Institutional Research
Activities include tracking key metrics over time, comparing UM's performance with that of peer universities, and producing five-year enrollment projections for the University.The office also engages in a wide range of institutional research activities as part of its mission to support planning, policy analysis, and institutional management by analyzing student, faculty, and other data to address issues related to a wide range of topics. IRSA publishes a pocket-size Fact Finder each fall summarizing key statistics about the institution; in addition, the office produces a more comprehensive Fact Book, available in the fall, spring, and summer, that includes five-year trends and data by school, college, and department. The office also prepares a series of reports relating to admissions credentials, financial aid, enrollments, grades, degrees, retention, graduation rates, teaching loads, class size, faculty, and employees. It sends a Fact File for each school and college and a series of reports to graduate programs to assist them in “cleaning” and analyzing their official data. IRSA responds each year to hundreds of other requests for data from outside agencies, the media, the Board of Trustees, the Provost’s office, vice presidents and deans, the Faculty Senate, departments, and faculty members.
Analysis of Peer Data
Data relating to the University are routinely compared with data from other private universities and/or research universities. In addition, survey responses from entering students, enrolled students, graduating seniors, and alumni at the University of Miami are compared with those students at other private universities and/or research universities.
External Reporting
The office provides data for the Department of Education (IPEDS), State (ICUF) reporting, the NCAA, professional organizations, and various college guides, including U.S. News and World Report. The office also prepares a Common Data Set report to provide data for a number of these outside surveys.
Databases
The office maintains databases dealing with enrollments, courses, class size, grades, course and curriculum, degrees, retention and graduation rates, admissions, housing, financial aid, athletes, faculty, employees, and teaching loads, all based on the official benchmark data from the University’s information systems. IRSA works very closely with data custodians for each of these systems, producing a series of weekly “data management reports” to increase the quality of the data at benchmark.
Surveys and Focus Group
Data from official university databases are supplemented by surveys and focus groups. Undergraduates are surveyed throughout their career: at admission, while enrolled, when withdrawing or graduating, and as alumni, and faculty and staff are also surveyed regularly. The office conducts focus groups of students, faculty, and staff dealing with a variety of issues (e.g., student life, housing, technology, and school/college issues).
Professional Associations
The office maintains professional contacts with the Association for Institutional Research, the Southern Association for Institutional Research, the Colonial Group, and the Society for College and University Planning.
