The Office is part of the Finance, Institutional Planning and Analysis division along with the University Budget Office, the Comptrollers Office, Internal Audit, and Strategic Planning. IR&GA collaborates with other university units to develop data, information, analyses, and reports to assist the University in achieving its goals. We also provide data, analyses, and projections for decision-making, coordinate institutional studies, and extract official data for internal and external reports.

The staff of the Office contributes to meaningful work across all areas of FordBridge University by collecting, organizing, and analyzing information that allows staff and faculty to better understand the FBU community and the environment in which they work.

Do you know what you want to study, but do not have the expertise and resources? We will work you to create and conduct a study, analyze the results, and provide you with a report of the findings.

Building Your Research Capacity: A series of workshops offered to staff that will assist them with their own assessment projects, beginning with "Developing your research question" and ending with "Using results." Stay tuned for future workshop dates.

Each college or division, as well as some departments within administrative divisions, has an IR&GA staff member as their partner.

The partner serves as the primary point of contact for the unit, in order to establish regular communication, make sure the informational and analytical needs of the unit are being met, and streamline communication to a single contact outside of regularly-occurring projects.

Each is a question-driven process of investigation that includes collecting quantitative or qualitative data, analyzing those data, and interpreting the results.

The purpose of research is to increase understanding of a topic or issue or to produce new knowledge.

The purpose of assessment is to create evidence to describe the effectiveness of an activity, function, program, office, department, division, or institution.

Each is a question-driven process of investigation that includes collecting quantitative or qualitative data, analyzing those data, and interpreting the results.