Message from Director
Professor
Kazuhiro SUGIMOTO
The Center for Institutional Research (CIR) came into being as one of 11 centers under the Institute for Excellence in Higher Education (IEHE) in April 2014.
In Japanese higher education, institutional research has gained momentum
in recent years. Institutional research means the collection and analysis
of various data within university and its translation into meaningful information
in order to support decision making on university management and promote
education and research. It puts an emphasis on evidence in university management.
Although this doesn’t necessarily mean underestimating the significance
of decision making based on experience or intuition, the rapidly changing
environments inside and outside university require us to tackle issues
presenting and sharing evidence with those concerned as far as possible.
In fact, we have always committed to institutional research within Tohoku
University. To name a few, the Evaluation Analysis Office of Tohoku University
has been conducted an annual Faculty Evaluation, by which it has assessed
performance at each faculty though collecting internal data on education
and research and translating it into some KPIs. The Educational Information
and Improvement Committee, under the Academic Council, has played a significant
role
in improving general education by utilizing course evaluation results
and grade results. In addition, the Institutional Research Office, which
was founded at Katahira Campus in January 2016, will lead to the strategic
development and strengthening of Tohoku University’s policies and activities.
Institutional research has come to the expansionary phase at Tohoku University.
In this context, our mission is to promote the collection and analysis
of data on teaching and learning at Tohoku University and support the quality
improvement of related activities and environments. We have launched our
original site with our second anniversary in April 2016, in which our activities
will be introduced. At the same time, we have been already facing new challenges.
One of them is related to translating data into meaningful information
and thereby promoting the support leading to robust quality assurance and
improvement of teaching and learning at Tohoku University. We hope we will
address our challenges by taking advice and support from those concerned.
Thank you very much for your cooperation.
