Phát triển hệ thống thông tin quản lý và hỗ trợ đánh giá hoạt động giảng dạy và nghiên cứu khoa học của giảng viên các trường đại học khối kinh tế của Việt Nam

1 INTRODUCTION • Propose procedures of collecting and processing information for faculty performance assessment in economics and business universities Research rationale Faculty members are the key resource for sustainable development of each university Lecturing and research are the two basic tasks of lecturers in the universities, playing a decisive role in both quantity and quality of the products that universities create for the society Accordingly, the performance assessment of lecturing and research of faculty members is very important for both lecturers and managers in the recognition, enhancement and efficient exploitation of faculty resource, in order to improve the general performance of universities In Vietnam’s education in general and higher education in particular, the way to assess faculty performance through semester-end or year-end summations often lacks objectivity, making faculty members become reckless of and indifferent to the assessment results The goal of emulation and commendation, which is to encourage the faculty members in better lecturing and research, has not been obtained as desired (Ho Thi Dieu Anh, 2006; Tran Xuan Bach, 2009) Faculty assessment through student feedback has been implemented recently, but it still faces many difficulties due to careless procedures, unreasonable questionnaires and costly surveys… (Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, 2011; Dang Tuan Anh, 2015) From this situation, backwardness in faculty performance assessment in Vietnam has showed in the following aspects: First, the criterion set for faculty performance assessment in most universities has not been developed carefully and has not covered both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of lecturing and research activities Second, there has not been any university successful in building an assessment process to ensure complete, regular and accurate data collection, as well as unbiased data processing, to support faculty assessment activities Third, all universities in Vietnam have not designed a concentrated information system to support the collection and processing of information on faculty performance assessment in a quick, accurate and prompt way Therefore, the thesis "Developing the information system for managing and supporting the faculty performance assessment of lecturing and research activities in economics and business universities of Vietnam - Experiment at the National Economics University" will have theoretical and methodological contributions to faculty performance assessment, as well as valuable management practices Objectives of the study • Propose a criterion set for performance assessment of lecturing and research of the faculty in economics and business universities • Propose an information system to manage and support the performance assessment of lecturing and research activities in economics and business universities • Experiment the proposed information system at the National Economics University, from which: o To verify the effectiveness and reliability of the system o To collect feedback from users of the system in order to make suggestions for improvement and implementation of the system in economics and business universities Research object and scope 3.1 Research object The direct research object of the thesis is the information system to manage and support the performance assessment of lecturing and research activities in economics and business universities However, for the scientific and practical bases of such an information system, the indirect research object of the thesis is the lecturing and research activities of the university faculty 3.2 Research scope The scope of the research is limited to lecturing and research activities of the faculty in economics and business universities of Vietnam Some other activities of the faculty as well as the manifestations related to moral qualities, political awareness, civic responsibility will not be considered in this thesis The selection of universities in economics and business field stems from the diversity and complexity of the university system of Vietnam Besides, in the survey scope respect, due to limited resources, the thesis focuses primary data collection from six largest economics and business universities in the North (and in Hanoi) Approach and methodology 4.1 Approaches This research takes both the social-economic and technical approaches: • Social-economic approach to identify the assessment criterion set • Social-economic and technical approaches to build the procedures of collecting and processing assessment information • Technical approaches to build and experiment the information system 3 4.2 Research methods The thesis combines qualitative research methods in the social sciences and the methods of system analysis and design of the information technology sector to develop an information system to manage and support the performance assessment of faculty lecturing and research activities in economics and business universities In addition, to demonstrate the applicability and application characteristics, the thesis uses the experiment method (i.e testing in the real environment) by applying the information system to assess lecturing and research activities of faculty at the National Economics University The research methods will be presented in detail in Chapters 2, and 5 New contributions of the thesis • A criterion set and procedures of collecting and processing the corresponding data for the assessment of lecturing and research activities of the faculty