How do your faculty and students conduct their research? What roadblocks hinder their teaching and learning? What services do they expect from their library?
Our local surveys provide critical information on how faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students approach their work, discover resources, and perceive the library. The surveys help libraries better understand the communities they serve and inform their strategic decision making.
Libraries use their results to:
- Invest in technical infrastructure and staff to support data curation and publishing
- Enhance the discovery of essential resources
- Reshape their support for the first-year experience and student retention
- Change collecting and de-accessioning policies
- Advocate for resources at the college or university level
- Shape new learning spaces for students
Contact us and we will:
- send you our prospectus about the local surveys program
- host a webinar about the program with key stakeholders in your library
- share the questionnaires for you to review
What the surveys cover
Each survey includes a core questionnaire tailored to the population you choose to survey. This provides for easy comparability between institutions should you wish to share your results with peers. For the local faculty survey, institutions will be able to compare results directly with our 2018 US Faculty Survey findings.
You can also choose from a menu of additional modules or work with us to create your own.
Faculty surveys
Core questionnaire
- Discovery & access
- Scholarly communications
- Student research skills
- Research practices, including data curation
- The role of the library
- Instructional practices, including OER and learning analytics
Optional modules (choose up to three)
- Scholarly societies
- Undergraduate instruction
- Graduate instruction
- Serving clinicians & health scientists
- Online learning & MOOCs
- Library space planning
- Library market research
- Serving scientists and STEM-field researchers
Undergraduate surveys
Core questionnaire
- Higher Education objectives
- Academics & coursework
- The role of the library
Optional modules (choose up to three)
- Research practices
- Career goals
- Extra- & co-curricular activities
- Library space planning
Graduate/professional student surveys
Core questionnaire
- Higher Education objectives
- Academics & coursework
- The role of the library
Optional modules (choose up to three)
- Research practices
- International student experiences
- STEM research practices
- Library space planning
- Teaching practices
- Career goals
Survey fees and services
As part of the local surveys service, we provide:
- Detailed implementation guidelines
- A hosted survey platform
- Ithaka S+R can send all invitation and reminder emails on your behalf
- The survey is branded with your institution’s name and logo
- The invitations use text you provide and are signed by your designee
- Survey monitoring, including advice on how to boost response rates and when to close the survey.
- The full survey results
- A non-analytical graphical and tabular report of your findings
- The underlying survey dataset
- Strategies that other participants have employed to incorporate the survey results into their campus communications and strategic plans
- For the local faculty survey–an accompanying report of findings from the US Faculty Survey 2018 specific to your Carnegie classification
Fees
Our survey fees are based on the Carnegie Classification System. For institutions outside the US, we will determine with you which of these categories is the most appropriate. Institutions interested in running more than one survey during the same semester are eligible for a discount. Please note that the below fees assume a survey population of 15,000 invitees or less. There is a supplemental charge for inviting a greater number.
| Baccalaureate/ Associates | Masters | Doctoral: Moderate & Higher Research | Doctoral: Highest Research | |
| Fee | $5,000 | $7,000 | $7,500 | $8,000 |
- The fee for two surveys is 1.5x the price of one survey
- The fee for three surveys is 1.75x the price of one survey
Additional services
Maximize your survey’s impact. After the survey is completed, we can provide additional services to help put your results to greater use:
Stratification
We can create crosstabs that present findings by departmental affiliation, experience level, and other demographic characteristics.
Analysis
Working with your leadership, and based on your current strategic plans, we can analyze your findings for your specific institutional context. This can include selected stratifications, correlations, and comparisons to national findings. We can provide:
- A 10-15 page analytical memo
- A 30-60 minute presentation
- On-site meetings and/or workshops on the survey findings for librarians, faculty members, or senior leadership