Students are asked to evaluate faculty on a continual basis at most universities throughout the world, yet students have varying perceptions about the purpose and usefulness of these evaluations. While research has focused on the faculty issues regarding evaluations and their use in subsequent evaluation, yearly reviews, tenure decisions, and even post‐tenure review, little research has been conducted to evaluate student feelings on the evaluations. In a case study format, a random sample of College of Business Administration students from freshman to EMBA levels was polled about their perceptions of the student ratings of faculty. The results provide interesting insights into their perceptions as well as constructive ideas on how better to administer the evaluations and publish the results. Results can benefit not only business schools but also other colleges in improving the evaluation process and linking the results to other rewards and faculty improvement mechanisms.

Please scroll down for article-it is on subsequent pages With 12,500 members from nearly 90 countries, INFORMS is the largest international association of operations research (O.R.) and analytics professionals and students. INFORMS provides unique networking and learning opportunities for individual professionals, and organizations of all types and sizes, to better understand and use O.R. and analytics tools and methods to transform strategic visions and achieve better outcomes. For more information on INFORMS, its publications, membership, or meetings visit http://www.informs.org

The old industrial model of organization with big groups of people doing specialized tasks with centralized coordination in one location made economic sense for most of the twentieth century (Carr, 1999). However, both the costs of providing office space, and the opportunities for change afforded by technology make this model less obviously sensible today. Large, previously inflexible companies such as like IBM, Hewlett Packard, AT&T, and even GM have realized the need to become more agile and flexible to compete with their nimble, entrepreneurial rivals. It is important that all organizations recognize the fact that there are rapid shifts in the economy, in demand, and in customers and employees, and ensure that they are agile enough to adapt. One approach is to adapt to use of``virtual structures''.

A framework for classifying real-world applications of operations management is presented. Based on a survey of eight periodicals, the nature of and lacunae in field-based research are pointed out. The paper also discusses the politics of publishing and some measures for enhancing the number of articles related to actual applications.

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