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Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education.  Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field the faculty survey, and a newly added student survey, at their individual institutions to gain better insight into the perceptions of their faculty members and students.  More than 70…

Earlier this year, Ithaka S+R worked with a team at the University of Nevada, Reno, to develop a better understanding of the kinds of group study facilities students need in order to work on collaborative projects and engage in other voluntary and assigned team-based activities. The objective of the project was to develop an understanding of how undergraduates do group work and the spaces and facilities that would be most helpful. Leaders at UNR’s libraries planned to use the results…

On June 8, Hakubun Shimomura, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, sent a letter to the 86 national universities, asking them to take “active steps to abolish [social science and humanities] departments or convert them to areas that would better meet society’s needs.” American educators have been both perplexed and critical of this mandate, some to the point of threatening to end exchange programs with Japanese universities. For those who love the humanities and social sciences, it…

Today brings news of a major consolidation in the library vendor marketplace, with ProQuest acquiring Ex Libris. This is just the latest of an intense round of acquisitions in the vendor/intermediary marketplace and in addition to some thoughts on this particular deal it is a good moment to reflect more broadly on what is taking place. ProQuest operates a content platform, which includes many types of content from journals and books to newspapers and special collections. Based in part…

Two weeks ago, the New York Times published its second annual “College Access Index,” which measures socioeconomic diversity and accessibility at America’s highest performing colleges and universities. Adjusting its methodology from last year, the 2015 College Access Index incorporated each institution’s average Pell Grant recipient graduation rate into its score (a new addition), along with the institution’s Pell enrollment rate and net price for low income students (both of which were used in the index’s 2014 iteration). Last…

Academic libraries have provided user support services through a variety of modalities. The circulation desk would work on access issues for the print general collection, the interlibrary loan office would obtain needed materials outside the collection, reference librarians would help with research questions, liaisons would provide more proactive services on an academic department basis, and a variety of librarians would provide various types of instruction. Academic libraries have typically taken a variety of steps to rethink each of these service…

A growing body of research has attributed at least part of the gap in degree completion between low- and high-income undergraduates to low-income students’ difficulty navigating the terrain of academic choices in college. Deciding on a major, choosing courses, and recognizing a warning sign and knowing what to do about it are all more challenging for students who have less background familiarity with college. Ill-informed choices have real consequences: A student’s failure to register for even a…

Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts University and leader in residence at the Harvard Kennedy School, and William G. Bowen, president emeritus of Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA, have commented recently on the ill-fated interventions by state attorneys general into the operations of American colleges as they attempt to make strategic shifts to address imposing financial challenges. Today in our latest issue brief, Double Trouble: Sweet Briar College and Cooper Union, Bacow and Bowen share…

In his recent book “The Graduate School Mess” and a series of online articles, Leonard Cassuto of Fordham University eloquently describes how graduate schools fail to prepare PhD students for the undergraduate teaching positions they will most likely hold in the future. And lack of preparation is the least of it: many graduate programs at least implicitly teach students to disrespect teaching-intensive jobs, although they now significantly outnumber research-centered jobs. In the context of growing concern over the quality of student…

In late July I posted on the different markets that exist for technology enhanced teaching and learning in higher education. To summarize the assertion from that post: there are substantial differences between the activities and impact of courses delivered by online learning platforms directly to individuals and those delivered through institutions to students. The latter represents a “business-to-business” case that must overcome different obstacles for success than “direct-to-consumer” offerings like MOOCs. I promised in that post to highlight a…

During a time of rapid, evolutionary change at Virginia Commonwealth University, John Ulmschneider, University Librarian, turned to the Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Study in spring 2014 to inform decision-making and strategic planning for the VCU Libraries. VCU had recently developed a new university-wide strategic plan and the Libraries were focused on working within this framework to understand and support faculty and their research. As Ulmschneider explained, “We needed good data to help us understand our current faculty even as we expect their…

Many MLS programs have in recent years been organized as parts of schools that also offer degrees in information, communication, or education. This week brought news of the proposal that the Graduate School of Library and Informations Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign be revamped as the School of Information Sciences. In many cases, the programs are not blended strategically but rather managed largely separately. Library education programs typically offer a program of study that is designed for all…

With 58 schools that enroll more than 800,000 students annually, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) is the third largest system of higher education in the nation. The prospect of getting such a large and complex system to align on anything would strike many as unrealistic. Yet, NCCCS’ efforts to establish a strategic focus on access, excellence, and success has permeated the priorities of both the System Office and institutions throughout the state. NCCCS has achieved more than mission-alignment,…

The majority of college students are now what are considered “non-traditional,” meaning, they are over the age of 24, commute to campus, work part-time or full-time, are financially dependent, and/or have children. As a previous Ithaka S+R blog post by Jessie Brown highlights, this demographic trend necessitates policy shifts that better reflect that non-traditional students are now the “typical” students in higher education. Academic libraries are one such area of higher education where policies must shift to better accommodate non-traditional…

Last week, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article that profiled “Ball State Achievements,” a mobile application by the university that incentivizes participation among low-income students in campus activities, such as attending an organization’s event or going to the campus gym, by rewarding points to students (which can later be redeemed for campus currency), like you would to a player in a game. The underlying idea is that students who participate in activities outside the classroom are more…

What does it take to attract, develop, and retain employees who can adapt, grow, and thrive in the fast-changing world of academic libraries? In our latest issue brief, Deanna Marcum explores why libraries should consider a “talent management” approach as they seek to fill new positions and leverage the skills of their current staff. It’s a change that calls for a new mindset not only in the human resources department, but truly across the organization. Interested? Download…

Before the financial crisis of 2008, the typical answer to differentiating yourself in a job market crowded with bachelor’s degrees was to get yet more college by earning a master’s degree. But since the recession, enrollment in graduate school has been essentially flat as fewer students seem to want to take on the debt of going back to school or question the return on investment in a tough job market. A front-page article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this…

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the International Federation of Library Associations and Agencies annual conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Such gatherings make starkly apparent the wide variations in the resources available to libraries in different parts of the world, but they also give reason for optimism about libraries, generally. The theme of this year’s conference was “Dynamic Libraries: Access, Development and Transformation,” signaling the strong connection between development of a democratic society, economic development, and the…

The world of online learning presents some unpleasant surprises when it comes to sharing materials. Recently, a university librarian from a selective private institution told me a story that put a nice point on this issue. One of the university’s schools had recently launched a collaborative online degree with peer institutions. Faculty members teaching in the program contacted the library to ask for help with making course materials available to the online students. When the librarians explained to them that…

In 2008, John Immerwahr described an “iron triangle” constraining colleges and universities, in which cost, quality, and access exist in an “unbreakable reciprocal relationship, such that any change in one will inevitably impact the others.” According to this logic, making a college or university more accessible or trying to increase the quality of instruction would necessarily drive up institutional costs. Conversely, reducing expenditures would inevitably make an institution less accessible and undermine the quality of the education that a…