Evaluating Effectiveness

How can Academic Developers provide evidence of the effectiveness and ‘added value’ of their work to the key stakeholders within their institutions? Written for Academic Developers, academic administrators and others responsible for promoting organizational change, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Academic Development is a professional guide that shares best practice advice and provides developers with useful frameworks for effective evaluation and monitoring of their work. Through case studies and up-to-date examples from experts in the field, this collection explores the nuances of evaluative practice and the tensions inherent in claiming a causal link between academic development and organizational transformation. As higher education institutions continue to seek effective ways to determine the impact of academic development on organizational transformation in general and student learning in particular, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Academic Development is sure to be an invaluable resource.

Presents the evidence on the effectiveness of measures enforced at the societal level to eliminate tobacco smoking and tobacco smoke from the environments where exposure takes place. This volume offers a critical review of the evidence on the economic effects and health benefits of smoke-free legislation and the adoption of voluntary smoke-free policies in households.

This book improves our understanding of terrorists’ motivations and rationality and may, ultimately, also indicate how to respond to the phenomenon of terrorism. In his research studies, Eric van Um explores the political rationality of terrorist groups. The political rationality model builds on rational choice theory. It demands that terrorist groups take into account the costs and benefits of their available options and choose the option promising them the highest political utility. Testing the explanatory power of this model is relevant, as rational choice approaches have become very prominent in terrorism research. But, at the same time, their empirical power remains highly contested. Increased knowledge of the political rationality model not only promises added value for terrorism research itself, but also for social sciences more generally.

The Framework for management effectiveness developed by the IUCN World Commission for Protected Areas was published in the first version of this Best Practice Guideline. It is further explained and interpreted, although not substantially altered, in this version. A number of key guidelines for good practice in evaluation are presented from many practitioners around the world, and important needs and directions for the future are identified.

The guidance presented in this book provides step-by-step guidance on the core steps in planning, carrying out and learning from evaluation, as well as some basic principles on programme design and management.