WHAT IS INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS (IE)?  
Peter Ewell (1985), a pioneer of Institutional Effectiveness in higher education, described IE as "a comparison of results achieved to goals intended." Many things in the IE community have changed and evolved since then, but this remains a good description of IE. 

IE is a broad, overarching category that includes institutional research (IR), planning, evaluation, and policy analysis. The Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness oversees the IE Process at TVCC; however, it is not the only unit responsible for IE.  IE is a part of the job of every TVCC employee! There are three critical questions that each department must address:
    --- What is our function?
    --- How well are we performing?
    --- What can we do to improve?

TVCC Board Policy on Institutional Effectiveness [approved 3/6/2006] (Adobe Acrobat)