The depths of the impact of COVID-19 on nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives was becoming painfully clear in May and June of 2020. While institutions of higher education had implemented crisis/emergency plans in the immediate onset of the pandemic, and largely extended those efforts into summer terms, the fall 2020 term…

In 2021, the Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges (the RP Group) conducted a survey of institutional research, planning, and effectiveness (IRPE) offices in the California Community Colleges (CCC) system. The purpose of this survey was to: (1) Identify key research and planning priorities and activities of the IRPE…

In 2019, the Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges (RP Group) conducted a survey of institutional research, planning, and effectiveness (IRPE) offices in the California Community College system. The purpose of this survey was to: (1) Identify key research and planning priorities and activities of the IRPE offices; (2)…

Vice chancellors of public universities in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region face a myriad of challenges that require research- and data-driven decision-making. This paper presents a decision-making model for college and university leadership - The Two-Way Practitioner-Researcher Loop. This scholarship of practice has the…

Universities are currently in the process of change and adaptation to shifting expectations that for example include closer engagement with businesses and increased facilitation of entrepreneurship among faculty and graduates. By supporting academic entrepreneurship, universities can address these expectations whilst also becoming more…

The importance of transnational programmes as part of the internationalisation of higher education has grown rapidly in importance in recent years. In this paper, transnational higher education is defined as the delivery of programmes overseas by a parent institution either operating directly or in association with an international partner. Whilst…

This study analysed accreditation exercises of universities undergraduate programs in Nigeria from 2001-2013. Accreditation is a quality assurance mechanism to ensure that undergraduate programs offered in Nigeria satisfies benchmark minimum academic standards for producing graduates with requisite skills for employability. The study adopted the…

This research extends our understanding of research productivity by examining features of managerial practice and culture within university departments. Adopting a robust comparative research design, capturing both interview and survey data sourced from multiple stakeholders from New Zealand universities, we seek to identify factors associated…

The organisational structure of universities follows particular models that distinguish them from other learning institutions. This research investigated the effect of the organisational structure on the management of universities in Uganda using a sample of 361, 44% of whom were members of academic staff, and the rest contained university top…

Research leadership in Australian universities takes place against a backdrop of policy reforms concerned with measurement and comparison of institutional research performance. In particular, the Excellence in Research in Australian initiative undertaken by the Australian Research Council sets out to evaluate research quality in Australian…

Higher education institutions educate those who are the most talented and best able to secure the future for the next generation. This study examines an efficient strategy process in higher education and emphasises the importance of sufficient dialogue during the process. The study describes the strategy process of the Turku University of Applied…

Integrating institutional research, outcomes assessment, program review, strategic planning, and accreditation can be a powerful means of creating a culture of evidence-based decision making and continuous improvement. This study examined how this "integrated" model is organized in practice, how such offices began, why this approach was chosen,…

Organizational analysts argue that formal environmental assessments should be integrated into strategic planning. Guidelines for establishing formal environmental assessment in educational institutions are presented, evaluated, and refined based on the experimental effort of the University of Minnesota. (Author/MLW)

This report presents findings from a study conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) on how well prepared today's community colleges are in moving toward the greater use of data and research to improve student success. Data for the study were drawn from two major sources: first, an e-mail survey of college administrators…

The results of a survey of college offices of institutional research in the United States and Canada are presented. Offices were asked about use of computers in developing management information, interaction with the computer, types of hardware available, and the languages used. (Author/MLW)