Archive
Research Report
December 19, 2024
Tailored Support for First-Year, First-Generation College Students
Findings from an Evaluation of the Kessler Scholars Program
Established and emerging Kessler Scholars Programs at 16 colleges and universities are embedded in and supported by the Kessler Scholars Collaborative, a nationwide network that guides program development and implementation, facilitates practice sharing across institutions, and provides students with opportunities to connect with other first-generation scholars across the country. Ithaka S+R’s multi-year mixed-methods evaluation aims to assess the long-term relationship between program participation and students’ college experiences and psychosocial and academic outcomes, in order to support program improvement and maximize…
Playbook
December 9, 2024
Technology Implementation for Higher Education in Prison
A Student-Centered Playbook for Planning, Preparing, and Assessing Implementation Readiness
As both the owner and operator of correctional facilities and the official oversight entity for higher education in prison programming, it is up to departments of correction to determine what technology to make available for education on the inside. However, there are very few resources designed to help correctional leaders determine what technologies are available, how they might benefit students in their facilities, and what drawbacks the new technology might pose. The tools and process outlined in this playbook are…
Research Report
November 7, 2024
Fostering College Fluency
Results from a National Survey of Community College Library and Campus Partners
To better understand the current landscape of college fluency, and the challenges faced by institutions, Ithaka S+R and the Borough of Manhattan Community College, with support from IMLS, fielded a national survey to gather insights from administrators, librarians, and faculty and staff from academic and student affairs departments across community colleges in the US. This survey aimed to explore the perceptions of college fluency and evaluate the effectiveness of existing support and resource referrals.
Research Report
October 30, 2024
A Third Transformation?
Generative AI and Scholarly Publishing
For this report, we interviewed leaders in stakeholder communities about the potential impact of generative AI on scholarly publishing . The consensus among the individuals with whom we spoke is that generative AI will enable efficiency gains across the publication process. Writing, reviewing, editing, and discovery will all become easier and faster. Both scholarly publishing and scientific discovery in turn will likely accelerate. From that shared premise, two distinct categories of change emerged from our interviews. In the first and…
Research Report
October 17, 2024
Adoption of Generative AI by Academic Biomedical Researchers
Preface Biomedical research has been at the forefront of generative AI-enhanced research. Generative AI’s contributions to drug development and protein design are among the most widely celebrated concrete examples of its transformative potential. Biomedicine has also been at the forefront of developing customized, domain-specific large language models (LLMs). It is also a field in which any accelerating effects enabled by generative AI would have immediate impacts on the health of individuals, and for the same reason, where errors created by generative…
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Research Report
October 16, 2024
Beyond Standards
A Critical Examination of the Relationship between NACIQI and Accreditors
The report begins with a primer on the system of higher education quality assurance as it currently exists to establish the necessary context for a closer focus on the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) and its relationships with accreditation organizations. The contextual overview will include a brief explanation of the three members of the quality assurance triad (state recognition boards, accreditors, and the Department of Education) followed by a deeper dive into NACIQI and its process…
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Research Report
October 7, 2024
Uneven Terrain
Learning Spaces in Higher Education in Prison
How can prison education programs fulfill their obligation to provide their students with an educational experience that is as close as possible to the one of students on main campuses? Thus far, our research into equitable access has focused largely on instructional delivery and practices, and technological access and use. This report broadens our interrogation of that central question by exploring the role of space, architecture, and design in the context of higher education in prison.
Research Report
September 30, 2024
Exploring the Landscape of College and Community Reentry Partnerships
Now that federal Pell Grant funding has been reinstated for learners who are incarcerated, the field is in flux. Higher education in prison programs are adapting and developing their practices to meet new policy and regulation needs. Two major facets of the revised regulations for Pell funding are particularly critical for college in prison programs, namely the requirement to track and report student data, and the obligation to document how they or their partner organizations provide reentry services.
Research Report
August 22, 2024
US Instructor Survey 2024
Findings from a National Survey
As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, the landscape of higher education continues to evolve. Ithaka S+R's 2024 US Instructor Survey sheds light on how college instructors are adapting, with a renewed focus on diverse teaching and learning modalities. Adapted from the US Faculty Survey we have fielded regularly since 2000, this iteration offers a valuable snapshot of the shifting dynamics in college teaching.
Research Report
August 1, 2024
Governance and Business Models for Collaborative Collection Development
To be effective, library collaborations focused on collection development need to be responsive to the changing landscape of scholarly resources as well as the evolving nature of research, teaching, and learning. The purpose of this report is to further increase our understanding of the governance and business characteristics of collaborative collection development initiatives, and how the attributes of different business models can affect the outcomes of collaborations.
