The Office of Institutional Effectiveness (IE) offers a broad array of decision support services to all units of the university and to external bodies as necessary. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the collection, analysis, and interpretation of institutional data and the provision of information to support planning and decision making. The office was renamed from the Office of Academic Assessment and Institutional Research in 2012; AAIR, in turn, was established in 1998 from the merger of the Office of Academic Assessment (established in 1987) and the Office of Institutional Research (established in 1990). Our vision is to be recognized within the Ball State community as the destination of first resort for decision support information and to be recognized among our professional peers as among the finest such offices in the nation. Our core values include service, professionalism, and innovation.
We provide official university information on topics such as enrollment, graduation and retention rates and time-to-degree, academic programs, degrees conferred, faculty and staff characteristics, instructional cost and productivity, finance, and facilities to divisions, colleges, schools, and departments across Ball State and to external bodies such as federal and state government, the media, college guidebook agencies, and other institutions. Some of our information products include the Fact Book, the Common Data Set, Departmental Profiles, and our Frequently Asked Questions page.
We also provide leadership and support across the university for the assessment of student learning. We carry out a variety of institutional-level surveys and studies, offer workshops to faculty and staff members on a variety of topics, offer an assessment workbook as a resource, provide a lending library of assessment books, offer a summer assessment grant program, and provide a number of assessment consulting services.
We help make it easy for faculty members to report on their scholarship, service activities, Immersive Learning activities, etc. by coordinating Ball State's use of Digital Measures Activity Insight software.
We are also proud to provide leadership for Ball State's graduate certificate program in institutional research. Nearly 50 students have completed the program since 2005, and all who have sought employment in the field have found it.
We encourage you to meet our staff, follow our progress in our IE Insights newsletter, and explore our page of IE-related links. We look forward to assisting you. Please complete our Data Request Form to ensure our prompt attention to your needs.