1. Exploring conceptions of institutional research
Dr Bob Aylett
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic)
London Metropolitan University

2. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education:
A voluntary, non-governmental membership association that defines, maintains and promotes educational excellence […]. It examines each institution as a whole rather than specific programs within institutions.

3. MSCHE’s Standards [areas for investigation and reporting]:
Mission and goals: clear, ‘owned’ and a driver?
Planning, resource allocation and institutional renewal: is there strategic planning to enhance quality and delivery mission?
Institutional resources: do the human, financial, technical and physical allow for delivery of the mission and goals?

4. Leadership and governance: is there clarity of policy development, decision-making; is there clear independent governance and separation from management?
Administration: do support services deliver support to the mission
Integrity: Do you have Ethical standards, intellectual freedom: how do you define and protect them?

5. Institutional assessment: what is the set of systems and arrangements for the cyclical evaluation of overall institutional effectiveness?
Student admissions and retention: what it says on the tin!
Student support services: ditto
Faculty: ‘ do qualified professionals’ deliver the educational goals?
Educational offerings: do they exhibit appropriate content, rigour and coherence?

6. General education: how is essential skills development provided?
Related educational activities: ‘offshore’ or ‘bespoke’ offerings
Assessment of student learning: testing that students acquire appropriate knowledge, skills and competencies

7. Process: 3 visits.
Visit 1: scouting [ 2 VCs]
Visit 2: Part 1 [4 VCs]
Visit 3: Part 2 VC/Director level].

8. Findings and recommendations:
The University generally is doing a commendable job in institutional planning and assessment. In addition, The University in many respects already operates in a data-rich environment. […]
Examples include development of a set of institution-level performance indicators, various levels of quality management, institutional audits, departmental reviews, and so forth. In short, there is much data, and much of the basic data infrastructure is in place.
measurement and data reporting appear to be a major part of the United Kingdom higher education tradition and culture as well.

9. All that said…. the evaluators recommend further strengthening of the University’s research and analysis capability.
…. to synthesize and integrate the disparate data bases and data sets across London Metropolitan University. This capability could be housed in a stand-alone Office of Institutional Studies, or could be embedded in an existing office staffed with appropriately qualified personnel. The essential point in this recommendation is the need to effectively translate data into information that supports decision making at the University.

10. Part of the challenge, for the University and indeed for any complex institution, lies in establishing high priority questions that evidence and analysis can help to answer, and in working on those important issues in a selective, tactically sensible manner.

11. What do we need to know?
What do we want to know?
What are we aware that we don’t know and should know?
What are we unaware of being unaware of?

12. A culture of measurement-driven improvement rather than rhetorical and retrospective (and largely external) reporting