Developing A Sustainable AoL Framework Using Supply Chain Principles

Many accreditation agencies have adopted Assurance of Learning (AoL)-based paradigms for assessing educational institutions. Colleges/universities transitioning to an Assurance of Learning (AoL) system encounter common challenges while implementing new standards. In this research, the authors develop a stakeholder driven AoL framework which addresses common transitional issues while maintaining the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation standards. The model incorporates supply chain practices by best in class (BIC) companies to optimize overall assessment efforts. The model decreases the number of redundant processes, improves collaboration throughout the university, and promotes a more comprehensive curriculum. After the model implementation, the authors examine mission statements and tenure, promotion and reappointment documents to gain insight about how to sustain accreditation

A HEURISTIC APPROACH FOR LOCATING EMS FACILITIES AND VEHICLES

Many industries thrive on their ability to provide rapid and efficient services to customers. Attaining this goal is particularly critical for life sensitive service providers like fire departments and emergency medical services (EMS). This issue is complicated by the possibility that a vehicle may be unavailable when called for service. In this paper we analyze current techniques for locating EMS and highlight some of the problems associated with these methods. We propose a genetic algorithm to locate emergency facilities and vehicles to minimize the number of locations which cannot be covered in a specified time. Our proposed genetic algorithm is driven by the evaluation of the fitness of chromosomes through a discrete event simulation model. This method of evaluating the fitness of the chromosomes is used because of the difficulty of evaluating the required probabilities. We believe that our approach will lead to a general cost efficient technique for locating EMS