This book examines the relevant roles, skills and knowledge needed to build the institutional research capacity across the higher education sector globally. The information contained herein will inform IR practitioners, senior level institution officials, and higher education scholars. With a focus on building the capacity of the IR profession, this book’s primary audiences include senior leaders who wish to introduce or strengthen their understanding for effective decision support and staff members who are currently in decision support units and those who wish to serve in this capacity. However, this book also offers detail on the decision support function to higher education scholars who seek to better address how data can inform policy and planning in higher education. Through a broad discussion about the roles and skills of the practitioners, this book will also enumerate the ways in which decision support practitioners can be valued contributors in shaping the future decisions and direction of specific institutions and higher education broadly.

Globalization, demographic shifts, increase in student enrollments, rapid technological transformation, and market-driven environments are altering the way higher education operates today. Institutional Research and Planning in Higher Education explores the impact of these changes on decision support and the nature of institutional research in higher education. Bringing together a diverse set of global contributors, this volume covers contemporary thinking on the practices of academic planning and its impact on key issues such as access, institutional accountability, quality assurance, educational policy priorities, and the development of higher education data systems.

Institutional research is more relevant today than ever before as growing pressures for improved student learning and increased institutional accountability motivate higher education to effectively use ever-expanding data and information resources. As the most current and comprehensive volume on the topic, the Handbook describes the fundamental knowledge, techniques, and strategies that define institutional research. The book contains an overview of the profession and its history, examines how institutional research supports executive and academic leadership and governance, and discusses the varied ways data from federal, state, and campus sources are used by research professionals. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this important resource reviews the analytic tools, techniques, and methodologies used by institutional researchers in their professional practice and covers a wide range of topics such as: conducting institutional research; statistical applications; comparative analyses; quality control systems; measuring student, faculty, and staff opinions; and management activities designed to improve organizational effectiveness.

Webber, Henry Y. Zheng, Ying Zhou

American higher education faces a challenging environment. Decreasing state appropriations, rising costs, and tightening budgets have left American colleges and universities scrambling to achieve their missions with ever more limited resources. Campus leaders have therefore increasingly relied upon institutional research and strategic planning departments to make transparent and rational decisions and to promote good stewardship of critical but finite resources. Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education illustrates the wealth of institutional research activities occurring in American higher education. Featuring chapters by a prominent mix of authors representing community colleges, traditional undergraduate institutions, land grant institutions, research and flagship universities, and state agencies, this book provides numerous insights into the contemporary challenges, innovative programs, and best practices in institutional research. With contributors from a variety of regions and types of institutions, each chapter provides rigorous analysis of campus-based research activities in areas such as strategic planning, admissions and enrollment management, assessment and compliance, and financial planning and budgeting. Like the departments it studies, Institutional Research Initiatives in Higher Education is an invaluable resource for university administrators, researchers, and policymakers alike.

The relationship between research, on the one hand, and policy/practice on the other hand, is complicated and collaboration between scholars in research on higher education (RHE) and institutional research (IR) practitioners is often lacking. This book marks a collaborative effort of a diverse range of South African RHE and IR scholars and asks the overarching questions: What do we know about the utilisation of South African research on higher education (SARHE) and its subset of research known as Institutional Research? How and by whom is this research used? The book begins by looking at the historical underpinnings of SARHE and delineating the shape and size of this body of research. This is followed by a series of case studies on South African Higher Education institutions and governmental bodies, investigating how, when and by whom are research on higher education and institutional research used in the decision-making of these organisations. This book is the first of its kind in South Africa and sets out to lay the groundwork for further research into the use, uptake and utilisation of RHE and IR in this country.