Research Report
July 25, 2024
Perceptions of Academic Freedom in Teaching
Findings from a National Survey of Instructors
Since 2021, people across the political spectrum have become preoccupied with questions of free speech and censorship on college campuses, and state legislators have driven the proliferation of new policies that limit spending and programming related to DEI and alter academic autonomy or shared governance arrangements. Against this backdrop, we included a short block of questions centered on academic freedom in a national survey of US instructors at four-year colleges and universities.
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Research Report
July 16, 2024
Exploring Basic Needs Support Across Public and Community College Libraries
Opportunities for Collaboration
There are many intersections between public and community college libraries, both in the populations they serve and their functions within their local communities. Both types of libraries play a crucial role in supporting the diverse needs of their communities, serving as hubs for education, information, and essential services. Maximizing partnerships between public and community college libraries therefore presents a significant opportunity.
Research Report
June 20, 2024
Generative AI and Postsecondary Instructional Practices
Findings from a National Survey of Instructors
Understanding how instructors are (or are not) using generative AI in their classrooms is vital because most college and university guidelines leave decision making about how, when, and if generative AI use is permitted to the discretion of individual instructors. To gain insight into evolving instructional practices, we included a short four-question section dedicated specifically to generative AI as part of a national survey of instructors.
Research Report
June 4, 2024
Assessing the Civic Campus
The Link Between Higher Education and Democracy
This landscape review focuses on the link between higher education, civic engagement, and democratic attitudes and behaviors. We explore three research questions: 1) What is the impact of postsecondary education on civic engagement and democratic attitudes and behaviors? 2) How have researchers defined, operationalized, and measured civic engagement in the context of higher education? 3) How are postsecondary institutions and key stakeholders institutionalizing civic engagement as part of their curricular and co-curricular programming?…
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Research Report
May 9, 2024
Removing the Institutional Debt Hurdle
Findings from an Evaluation of the Ohio College Comeback Compact
This report provides findings from the evaluation of the pilot year of the Ohio College Comeback Compact, an institutional debt cancellation program being implemented at eight public institutions in northeast Ohio. Administrative holds preventing re-enrollment leave students unable to realize the benefits of a postsecondary credential. Fortunately, a number of initiatives and policies, including the Ohio College Comeback Compact, have sought to alleviate this barrier for students.
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Research Report
May 9, 2024
Second Chances
A Qualitative Assessment of the Ohio College Comeback Compact
While the rise of institution-specific debt forgiveness programs and state-level policies limiting transcript withholding is encouraging, a regional or national approach could benefit returning students on a wider scale. In response, Ithaka S+R developed a regional solution, the Ohio College Comeback Compact, which launched in August 2022, to address the problems posed by institutional debts and provide stopped-out students with an opportunity to complete their credential and have their debt forgiven.
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Research Report
April 3, 2024
Between Two Systems
Navigating Censorship and Self-Censorship in Higher Education in Prisons
Building on our previous research on the ways that media review directives and censorship policies may limit or protect student access to intellectual and education material, as well as on the technology students on the inside can access for educational purposes, this report explores how educators in higher education in prison programs navigate censorship and self-censorship and how the relationship between educational programs and departments of corrections may have an impact on the educational experience and learning outcomes of students.
Research Report
March 28, 2024
Censorship and Academic Freedom in the Public University Library
Research libraries are expected to provide and preserve collections in support of their institutions’ research and teaching priorities and to support long-term access to cultural, historical, and scientific works. In today’s polarized political environment, both libraries and universities have been at the heart of controversy. In this project, we examine some of the impacts of this polarization at public research university libraries.
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Research Report
March 14, 2024
The Research Data Services Landscape at US and Canadian Higher Education Institutions
While many universities have made substantial investments in research data services and are likely to continue to make further investments, obstacles such as decentralization and inefficiency, insufficient staffing, lack of technical expertise, and ambiguity about the needs of researchers continue to limit the impact of these investments. In light of these persistent challenges, Ithaka S+R revisited our 2020 inventory of data services and expanded our scope to include Canadian universities. Our findings presented here are based on a comprehensive review…
Research Report
January 29, 2024
The Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing
Strategic Context and Shared Infrastructure
The scholarly publishing sector is undergoing its second digital transformation. The first saw a massive shift from paper to digital, but otherwise publishing retained many of the characteristics of the print era. In this current second digital transformation, many of the structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs that characterized the print era are being revamped in favor of new approaches that bring tremendous opportunities, and also non-trivial risks, to scholarly communication. It is our objective with this paper to examine the…
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