in economics and business universities • A complete web-based information system to manage and support the faculty performance assessment of lecturing and research activities in economics and business universities • The proposals for the application of the information system to manage and support the faculty performance assessment of lecturing and research activities in economics and business universities Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW OF FACULTY PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT AND INFORMATION SYSTEM OF PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT 1.1 Faculty work 1.1.1 Lecturing activities: Since the 21st century, the role of the university faculty has involved not only capturing, processing and transfering information, but also conveying the way of “how to learn” and “how to work”, then to help students acquire the ability of self-education for life 1.1.2 Research activities: Research is important to university faculty on three aspects First, to improve the lecturing quality Second, to ensure that lecturers have the ability to supervise students in research Third, to make a reputation and to gain promotion in their careers (Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, 2011) 1.1.3 General characteristics of faculty activities that affect the assessment: According to Mai Quoc Chanh (2007), activities of the university faculty have specific characteristics that need considering in performance assessment First of all, this is the workforce of intelligence with high qualification, knowledge, sensitivity and self-esteem Second, the nature of the faculty work is very complex, the work results are both clear and unclear Third, the faculty working time cannot be restricted to official hours but often requires overtime 1.2 Faculty performance assessment 1.2.1 Perspectives on faculty performance assessment: From the perspective of human resource management theory, performance appraisal is affirmed as an important function of the human resource management in the organization in general and university administration in particular (Ho Thi Dieu Anh, 2006) From the viewpoint of educational management theory, assessment is an important component and an integral stage of the educational process (Tran Thi Tuyet Oanh, 2007) 1.2.2 Methods of faculty performance assessment: Nguyen Thi Thu Hien (2011) summarizes that methods of faculty performance assessment can be provided into ones of diagnostics, ones of standardization and ones of criterion Most recent research have used assessment methods based on the criterion set to assess lecturing and scientific research activities of the faculty (Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, 2011; Pham Van Hung, 2010; Tran Xuan Bach, 2009 ) 1.2.3 The purposes of faculty performance assessment: According to Tran Xuan Bach (2009), the purpose of faculty performance assessment can be considered from two perspectives: (1) From the individual perspective, assessment aims at encouragement and development of the faculty; and (2) From the standpoint of educational institutions, assessment aims at personal development, administrative decision making and organization maintenance/development 1.3 Standards and criteria for faculty performance assessment of lecturing and research activities 1.3.1 Literature review of standards and criteria for faculty performance assessment of lecturing and research activities Among works of performance assessment criteria, SEEQ is the classic criterion set in assessing the quality and performance of faculty lecturing based on the student feedback During the last decades of the twentieth century, statistical analyses over the world have proved that the SEEQ has been reliable However, the SEEQ is not enough to be used for faculty performance assessment, especially when scientific research is increasingly interested among faculty activities The later studies such as Braskamp and Ory (1994), Nguyen Duc Chinh and Nguyen Phuong Nga (2006), Tran Xuan Bach (2009), Pham Van Hung (2010) have added research activities into criterion set of faculty performance assessment, but the criteria are mainly based on research results Doan Hoang Minh (2013) has proposed an analytical framework and a criterion set which has been tested the reliability to assess research capacity, however this study has been conducted with respondents as PhD students but not faculty A further limitation of the proposed criterion sets is that they are dispersed over many small criteria without synthesis on some common ways to easily identify the general assessment result of faculty activities parties involved in the assessment and use the assessment results (Krauss and Snyder, 2009), as well as the ability to easily and quickly get the accurate analytical reports on the situation of human resources (Kavanagh and Thite, 2008) Also, another benefit of the information system of performance assessment is the significant cost reduction for organizations in comparison with the traditional assessment types (Coates, 1996) 1.3.2 Literature review of criterion sets for faculty performance assessment in reality It is difficult to apply a prototype of universities in the world to assess faculty performance in Vietnam due to the differences in lecturing and research activities However, most of the criteria being used by universities around the world have appeared in faculty performance assessment of practices or research in Vietnam In Vietnam, the Ministry of Education and Training stipulates two forms of faculty assessment, but the fact shows that the standards set out by the Ministry have been inappropriate Therefore, most universities use their own assessment form Some