January 8, 2020 Meeting of Library Assessment Committee

Jen-chien Yu, Kirsten Feist, Peg Burnette, Megean Osuchowski, Geoffrey Ross, Erin Kerby, Rebecca Smith, Joshua Lynch, Yali Feng, Ruthann Miller, Shuyong Jiang, John Laskowski, Taylor Anderson

1. Updates. Addition to the agenda (15 min.)

• Re-accreditation (Higher Learning Commission). Institutional Accreditation Visit –March 30-31, 2020.
• Position request
• Innovation Fund request
• CARLI Counts Cohort II

2. 2019-2020 projects (15 min.)

• Updates on potential projects

3. Library Assessment Forum brainstorming (25 min.)

• Potential speakers, topics
• Forum format, activities
• Save the date announcement

4. Member Updates (Round-robin)

• Do you know any academic programs that are/will be going through accreditation?

Jen-chien Yu, Kirsten Feist, Peg Burnette, Megean Osuchowski, Geoffrey Ross, Rebecca Smith, Joshua Lynch, Yali Feng, Ruthann Miller, John Laskowski, Taylor Anderson

1. In Attendance

Jen-chien Yu, Kirsten Feist, Peg Burnette, Megean Osuchowski, Geoffrey Ross, Joshua Lynch, Yali Feng, Ruthann Miller, John Laskowski, Rebecca Smith, Taylor Anderson

Absent

Erin Kerby (In search committee meeting), Shuyong Jiang (On vacation)

2. Addition to the agenda (15 min.)

• Re-accreditation (Higher Learning Commission). Institutional Accreditation Visit –March 30-31, 2020.
• Position request
• Innovation Fund request
  • Using the fund to study the impact of library instruction on business 101 students (Jen).
  • Funding for a UX test lab with eye tracking software in John’s office for more instant user feedback for the library webpages. (John)
• CARLI Counts Cohort II

3. 2019-2020 projects (15 min.)

• Updates on potential projects
  • Ithica qualitative interviews for specific disciplines. Jen shared a summery from the Ithaka S+R/MLA Modern Languages and Literatures report. It included key takeaways from the research.
  • Revisited the potential project list from before the break.
  • Decided that reference desk assessment is not needed from the committee at this particular time.
  • John and Jen met with Tom Tepper and David Ward about how to get input from current students and how they use the undergraduate library services and facilities. Discussed methods of assessing UX such as focus groups and pop up interviews away from the library. May need members of the LAC to staff focus groups. Need idea for places outside of the library to speak with people. Want to know what people who use the undergraduate library think, but also what those who don’t.

4. Library Assessment Forum brainstorming (25 min.)

March 13^th, 2020 (Friday before Spring Break)

• Potential speakers, topics
  • Michelle Lore, Red Cap Specialist
    • Downside that Red Cap is not supposed to be used for operational reasons. Only meant for IRB projects.
    • Red Cap is a tool mostly designed for human subject research, though it’s not specific to human subject research. It tracks the data through the research process. IRB approval is required for a project to have a Red Cap account. It is HIPAA and FERPA compliant. https://healthinstitute.illinois.edu/redcap
    • Would be a good session for awareness of the tool, even if library staff will not be using it directly themselves.
  • Student Affairs Assessment, they have their own assessment committee that we might want to compare notes with, such as with the Illini Success survey [https://illinisuccess.illinois.edu/] . An overview could be interesting for librarians.
  • SUMA, an app-based space assessment tool. Similar in function to desk tracker that assesses use of space based on zones. May be useful in ways of thinking about space [https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/projects/suma].
  • Webtools training session for how to set up a survey within the library.
  • Perhaps a theme of tools for assessment?
  • Session on accreditation process.
• Have a virtual vote on the sessions.
• Forum format, activities
  • Workshop on best practices for developing surveys
  • Give scenarios to work on, i.e. instruction or collections. Limitations are the assessment can be too broad for the short time frame and time to understand the scenario. Suggestion to limit the scenario to just developing a survey.
  • Possibly sending out the handouts on scenarios ahead of time so that people can take some time to read over them before the workshop?
  • On the registration form, allow people to sign up presentations and hands-on activities separately.
• Save the date announcement

5. Member Updates (Round-robin)

• Do you know any academic programs that are/will be going through accreditation?