As museums strive to become more welcoming and accessible, house museums occupy complex positions. The Frick Collection's scale is more intimate than that of many art museums; the general stability of the installation renders the collection more familiar, and the taste on display is personal and idiosyncratic rather than authoritative. As…

Contemporary students have a varied set of needs--the "lifecycle" of a typical student may no longer be 4 years of continuous enrollment between the ages of 18 and 22, and many students bring rich and varied experiences with them to college. As institutions strive to allocate resources in ways that provide the most benefit to student…

This chapter sheds light on the ways in which institutional research (IR) professionals can be involved in the development and/or modification of high-quality academic programs. Suggestions from authors within this volume for how IR can assist in accomplishing these goals will be integrated and organized in alignment with Terenzini's (1993) three…

This article provides postsecondary leaders with a way to quickly develop a more thorough understanding of higher education accountability. It describes the complexity of the broader higher education accountability environment and then maps the seven accountability silos: assessment, accreditation, institutional research, institutional…

It is shocking to notice that universities still research few of what daily happens inside their walls. Even though knowledge amount to just a small part of the numerous things that are produced in/between academic relations, it is rare to find investigations in which academic modus operandi is the research focus. The text relies on references…

Institutional research (IR) leaders rely on staff members to accomplish office missions and support institutional decisions. Like any supervisors in higher education, IR leaders must be familiar with a host of employment and intellectual property laws that guide the institution/employee relationship. This chapter offers insights into specific…

This chapter asserts that the use and reporting of institutional research (IR) data is an area ripe for litigation. The chapter explores possible student causes of action as they relate to institutional research (IR) data and compares the probable outcomes to reported student lawsuits. The chapter concludes with recommended liability-avoiding…

Sustainability has become increasingly important to research and practice. In order to determine impacts, identify improvement potential and to disclose efforts towards sustainability, an organization needs appropriate reporting. Thus, sustainability reporting has become a topic of broader interest, for example, to assess own situations, enable…

Human resources (HR) represent the most significant investment on most of our college campuses in terms of time and financial resources. The importance of good data about the workforce begins with establishing a need for a new position. That need for data continues with recruiting, hiring, training, promoting, retaining (or not), and retiring…

The demands on and expectations of Institutional Research (IR) departments at colleges and universities have continued to expand over the years, yet there have been no studies on cost effective ways to develop and maintain the knowledge and skills needed by professionals in the field. Using a survey and social network analysis, this study explored…

In institutional research, modern data mining approaches are seldom considered to address predictive analytics problems. The goal of this paper is to highlight the advantages of tree-based machine learning algorithms over classic (logistic) regression methods for data-informed decision making in higher education problems, and stress the success of…

Building and maintaining relationships within the institution with shared goals for preserving compliance and presenting an accurate portrait of the institution is critical for effective external reporting. It can also provide immeasurable internal benefit to information stakeholders.

In the fall of 2019, the American Indian College Fund published a report about a Gallup survey on tribal college alumni. The report illustrates how tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are institutions that provide Native students with the education, skills, and support they need to succeed. The report also shows that Native students who attend…

This chapter outlines the varying threats that IR professionals face when securely storing and managing data, as well as the regulatory structure in place to control data management. Advice is offered on how best to structure and manage student data.

This chapter provides a taxonomy of student veterans in the form of a codebook to assist in institutional data collection and analysis.