Data Envelopment Analysis for the efficiency of Academic departments

Abstract

Efficiency in the higher education system has become important as regards the sizing and shaping of the inputs according to the outputs to be achieved. At the institutional level, the university is interested mostly in the efficiency of its organizational structures: faculties and academic departments. This study is using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) – a management tool, to identify the relative technical efficiency of academic departments at Transilvania University during the academic year 2014-2015. Two types of software offer the same results, yet differently presented. The ranking of the most efficient departments allows the identification of the well-organized departments and faculties of the University. New input and new output variables are used to evaluate the technical efficiency of academic departments face to the already used variables in all the previous published studies. The input and output variables were selected in order to characterize the two directions: academic and scientific research. The results of the DEA model offer a useful basis, for university-leading staff, in the action of improving the efficiency of academic management.