3. From your perspective, what are the emerging areas of interest in institutional research?

For me the emerging issues are:

• How to continue to engage teaching staff and students to be active participants in the evaluative journey using different ways to connect with students. Often teaching and students see evaluation as something that is “done to them” by those people in the corporate section of an institution for reporting purposes.
• The link between student satisfaction and quality education. At present we are driven by funders, our own beliefs and expectations to measure student satisfaction with their learning and then using that rating as an indicator of high quality learning. However, is student satisfaction a valid measure of high quality learning!
• The rapid change in technology and how and when we collect data. In a short time we have moved from gathering data on paper to using online surveys however the disruptive changes in technology means we need to always be thinking about the most effective way in time, cost and results to engage students in evaluating their learning journey.

4. What do you believe will be the future priorities for institutional research?

• Providing data in an easy to understand and accessible way to an audience that is time poor.
• Increasingly providing information that is real time, with analysis and recommendations about a range of solutions.
• Integrating and managing big data sets.
• Working collaboratively with other institutional researchers to share new ideas and best practice.

5. Complete this statement: In my role, I can’t operate effectively without…

• The support of senior leaders who value listening to the student voice.
• The team of people who work in organisational research.
• The teaching staff who are reflective practitioner that value and use data to make improvements to their teaching.
• The opportunities to listen to and engage with colleagues in AAIR. The networking opportunities and learnings gained from AAIR members have been invaluable for me in my role as the Organisational Researcher at Otago Polytechnic.