Institutional Research and Effectiveness
Welcome to the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness.
Institutional Research and Effectiveness serves A&M-Central Texas by providing accurate and reliable analyses of higher education information in support of planning, assessment, and policy formulation efforts; by coordinating research-based planning and evaluation efforts for the University's academic and administrative units; and by guiding the University's strategic planning processes to achieve our vision of being a recognized source of innovative research and ingenuity.
Office Functions
Identify information needs
This functional area reflects the iterative process of identifying relevant stakeholders and their decision-support needs. It includes anticipating questions through a review of data, information, and research and policy studies, including those related to institutional, state, national, and international conversations around higher education. It also includes assisting stakeholders in developing and refining research questions.
Collect, analyze, interpret, and report data and information
This functional area reflects the technical tasks employed by institutional research (IR) to provide data, information, and analysis for decision support. It involves understanding the data available to answer pressing questions about student access and success, institutional operations, and collecting previously unavailable data. The process of collecting and reporting required and requested data encompasses this area. This function also incorporates applied research methods to analyze data to provide information for decision-making, including appropriate interpretation of analysis results.
Plan and evaluate
Planning may include operational, budgetary, and strategic planning in which institutional research collaborates with other units at the institution, state, or related organizations. It may also have a program review, particularly for accreditation purposes. Formative and summative evaluation processes conducted at an institution use IR data and analysis for planning and decision-making.
Serve as stewards of data and information
This functional area highlights institutional research's role in ensuring an institution-wide data strategy. This function covers compliance issues such as privacy, security, and ethics, such as determining what data and information to use for various purposes and whether interpretations are correct and appropriately used. This area also includes the contribution of IR to data quality assurance activities. IR's role in ensuring data are accessible and usable to those who need them to make decisions is also inherent in this function.
Educate information producers, users, and consumers
This functional area encompasses the training and coaching related to data, analysis, and information to inform decision-making. Education can focus on ensuring the ability to collect, access, analyze, and interpret information independently and in collaboration with other stakeholders. The function also includes a collaborative role in convening discussions related to information needs and connecting internal and external data producers and users with one another to inform decision-making. IR strives to offer scholarships to inform and improve data, information, and analysis for decision support.
