From July 2 to July 30, 2021, Professor Chang Tongshan from the Office of Institutional research and Academic Planning, University of California Office of the President, was invited to offer an intensive online international course titled “Institutional research Theory and Methods” during the short semester. On the morning of July 2, Professor Liu Zhentian, Secretary of the Party Committee of the college, Professor Bie Dunrong, Dean of the college, and Professor Qin Hongxia, Vice Dean of the college, had a brief communication with Professor Chang before the course started, extending a warm welcome to him for teaching from across the ocean.
The course was divided into five lectures. The finstitutional researchst focused on the history and changing roles of institutional research in the United States. Professor Chang began by outlining the teaching plan and inviting several students to introduce themselves. He then traced the rise and shifting functions of institutional research against the backdrop of U.S. higher education development, explained how American institutional research differs from its Chinese counterpart, described institutional research organizational structures on U.S. campuses, and gave an inside look at the University of California President’s Office and its institutional research operations.
In the second session Professor Chang used a discussion on “the scope and meaning of institutional research” to recap the key points from the previous class. He then broke the participants into small groups for focused discussion before unpacking the components that make up the organizational intelligence function of institutional research. To close, he outlined how the United States trains institutional research professionals, highlighting four main pathways: formal degree programs, targeted workshops, professional conferences, and self-directed learning.
Lecture three focused on higher-education big data, data-system construction, and data governance, showing how American universities build their data platforms, merge information from many sources, and put large-scale data under disciplined stewardship. Lectures four and five turned to the tools of institutional research, the craft of data visualization, the process of turning analysis into decision support, and a final synthesis of the whole course.
Professor Chang’s course was rich in content, varied in format, and carefully paced, so students stayed active from the first minute to the last. After the five sessions they all said the same thing: the experience had given them new tools and fresh confidence, and they hoped the institute would keep bringing in more short international courses like this one.
Text: Jia Wenjun, Doctoral Student, Class of 2019
