A personalized account of the value of experience as an institutional research director in undertaking the role of college president is provided in this paper. After initial references to the competing demands made of a college presdient, some qualities appropriate to individuals in this office are identified, including: (1) openness to new ideas;…

To determine how selected community colleges with institutional research offices have organized the office to implement institutional research, incorporated the office into the institutional structure, assigned responsibility for institutional research, determined priorities for research projects, and assessed the value of outcomes of research…

Institutional research (IR) in community/junior colleges in past years has been limited to gathering data for external agencies, concentrating on raw demographic data and student flow studies. IR should be directed toward providing data for administrative decisions and for successful maintenance of college operations. In spite of the heavy demands…

Research administrators can avoid falling into bureaucratic traps by (1) understanding what is important and what is subordinate to it; (2) becoming a better manager; and (3) improving public relations by being more accessible, soliciting complaints, consulting, supporting clients, making the rules work for clients, and educating clients.

Developments in telecommunications that are being used or could be used in education are reviewed, and the roles institutional researchers can play are explored. Possible roles cited include: identifying existing resources on campus, conducting market research on the needs of potential users, facilitating telecommunications planning efforts,…

An assessment of the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) reveals that small colleges can benefit from the consistency of standardized responses in creating individual planning data systems. HEGIS has a long enough history to have stabilized its several instruments. However, if one is looking to create student or personnel specific…

This paper reviews the empirical literature regarding factors associated with the development of Institutional Research (IR) offices in community colleges. The IR office is defined as any organizational unit which has at least one half-time staff member given responsibility for the synthesis and reporting of institutional data, is visibly…

This paper describes the results of research conducted on the variation in structure and function of institutional research offices at 55 public and private postsecondary educational institutions in Georgia. The study examined five issues central to institutional research: (1) professional role identity, (2) location of the office in the…

This paper reports on a project to create and integrate an institutional research function into the executive-level policy decision making process at a private university. The paper identifies ten problems that needed to be overcome; they include: timeliness, consideration of qualitative factors, the limited scope of institutional research…

The job functions, job goals, and career paths of 108 university research administrators randomly selected from the membership of the National Council of University Research Administrators were studied. A cluster analysis that included job functions, percentage of time in job functions, and job goals separated the respondents into three clusters:…

The ways in which workshops and seminars can be used to promote the participation and advancement of women and minorities in the field of educational research are described, based on the activities of Project Growth, sponsored by The University of Alabama's Institute of Higher Education Research and Services (IHERS). The program has served…

In February 1980, a survey was conducted of 135 rural community/junior colleges in the Southeast to determine the college president's perception of the role and activities of the office of institutional research (OIR). Specifically, the survey instrument solicited information concerning: (1) the OIR's areas of inquiry with regard to…

A survey of 35 two-year colleges with exemplary institutional planning systems was conducted to determine the present status of institutional planning and to develop a conceptually sound planning process model. The 35 colleges were asked to complete a survey instrument focusing on over 250 variables; 32 colleges responded. Survey results indicated…

A survey was conducted to identify problems associated with cooperative research projects between universities and local education agencies (school districts); personal and organizational census data were also collected. Sixty-seven research directors from large city schools, 59 researchers in local agencies, and 24 college of education deans…

The retrospective case history is a little-used, but very valuable tool in organizational theory research. It is particularly useful in illuminating variables in an organization's development which, in controlled experimentation, would require prohibitively long periods of time to materialize. Additionally, the technique is useful for generating a…