The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) is committed to providing accurate and timely information to support institutional planning, policy formation, and decision making. The OIR is also committed to providing support and expertise for the evaluation and assessment activities throughout the University.
To provide university administrators with regularly scheduled standardized reports to assist with predicting and forecasting future academic, fiscal, student, and service related needs and trends.
To assist university administrators, faculty, and staff in assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of the University and its programs.
To maintain university compliance with government data reporting requirements.
Serves as the primary contact with state and federal agencies, published university/college guides, and higher education organizations with respect to information reporting.
Develops and maintains a cycle of regular institutional studies, reports and databases designed to support recurring decision needs of the University.
Serves as a reliable source for comprehensive and authoritative quantitative information about the University.
On behalf of the University, responds to state and national statistical surveys, questionnaires, and other non-routine requests for data and information.
Assists administration and faculty with strategic planning, assessment activities, and survey projects.
Responds to ad hoc data requests from administrative officials, faculty, students, and, in collaboration with the SVSU Office of Public Affairs, from community members and the Press.
The Office of Institutional Research functions as the official source of university institutional data. The OIR is located on the third floor of Wickes Hall and reports to the Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs.
The SVSU Office of Institutional Research is dedicated to offering excellent service and support to the University by providing statistical reports to external and internal constituencies. With respect to external reporting, OIR regularly makes timely responses to legally mandated government surveys and to college guide publications. OIR also produces standard statistical reports for university and external constituencies and honors special internal or intra-campus ad hoc requests for customized data reports for a variety of university offices. In addition, on request, OIR assists university personnel with survey research projects and coordinates with key stakeholders to assist in strategic planning and program assessment. In these activities, the SVSU OIR must adhere to the following policies in the interest of standard research ethics and best practices in IR office procedure.
The SVSU OIR adheres to university policy with respect to human-subjects research. All requests made to the OIR for research support for projects that involve human subjects, including survey work, must include advance written verification by the SVSU Institutional Review Board that the project meets prevailing ethical and legal standards.
OIR abides by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) that protects the privacy of individual student education records.
OIR renders assistance to administrators, faculty, and staff with a variety of survey research projects, but its role is mainly supportive.
The OIR receives frequent ad hoc requests for customized data reports from internal and external constituents. OIR will attempt to fulfill these requests in a timely manner, but the timeline for report delivery depends on the time of the semester that the request is made and the volume of requests on file in OIR or in the queue at the time.
Please note: In the first several weeks of a semester, the OIR places priority on the generation of a series of standardized official reports, including enrollment, retention, graduation, first majors, and credit hours. During these times, all special or ad hoc requests are temporarily placed on hold.
