Information Technology (IT) and Institutional Research (IR) units working together with planning, a focus on collaboration, and a willingness to create partnerships can help accelerate their institution's efforts to improve the data landscape. This chapter includes an overview of the challenges facing these two functional areas, the benefits of a…

This article outlines the impacts of COVID-19 on higher education and provides a contextual assessment of how higher education systems can provide support to institutions and stakeholders through a formulated planning process which helps identify, plan, and achieve strategic goals in response to fluctuating priorities.

This article describes how a large Institutional Research and Decision Support (IRDS) office engaged in efforts to promote culturally responsive and inclusive institutional research (IR) practices that take into account the increasingly diverse student, faculty, and staff populations we serve. We describe how we developed a diversity, equity and…

This chapter illustrates how student affairs units participate in accreditation across regional agency expectations and program-level requirements. Strategies for student affairs units to engage in campus strategic planning processes to further highlight their contributions are also recommended.

The increasing volume of information and the intense pace of its circulation are changing the ways universities access, use, analyze, and provide data. Many have championed the use of large-scale databases to track student admissions and retention, faculty productivity, student wellness, and other phenomena that shape our understandings of higher…

This chapter describes efforts to gather and utilize qualitative data to maximize contextual knowledge at one university. The examples provided focus on how academic departments use qualitative evidence to enhance their students' success as well as how qualitative evidence supports the institution's broader strategic planning goals.

One of the most critical functions on campus is enrollment management. As budgets become tighter and institutions rely more heavily on tuition, the competition to "make the class" intensifies. How can institutional research help inform strategic planning in such a market? This paper will discuss the way that institutional researchers can…

Understanding one's competitive stance in a globally competitive environment provides the requisite awareness to maintain both competitive edge and institutional responsiveness. In this chapter, three case studies are presented to provide examples of ways in which strategic scanning can enhance the academic program development process and how…

This chapter demonstrates the complexity of pedagogical and curricular change as it unfolds through several overlapping phases of increasingly coordinated reflection and action around STEM initiatives at Pomona College. It argues for a networked model of research and practice, drawing on theory and lessons from improvement science and highlighting…

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) uses a suite of assessment tools to guide and reinforce a cycle of activities that creates an institutional culture of planning and decision making based on evidence. This cycle includes institutional planning (goal setting), implementation of plans, assessment of outcomes, use of findings…

Despite revolutionary changes in technology, the challenges facing institutional research professionals remain remarkably the same as they were a decade ago. They are still meeting disparate stakeholder demands, developing new skills, adopting new roles, and finding ways to communicate complex information through clear presentation of data. Then…

In late 2002 the Office of Institutional Research (OIR) at Purdue University began to seriously consider building a Web-based reporting system. Purdue had launched its first strategic plan the previous year and was under the leadership of a very data-driven president; unit-level (colleges, schools, administrative areas, departments, majors) data…

Survey data are widely used in higher education for purposes such as assessment and strategic planning. One of the most common ways of using surveys has been to assess student learning outcomes by means of proxy questions on a survey, assuming that students who engage in specific behaviors (called engagement) have learned more during college than…

In its most basic form, strategic planning is a process of anticipating change, identifying new opportunities, and executing strategy. The use of mixed methods, blending quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques and data, in the process of assembling a strategic plan can help to ensure a successful outcome. In this article, the author…

Most assessment arguments are about measurement. When is it better to use direct versus indirect measures of student learning? Is one standardized test of critical thinking better than another? Is applying rubrics to student work better than using standardized tests? How valid are self-reported measures of learning? Although these arguments are…