Coalition Fall 1995 Meeting: Project Briefings and Synergy Sessions
Performance Measures for the Academic Networked Environment
Dr. Charles R. McClure, Distinguished Professor
<cmcclure@mailbox.syr.edu>
Dr. Cynthia Lopata, Assistant Professor
<cllopata@mailbox.syr.edu>
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY USA 13244
As more academic institutions spend larger sums of money to network their
campuses and provide network connections to sources outside their campuses,
questions concerning the selection and configuration of appropriate network
technologies, and the appropriate types and levels of services to provide, are
emerging. Increasingly, academic administrators are asking questions about the
benefits and impacts of networking.
The purpose of this study is to develop performance measures and indicators of
the impacts of networking on the academic institution. The briefing provides
an overview of the study's progress to date, identifies and discusses key
issues and preliminary findings that affect successful evaluation of networked
services and the development of performance measures, and describes an academic
networked environment performance measures manual that is currently under
development.
Performance measures represent a broad managerial/evaluation concept that
encompasses measurement of inputs (indicators of the resources essential to
provide a service), outputs (indicators of the services resulting from the use
of those resources), and impacts (the effect of these outcomes on other
variables or factors). Thus, evaluation is the process of identifying and
collecting data about specific services or activities, establishing criteria to
assess their success, and determining the degree to which the service or
activity accomplishes stated objectives.
In a broader organizational context, measurement and evaluation of networked
information services are essential for resource allocation, planning, and
improving services. Without measures that can evaluate particular services,
decision makers must rely on intuition and anecdotal information as a basis for
assessing the usefulness and value of a particular service. Perhaps most
importantly, measurement and evaluation provide feedback for users to make
known how well those services meet their needs.
This research project revealed a number of different views and experiences
regarding which types of performance measures might be most useful given an
institution's particular situation. Thus, the approach taken in the
performance measures manual is to identify and describe a core set of measures.
Depending on the nature of the network, the administrative concerns regarding
that network, and networking/institutional goals and objectives, some of the
measures may be more useful for some institutions than others.
The performance measures are organized in the manual by key areas of
assessment. Within each area the following measures are currently being
developed.
Users: the number and types of users and the frequency with which they use the
campus network
Costs: the total and types of financial resources that are expended to operate
the academic network
Network Traffic: the amount and types of traffic flowing over the academic
network, including router traffic, modem traffic, and Internet traffic
Use: the amount and types of uses made of the network
Services: the applications and services that are made available over the
network, including the online public access catalog, distance learning, and
user support. Also considered are: user satisfaction with these services, the
extent to which they are used, and the costs to provide them.
This project is scheduled for completion in December, 1995. At that time the
authors will submit a final report to the funding agency, the U.S. Department
of Education, summarizing project activities. The study team also will produce
a performance measures manual for public distribution.
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