Indiana University South Bend

The effectiveness of community colleges is increasingly dependent on their understanding of the external environment and their capacity to forecast and respond to the changing external landscape. As a result, they need to establish a system to continuously monitor changes in that environment and to identify and weigh the implications of changes on the communities they serve and on the colleges as well. This can be accomplished in part by developing and implementing an external environmental scanning and forecasting activity to identify trends in the external environment and use external trends to develop a strategic plan. This article will explain external environmental scanning and forecasting and discuss its essential role in developing a strategic plan that anticipates and responds to forces of change affecting both community colleges and the communities they serve. Evidence of success includes two case studies of community colleges which used external environmental scanning and forecasting to identify core trends in their respective communities and developed strategic plans to address these forces of change.
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Envrionmental Scanning Abstract Form

The idea of Environmental Scanning is to improve the systematic collection and analysis of information (i.e. “trend spotting”) by the entire campus community, and to provide an external focus to the strategic planning process.

External environmental scanning will play an integral part in the development of Indiana University South Bend Strategic Plan 2010 and beyond. Environment Scanning teams are in the process of collecting information for this purpose.

If you have information you would like to share please omplete and submit a Scanning Abstract Form. Email the completed form to the Office of Institutional Research. Any questions regarding the form can also be directed to the Office of Institutional Research.

 

Links

• Environmental Scanning Weblog
• Scanning Abstract Form