In this June 9, 2006 article, reporter Elyse Ashburn describes how community colleges are increasingly creating or enlarging their institutional-research offices in response to increased demands for greater accountability and better information on students' performance.

According to the article,

…In a recent survey of 111 two-year colleges by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College, 83 reported having institutional-research offices — and half of those had opened in the past 10 years.

"There's no question that the institutional-research function at community colleges has grown over the last decade," says Thomas R. Bailey, the center's director. Even so, he points out that 41 percent of the colleges that responded to the survey had fewer than one full-time position assigned to institutional research.

"There's still a long way to go," says Mr. Bailey.

--Subscribers of The Chronicle of Higher Education can read this article in its entirety at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i40/40a02501.htm