Introduction
This is our index of every long-form guide, whitepaper, benchmark, podcast, book, and product walkthrough we have published for IR and IE professionals. We keep this in one place so you can bookmark it and find what is relevant to the question you are working on right now. It updates as we publish new pieces. If you want a topic we have not covered, email [email protected] and we will write it.
Where to Start
- New IR director or office of one: start with How an office of one uses Clema during IPEDS peak season to see how a single-person office handles peak season, then read IR capacity benchmarks: the real cost of ad hoc data requests for the numbers behind that workload.
- Evaluating Clema for a large team: start with How a large IR team uses Clema to manage breadth across schools, then compare costs against your current tools in Clema vs EAB Edify: a cost comparison and Clema vs HelioCampus: a cost comparison.
- Worried about key-person dependency: start with How an IR office uses Clema when their key analyst resigns, then read the research behind it in The Institutional Intelligence Gap and the fix in Governing data definitions: a six-step framework.
Clema's Original Research
Understanding Data Request Workflows in US Higher Education
Whitepaper, 50+ interviews, 19 states
Our foundational research on how IR and IE offices handle ad-hoc requests, the cost in capacity and hours, and an AI-enabled framework to close the gap. The source for the 40-60% capacity, 2-5 clarification cycle, and 220-3,200 reclaimable hour benchmarks we cite throughout the site.
The Institutional Intelligence Gap
Whitepaper, 20 interviews, 13 states
Research on key-person dependency in IR, with 85% of institutions depending on a single person for institutional knowledge and 55% sitting in the "Large Gap" tier where definitions are one resignation away from gone. Includes a five-factor self-assessment and a six-step governance framework.
IR Metrics and Definitions
- IR metrics and benchmarks higher ed teams track: retention, graduation (150% time), FTE, cohort default rate, net price, and a four-step peer-benchmarking method.
- IR metrics and IPEDS formulas: plain-language reference with worked examples and the IPEDS 2025-26 keyholder reporting deadlines.
- Why one term has five definitions: the multi-layer definition problem in higher ed and what it costs IR teams.
- Governing data definitions: a six-step framework: how to move from person-dependent to system-supported data definitions.
- Federal data release calendar for IR teams (2026): cadence and latest-available data for the 11 federal datasets IR pulls on.
IR Process and Operations
- IR capacity benchmarks: the real cost of ad hoc data requests: quantified benchmarks from the whitepaper, by team size.
- The IR team's year: when each season hits and what to prepare: the when/lifecycle guide to peak, moderate, and low season.
- Why IR capacity has not kept up with data demand: the structural mismatch between rising request volume and flat team capacity.
- Why higher ed needs its own AI assistant, not ChatGPT: where general-purpose AI fails on higher-ed data questions and what a higher-ed-native AI gets right.
- Best practices for IR teams to optimize data requests: how to reclaim 60% of team capacity with optimized request workflows.
- Intake quality, request intelligence, and IR workload: why 78% of data requests require 10+ follow-up questions.
- Is your data request form optimized?: analysis of 18 university data-request forms and the design gaps that create hidden work.
IR Career and Community
- How to learn institutional research: 25 ways to learn IR, with formats, costs, and links.
- IR conferences to attend in 2026: 14 conferences for IR professionals, from AIR Forum to regional and data-focused events.
- What IR experts are reading: the newsletters, listservs, and peer communities IR professionals use.
- IR podcasts and books resource guide: podcasts and books built from 50+ interviews with IR professionals.
Real-World Scenarios
- How a large IR team uses Clema to manage breadth across schools: scaling analyses across schools instead of pulling data one at a time.
- How an IR office uses Clema when their key analyst resigns: preserving definitions and terminology across a key-person departure.
- How an IR Director uses Clema when "retention" means five different things: surfacing the cohort definition on every answer.
- How an IE Director uses Clema to bridge the dashboard-vs-email gap: letting stakeholders ask dashboards in plain English.
- How an office of one uses Clema during IPEDS peak season: handling IPEDS pulls and ad-hoc requests in parallel at 90% capacity utilization.
Clema Product Walkthroughs
- First five questions to ask Clema: starter set for the free plan.
- Get started with IPEDS in plain English: five IPEDS questions to ask in your first session.
- How to build a peer group in Clema: criterior, validation, and pulling a metric for the group.
- How to ask an IPEDS question in Clema: prompt patterns and the source check.
- How to set up SSO with Clema: SAML 2.0 and OAuth 2.0 procedural.
- Clema onboarding: a four-week setup checklist: who, what, and success criteria by week.
- What Clema cannot do yet (and when it is not the right fit): where Clema does not fit today, for honest evaluation.
- Clema vs EAB Edify: a cost comparison: published pricing, implementation fees, and what is included at each tier.
- Clema vs HelioCampus: a cost comparison: published pricing and what is included for HelioCampus Theia Analyst.
Get notified when we publish new IR guides
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