The considerable institutional distance between home and host countries of most international branch campuses (IBCs) necessitates that they address the managerial challenge of balancing global integration and local responsiveness. Previous studies have investigated IBCs' strategies for addressing this challenge as well as the macro- or micro-level…

Traditional institutional research systems may limit who is counted and how they are counted because of limitations associated with disability classification, self-disclosure of disability status, and accessibility limitations inherent within some data-collection methods. As postsecondary institutions work toward improving access for disabled…

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the Ontario-led strategic mandate agreement (SMA) planning exercise. Focusing on the self-generated strategic mandates of five universities (McMaster, Ottawa, Queen's, Toronto, and Western), we asked how universities responded to this exercise of strategic visioning? The answer to this question is…

A 2013 British Columbia Council of Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT) research report suggested the need to continue research on mature students for the sake of ensuring access to postsecondary education (PSE) for adults and other categories of non-traditional students. The 2013 report laid a basis for this study which investigates key elements of…

Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, asserts that education is one of the most effective instruments that society can employ in the effort to adopt sustainable development. This paper is a first effort to explore the degree to which Canadian institutions of higher education, including colleges and universities, have embraced this…

Twenty years ago, Pescosolido and Milkie (1995) reported that 50 percent of U.S. and Canadian sociology graduate programs offered formal teacher training. Despite pronouncements that offerings have increased substantially, no similarly thorough and direct investigation has been published since. In this time of dramatic change and increasing…

Researchers using qualitative methodologies appear to be particularly prone to having their study designs called into question by research ethics or funding agency review committees. In this paper, the author considers the issue of communicating qualitative research study designs in the context of institutional research ethics review and offers…

When the W.K. Kellogg Foundation first approached a group of tribal college presidents in 1994 with a $23 million grant for a handful of their institutions, the tribal college leaders did not exactly trip over themselves to get the money. They wanted it to be split among all of them, and the foundation honored the tribal college leaders' wish.…

This AACRAO "60 Second Survey" asked respondents to identify the size, composition, name and level of decentralization for the Office of the Registrar. There were 1,389 unique institutional responses that represented 21 countries, commonwealths or territories, all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and 9 Canadian…

While e-learning is now characterized by a past and trends within that past, there continues to be uncertainty about how e-learning is defined and conceptualized, whether or not we like e-learning, and whether or not it is as meaningful to us as face to face learning. The purpose of this study was to document the e-learning perceptions of students…

Community college systems were established across North America from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. The new systems had two principal models: in one model, the college combined lower-division, university-level general education with technical education programs; in the other, most or all of the colleges were intended to concentrate on…

Compared to traditional classification methods, developing a peer group using the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems (IPEDS) data allows institutions to add comparative dimensions, to update the peer group, and to track changes at peer institutions over time. Peer selection and…

This case study describes a time period of 6 years in the history of a school, a period marked by crisis recovery and organizational response to a mandated large-scale reform. Despite its challenges, when speaking of this period a number of the staff reflected on it as a kind of magical moment in time. Twenty years later, I began to wonder what…

A prime role of institutional research is to contextualize institutional or survey data in a clear, accurate, concise, and compelling fashion. The purpose of this paper is to delineate the strategy used by a comprehensive Canadian community college to improve the analysis and reporting of student satisfaction surveys. Although data-rich with many…

Continuing education in Canadian universities is currently at a type of crossroads. It is being affected by a number of factors, including recent changes in the economy; the different approaches universities are taking to continuing education, which range from centralized to decentralized models; and the blending of continuing education with areas…