This handbook was undertaken in response to the needs expressed by the higher education community for a common language--common data categories and definitions--to describe the human resources of postsecondary education institutions, and is intended as a basic guide to help institutions develop analytically useful databases of faculty and staff to support institutional decision making. Chapter 1 reviews the basic concepts underlying the selection of elements and that guide their use, including descriptions of the basic categories of data. Chapter 2 lists the faculty and staff data items recommended for an institutional database. Chapter 3 contains the data element dictionary--the definitions and detailed codes necessary for creating a standardized database. Chapter 4 offers examples, in two major categories, of some common uses of these data: to support strategic planning and management (employee characteristics/amount of human asset available/price and cost considerations/allocation of available asset/productivity/student experience/asset renewal) and for data exchange; and for reporting to external agencies (employee demographics/salaries/assets available for allocation to various institutional functions). Chapter 5 contains a glossary of related terms. Appended are detailed definitions of human asset categories and subcategories; a cross-reference of standard occupational categories to human asset categories; information on how to compile data, an illustration of basic calculations, and country and language codes. (BF)