The NIRSA Institutional Data Set (IDS) continues to be the go-to resource for NIRSA members looking to benchmark their programs, services, and facilities. Since its development as a web-based platform, revisions to question items and key performance indicators have continued in an effort to refine the platform’s capacity to capture the most meaningful data for members. With the start of the 2017–2018 school year, the NIRSA Research & Assessment Committee is pleased to announce changes to the IDS that will improve user satisfaction and help the Association achieve its goal of having the most relevant benchmarking platform in the field of collegiate recreation.
Most notably, the platform will no longer require annual data entry from members after the initial submission. Instead, data will be carried forward every year. For items like structures or spaces within facilities, which may not change year to year, members only have to make updates in the platform when a change has occurred within their respective facilities. If no change has occurred, the data will continue to move forward. For items that do change from year to year, like budgets, members are highly encouraged to report the most recent data every year. These platform changes should ease the burden on members to update their data every year and, more importantly, will allow members to have the most complete dataset possible for their benchmarking purposes.
Also changing this year is the data collection schedule. In lieu of collecting data every year, data collection for the IDS will now occur on a biennial, rotating basis with the NIRSA Salary Census. The IDS will not open for the 2017–2018 school year, but members may continue entering data for the most recent open year in the platform while contributing their salary data for the current year. The IDS is scheduled to open a new year of data collection in Fall 2018. All these changes are expected to ease the burden of participation, enhance the user experience, and provide the most robust benchmarking platforms in the profession.
The NIRSA Foundation is committed to supporting the NIRSA Institutional Data Set as it continues to provide NIRSA members with valuable information. To learn how to contribute to the Foundation’s philanthropic efforts, please contact NIRSA Foundation Coordinator Kelley Hungerford.
- For more information, please contact NIRSA Research Coordinator Ruben Guzman.
Jessica Kiss is currently an instructor and laboratory coordinator in the Exercise Science Program at Bowling Green State University. She is also the current Research and Assessment Committee Chair. She can be reached at jekiss@bgsu.edu.