studies also have suggested criterion sets of faculty assessment, such as Nguyen Duc Chinh and Nguyen Phuong Nga (2006), Ho Thi Dieu Anh (2006), Tran Xuan Bach (2009), Pham Van Hung (2010) However, proposals of these studies have not been introduced in practice 1.4 The information sources of faculty performance assessment The common information sources of faculty performance assessment include: 1.4.1 Student feedback 1.4.2 Assessment from colleagues 1.4.3 Assessment from managers 1.4.4 Self-assessment 1.4.5 Lecturing dossier 1.5 Information system to manage and support faculty performance assessment 1.5.1 Information system of human resource management Kavanagh and Thite (2008) define Human Resource Management Information System (HRIS) that "the system that is used to collect, store, analyze, export data and distribute information related to human resources of an organization" Many studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the cost savings of using HRIS (Connors, 2001; Hunter Group, 2001), the advantages of the speed and accuracy of such systems (Kavanagh and Thite, 2008), and the factors affecting the acceptance and use of the technology (Marler et al, 2009) 1.5.2 Information system to support performance assessment Pros and foremost fundamental advantages of this system is the data accessibility anytime and anywhere (if the system is connected to the Internet), with all the 1.5.3 Information systems to support faculty performance assessment Faculty performance assessment also have changed from the manual tools to the application of IT advances in the assessment For examples of getting student feedbacks, the assessment in the beginning was done through surveys at the classroom and students filled directly on paper Over time, the assessment on the network has become more popular due to the more flexible learning environment and the tendency of increase in using mobile digital communication tools among students Bennett and Nair (2011) suggest that the online student feedback has many advantages over paper filling despite the fact that the online forms provide low response rates (Dommeyer et al, 2004) However, recent studies show that rates of respondents are primarily caused by student awareness rather than technical issues Therefore, universities have used various measures to encourage the participation of students (Coates, 2006) In Vietnam, there is not a university building a comprehensive information system to manage and support faculty performance assessment The application of IT to faculty performance assessment has been implemented in a sporadic way, mainly in the form of getting student feedback That is not only costly in resources but also makes it difficult to ensure a scientific and systematic criterion set as well as regular, fully and objective procedures of assessment 1.6 Conclusion of the literature review Literatures involving faculty assessment is extremely massive, not only in the world but also in Vietnam However, so far Vietnamese universities cannot apply not only overseas faculty assessment models but also criterion sets proposed by local research, the basic reasons of which include: The sets of criteria are inappropriate (unfeasible or incomprehensive) In particular, there has been no qualified research in criterion set of faculty performance assessment in economics and business universities The best way of faculty performance assessment is based on 360-degree feedback method However, it is accompanied by the requirement for diverse sources of information, as well as the big cost of information collecting and processing Meanwhile, most of the higher education establishments in Vietnam have not built up the standardized and feasible assessment procedures, based on based on a complete assessment information system recorded, and then transcribed, processed, encoded and interpreted into research results There are the gaps in research and practice for the author to exploit for the thesis 2.3 The situation of faculty performance assessment in economics and business universities through qualitative research results CHAPTER THE SISTUATION OF FACULTY ASSESSMENT IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS UNIVERSITIES 2.1 Characteristics of faculty activities in economics and business universities 2.1.1 Economics and business universities The phrase "economics and business universities" implies a group of universities specialized in economics, business and management in Vietnam Most of these are public ones with a long history of education, research and application of economics science 2.1.2 Characteristics of faculty activities in economics and business universities • The pressure from the massive number of students • Faculty qualifications • Restrictions on methods of lecturing and research • The issue of morality and lifestyle 2.1.3 The influence of these characteristics on the faculty performance assessment The current situation shows the restrictions on the quality of the faculty performance assessment in economics and business universities Accordingly, the request for assessment of lecturing and research activities in economics and business universities also has characteristics different from the ones of techniques or humanities fields, especially in the aspects of the abilities of updating new knowledge and methods in the field of economic science to keep up with the development of the world; and the requirements of raising moral qualities and sense of responsibility of the faculty in the market mechanism 2.2 The qualitative research method based on in-depth interviews of lecturers in economics and business universities The author uses the qualitative research method in this study Information was