Introducing Common Systems among Japanese Universities for IR

Most universities around the world must be accredited in order to assure and enhance the quality of education. Japanese universities also are under accreditation by the government as well. They must undergo certified evaluation and accreditation periodically, which is conducted by organizations certified by the Japanese Minister of Education. Accreditation committees evaluate every university based on the Standards for Evaluation and Accreditation by reviewing the self-assessment reports. That is why it is important for universities to pursuit their advantages and to create high quality self-assessment report. To present some advantages in the report, the university staffs have to obtain the evidences demonstrating some effects or outcomes. Moreover, Institutional Research (IR) is one of the important tools to obtain these evidences. Some systems for IR have been developed individually, but few of them were shared or co-developed with other universities. If many universities in Japan can utilize such systems, we can obtain various knowledges newly. In this paper, we explain not only some advantages of sharing or co-developing systems but also some problems.