Utilizing Institutional Research to Influence Improvement of University Staff Activities and to Make Plans for the University: A Case Study of Saga University

Abstract

We describe two functions of institutional research (IR) by using a case study at Saga University, a national university in Japan. One function is to provide information; the other is to influence members of the institution. The IR office at our university was established under the office of the president with a directive to analyze and visualize all relevant universitywide data and to support institutional decisions taken on the basis of the obtained information. In this paper, we focus in particular on the influence-related functions of IR because few case studies focusing on these functions have been published. The purpose of IR for influence is to motivate staff members to improve their activities on their own initiative. We also describe the quality indicator (QI) and the two aspects of the key performance indicator (KPI), namely, the performance driver and the outcome. We present how to set the KPIs, utilizing the performance driver, outcome, and QI with respect to the medium-term objective / medium-term plan for our university.