collected through the 15 in-depth interviews from July to August, 2015, and was verified and analyzed in conjunction with the literature review The respondents were mainly lecturers in economics and business universities in Hanoi At the same time, the author also conducted in-depth interviews with the representatives of the Managing Board, the Heads of the Department of Organization and Personnel, the Department of Testing and Education Quality Assurance and two students of the National Economics University The interview contents were 2.3.1 The criterion sets and procedures of faculty performance assessment Except the University of Economics and Business of the Vietnam National University, Hanoi, the rest of five remain economics and business universities in Hanoi have not established the criterion sets of their own because of incomplete standards of information and no assessment criteria At these universities, faculty assessment has been conducted through two forms prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training Most assessment results have not been used for the right purpose 2.3.2 Faculty assessment through student feedback From the general perspective of the faculty, this form of assessment has been ineffective The information has been collected mainly through surveys on paper, which requires manual and costly entry The main drawback of online assessment is that there has been no regulations that force the students to give assessment Assessment time has different among universities but all have limitations All universities have used assessment results for consultation in spite of costly information collection and processing Most of the lecturers have thought that the assessment results are not reasonable 2.3.3 The other sources of faculty assessment All interviewed lecturers have agreed that the assessment for the purpose of emulation and commendation are now inadequate The form of faculty selfassessment includes vague criteria, making self-assessment become formalistics Many departments have not hold internal seminars or required class observation, then there can be no grounds for authentic assessment from colleagues Most of universities put the responsibility of assessment from managers for the dean, but most of lecturers say that the department head is the one in charge of specialization and the one closest to the lecturers On the use of assessment results, with the fact that "everyone thinks that assessment results will be progressive for all, then there is nothing to do”, consequently the education institutions can not achieve the assessment objectives Through interviews, the author has found that faculty performance assessments are stuck in: (1) Inaccurate criterion sets; (2) Assessment procedures that not ensure the responsible participation of all stakeholders 9 2.4 Commenting on the criterion sets for faculty performance assessment Another drawback of the current assessment criteria is that they favor the quantity more than the quality Through literature review, combined with the situation of the economics and business universities, the author has proposed that faculty performance should be assessed in two aspects: (1) Assessment based on competency frameworks; and (2) Assessment of lecturing and research results The majority of respondents support this proposal, but emphasize that the capacity framework must be accompanied by capacity standards 10 The results of the faculty research: Based on the interview results, it could be seen that we should reconcile different viewpoints, hence on the one hand articles in the international journals should rank first in all types of published works, so that the lecturers would be encouraged to reach this goal, and on the other hand locally published works should still be recognized based on the conversion table of number of research hours 2.5 Suggested adjustment in assessment procedures of faculty performance in economics and business universities 2.4.1 The criteria for assessing faculty lecturing performance 2.5.1 Assessment based on student feedback Capacity framework of faculty lecturing performance The assessment form for students should (1) be brief but must be adequate for faculty activities, (2) display the criteria that students can comment, including knowledges, skills and attitudes of lecturers in lecturing Knowledge: Compiled from the opinion of the respondents, the author classifies knowledge in lecturing into groups of specialized knowledge, professional knowledge, practical knowledge and knowledge associated with research Skills: The majority of respondents agree on the classification of skills related to pedagogy, skills to use lecturing support tools, skills of classroom management skills, skills to assess learning outcomes, skills to use foreign languages in lecturing Attitude: The faculty attitude in lecturing activities can be assessed in two aspects: (1) the attitude towards students and lecturing in class: responsibility, enthusiasism, seriousness, respectfulness and fairness; and (2) the attitude towards him/herself and his/her colleagues: the spirit of learning, solidarity, collaboration, sharing with colleagues The results of the faculty lecturing: The majority of respondents says that this criterion should be considered based on the "completed lecturing tasks over the assigned workload" 2.4.2 The criteria for for assessing faculty research performance Capacity framework of faculty research performance Knowledge: Most of interviewed lecturers think that the knowledge in research is quite similar to the knowledge in lecturing, but (1) instead of knowledge of lecturing methods, lecturers must have knowledge of research methods; and (2) lecturers