Supporting UD’s mission through knowledge and promoting informed decisions
Institutional Research and Effectiveness (IRE) is the primary source of accurate and reliable data, analysis, and research to facilitate decision making that impacts priorities for unit and institutional improvement. The office provides institutional leadership, innovation, and insight into critical trends and needs in higher education, resulting in metrics and applications of data for strategic and operational decision making.
Institutional Effectiveness Assessment Framework
IRE is guided by the following Core Principles:
- Data accuracy and integrity: ethical use (e.g. AIR’s Code of Ethics)
- Protection of privacy and confidentiality: awareness of PNPI, FERPA, and other appropriate release of protected/sensitive data.
- Impartial: non-biased, objective.
- Client-centered innovation: Continuously seeking better ways to serve institutional clients.
- Collaborative: We partner with colleagues to understand their goals and best meet their information needs.
- Client Service: Professional; approachable, provide guidance, educate.
- Support UD’s mission: monitor progress.
The office is comprised of three interdependent units.
Institutional Research (IR): 
Institutional Research (IR) is a non-biased unit which provides timely and accurate information to University leadership and stakeholders while maintaining data integrity and protecting the confidentiality and privacy of individuals. IR engages in research and analysis to demonstrate institutional effectiveness, inform decision-making, and facilitate policies and practices at UD. IR is the primary source for benchmarking data from national databases and targeted institutional surveys of peer institutions. IR helps to ensure the University is in compliance with government regulations and accreditation standards. Through these activities IR identifies emerging issues, initiates innovative research and fosters institutional learning in collaboration with the University community to achieve strategic milestones and build institutional memory.
Business Intelligence (BI):
Business Intelligence (BI) is comprised of Data Science (DS) and Data Engineering (DE). BI provides a business view of the right information at the right time, place and form. Continuously evolving to be the premier information provider to the UD community by providing the intelligence they need to make strategic business decisions. BI interacts with University constituents to develop a clear understanding of business requirements to facilitate a reliable, comprehensive and consistent data source to support operational, tactical and strategic reporting and analysis needs. We seek to understand the data requirements of the wide array of University decision-makers. BI provides the transfer of knowledge on business rules and technical skills creating self-sufficient clients better preparing them to perform daily operations with data that will be accessible to any person within the UD community with a legitimate business need. BI builds multiple platforms for access to information and knowledge to users including active online reports, dashboards, and data searching and reporting to empower users to meet their information needs. BI supports business decisions by analyzing and modeling historical data predicting trends in a meaningful way enabling informed decision making.
The Higher Education Consortia (HEC) provides an integrated platform of products and services that facilitate unit and institutional improvement to four-year colleges and universities. The Consortia advances the national dialogue in higher education by providing insights into the changing environment of instructional costs, productivity, and scholarly activity.
