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Evaluation has always bee a particularly significant aspect of university life. University is the place where research evaluation is produced as well as evaluation of the eligibility of scientists to teaching and research activities supported and oriented by social institutions. Evaluating activities are therefore essential to life and continuity of higher education system and research training.At present, traditional mechanisms of evaluation, based on self-autonomy and academic self-government, are at a critical point. New tools are actually used to ensure higher levels of objectivity and more opportunities for research comparison and legitimacy of researchers devoted to it. In this paper I offer a comment on the possibility of introducing quantitative evaluation methods or qualitative, individual and responsive methods for the formulation of reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper provides an overview of the multi-criteria approach within a programme of Career centres development (i.e. University placement offices in Italy), focused on three new elements of interest: i) the analysis process has been designed and managed together with the Evalution staff and the Project team, in a combined/joined way that has allowed the Project team to learn more about the evaluation process other than the only method itself; ii) because of the Project team involvement the multi-criteria approach has been used in a bottom-up way, that has solved problems related to the understanding of the project and its different parts; iii) analysis has been conducted in two different dimensions, that have been developed in two distinctive evaluation matrixes. The use of two analysis dimensions has given the Evaluation team the opportunity to observe the different and specific elements of the Career centres structures and the activities of technical support delivered to Career Centres operators from two point of views. It also helped to design a bi-dimensional map of the services the Career centres deliver on both dimensions we considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper consists of two parts. The first is more general: it introduces to university ranking, shows the leading international ranking, discusses the uses people make of rankings. The second focuses on Italian ranking Censis-la Repubblica developing two dif- ferent kinds of analyses: after considering indicators validity and reliability, principal components analysis and cluster analysis are applied to a partial replication of Censis-la Repubblica data. A list of points to pay attention comes out of these analyses: it can be useful when defining rankings of complex institutions such as universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]