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In line with a constructivist approach and a pratical participatory evaluation, the paper used brainstorming technique to define effectiveness' criteria of children adoption. 26 judges of the Juvenile Court of Bari took part in the evaluational brainstorming, which have been organized in a creative phase, a classification step and a final relevance analysis and group discussion. Applying the Lawshe formula, it has been possible identify the most shared success standards (children well-being: self-esteem, adjustment and secure attachment; adoptees' and parents' skill to revise their life story; adoptees' scholastic and social integration; a good parentsadoptees relationship) and failure ones (parents reject adoptees or adoptees abandon adoptive family). The study highlights suggestions regarding the flexible use of brainstorming technique and underlines the potentials to use a shared evaluation procedure in order to improve both adoption research and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a view of research evaluation from the perspective of a large, multidisciplinary public university in the United States. Faced with increasing demands for accountability to the public, such universities currently lack adequate approaches to research evaluation. In fact, many of the approaches to research evaluation tend to rely on disciplinary standards for what counts as excellent research. Although these standards protect the autonomy of disciplines, departments, and faculty members, they do not speak to a notion of accountability that goes beyond accountability to academic peers. Public universities in the US should follow the example of the US National Science Foundation and find a way to incorporate concerns for broader societal impacts into their approaches to research evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]