Measuring the impact of higher education libraries: the LIRG/SCONUL Impact Implementation Initiative (original) (raw)
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“Understanding Library Impacts” is a qualitative protocol designed to investigate the ways library services and resources contribute to undergraduate learning using interviews with librarians, faculty, and students. The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) is used in the student interviews to identify aspects of library services and resources that are critical to student success. The Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is used to classify faculty goals for student learning and student interpretations of these goals. An alignment process using these data is proposed to connect library contributions to institutional goals for student learning. This paper reports on a pilot study conducted in 2005 at a liberal arts college to evaluate the protocol. Results of the pilot study suggest the protocol can detect library contributions to institutional goals for student learning. Future studies should be carried out to evaluate the protocol in other post-secondary settings. The protocol should be of benefit to libraries seeking to improve library services and to communicate library contributions to institutional goals to stakeholders.
The Understanding Library Impacts (ULI) protocol is a suite of instruments designed to demonstrate connections between undergraduate student use of the academic library and faculty-defined expectations for student learning. The ULI protocol features a Critical Incident Technique (CIT) survey for exploring student use of the library during `high-impact' academic experiences such as capstone courses. A `Learning Activities Crosswalk' links student use of the library to faculty-defined, discipline-specific and general education expectations for student learning. This methodological study evaluated the protocol with a population of undergraduate students enrolled in upper-level and capstone history courses at six colleges and universities. The protocol focuses on students' use of traditional and electronic information resources, library services, and library facilities during learning activities associated with `high-impact' experiences in the academic major. Learning ac...
Measuring the Impact of Libraries
2017
of paper for the 38th Annual IATUL Conference Measuring the impact of libraries In 2016, our university was asked to provide input to the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research’s white paper on quality in higher education. At a meeting with the pro-rector for education, who is my boss, I said that we should also highlight the importance of the libraries. She answered that it is good to have libraries, but do they actually contribute to the quality of education? If so, how? Of course the libraries contribute to improving the quality of education, I said, there are many surveys documenting the fact. I’ll get back to that, I said! My boss doesn't have a negative attitude to libraries, which she considers to be a good thing, but she doesn't know enough about what contributions a library can make to education and research. Nor do I, for that matter. We lack documentation. Documentation is a crucial factor in an age when many institutions can no longer afford to spend money ...
New instruments for impact assessment: study of an academic library
2016
This study presents a review of new instruments for the impact assessment of libraries and a case study of the evaluation impact of the Library of the Faculty of Science, University of Porto (FCUP), from the students' point of view. We conducted a mixed methods research, i.e., which includes both qualitative data, to describe characteristics, in particular human actions, and quantitative data, represented by numbers that indicate exact amounts which can be statistically manipulated. Applying International Standard ISO16439:2014 (E)-Information and documentation-Methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries, we collected, 20 opinion texts from students of different nationalities, published in «Notícias da Biblioteca», from January 2013 to December 2014 and have conducted seven interviews.
Communicating Library Impact through the Assessment Website
Proceedings of the 2018 Library Assessment Conference: Building Effective, Sustainable, Practical Assessment: December 5–7, 2018, Houston, TX, 2019
Academic library assessment activities are designed to facilitate planning, improve programs and services, and demonstrate library impact on student academic success and faculty research productivity. One effective way to share assessment processes and outcomes is through scholarly publications in library and information sciences. However, presenting assessment activities on the library website is another essential way to share this impact activity with a wider audience, and especially with institutional and higher education stakeholders. With that in mind, how do academic libraries effectively communicate on their website their impact on the research and learning enterprise to their stakeholders? In accordance with ACRL's recommendations for demonstrating value and impact, what are best practices for demonstrating impact through the website, a far-reaching platform which gives libraries a unique opportunity for broadly communicating their alignment with institutional goals? Stony Brook University is designing a mini-site as part of the overall libraries' web presence to share our assessment activities, findings, and statistics with our university community. Our goal is to create a web presence that demonstrates library impact on academic success in a way that is understandable to external stakeholders and to do so in a visually compelling way. As part of this project, a thorough review was conducted of the Association of American Universities (AAU) 1 member institutions' library webpages to locate and study their assessment information to serve as a comparison. This examination revealed a lack of a library assessment presence on the majority of library websites. Where there was assessment information, some of it was difficult to follow because of library-centric presentation and lingo, and issues with organization, navigation, volume, scope, and types of materials presented. Using ACRL's Academic Library Impact: Improving Practice and Essential Areas to Research (Library Impact) 2 and ACRL's The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report (VAL Report) 3 as a framework, the authors discussed the findings, deliberations, and recommendations for best practices in design, visual impact, and communication of assessment goals and processes with appropriate institutional contexts on a website.
Start a New Fire: Measuring the Value of Academic Libraries in Undergraduate Learning Notes
In the last two decades, fundamental changes in information distribution, in the general economy, and in the behaviors of faculty, students, and library staff have problematized the question of an academic library's value and how it can be measured. This article reviews those changes and, drawing on research linked to the Collegiate Learning Assessment exam and Project Information Literacy, identifies undergraduate learning outcomes as an educational "pain point" that libraries are well-positioned to address. It argues that measuring libraries' value in terms of supporting improved undergraduate learning outcomes will lead increased funding prospects and greater relevancy.