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Southern African Association for Institutional Research  ( SAAIR )    User: Visitor  Level: 0
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The Southern African Association for Institutional Research (SAAIR) is a dynamic association with the vision of promoting institutional research, training and development, and the exchange of information in the context of an effective Institutional Research unit in each institution of higher education. SAAIR was founded in 1994, and is affiliated to the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) in the United States.

Institutional Research (IR) has been defined in various ways, but typically refers to a cluster of activities that supports decision-making, policy analysis, quality assurance, effective management, projections and planning in higher education. Southern African institutions are increasingly recognising the need for IR in order to address the variety of policies regulating higher education, and many institutions are creating IR offices, albeit using a variety of titles.

Our membership includes persons involved in IR, Management Information, Institutional Planning, Quality Assurance, HEMIS, and Student Administration, as well as Academics. SAAIR holds annual forums, at which members can disseminate research, and discuss issues relevant to the IR profession. Recent and future conference themes include:

  • The Impact of IR on Institutional Effectveness: Are we Closing the Loop? (Port Elizabeth, 2009)
  • IR Responding to the Changing Higher Education Environment (Windhoek, 2008)
  • Providing MI to reach Institutional Goals: for Whom, What and How? (Stellenbosch, 2007)
  • Quality in Higher Education: Benchmarking and Barriers (Gabarone, 2006)
  • Checking the pulse of Higher Education: Efficiency, Effectiveness and Resourcing (Mthatha, 2005)
  • Excellence in practice (Durban, 2004)
  • Institutional Research: Extending the borders (Bloemfontein, 2003)
  • Management Information Technology and Systems for Institutional Research (Cape Town, 2002)
  • Research and Development in Higher Education: Meeting Challenges through Technology and Innovation (Joint conference with SAARDHE, Belville, 2001)
  • The reconfiguration of the South African Higher Education landscape and its implications for institutional research (Port Elizabeth, 2000).

Other activities include the IR, HEMIS and Quality institutes, first offered in 2004, as well as a research project aimed at standardising the way in which retention is analysed and reported.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

  • To advance research and analysis leading to the production of improved management information for understanding, planning, management, and operation of higher educational institutions and agencies.

  • To encourage the development and application of appropriate methodologies and techniques from many disciplines to further such research, analysis, and planning.

  • To encourage the collection, interpretation, exchange, and dissemination of information with respect to higher education and its institutions.

  • To further the professional development and training of individuals engaged in institutional research and analysis or interested in its utilisation in planning, management, and resource allocation and in the improvement of higher education.
Forthcoming Events ...

Quality Institute (2-3 March 2010)

HEMIS Institute (19-21 April 2010)

IR Institute (18-20 August 2010)

Forum 2010 (20-23 September 2010)



Member Institutions ...

University of Botswana (UB)

Cape Penisula University of Technology (CPUT)

University of Cape Town (UCT)

Durban University of Technology (DUT)

University of Fort Hare (UFH)

University of Free State (UFS)

University of Johannesburg (UJ)

University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)

University of Limpopo (UL)

Monash South Africa

Polytechnic of Namibia (PNAM)

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU)

Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT)

North West University (NWU)

University of Pretoria (UP)

Rhodes University (RU)

Stellenbosch University (SUN)

University of South Africa (UNISA)

Tswane University of Technology (TUT)

Vaal University of Technology (VUT)

Walter Sisulu University (WSU)