Welcome to the public face of the Penn State Institutional Research Interest Group. Created in 2009, we’re guided by the belief that although there are many excellent data and analysis resources at Penn State, the university can do a better job of coordination, communication, and sharing in the increasingly pertinent domain of institutional research.
While we are self-formed and not a charged committee, our respective administrators have informally encouraged this initiative. We meet monthly, and to date have concentrated on quietly developing a better understanding of our roles, responsibilities, interests, needs, and capabilities. Ultimately, we hope to make it easier for those who produce and consume organizational data to work together to increase the effectiveness of the work we do.
During this first year, our small-group exchanges have been very informative – probably even more so than we expected – and we’ve all been learning quite a bit individually. We have had presentations on a range of topics including, but not limited to:
- Student Affairs Research & Assessment student surveys & analyses (PULSE, NSSE, student satisfaction…)
- Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence research (profiling State College Area High School graduates at Penn State; student/faculty/staff use of wikis and blogs)
- University Budget Office resources (Factbook Plus, common data set, IPEDS)
- Business Intelligence project updates and tool demonstrations
- Office of Planning & Institutional Assessment reports (students, curriculum, faculty, access and affordability, retention, strategic indicators…)
- Campus IR challenges and solutions (Altoona, Behrend, Berks, York)
As for the future, we work toward better understanding the needs of those who make use of institutional research, and we help those producing such research coordinate with like-minded individuals. This site will serve as a resource for anyone at Penn State looking for news about upcoming events related to institutional research as well as resources related to practicing IR at Penn State.