must have interdisciplinary knowledge Skills: Skills in research can be divided into the following groups: skills of presentation and report of research results, skills to use research tools, skills of searching latest data and knowledge of mankind, skills to conduct a research and manage participants, skills to use foreign languages in research Attitude: All respondents agree that the right attitude in research should be passionateness and creativeness; keenness of learning, sharing and cooperation; seriousness and enthusiasism; honesty and objectivity Online assessment is a good choice for educational institutions Assessment systems must be integrated with personal pages by students enrolled on the system of educational management How to attract the attention of students and to adjust the psychology of assessment: the educational institutions should pay attention to their customers in the aspects of ideological education, popularization of the significance of the assessment, and that the assessment results must be given to the students so that they could realize the value of what they had done Assessment time: the time after students finish the final session of a course would be the most rational The Department of Education Quality Assurance conducts the assessment independently, just announces the assessment results after students have had test results This process is clearly informed so that students understand and feel reassuring in assessment 2.5.2 Other assessment sources Assessment from colleagues: Educational institutions should have rules so that lecturers can not select mutual assessment, and the Department Head must be the one assigning one of the two assessors The lecturers are notified of the aggregate results from several different sources of assessment, but not of the direct results of assessment from colleagues This source of assessment is not only applied to class observation but also to the whole feeling of the assessors in daily communication and working Assessment from managers: This task should be assigned to the Department Head with a full criterion set besides the comments section Assessment time: In terms of practicality in the economics and business universities, the assessment should be conducted annually However, the 11 12 educational institutions should semestrally send the assessment results based on student feedback to the lecturers 3.2.1 The standard framework of faculty performance assessment in lecturing 2.5.3 The objectives and the uses of results of faculty performance assessment Knowledge A system of faculty performance assessment is essential for universities in general and the lecturers in particular to be aware of the results and the quality of lecturing and research However, while the assessment system could be built on the basis of a proper criterion set combined with standard procedures, it could not be maintained without the policies of using assessment results in an appropriate way, which can meet the needs of all stakeholders CHAPTER PROPOSAL OF CRITERIA AND PROCEDURES OF FACULTY PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS UNIVERSITIES 3.1 The system of faculty performance assessment 3.1.1 Context of faculty activities Faculty activities are affected by the social and managerial environment (factors of society, administrative units and specialized units educational institutions) as well as professional and specialist environment (students, scientific institutions and professional organizations) 3.1.2 The system of faculty performance assessment The system of faculty performance assessment includes the elements of (1) performance standards; (2) performance measurement; and (3) feedback The external factors may affect the assessment system include (1) The role of stakeholders, such as the managing board, functional units, lecturers, the beneficiary of educational services (i.e students) and (2) The characteristics of the faculty activities and the education environment 3.2 The standard framework of faculty performance assessment R L S C A - Ability to understand and select references for the lectures with the reasonable required volume for students to read accordingly - Ability to understand as well as be able to solve and answer the problems related to the subject effectively - Ability to understand and choose the appropriate methods and strategies to help students apply knowledge in practice - Ability to understand methods and forms of testing to evaluate and monitor the progress of students - Achievement of the faculty standards required by the university Skill - Lecturing skills: the ability to communicate, organize lecturing, improve lecturing methods in line with the objectives and the requirements of high-quality education - Class management skills: the ability to monitor classes, to use class time effectively, to attract the attention of students, to encourage students to participate in lectures in a more active, inspiring way - Assessment skills: the ability to evaluate students with diversity, objectivity and rationality in content and duration in order to develop professional skills of students - Skills to analyze the exam results of the students to get feedback for themselves, students and departments - Enthusiasm and commitment: expressed in lecturing, helping, advising and guiding students to learn well - Fairness and objectivity in evaluation - Strict conformation to the rules of the university K S C R R - Ability to communicate knowledge through lectures with good scontent, matching the program objectives and updated modern knowledge Attitude K F Lecturing capacity A Figure 3.2 Framework for assessing faculty lecturing and research activities Source: author's synthesis - Correct behavior in communicating with students - Respect for the independent thinking and initiatives of students - Responsibility: careful preparation of lectures, giving students an overview of the course, ensuring enough volume and content of the course - The spirit of continuous learning and improving lecturing quality 13 14 - Lecturing sufficient minimum number of hours in comply with faculty standards from colleagues (including class observation and overall assessment); (5) assessment from the dossier of lecturing and research Based on the above standard framework of faculty performance assess, in combination with the results of qualitative research and the literature review, the author has developed a set of criteria of each source for faculty performance assessment in lecturing and research 3.2.2 The standard framework of faculty performance assessment in research 3.4 Proposed assessment scale - The spirit of solidarity, collaboration with colleagues in lecturing Lecturing results: Completion of lecturing duties, shown by: - Lecturing a sufficient number of assigned classes and hours Research capacity 3.4.1 Suggestion of weights of each activity and assessment aspects Knowledge Table 3.6 The table of suggested weights of each activity and assessment aspects for the National Economics University - Ability to understand research methods and process, and how to design a research - Ability to understand updated knowledge, specialized theories and literatures in the research field Activity Synthetic Skill Lecturing 0.4 - Skills to guide undergraduate and graduate students in research Research 0.6 - Teamwork skills in the group research - Skills in research: searching for literatures; using electronic databases; reading, synthesizing and criticizing the research; research design; data collection; scientific writing; presentation; searching contacts for publishing; research project management Type Total Knowledge Skills Attitudes Capability Result Capability Result 0.8 0.2 0.3 0.7 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.096 0.096 0.128 0.054 0.054 0.072 Divided Lecturing Research Capability Result Capability Result 0.08 0.42 Total - The ability to use foreign languages in research - The ability to use software tools to support data analysis Attitude - The spirit of innovation and passionateness for the new - The honesty and objectivity in research - The seriousness, effort, perseverance and commitment to research - The spirit of cooperation and keenness of learning in research Research results - Presiding or participating in research projects - Publication in workshops, conferences, journals - Editing books, translating documents to be published or to be lectured - Having inventions that can be applied in lecturing and research - Participation in the activities of international scientific exchange 3.3 Sets of criteria for faculty performance assessment in lecturing and research The author proposes a model of faculty performance assessment of five sources: (1) student feedback; (2) self-assessment; (3) assessment from managers; (4) assessment Total 0.32 0.08 0.18 0.42 Source: Author's suggestions 3.4.2 Suggestion of weights of each assessment source Table 3.7 The table of suggested weights of each activity and assessment source Activity Lecturing Research Capability Result Capability Result Student feedback 0.3 Self-assessment and dossier 0.3 Assessment from managers 0.2 0.4 0.3 Assessment from colleagues 0.2 0.3 Source: Author's suggestions 3.5 Proposal of assessment procedures for faculty performance in economics and business universities (Described in Figure 3.5) CHAPTER PROPOSAL OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM TO SUPPORT FACULTY PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS UNIVERSITIES Based on the above results, combined with the approach of analyzing and designing information systems in Nguyen Van Vy (2004), Han Viet Thuan (2008), 15 16 university This information system has the interactions of information with three existing management formation systems, i.e the education management system, the research management system and the personnel management system Assessment procedures for faculty performance Begin Determine the purposes and sources of assessment Prepare means, tools, techniques and scale of assessment Identify assessment agents No Education management system Feasible? Yes Personnel management system Collect assessment information Self-assessment assessment Student feedback Refine data Assessment from colleagues Assessment from managers Assessment from the dossier of lecturing and research Information system to support faculty performance assessment Other concerned objects Research management system Figure 4.1 The context model of the information system to support faculty performance assessment 4.1.2 The conceptual model of the process of the information system to support faculty performance assessment Analyze data Summarize and report the assessment information End Figure 4.2 shows the conceptual model of the process of the information system to support faculty performance assessment Besides assessment agents, the Department of Education Quality Assurance takes the role of coordinating all activities related to the assessment: collecting, processing and reporting assessment results Announce the assessment results Figure 3.5 Assessment procedures for faculty performance Source: Author's suggestions the author has built an information system to support faculty performance assessment of lecturing and research in economics and business universities The research method includes the following stages: (1) Describe an overview of the system; (2) Analyse functions through the business