Conducting Data Exchange Programs

Abstract

The development of more effective communications, particularly in formal and informal interinstitutional data exchange, is a challenge facing institutional research (Firnberg, 1977). Institutional research must move from reporting data to providing information on which to make the "here-and-now" decisions confronting academic administration (Sliger, 1979). To do this, we must have data in context—often in the context of comparable information from peer institutions. The reports required by external constituents or the pre-packaged information-exchange procedures may be useable, but such reports often reflect the concerns of the external agencies to the extent that they cannot be used for institutional management.