Rob Stirton, director of the Office of Institutional Research, and his staff have been changing their office’s purpose to serve the college, its staff and its students more directly. While continuing to produce numerical portraits of the college in publications such as Quick Facts, they also interpret the data.

To turn data into information, they put it into a context, compare it to similar contexts or categorize it. The data comes from Colleague or from surveys the office itself conducts. Data might have to do with student numbers, gender or ethnicity that is collected for the federal government. It might measure how engaged students are in their learning or how faculty perceive students being involved in their learning. The office also participates in national studies so that Schoolcraft can compare itself to a national sample of community colleges.

This data, when analyzed and interpreted, becomes information. People — be they faculty, staff or administrators — can use that information to make good strong decisions that benefit the college and its constituents. The office redirection was initiated under the guidance of Susan Lupo, Planning and Research.