The world of policymaking on the campuses of colleges and universities is messy, ambiguous, and contested. In this complex environment, which Kingdon (2003) has aptly called a "policy soup," the role of institutional research is often not only to provide answers to existing policy questions but to produce information to help transform…

This chapter describes the development of a state-level student tracking system that enables the state and institutions to follow various cohort types of students across institutional boundaries. The system was developed by the Policy Research and Data Warehousing section of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). SCHEV is the…

In 2001, the grant and research coordinator of the Community College System of New Hampshire (CCSNH) was inspired to create an informal collaborative with representatives from other organizations who had similar interests in collecting and sharing data that related to postsecondary education aspirations and participation. Representatives were…

Many public university systems rely on their own institutional research (IR) offices, in addition to the IR offices from their member institutions, to help conduct the work of the university system. In this chapter, the author illustrates the type of work conducted by system-level IR offices using a nontraditional data source that can be used to…

Assessment and accountability are embedded in the context in which most colleges and universities operate. In the current climate, one is deeply entwined with the other. Originally, assessment in higher education meant assessing students. The broader appeal of the concept quickly claimed the attention of a multitude of constituents within the…

The article describes how planning was used to transform the University of Twente (The Netherlands) from a regional to an entrepreneurial national institution. Noted are contexts of Dutch higher education and history, developments since 1964, strategic development for the 1980s, planning since 1980, a strategic plan for the 1990s, and the present…

In the interest of understanding the role of Chief Planning Officers (CPO) in gaining broad support for planning within an institution of higher education, this paper used a national survey of administrators to examine that role. This study, conducted by the National Center for Postsecondary Governance and Finance, involved a survey of 3,333…

Announces and presents highlights from a new report from NSF "Proposal Review at NSF: Perceptions of Principal Investigators." This report presents the results of a 1986 NSF survey of 14,000 applicants from academic institutions whose proposals for research support had been awarded or declined during 1985. (CW)

A newly organized small college model for a decentralized institutional research office was described and evaluated. Using Hearn and Corcoran's six external or organizational forces (external environment, personalities or individual interests, management styles, power arrangements, microcomputing and telecommunications, and structural and…

Results of an assessment of the efficacy of changing from a quarter to a semester calendar at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are presented. The study committee investigated the changes required for a calendar conversion, and identified the most serious problems and probable transitional costs. Site visits were made to three other campuses…

Results of a feasibility study of implementing flextime for nonacademic staff at Midlands Technical College are presented, along with implementation outcomes. Surveys were administered to staff and department heads, as well as to state agencies that had administered flextime. Findings include: (1) 95.6 percent of nonacademic staff favored a…

This survey of 331 institutions of higher education found that attributes of the postindustrial environment--scarcity of resources, competitiveness, and turbulence--are negatively associated with the effectiveness of four-year colleges and universities. Participative decision making, domain offense strategies, and political decision processes…

The paper addresses issues concerned with increasing state interest in encouraging public institutions of higher education to demonstrate educational quality through outcomes assessment and reports on the development and implementation of Tennessee's program of performance funding. Emphasis is on guidelines contained within a 5-year performance…

Advice for colleges on how to identify, develop, and communicate a positive image for the institution is offered in this handbook. The use of market research techniques to measure image is discussed along with advice on how to improve an image so that it contributes to a unified marketing plan. The first objective is to create and communicate some…

The application of basic marketing techniques to achieve the goals of colleges and universities is discussed. The guide is designed to help administrators and admission officers influence the image projected by their institutions. Attention is also directed to how to position an institution among its competitors, how to develop activities and…