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Cognitive mapping has been used to support strategic planning in business. However, the process has seldom been utilized to support strategic planning in nonprofit public organizations, where many reporting lines are less clear. This paper describes how the cognitive mapping process was designed and implemented to help a large academic department identify and merge the individual goals of faculty members as a first step in creating a strategic plan. Each map was created using the Decision Explorer TM software during individual interviews, as opposed to using paper and pencil. An action case approach was used to plan and evaluate individual mapping sessions. Eliciting individual cognitive maps led to greater engagement by faculty in the strategic planning process. Nearly all of the participating faculty members believed that the cognitive mapping process was helpful and insightful and the resulting map was accurate and complete.

During reaccreditation reviews, all 370 business schools that are currently accredited by the AACSB-The International Association for Management Educationmust demonstrate that a continuous improvement process is in place. This paper describes the experience of the Computer Information Systems department at a public university in the U.S., which used collaborative software to update the assessment process for the Master's Program and to document the faculty's reasoning.Faculty were asked to examine assessment results, as well as to participate in asynchronous discussions using the Web groupware TCBWorks. Two groups of faculty met face to face and used the cognitive mapping software Decision Explorer-one to generate assessment options and determine the consequences of using those options, and the other to revise program objectives for the next assessment cycle. Results of asynchronous discussions and the cognitive mapping sessions, as well as faculty members' evaluations of the process, are discussed.

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