One of the main functions of the office of Institutional Research and Assessment is to serve as a resource for academic and student services assessment, including but not limited to General Education assessment and college-wide assessment.

Assessment is a systematic process that shows whether goals are being met, and to what extent. There are five crucial steps in assessment: clearly stated overall program, department, or course goals; defining intended outcomes as they relate to the stated overall goals; means of assessment to measure the outcomes; summary of results; and use of results to implement improvement or change.