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Georgia Tech climbs in world university rankings

The World University Rankings released today by Times Higher Education show the Georgia Institute of Technology has moved from No. 41 to No. 33, the highest ranking among Georgia’s academic institutions.
Tech Tower (Photo Credit: Ethan Trewhitt)
Tech Tower (Photo Credit: Ethan Trewhitt)

The Institute was 20th among U.S. institutions and fourth among public universities.

The 2016-2017 World University Rankings list the best global universities and are the only international university performance tables to judge world-class universities across all of their core missions — teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.

The top universities rankings use 13 performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available. This year’s rankings include 980 universities from 79 countries, compared with 800 universities from 70 countries in last year’s ranking.

This year’s list of the best universities in the world features 148 of the top universities in the U.S. with 63 American universities making the top 200, including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as the world’s No. 2 university, followed by Stanford University in third place, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in fifth, and Harvard University in sixth.  Oxford University in England was No. 1 overall.

Times Higher Education global rankings feature many performance indicators directly relevant to students and their families to help them choose where to study. This information includes faculty-student ratios, global reputation, total resources, the international mix on campus, and links to business.

This is the first year the rankings data and methodology were subject to an independent audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/09/22/georgia-tech-climbs-world-university-rankings

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How to design contracts that deliver results

The “pay for success” movement in the non-profit world is starting to take hold at the federal, state, and local levels. But a prerequisite is having some way of measuring success — and ensuring that funding models encourage it.
IBM's Center for the Business of Government has issued a report featuring State of Tennessee today has one of the nation’s best performance-contracting systems for its child welfare program.
IBM’s Center for the Business of Government has issued a report featuring the State of Tennessee’s performance-contracting system for its child welfare program, one of the nation’s best.

The Urban Institute has launched a new web resource to explain various forms of performance-based contracting aimed at delivering targeted, high-impact preventative social services where an intervention at an early stage could reduce the need for higher-cost services in the future.

Pay for success funding systems can take many different forms and already operate in different policy arenas. “They include value-based payments to hospitals and nursing homes, performance-based contracts with workforce providers, merit-based pay in schools, and performance-based payments to colleges and universities,” according to Patrick Lester, director of the Social Innovation Research Center at the IBM Center for the Business of Government. These involve many billions of dollars in annual public funding.

Two of the most prominent of these outcome-based funding systems are social impact bonds and performance-based contracting. A new IBM Center report by Lester offers a guide to understanding and selecting the best approach—through performance-based contracting or social impact bonds—depending on the situation at hand.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/04/how-design-contracts-deliver-results/127250

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Talking with a procurement icon about post-award contract management

Deidre (Dee) Lee entered the government in 1978 as a GS-4 contract specialist buying supplies at the U.S. military base in Okinawa.

post awardFrom there she rose up through the ranks, moving to NASA Johnson Space Center in 1984 and becoming the senior procurement official at NASA in 1992 (where I got to know her during my time as Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator).

In 1997 she succeeded me as administrator (she was my choice for the job, and I was happy to see this go to a career civil servant), and from there she went back to the Defense Department in 2000. Dee also worked at the General Services Administration, and ultimately retired from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2008.

During her government career, she twice won a Fed 100 award, in 1998 and 2004. Six years ago she went to work for Fluor as chief for government group compliance and operations, a job from which she retired last year. Dee is now working as an independent consultant focusing on government contracting issues.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2016/02/kelman-deidre-lee.aspx

 

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How to manage for results

The federal government has been moving a long time toward a more results-oriented, performance-based mission approach—developing a strategic plan, setting clear objectives, defining necessary resources, precisely assessing progress, and accurate results measurement.

NCMA logoThe goal has been establishing a clear connection between agency priorities, strategic goals, and operational plans. The Office of Management and Budget, over several administrations, has led various management initiatives while developing all manner of guidance, tools, and resources for governmental use in reaching these goals. The President’s Management Agenda is built on four pillars:

  • Effective delivery of world-class service;
  • Efficiency-enhancing productivity and cost savings;
  • Economic growth–opening data and research that spurs innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth; and
  • Unlocking the full potential of the federal workforce.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/blog/2015/08/17/how-manage-results/31863413/

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OFPP initiates 360-degree reviews of the acquisition process

Vendors now can really tell agencies how they feel about their acquisition processes and procedures.

The guidelines for Acquisition 360, a Yelp-like approach to rating the acquisition process, arrived last Wednesday from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) Administrator Anne Rung. The nine-page memo details how agencies should seek customer feedback from contractors and internal stakeholders on how well the contracting process went for specific procurements.

“This effort is not intended to be used to rate individual contracting officers, program managers, or integrated project teams (IPTs), or to compare procuring offices generally, as the complexity of procurements varies greatly among agencies, and unexpected challenges can arise,” Rung wrote in the memo. “However, these tools are meant to help agencies identify strengths and weaknesses with industry partnerships so they can make internal improvements on the planning and making of contract awards.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/517/3821690/OFPP-initiates-360-degree-reviews-of-the-acquisition-process

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