Institutional Research
Mission Statement
The Mission of Institutional Research is to enhance institutional effectiveness through:
- Critical decision support to University leadership in the form of
information, research studies, and policy analysis
- High quality, timely data dissemination to governmental and other institutional-level regulatory agencies
- Functional management of IDEAS, the institution’s business intelligence system.
Vision
The vision of Institutional Research is to respond to the strategic information
and analytical needs of WVU through the application of
the knowledge, theories, and best practices of institutional research to address
significant administrative issues at hand and on the institution’s planning
horizon.
Responsibilities
As the principle source for official institutional non-financial data:
- Respond on behalf of the institution to information requests from the National Center for Educational Statistics, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, the Higher Learning Commission, National Science Foundation, and other institution-wide reporting agencies. Support the regulatory reporting of WVU’s two regional campuses.
- Collect, analyze, preserve, interpret, and report student and personnel data for both external and internal constituencies, according to the nationally accepted definitions, or that of the requesting entity.
- Establish and manage content and structure of the data warehouse, grant access to qualified University personnel, train users, establish standard and custom queries, monitor usage, and proactively evaluate future needs.
- Conduct, interpret and convey the conclusions of productivity studies, graduating senior survey, student and personnel surveys. Analyze the results of third party student satisfaction and engagement surveys.
- Develop and distribute simulations and predictive models to inform administrative decisions regarding institutional planning and strategic initiatives.
- Perform comparative analysis by scanning the higher education environment for emerging demographic trends as well as attributes of peer institutions.
- Support the enrollment management council, the university assessment council, the faculty raise process, retention and graduation rate improvement committees, academic program review, grant writers, and academic units, as needed.
- Represent the university to potential students and their parents through participation in a variety of national college guides.