An integrated multiple criteria decision making approach for resource allocation in higher education

Resource allocation is one of the major decision problems arising in higher education. Resources must be allocated optimally in such a way that the performance of universities can be improved. This paper applies an integrated multiple criteria decision making approach to the resource allocation problem. In the approach, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is first used to determine the priority or relative importance of proposed projects with respect to the goals of the universities. Then, the Goal Programming (GP) model incorporating the constraints of AHP priority, system, and resource is formulated for selecting the best set of projects without exceeding the limited available resources. The projects include 'hardware' (tangible university's infrastructures), and 'software' (intangible effects that can be beneficial to the university, its members, and its students). In this paper, two commercial packages are used: Expert Choice for determining the AHP priority ranking of the projects, and LINDO for solving the GP model.