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Since 2012, Ithaka S+R has periodically reviewed the empirical literature on the impact of online and hybrid instruction on student outcomes. As reported in the 2013 review, very few studies employ rigorous methodologies; of those that do, the findings indicate that students do about as well in online or hybrid courses as they do in face-to-face versions of the same course. For the latest update in this series, “Online Learning in Postsecondary Education: A Review of the Empirical…

Graduate and professional students are among the heaviest users of academic libraries, driven by original research and various types of extensive literature reviews. Faculty members have traditionally had their interests represented through various types of library advisory committees, and in recent years libraries have turned significant attention to undergraduate student success. In many universities, of the library’s major stakeholder groups, graduate students are least well understood and, in these cases, they may offer potentially the greatest opportunity for improvements to…

That’s the key finding of Ithaka S+R’s new report, “The Effects of Rising Student Costs in Higher Education: Evidence from Public Institutions in Virginia.” Taking advantage of a uniquely comprehensive and detailed dataset managed by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), authors Christine Mulhern, Richard R. Spies, Matthew P. Staiger, and D. Derek Wu analyze trends in state aid, what students pay to attend, and student outcomes. Their work has yielded some of the strongest statistical…

The shift of library services to online interfaces has led to an explosion in the potential for data gathering, and also to a growing conversation about how the data should and could be used. This past year has witnessed a strong dialogue about libraries’ responsibility for maintaining the privacy and security of the data. Leading experts have pointed out the astonishing number of ways that privacy and security are unintentionally compromised in libraries’ everyday service environment. Protecting the privacy…

Like all businesses and service providers, libraries compete, explicitly or implicitly, with other entities for market share. At the heart of this idea is that library leaders should care about the share of user needs they are fulfilling, even if the language of business is not always the most comfortable for them.  Take content delivery–to what extent do users turn to Amazon over the library for books, and how is this changing with the development of ebooks? If we see…

For the past two years, Ithaka S+R has been working with librarians and library staff at Montgomery College, the community college of Montgomery County, Maryland, to gain a better understanding of student work practices and preferences. Launched by Tanner Wray, director of the Montgomery College Libraries, the study draws inspiration from a previous project at the University of Maryland. Last year, a library team worked with Ithaka S+R to study library use on the Rockville campus; this…

Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a recent Babson survey that found that “The most-drastic recent shift in the perceived importance of online education was at small colleges (i.e., those with fewer than 1,500 students). In 2012, 60 percent of academic leaders at small colleges said online education was strategically crucial. Now that number is 70 percent—nearly the same as at universities with more than 15,000 students.” What accounts for this shift? Practical considerations are surely a…

Students at Bowie State discuss their experience with a MOOC in this video. Much of the hype surrounding MOOCS has faded and as Steve Kolowich shows in a recent Chronicle piece, “Few people would now be willing to argue that massive open online courses are the future of higher education.” As the Babson Survey Research Group (that Kolowich cites) shows, higher ed leaders are less certain that MOOCs “are a sustainable way to offer courses,” that…

Locus of Authority deftly chronicles the emergence of shared governance as a means to further university goals, and its ossification into an end in itself and a barrier against which transformative changes crash.  As my colleague Deanna Marcum elaborates, university leaders interested in pursuing innovations in online learning and other areas have sought to evade sclerotic shared governance processes through various workarounds, such as new, agile subunits and incentive programs. Such approaches are often marginal, providing an opportunity…

Often, when discussing shared governance, we talk as if everyone is part of the system—either administrator or faculty. It is also assumed that when change does happen, it occurs through formal channels. Last year, Ithaka S+R conducted a landscape review of technology-enhanced education in ten public flagship universities. The goal of our study was to understand the online learning strategies in these institutions and to learn more about perspectives on this topic among faculty and administrators. In our multiple-day…

On January 1, Ithaka S+R launched its new Educational Transformation program, which consolidates all of our higher education initiatives into a single, more impactful program. One of the first publications from the program, in conjunction with Princeton University Press, was Locus of Authority: the Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education, by William Bowen and Eugene Tobin. Addressing one of the most important issues in higher education, the authors discuss the evolution of the concept of…

What should an undergraduate chemistry major know by the time she graduates? How can one tell if she knows it? And how can chemistry instruction be improved to ensure that more students meet those expectations? Such deceptively simple questions—for chemistry and every other discipline—have become an important focus of higher education leaders, accrediting agencies, and government. Yet many universities have struggled to develop robust processes for assessing student learning. Even when a central administration makes a serious effort to develop…

Nancy Fried Foster, with co-authors Patricia Steele, David Cronrath, and Sandra Parsons Vicchio, has a new book: The Living Library: An Intellectual Ecosystem. From the publisher’s website: The Living Library describes the evolution of one possible future for academic libraries: as laboratories for cross-disciplinary investigation. At the University of Maryland, a collaboration among the Libraries, the School of Architecture and the Department of Anthropology led to the participation of students, faculty and staff in an initiative to design a full…

Books have been published for hundreds of years, so surely there must be a clear answer to this question. But in fact, it’s not so simple, and estimates from press directors, experienced consultants, and researchers in the field vary widely—from less than $10,000 to more than $25,000 per book. Determining what it costs to produce a single high-quality digital monograph is complex, and depends on the publishing house, its practices, and even its methods for accounting. That said, understanding the…

“The New American University.”  To the outsider, or to the leader of another higher education institution, it may sound like a brash and arrogant boast.  On the inside, for a person associated with Arizona State University (ASU), it can be an aspirational expression of pride and the opportunity to take a leadership role in U.S. higher education.  ASU’s president, Michael Crow, envisions the “new American university” as one “measured not by who we exclude, but rather by who we include…

For decades and even centuries, a new academic library could be built just like any other—on the same architectural plans and with the same scholarly accommodations in mind. But today this is no longer possible. Recent years have brought dramatic changes to academic work practices such as reading, writing, and communication. The means, speed, and extent of scholarly collaboration have also undergone tremendous development. The traditional library model that has sufficed for so many years can no longer suit these…

Happy New Year! Ithaka S+R published a record number of research reports and issue briefs in 2014 on two main themes: educational transformation and libraries & scholarly communications. As the New Year begins, we would like to share these with you once more, and we hope that they provide useful guidance for your work in 2015. As always, we welcome your feedback and questions. Use the comments form below or send us a tweet @IthakaSR. Educational Transformation:…

Last year the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a statement on the freedom to teach which asserts several rights for faculty, including the right to determine the texts and assessments within their courses. While recognizing that “common course syllabi and examinations are… typical,” the statement emphasizes that these “should not be imposed by departmental or administrative fiat.” Our newest issue brief, “Exploring the Contours of the Freedom to Teach,” considers the potential impact of AAUP’s statement on the…

Liberal arts colleges are known for low professor to student ratios, intimate seminar classes and highly personalized undergraduate experiences. On the surface, it is not obvious how online learning fits with this picture. But these days liberal arts colleges face many of the same pressures as larger universities – resource constraints, the growth of non-traditional students with more extracurricular responsibilities, even uncertainty about how a liberal arts education should evolve to stay relevant in a digital world. There is an…

Public research universities face financial, legislative, and academic pressures to increase access to higher education, make it more affordable, and improve the learning outcomes of their students. Can technology help these institutions meet these challenges? Our researchers at Ithaka S+R, with funding from Lumina Foundation, undertook a study over the course of the 2013/2014 academic year to understand the current environment for public research universities. We interviewed 214 individuals, including academic administrators, directors of online learning, chief financial officers,…