Analysis of Goal - Setting Process in Internal Quality Assessment of University Departments: A Case Study

During the last two decades, many higher education systems in the world has attempted to evaluate and improve the quality of education, research and services at the university and higher education level. Countries which have been successful in these attempts, have initiated continuous evaluation and applied internal evaluation(self-evaluation) as a basis for promoting quality culture. In doing so, most of these countries have carried out internal evaluation on the basis of institutional objectives. In Iran, also, implementation of continuous evaluation projects started in 1996. Then, attempts were made to institutionalize departmental self-evaluation at the university level. However, in doing so departmental objectives were obstacles to the process of self-evaluation. The most recent experience in self-evaluation was self-evaluation process of Planning and Management Department of Tehran University. In this article, while a decade of self-evaluation experiences in Iran are analyzed, the process of goal setting and clarifying departmental objectives for internal evaluation is being presented.