| Abstract: | The assessment of public universities has gained importance because of the demands from such state government bodies as the executive and the legislature. Public universities are increasingly being asked to account for how efficiently they have used diminishing state financial resources. Administrators thus have the responsibility of ensuring that the university's financial, human, and physical resources are allocated to academic departments in a manner that enhances the institution's efficiency. In this paper, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed for evaluating the efficiency of academic departments at a public university. DEA provides a single measure of efficiency for each academic unit. It also identifies the causes behind the inefficiencies exhibited by poor performing units, as well as the changes that these units need to make in order to improve their efficiencies. Its usefulness as a planning tool is also discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
