Archive for November, 2009

In the last newsletter, the lead article talked about the Strategic Reporting Initiative. That project wrapped up its nearly year-long effort in August, with a presentation to SGG recommending an effort to improve executive and management level reporting. This new project is called the Stanford Management Information Project (SMIP). The project was approved by SGG in September and is now underway. Rana Glasgal is the business sponsor of this project, with Vijay Gandra as the technology sponsor. (more…)

Last year several de-centralized elements of institutional research from around the university were centralized into a single organization called ‘Institutional Research and Decision Support’ .

This new organization brought together the Decision Support Services unit in the Provost’s Office, along with institutional research analysts from the Registrar’s Office and Admissions and Financial Aid. In addition, a learning assessment and program evaluation function was initiated with the hiring of Jenny Bergeron, in preparation for WASC accreditation next year. This took DSS from a modest group of 4 to a new group of 10, when fully staffed. (more…)

DSS has been using the same version of Business Objects, 6.5, for a couple of years now, and it is no longer a supported version. In addition, ReportMart3, which is also a Business Objects product, is using a later version, called XI (ex-eye) Release 2, aka BOXI R2. We realized we could combine the DSS license with the RM3 license, and save the University about $40,000 per year. But that savings means we need to upgrade to be able to piggyback on the RM3 license. (more…)

Throughout much of 2006-07, the NRC collected extensive data about research doctoral programs at universities throughout the United States. Many delays have ensued, but the latest information about the project indicates that the NRC will publish a report and distribute data this winter, perhaps in February or March. To prepare for this release, a meeting of the NRC School Coordinators was held on November 19 to go over methodology, communication, and data. (more…)

IR&DS staff spend a lot of time surveying students and alumni to give decision-makers the information they need to evaluate their programs and the success of their students. This data is often quite sensitive so it doesn’t make its way into the hands of a broad audience. However, some of the data is not quite as sensitive, and is very interesting, so we would like to share some of this information. (more…)

We are so sorry to pass along the sad news that on November 2, 2009, Anita Craig passed away from complications due to brain cancer. (more…)

Kathryn Potts joined IR&DS as a half-time Research Analyst in IR&DS on September 1, taking the place of Missy Damon, who left the office in May to take on the challenge of being a full-time mom. Kathryn will be producing both as-needed analyses and yearly IR reports such as the Department Profiles and Statistics Books. She is also a Lecturer in Stanford’s Linguistics Department, teaching one course per quarter. (more…)

We’ve imported all of the old newsletter articles into this online format so that everything is searchable and easier to organize. In case you like the old PDFs, though, those are available too!

IRDS Newsletter: Fall 2009 [PDF]