Expanding the understanding of the nature of institutional research, this volume documents alternative ways that it is currently being carried out beyond the confines of a traditional campus-based IR office. Chapters show how institutional research is being conducted by public university system offices, state higher education coordinating boards, institutional-affiliated research offices, and higher education consultants.

Chapter topics discussed include:

1. Developing a Statewide Student Tracking Tool
2. The Role of Consultants in Institutional Research
3. Collaborating on State-Level Institutional Research in New Hampshire: NH Paper
4. Using College Board Data to Examine Trends in New Hampshire's College-Bound Students
5. Virginia Improves Teaching and Learning (VITAL): A Comprehensive Statewide Data System for Teacher Quality
6. Confronting Ambiguity, Anarchy, and Crisis in Insitutional Research: Using Student Unit Record Databases in Extra-Institutional Research.

Because these entities often do not have ready access to campus-specific data, they must be creative in finding ways to obtain data and information that enable them to provide a value-added function in the field. The chapter authors high-light ways in which these offices acquire and use information for institutional research.

This is the 139th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Institutional Research. Always timely and comprehensive, New Directions for Institutional Research provides planners and administrators in all types of academic institutions with guidelines in such areas as resource coordination, information analysis, program evaluation, and institutional management.