Professional Development for IR Professionals: Focus on IR and Decision Support in Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan)

Abstract

The chapter explores how the capacity for IR can be positioned in Asia’s higher educational institutions’ data ecosystems to enhance evidence-based decision making to improve institutional effectiveness. As conceptualized in Terenzini ’s (Terenzini 1999) framework, the nature of IR is relevant to the interests of all stakeholder groups in Asian higher education, including students, institutions, and governments. Yet the variations among institutions create vast differences in the capacity of IR for institutional improvement. As efforts are undertaken to improve data management and information systems within institutions, the research-informed use of data becomes increasingly critical in educational decision making, and IR practitioners in Asia can benefit by additional professional development that can enhance their skills and knowledge. In the Asian context, as the government agency usually referred to as the Ministry of Education (MOE) encourages the development of IR practices, participating higher education institutions learn quickly how to adopt IR models to their local circumstances (Webber and Calderon 2015). Although every country has a unique culture that shapes IR capacity, similar foundational principles and practices along with common challenges cross borders.