institution. Available for purchase here.
Benchmarking Projects and Resources
Benchmarking in European Higher Education
Annual conferences, workshops and communities. Available upon request: A practical guide to benchmarking in European Higher Education
The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) is a national, collaborative effort to encourage and support state policymakers to improve the availability and use of high-quality education data to improve student achievement.
National Community College Benchmarking Project
The National Community College Benchmark Project provides community colleges with opportunities to report outcome and effectiveness data in critical performance areas, receive reports of benchmarks, and compare results with those of other colleges.
Southern Regional Education Board: Education Data
The Education Data programs collects, analyzes and shares demographic, Economic, pre-K-12 and higher education data among SREB states.
*Due to copyright regulations we cannot put up direct links to many of these articles, but they are available through many university libraries.