This handbook gives a broad overview of the practice of institutional research in higher education. The first of the handbook's four chapters describes how to define the context for institutional research by looking at where the institution is now, where it is going, and how it can arrive at its desired end. Chapter 2, which discusses how to identify resources in the process of getting an institutional research program started, covers publications, associations, in-house and external data sources, institutionally initiated data collection, and analytical tools. Chapter 3 takes each of the components of a university or institutional system separately and discusses research strategies for quantifying and measuring the component. Chapter 4 offers final thoughts, emphasizing that the most valuable resource of any institutional researcher is the human intellect which should be driving any research project. Appendixes comprising over half of the document contain a sample student survey from the University of Delaware, tables of data on admissions profiles of first-time students at a New Jersey institution, professional data on college faculty, institutional financial data, a building inventory, a paper on enrollment, dropout, and graduation rates at one college with attendant data, an academic activities report, a financial report form, an instructional workload analysis, and a sample student exit survey. (JB)