Evaluation of Exchange, Language, International, and Area Studies System (EELIAS)

In 1996, the International Education Programs Service (IEPS) office of the Department of Education (USED) awarded the NFLC a five-year grant to design and build a system to evaluate the effectiveness of the thirteen programs it funded under Title VI of the Higher Education Act and the Mutual Cultural Understanding and Exchanges Act (more commonly known as the Fulbright-Hays programs). The result was the Evaluation of Exchange, Language, and International Area Studies (EELIAS) system, a comprehensive program data input and evaluation system which the NFLC developed in close cooperation with USED's IEPS staff, as well as with major stakeholders and scholars associated with Title VI/F-H.

EELIAS was created to serve as a system to provide evaluations of the Title VI/F-H and to provide IEPS with an archive of performance data and reports on programs and from individual grantees.

The EELIAS system had four goals:

1. To improve the then current IEPS evaluation system for Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs for evaluation of both the programs and individual grantees
2. To improve the GPRA process for International Education
3. To assess each of the 14 individual programs
4. To document the national need for International Education and evaluate the role that Title VI and Fulbright-Hays play in meeting that national need

The EELIAS system consists of the following components:

• A set of strategic goals, performance indicators, benchmarks, and baselines for Title VI/F-H as a whole
• A set of goals, indicators, benchmarks, and baselines for each of the 14 constituent programs
• An online program reporting tool that enables grantees to report data on their programs, program officers to monitor individual programs, and program managers and USED leaders to evaluate programs individually and Title VI as a whole

All IEPS program grantees now submit their annual and final performance reports via online EELIAS system.