FICM Overview

The Postsecondary Education Facilities Inventory and Classification Manual (FICM), 2006 Edition manual describes standard practices for initiating, conducting, reporting, and maintaining a postsecondary institutional facilities inventory. It is designed to be useful to both specialized staff and generalists and to be applicable to institutions with sophisticated information needs as well as to those with more basic facilities information needs. It reflects the perspective that along with human resources and financial assets, space is one of the primary resources of a postsecondary educational institution. It provides updated definitions for building area measurements, space and room use codes, and other data elements that are useful for including in a facilities inventory. It describes the basic principles for developing a facilities database, provides guidance on required and optional data elements for inclusion in a facilities inventory, suggests analytic, administrative and comparative uses for facilities data and presents issues that are emerging in the collection, maintenance and reporting of facilities data.