Institutional Research and Analytics

The Office of Institutional Research and Analytics is Colby’s hub for organizational intelligence, serving as the authoritative source of aggregated information about the College and promoting and enabling evidence-based decision-making at all levels of the institution. Approaching its work with integrity and inquisitiveness, the office accomplishes these objectives through careful, thoughtful, ethical, and timely collection, use, analysis, and presentation of information and insights.

• Conduct research on topics of interest to the College leadership team.
• Provide consultative services to departments and units seeking to collect data or conduct analysis on their effectiveness.
• Serve as the official, authoritative source of aggregated data about the College and its constituencies for research, trend analysis, and reporting.
• Prepare and maintain official institutional data reports and dashboards for leadership team and various college constituencies.
• Promote data literacy throughout the College community through active participation in the College’s data governance program and collaborative relationships with campus departments and units.
• Take a leadership role in enhancing the integrity and utility of the College’s data through active participation in the College’s data governance program and collaborative relationships with campus departments and units.
• Take responsibility for mandatory external reporting requirements (IPEDS, NECHE, etc.).
• Assume leadership role in responding to college guides and rankings and interpreting criteria and results for Colby’s senior leadership team.
• Support institutional planning initiatives.
• Support accreditation, assessment, and program review.
• Monitor peer institutions and trends in external higher education environment that affect the College.
• Manage institution-wide survey research efforts.
• Respond to ad hoc requests for data and analysis.

• Reliable and Trustworthy: The office seeks to be a reliable and trustworthy thought
  partner for the College’s senior leadership team and others on campus. The office’s credibility in this role is based on the accuracy and quality of the work it generates, its objective perspective, and the timeliness of its response. The office is clear that work quality takes precedence over other considerations, including speed of delivery.
• Professional: The office adheres to the standards of the institutional research field; and its members, well connected to regional and national institutional research communities, are good ambassadors of the profession.
• Ethical: The office adheres to the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) Code of Ethics (https://www.airweb.org/ir-data-professional-overview/statement-of-ethical-principles/principles).
• Flexible: The office’s primary goal is to generate work that is of optimal value to the Colby community. Doing so may mean reshuffling project priorities as well as rethinking standard methods of reporting and analysis. When not bound by ethical considerations, mandatory deadlines, or required reporting standards, the office will demonstrate flexibility in approaching its work.  
• DEI-minded: In seeking new data sources and conducting analysis of existing data sources, the office is committed to increasing campus knowledge of Colby’s effectiveness in meeting its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
• Priority Driven: While the office is a College-wide resource, it primarily serves Colby’s senior administrative team. When determining order of priorities for the office’s work, requests from the President and other senior staff members, as well as mandatory external deadlines, take precedence.
• Collaborative and Communicative: In carrying out its responsibilities, the office develops close partnerships with individuals and departments throughout the College to work towards common goals and mutually beneficial outcomes. The office is sensitive to the demands and challenges members of the College community may face when making requests and maintains open lines of communication with campus partners.
• Client-Facing and Service Oriented: The office is committed to serving members of the college community thoughtfully and in a timely fashion. Responding to clients’ requests effectively requires understanding their needs fully and not simply the questions they ask.
• Analytical: The office is committed to explaining the meaning and implications of the data it shares with the campus community, including any interpretative limitations, how the data can and cannot be used, and whether the data suggest any potential action steps.
• Curiosity-Driven: Using its analytical expertise, the office demonstrates curiosity in approaching its work, striving to determine whether narratives put forth are true, investigating the reasons for trends observed in data, and finding new sources of data to increase Colby’s understanding of itself. This curiosity is informed by strong knowledge of trends in higher education and the impact of the external environment on Colby.
• Efficient and Timely: The office strives to conduct its work in the most efficient way possible, leveraging technology and finding ways to systematize standard projects. In addition, the office ensures that project deadlines are met, including those of clients it serves.