Reporting occupies a central place in institutional research but is ongoing and never completed. With automation and data management, the proportion of time spent on either routine or ad hoc reporting should decline. This function need not draw unnecessarily from resources for more interesting work. (MSE)

Selecting computer tools requires analyzing information requirements and audiences, assessing existing institutional research and computing capacities, creating or improving a planning database, using computer experts, determining software needs, obtaining sufficient resources for independent operations, acquiring quality, and insisting on…

Institutional researchers and student financial aid officers can collaborate to construct the longitudinal data files needed to study students persistence and recommend persistence policy. (Author/MSE)