Institutional Research and Information Technology: Collaborating for Success

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) and Institutional Research (IR) units working together with planning, a focus on collaboration, and a willingness to create partnerships can help accelerate their institution's efforts to improve the data landscape. This chapter includes an overview of the challenges facing these two functional areas, the benefits of a new way of operating together, and the steps leaders from both IR and IT can take to work together to build new relationships across units and their staff. This work derives from a focus on values, beliefs, and actions. Taken together, these strategies, if implemented with care, can establish a solid foundation to support the need to expand, improve, and mature IR's role in the data landscape.