As improving equity becomes prioritized in higher education, Offices of Institutional Research (OIRs) find themselves in a central position to identify and address educational inequities faced by racially minoritized students. However, their potential to serve as a catalyst for organizational change has yet to be fulfilled. In this study, we…

Community colleges and minority serving institutions play important roles in the U.S. higher education system. These open and predominantly broad access institutions serve more first-generation, low-income, post-traditional, and racially and ethnically diverse student populations than any other sector. Institutional leaders will increasingly need…

This final chapter provides observations about institutional research in community colleges derived from the preceding chapters and the issue editors' own experiences. Taken as a whole, the chapters in this issue, as well as the editors' experiences, suggest several observations about institutional research in community colleges. These include the…

Among the diverse and varied missions of community colleges is the provision of instruction for students who have either been underserved by their previous educational institutions or not had the opportunity to complete high school. Included under this umbrella are low-performing high school students, individuals with low basic skills, and those…

Surveys and benchmarks continue to grow in importance for community colleges in response to several factors. One is the press for accountability, that is, for colleges to report the outcomes of their programs and services to demonstrate their quality and prudent use of resources, primarily to external constituents and governing boards at the state…

Marketing is an essential component of an effective enrollment management plan. The broad mission of a comprehensive community college requires multiple, targeted communications campaigns. Institutional research can contribute to marketing success at all phases of decision making.

The community college environment is complex and dynamic, requiring constant monitoring. To ensure that workforce education, a core component of community colleges' missions, remains aligned with colleges' environments, responsive to employers' needs, suited to students' interests and abilities, and current in content and technology, it is…

The system office for community college institutional research (SOCCIR) plays a role in the drama of higher education that states must orchestrate to help community college systems operate effectively and efficiently over the long term. But how exactly does the SOCCIR enable a state to accomplish what the separate institutional research (IR)…

System offices for community college institutional research differ in many ways from campus offices for community college institutional research. The other chapters in this volume describe salient characteristics of system IR offices, but many readers may want to see a direct comparison of system IR offices to campus IR offices in the community…

The operation of a system office for community college institutional research occurs in a majority of the fifty states, and how states handle institutional research functions can vary for a variety of reasons. In this chapter, the authors review the results of a survey of the fifty states and the District of Columbia to see which states have…

This chapter describes the system office for community college institutional research in California. As the system IR office for the largest community college system in the nation, it is often looked to as a leader for other states and community college IR systems. The author notes the office's administrative environment, its staffing and…

This chapter describes the system office for community college institutional research (SOCCIR) for the State of Florida. The Division of Florida Colleges has a long history of providing reports that contain information on issues of interest to both the individual members of the system and the public. Fact books have been produced by the office for…

This chapter describes the system office for community college institutional research for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. What makes this System Offices for Community College Institutional Research (SOCCIR) somewhat different from the others reviewed in this volume is that the Minnesota system IR office has responsibilities for both…

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…

Accountability and reporting mechanisms go hand in hand with government programs that promote workforce development. This chapter describes current practice in the United States and suggests how institutional researchers can help improve the process of documenting outcomes. (Contains 1 table.)