Adequacy Indicators Based on Pre-established Goals: An Implementation in a Colombian University

Key performance indicators are crucial for the strategic planning of both, public and private institutions. Composite indicators are a useful tool for conveying summary information about overall performance in a relatively simple way. The construction of these indicators implies several stages concerning collection of data, selection of criteria and individual indicators, normalization and weighting of criteria and indicators, aggregation and comparison of overall performance of the alternatives or options. However, due to the different nature of the decision criteria and indicators traditional normalization methods are not always suitable. This is the case in the proposal of composite indicators measuring students' adequacy degree in higher education institutions. This concept involves several dimensions, criteria and individual indicators of diverse nature. In this paper, we try to overcome the normalization problems arising from this situation proposing a normalization method based on similarity of the options with an ideal target. Once indicators have been normalized, weights are determined and aggregation is conducted in an easy way allowing the overall assessment of the students in terms of their adequacy level. Based on this overall assessment an adequacy index is then proposed allowing classification of the students in three different groups reflecting different levels of difficulties in terms of their adequacy. Extra activities can be then planned by the institution in order to re-inforce the adequacy level of the students. The adequacy index proposal has been developed in the context of the Industrial University of Santander (Colombia).