function diagram (BFD); (3) Design the business model in system with the formulas of assessment points; (4) Design the entity relationship model; (5) Develop the database of faculty performance assessment; (6) Propose the technology platform for the system, and (7) Create the final product: the web-based system to support faculty performance assessment In addition, the author has used several mathematical models for the analysis and selection of assessment criteria 4.1 The context model and conceptual model of the information system to support faculty performance assessment 4.1.1 The context model of the information system to support faculty performance assessment Figure 4.1 illustrates “the information system to support faculty performance assessment" as part of the overall management information systems in a Figure 4.2 The conceptual model of the process of the information system to support faculty performance assessment 18 17 4.2 Designing and analysis of the information system to support faculty performance assessment 4.2.2 Description escription of the assessment procedures 4.2.1 Functional analysis through the business function diagram (BFD) T A S A S S A A A A C R Example: Figure 4.11 Aggregate business process of lecturing assessment essment Source: Author's design T S T Figure 4.3 The decomposition diagram of operational functions of the system Source: Author's design As shown in Figure 4.3, the assessment procedures according to functional decomposition diagram comprising the following components: (1) (through sources of, , , and the), (2) (through sources of self-assessment, assessment from managers, assessment from colleagues and); (3) Before being sent to the managers, the assessment results will be sent to the assessed lecturer for their feedback and will be checked in case of mistakes 19 20 4.2.5 The information system platform 4.2.3 Entity relationship model Figure 4.17 Technology platform model Source: author's proposal 4.2.6 The web interface of the system Figure 4.15 Entity relationship model Source: Author's design 4.2.4 The database of faculty performance assessment SurveyPeriod SurveyResult ResearchResult Survey Account Department From the databases and the technology platforms mentioned above, the author has designed the web interface of the information system of assessment, which includes:  Introduction (about the purpose and meaning of the system, the manual functions in the system)  Decentralization of assessment (only for the management)  Self-assessment and enumeration of research results  Assessment from managers (only for those decentralized as a manager)  Assessment from colleagues  Assessment from students (connected to the education management system) SurveyObject LecturingResult Faculty  Report  System Administration (for the Department of Education Quality Assurance) SurveyItem University Figure 4.16 Physical database based on the MongoDB model Source: Author's design 4.3 The formula for calculating faculty assessment points The author has specified the scoring formula for each lecturing and research activities, as well as the overall faculty performance 21 22 Chapter EXPERIMENT OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEM TO SUPPORT THE FACULTY PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT AT THE NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY 5.4 Feedback from participants in the experiment and the suggestions to adjust the system 5.1 Experimental research methods 5.1.1 The need to conduct an experiment study According to Kavanagh and Thite (2008), the researchers of human resource management information system (HRIS) always emphasize the need to test the users’ reaction to the processes of human resource management which is performed via such systems 5.1.2 The method and process of implementing an experiment study at the National Economics University - Collect forms of student feedback in May 2015 in NEU examination rooms - Collect assessment information from lecturers who joined in the experiment from October 2015 to March 2016 - Gather information about the user feedback to the system from November 2015 to March 2016 5.2 Description of the experiment sample 5.2.1 Lecturers: The author has conducted the experiment on the sample of 52 lecturers, but there are only 34 faculty members participating fully in the assessment activities 5.2.2 Students: The author has collected about 50 sheets of student feedback form for each lecturer in the sample, so that the obtained total is 2953 sheets of student feedback form 5.3 The table of faculty assessment results in the experiment Figure 5.1 The table of the performance assessment result of a lecturer joining in the experiment 5.4.1 The reaction of the faculty involved in the experiment in terms of assessment criteria and procedures The majority of the lecturers say that the criterion set covers all aspects of lecturing and research activities of the faculty from two aspects of competency assessment and result assessment The lecturers mostly agree with the statement that the assessment via such a system is clearer and more transparent than the current year-end summations For criteria of self-assessment, most lecturers think that they are suitable and the assessment results will be honest when lecturers know about the comparison between the results of self-assessment and ones of assessment from colleagues For criteria of assessment from colleagues, nearly half of the faculty members have no clear opinion or think that they are not appropriate, for two reasons: (1) Lack of information about colleagues; and (2) Fear of displeasing each other From the first reason, it should be confirmed that class observation must be compulsory for