Postsecondary education (PSE) non-completion is an issue of access and equity that bears financial and social consequences for both students and society. Through a multi-stage research partnership, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) and the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) collaborated to explore the characteristics and outcomes of students who don’t complete postsecondary education and assess its financial impacts on multiple stakeholders in Ontario using a cost-benefit analysis (CBA). This presentation will outline SRDC’s research on non-completion, discuss CBA as a research tool, and present key findings and their implications. Attendees will leave with an understanding of how data can inform institutional and sector-wide dialogue about the value of PSE and in supporting evidence-based decision-making.

Nearly a decade after AIR’s A New Vision for Institutional Research challenged the profession to move beyond reporting, institutional research offices have increasingly become strategic partners in institutional decision-making. Through case studies from Dalhousie University and the University of British Columbia, this session explores how integrated data ecosystems, strengthened governance, and advanced analytics are transforming IR into a catalyst for institutional intelligence. Participants will examine how evolving organizational structures, data stewardship, and analytical capabilities are enabling integrated planning, fostering data literacy and trust, and supporting institutional agility. The session invites discussion on the future of ethical, collaborative, and strategically positioned IR.

Collective bargaining, as a norm, is positional and adversarial. In Acadia’s most recent round of faculty contract negotiations, we threw out the script and changed the structure of information flow in bargaining, developing common data, models, and an avenue for achieving common agreement on quantitative matters. In the end, we successfully negotiated at the table, improved trust between the parties, and achieved significant gains for faculty at the same time as containing growth in costs compared to other settled agreements. In this session, we talk about how we achieved this via collaboration and peer-reviewed modelling.

Imagining the future in times of rapid disruption can add resilience and agency to strategic planning. This session introduces how strategic foresight helps organizations deliberately explore what might happen and to clarify preferred and undesired futures. This session will showcase a visual tool that maps emerging trends by impact and anticipated time frame called a Foresight Trends Dashboard. The Foresight Trends Dashboard featured in this presentation has a focus on trends in digital higher education. Participants will learn how signals are identified and synthesized into trends, explore selected trends, and discuss the value of using a Foresight Trends Dashboard as a planning tool.

This session presents a Power BI teaching space utilization dashboard built to help decision-makers understand how effectively classrooms are scheduled and used across campus. Drawing on room scheduling and building attribute data, the dashboard tracks hourly and weekly utilization by building, room, and department. Attendees will learn how the dashboard was designed, how AI tools were used in its development and analysis, and how institutional researchers can leverage similar approaches to support space planning and resource allocation conversations at their own institutions.

This session presents a Term-to-Term Retention Predictive Model, a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) that assigns every enrolled student a risk scores each academic year, identifying who is most likely to leave before they do. With 88.5% classification accuracy, the model enables early, targeted intervention rather than reactive response. We demonstrate how these predictive outputs were translated into an interactive Tableau dashboard, empowering advisors, schools, and senior leadership to act early and target resources effectively.

Historically, program reviews at the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology (MITT) were manual and ad hoc. Faced with a 2024 mandate to deliver 30 annual reviews to the Board of Directors, the college leveraged the Microsoft Power Platform to replace cumbersome workflows with a cost-effective, model-driven app. This digital transformation reduced turnaround time to just one week while establishing a single « source of truth. » This session demonstrates how institutions can achieve high-level data quality and significant time savings without expensive commercial software, offering a scalable model for colleges and universities navigating tight budgets and complex reporting requirements.

Cost, value, and affordability are major factors in how prospective students make decisions to apply and enroll in post-secondary education. Narratives of risk and uncertainty can undermine the perceived value of higher education, even as post-secondary experience affords strong, demonstrable benefits to individuals and society. This session presents recent findings from BCCAT research on how prospective students view the value of post-secondary education, and how post-secondary stakeholders perceive domestic students’ perspectives on affordability. The discussion draws insights from a literature review, institutional data analysis, and conversations with post-secondary professionals.

As Canadian post-secondary institutions face mounting enrolment pressures and constrained resources, rigorous evidence of what works has never been more important. The University of Toronto Mississauga piloted two randomized controlled trials (n = 1,008; n = 985) to investigate the causal impact of proactive, holistic advising on enrolment, academic performance, and retention of first-year undergraduate students. Results demonstrated a 6% increase in Year 2 retention, an 11% improvement in good academic standing, and a 5% reduction in summer melt. This session presents both the research findings and a practical implementation roadmap for institutions seeking to harness data capacity as an engine of sustainable, student-centred change.

This session presents how Dalhousie University is evolving its enrolment-based budget allocation process to better support institutional and faculty planning through earlier and more purposeful use of data. Rather than focusing on methodology, the presentation highlights process improvements, including early data sharing, structured engagement with faculties, and enhanced validation in collaboration with Financial Services. Key themes include refining preliminary estimates, improving transparency, and incorporating context into data interpretation. This session will be valuable for CIRPA members seeking practical approaches to strengthen institutional processes, improve confidence in outputs, and enhance decision-making.

With rising expectations for AI and evidence-based accountability, data governance is increasingly important. However, most IR and planning offices lack resources for a comprehensive rollout. With limited budgets and capacity, this session offers a practical, proof-of-concept approach to building governance capacity through hands-on work rather than policy documents. Developed by Measured Strategies, the « Governing Data Through Design » framework uses a focused data project to integrate key principles like stewardship, quality rules, metadata, and access controls into daily operations. Attendees will receive a scoping worksheet, a repeatable model, and actionable next steps to adapt at their own institutions.

This presentation provides an overview of a Power BI reporting project developed to support institutional reporting and enrollment analysis in higher education. The session will highlight practical approaches used to organize Oracle Banner snapshot data, build interactive dashboards, and improve access to academic and admissions information for institutional users. Topics include freeze-event reporting, longitudinal comparisons, and the use of Power BI measures to support consistent reporting practices. The presentation may be useful for Canadian Institutional Research and Planning Association members interested in applied reporting solutions, dashboard design, and improving data usability within institutional research environments.

Following changes announced in 2024 by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to the international education program, this paper examines the feasibility of producing timely estimates of the number of international students enrolled in public postsecondary institutions in Canada. Based on data from the Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS), these estimates aimed to address an important data gap for recent academic years, particularly 2024–2025 and 2025–2026. Recently released feasibility study suggest that new government measures have led to a sharp reduction in new cohorts of international full-time students and, to a lesser extent, a decline in total enrolment estimated in public postsecondary institutions.