Running an IR office: articles for IR teams
Request intake, clarification cycles, capacity benchmarks, and seasonal load for institutional research teams.
How to say no to data requests without burning bridges
A practical framework for IR teams drowning in ad hoc requests: a five-criteria scoring rubric, word-for-word scripts for saying no to deans, faculty, and cabinets, and what to say yes to instead.
Clema Research Team · 7 mins readThe IR team's year: when each season hits and what to prepare
A when/lifecycle guide for IR teams: which months are peak, moderate, and low for ad-hoc requests, what reports and accreditations hit each season, and what to prepare ahead of time.
Clema Research Team · 6 mins readIR capacity benchmarks: the real cost of ad hoc data requests
Quantified IR capacity benchmarks from 50+ interviews: 40 to 60% of team capacity consumed by ad hoc requests, 2 to 5 clarification cycles per request, and 220 to 3,200 hours annually reclaimable. By team size.
Clema Research Team · 7 mins readWhy IR office staffing has not kept up with data demand
Why IR office staffing lags data demand: national AIR survey data on office size, our interview data on ad hoc request load, and why hiring alone does not close the gap.
Clema Research Team · 7 mins readIs your data request form optimized? Lessons from 18 university forms
35% of universities have no formal intake process, and 73.5% of IR teams cite vague or unclear requests as a bottleneck. Analysis of 18 university data request forms shows what the best systems do differently.
Clema Research Team · 8 mins readWhat IR teams really benchmark: evidence from 50 interviews
Discover what IR teams actually benchmark most often, from student outcomes and faculty metrics to aspirational peer lists, based on evidence from 50 institutional research interviews.
Clema Research Team · 10 mins readData request clarification: how intake quality drives IR workload
73.5% of IR teams cite vague or unclear data requests as a bottleneck. Learn how Request Intelligence (the quality of a request at intake) decides whether your team spends its time analyzing or clarifying.
Clema Research Team · 10 mins readData request best practices: how IR teams reclaim up to 60% of capacity
Discover proven strategies from IR leaders to streamline data requests, implement self-service dashboards effectively, and reclaim up to 60% of your team's capacity for strategic work.
Clema Research Team · 12 mins read