Creating Peer Groups That Serve a Purpose

Session Abstract: Institutional peer group development often falls under the purview of institutional research offices, though it is inherently an institution-wide initiative. Institutional stakeholders often try to use a single peer group for multiple purposes, from identifying aspirants to establishing faculty salary peers, leading many to question the veracity of these benchmarking efforts. Presenters from James Madison University will describe how they revised their peer group development process after changing Carnegie Classifications. Attendees will gain insights into their approach for crafting a comparative peer group and developing a toolkit for campus-wide groups to construct purpose-specific peer groups, facilitating effective benchmarking for decision-making.

Keywords: peer groups, nearest neighbors, benchmarking, process improvement

Contributing Authors:Stephanie Stevens – Data Engineer, Planning, Analytics and Institutional Research, James Madison University