this type of assessment From the second one, the assessment reports should be considered carefully, for example each lecturer could see the results of summarized assessment, student feedback, selfassessment, but not the assessment from colleagues or managers 5.4.2 The reaction of the faculty involved in the experiment in terms of the online assessment system Comparison between on-paper and on-line assessment: Nearly 91% of the faculty involved in the experiment prefer the on-line assessment the assessment on paper due to: (1) the on-line form makes it easier to check the obtained working result; (2) cost savings and environmental protection; (3) fastness and convenience Technical factors related to the Internet is considered to be the biggest barrier to the implementation of on-line assessment Some other factors that may affect the psychology of the users of on-line assessment include the support of university leaders, the awareness of the faculty, age and occupation characteristics Commenting on the complexity of the system: It is required that there must be the guidance for the use of the system and that the responsible unit must organize training sessions for lecturers on how to participate, utilize and exploit the assessment system The education institutions should not disregard the manual stages which could be the channel of not only convincing faculty to 23 24 participate in the system, but also supporting them in use of the system, so that the busiest or oldest lecturers could feel less hesitative when participating in the information systems of faculty assessment 5.5.4 Assessment results should be notified to the interested people, including students, and the results must be used to make real changes for the faculty and the university 5.4.3 Faculty opinions on the requirement of lecturing hours and research hours in a research-oriented university 5.5.5 There are other solutions to increase the response rate in the student feedback, i.e integrating the assessment system to the educational management system, weekly sending automated email to remind students who have not given the feedback yet, confirming the security of on-line assessment information According to the survey, it seems that NEU faculty has not been yet "familiar" with the fact that the NEU is planning to become a researchoriented university Most of lecturers joining the experiment think that fulfilling all assigned lecturing hours is only “attaining the goal”, and they should be added points if lecturing more than the assigned level However, the good signal is that ¾ of the faculty involved in the experiment agrees that reaching the minimum number of research hours only means getting points on a scale of 10 5.4.4 Student responses to the assessment system based on student feedback More than one third of the students say that the questionnaire is too long, which requires a further study to shorten the questionnaire with the goal of maximum 20-25 questions of student feedback However, most students believe that the given questions is appropriate and answerable Over half of the students say that the student feedback is necessary, that the students understand the purpose of getting student feedback, and that this assessment is not time-consuming for them In spite of this, this ratio is not high and senior students show the more pessimistic view of the purpose and significance of getting student feedback than the junior The number of students preferring on-line assessment to on-paper assessment is higher than the ones with the contrast opinion On that fact, the author could believe in the proposal of an on-line information system to manage and support faculty assessment, in combination with solutions to increase the response rate of students 5.5 Some recommendations for managers 5.5.1 Place the faculty assessment system in the academic and research mission of the university 5.5.2 The system should describe in detail the questionnaires, how to calculate the assessment points and the manual for lecturers and students 5.5.3 The students should be educated and propagated about the importance and significance of faculty assessment 5.5.6 In an educational institute, collected and processed data should be shared between individuals and departments directly and indirectly related to the assessment CONCLUSION Based on the literature review and derived from the situation of faculty performance assessment in economics and business universities, the author have proposed respectively: (1) A set of criteria for faculty performance assessment that could be suitable for economics and business universities (2) The feasible and standardized assessment procedures that could be applied for all universities (3) A complete information system that could support data collection from assessment sources and help to link information sources into a unified database for the final assessment report of (1) the individual lecturer, (2) the lecturers of a department, and (3) the whole faculty of the university However, due to limited time and budget, this research still has some gaps for further study in the future  ... research Research results - Presiding or participating in research projects - Publication in workshops, conferences, journals - Editing books, translating documents to be published or to be lectured... of Education Quality Assurance takes the role of coordinating all activities related to the assessment: collecting, processing and reporting assessment results Announce the assessment results... information, as well as the big cost of information collecting and processing Meanwhile, most of the higher education establishments in Vietnam have not built up the standardized and feasible assessment