One of the many ways to assess teaching quality in higher education is student evaluation of the instructor's competence, used in many universities. This approach has both strengths and weaknesses. Its drawbacks include the pressure students may feel to give higher ratings to an instructor or that the assessment usually comes too late in a course for the instructor to improve instruction and might not be pertinent for the students in the next course. Additional means of teacher evaluation include: (1) videotaped classroom lessons reviewed by evaluators; (2) teacher portfolios, which may include a video; and (3) comparison of behaviorally-stated course objectives defined by the teacher with student achievement test results. The evaluation of teachers may include evaluation of teacher performance in in-service professional education activities or evaluation of teacher effectiveness after in-service education. Any procedure used to evaluate teachers should be valid in its focus on the effectiveness of the instructor's teaching. Reliability is another key factor, and improvement over previous levels of performance in instruction should be documented. (SLD)