Mission
The Office of Institutional Research and Strategic Analytics (IRSA) serves as the clearinghouse of student data, official University statistics, and strategic analytics for institutional decision-making and official external reporting. The office advocates institutional data literacy and works collaboratively with University staff and faculty by providing an objective, consistent, transparent, and holistic view of the data.
What we do: Serve as central source for student data; provider of official university statistics; complete internal and external reporting; provide strategic analytics capabilities; support decision-making and policy development/improvements
How we do it: in a professional, transparent, collaborative, and objective manner with a high level of integrity
Whom we do it for: the entire university community including our students and faculty
Value we are bringing: objectivity, consistency, transparency, accuracy, integrity, holistic view of data
History
The Office of Planning and Institutional Research (PIR) was created in Fall 1983 in response to the President’s interest in producing a strategic plan for presentation to the Board of Trustees. A one-person institutional research office that reported to Academic Services in the Provost’s office was reorganized that year, and reporting relationships shifted to the then-Associate Vice President for Information Systems, Planning, and Institutional Research. The office became the contact for the Higher Education Data Sharing (HEDS) Consortium between 1986 and 2009. In 1987 responsibility for the Testing and Evaluation Services was added and the office moved to the third floor of the Ungar Computing Center. Between 1996 and 2004, PIR had responsibility for the University’s central web site. In 2007, the Assistant Vice President of Planning and Institutional Research started reporting to the Provost of the University. In 2010, PIR merged with the Office of Accreditation and Assessment and was renamed as the Office of Planning, Institutional Research, and Assessment (PIRA). In 2016, the Office of Accreditation and Assessment was again separated from the Office.
In keeping with President Frenk’s goal of fulfilling the University of Miami’s greatest aspirations by its 100th anniversary, as described in the Roadmap to Our New Century, in 2019 PIRA was restructured and is now the Office of Institutional Research and Strategic Analytics (IRSA). IRSA’s mission has been aligned to help achieve these aspirations and its role has been expanded to better serve the increasing needs for meaningful and accessible data, strategic reports, and analytics for the university community.
