Data gathering, data analysis, reporting, and website application development are currently IRP's primary functions. IRP receives various ad-hoc data requests from faculty, staff, administrators, students, and the public, including newspapers, reporters, and legislators. Using University of Washington and IRP databases, IRP investigates applicant, student, staff, faculty, and alumni data. Additionally, IRP designs and administers in-house surveys and conducts focus groups. IRP also conducts surveys with regional community colleges in order to assess perceptions about UW Tacoma.
To keep UW Tacoma current with national and local trends, IRP identifies and gathers data from external resources such as the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, and other national and regional agencies and organizations. From these external scans, need and demand data is provided in support of new program development.
IRP responsibilities also include providing daily reports for Enrollment Services on applications, enrollments, FTE, and eligible-to-register students. We also play a leading role in supplying data and analyses to the Strategic Planning Committee, including environmental scanning. Other committees that IRP supports include the Enrollment Management Committee, the Data Management Committee, the Information Management Strategic Roadmap Committee, the Retention Committee, SIS Users Group, and the First-year Students of Color Retention Committee. Other major customers include the Chancellor, the Special Assistant to the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the academic programs.
In addition to various ad-hoc data requests from students, staff, faculty, administration and external sources, IRP also provides budget projections for finance, as well as accreditation data for program self-studies. Tracking, analysis, and reporting on a variety of performance indicators such as enrollments (headcount and FTE), student quality indicators such as GPAs and time to graduation, retention and graduation rates, student diversity, and student satisfaction are primary IRP functions.
Special projects that are more time intensive and often require the development of project plans are also a part of IRP's portfolio. Recent and current special projects include building an institution-wide class time schedule matrix for UWT, analyzing facility space needs, developing a variety of surveys for both internal and external assessments, conducting focus groups, writing retention reports, developing a time schedule quick search for students, giving data presentations to various constituencies, and building a scholarship DataMart that links data from enrollment services, finance, and the advancement office to track scholarships and donor monies.
