American community colleges represent a true success story. Withtheir multiple missions, they have provided access and opportunityto millions of students. But community colleges are heldaccountable for their services and must be able to show that theyare indeed serving their variety of students appropriately.This volume speaks of the multiplicity of data required to tellthe community college story. The authors explore and detail howvarious sources--workforce data, market data, state-leveldata, federal data, and, of course, institutional data such astranscript files--all have something to say about the life ofa community college. Much like an orchestral score, where thedifferent parts played by individual instruments become music underthe hands of a conductor, these data can be coordinated andassembled into a message that answers questions of student successand institutional effectiveness.This is the 153rd volume of this Jossey-Bassquarterly report series. Always timely and comprehensive, NewDirections for Institutional Research provides planners andadministrators in all types of academic institutions withguidelines in such areas as resource coordination, informationanalysis, program evaluation, and institutional management.

Editors' Notes 1Christopher M. Mullin, Trudy Bers, Linda SerraHagedorn1. Using Labor Market Information in Program Development andEvaluation 3Anna M. LebeschThis chapter explores the uses of data specific to thedevelopment and evaluation of career and technical education.Federal, state, commercial, and local data are discussed andsuggestions provided for future improvement.2. Data Drives Success: Defining a Metric for DevelopmentalStudies 13Anita Polk-Conley, John SquiresDespite the prominence of developmental students, there has notbeen a uniform way to accurately gauge success rates from thedevelopmental to college-level coursework. This chapter offers away to gauge the process that can be compared across years,cohorts, or colleges.3. GED and Other Noncredit Courses: The Other Side of theCommunity College 21Andrew J. Ryder, Linda Serra HagedornDating back to World War II, the nation has relied on the GEDfor high school equivalence exams. Today, community colleges oftenadminister the preparation and exam within the noncredit system.This chapter uses the example of Iowa to better understand the GEDand other noncredit offerings.4. Surveys and Benchmarks 33Trudy BersIn today's environment of outcomes assessment andaccountability the tracking of student success has taken on newimportance. This chapter discusses surveys and benchmarks commonlyused by community colleges for this purpose as well as to monitorinstitutional effectiveness.5. Using Data to Optimize Community College Marketing 49Craig A. ClagettThe role of marketing in the construction of an effectiveenrollment plan has been underestimated. This chapter providesguidance to institutional research on how data can analytically beused to yield the optimal marketing results.6. Improving Consumer Information for Higher Education Planning63M. Craig HerndonStudent advising using the Virginia Community College Wizard, orGinny, provides a twenty-first-century approach to disseminatinginformation to the public. This chapter highlights the developmentand implementation of this new and innovative tool.7. Understanding the Workforce Outcomes of Education 75Christopher M. MullinCiting available workforce data, this chapter recommends themetrics available to measure appropriate workforce outcomes andeffectiveness. Despite the importance of these outcomes, thereremain many obstacles to the collection and the dissemination ofthese data.8. Final Words 89Trudy BersThis final chapter provides observations about institutionalresearch in community colleges derived from the preceding chaptersand the authors' own experiences.INDEX 95