A beginners guide to London

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

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• 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?

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• 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?

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• 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

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• Process 3 visits.
• Visit 1 scouting 2 VCs
• Visit 2 Part 1 4 VCs
• Visit 3 Part 2 10 _at_ VC/Director level.

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• 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.

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• All that said. the evaluators recommend further
  strengthening of the Universitys 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.

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• 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.

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• What do we need to know?
• What do we want to know?
• What are we aware that we dont know and should
  know?
• What are we unaware of being unaware of?

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