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Research Report
April 4, 2016
Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2015
Ithaka S+R’s survey of US faculty members has been fielded regularly since 2000. This project provides a periodic snapshot of practices and perceptions related to scholarly communications and information usage. The scholar-centric nature of the questionnaire ensures that potential changes in research and teaching inform our thinking, not only about academic libraries and scholarly publishing, but about changes in the educational enterprise more broadly. Our findings this cycle are a strong indication of the value of an ongoing tracking enterprise…
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Research Report
March 8, 2016
A Day in the Life of a (Serious) Researcher
Envisioning the Future of the Research Library
Kornelia Tancheva, Gabriela Castro Gessner, Neely Tang, Erin Eldermire, Heather Furnas, Darcy Branchini, Gail Steinhart, Nancy Fried Foster
Reflections on Cornell University Library’s “Day in the Life” Project by Nancy Fried Foster In 2014, Kornelia Tancheva and I met to discuss a question of great interest to Cornell University Library: how would you design a research library to respond to the preferences and needs of today’s researchers? That is, if you could create a mental space in which you learned from the past without being encumbered by an uncritical acceptance of the status quo, what kind…
Research Report
February 22, 2016
Higher Ed Insights: Results of the Fall 2015 Survey
In fall 2015, Ithaka S+R invited a select group of higher education administrators and experts to join a panel of advisors. One activity of the panel, which consists of 110 members with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, is to take part in semi-annual surveys on issues of national importance in higher education. Ithaka S+R will analyze and publish the results of these surveys to inform the broader higher education community about the panel’s views on current debates, initiatives, and challenges. The…
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Research Report
February 5, 2016
The Costs of Publishing Monographs
Toward a Transparent Methodology
The University Press business model faces numerous challenges today, with revenues under pressure due to a host of factors, from the decline of bricks-and-mortar stores and shifting library purchase patterns to the still emerging distribution and revenue models made possible by digital books. Over the last few years, certain forces have emerged and intensified—federal mandates for Open Access, declining sales reach, and the desire of university presses to build a greater audience for scholarly works—encouraging university presses to seriously consider…
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Research Report
January 28, 2016
Diversity in the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Community
New York City is one of the most diverse cities in the United States at a city level, ranking fourth in the country based on 2010 census data.[1] There are over 1,000 cultural organizations in the five boroughs, each with specific ties to communities, each with vastly different organizational structures and sizes, and each integral to the diversity of culture that defines New York City. Over the summer of 2015 many of these organizations participated in a survey…
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Research Report
December 14, 2015
Can Online Learning Improve College Math Readiness?
Randomized Trials Using Pearson’s MyFoundationsLab in Summer Bridge Programs
Far too many students in the United States start their postsecondary education without being able to demonstrate the skills and knowledge deemed necessary to succeed in college-level math. Colleges and universities have traditionally dealt with this problem by placing students in full-semester developmental courses for which they must pay full tuition but do not receive college credit. It has become clear, however, that this approach has serious drawbacks, as students who start out in remediation are far less likely to…
Research Report
November 18, 2015
Office of Scholarly Communication
Scope, Organizational Placement, and Planning in Ten Research Libraries
The phrase “scholarly communication” appears often in the description of library roles and responsibilities, but the function is still new enough that it takes different forms in different institutions. There is no common understanding of where it fits into the library’s organizational structure. This landscape review of offices of scholarly communication grows out of research originally conducted by Ithaka S+R for the Harvard Library. Dr. Sarah Thomas, Vice President for the Harvard Library, University Librarian and Roy E. Larsen Librarian…
Research Report
October 20, 2015
CIC Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction
Evaluation Report for First Course Iteration
Summary of Findings This report provides our preliminary analysis of evidence generated from the planning period and first iteration of CIC Consortium courses. It includes a summary of our findings, followed by a description and presentation of a good portion of the data for those interested in delving deeper. It is important to note that these courses finished very recently, and we (like the faculty members involved) are still processing what we have learned. We have amassed a considerable mass…
Research Report
October 8, 2015
Exploring Group Study at the University of Nevada, Reno
Ann Medaille, Molly Beisler, Tara Radniecki, Maggie Ressel, Heidi Slater, Danielle Miriam Cooper, Nancy Fried Foster
Libraries continually struggle with how to make the best use of their space, and collaborative study spaces have been added to support the perceived requirements for group projects. The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) wanted to know what kind of spaces students actually need to do their work, and brought in Ithaka S+R’s senior anthropologist, Nancy Fried Foster, to help them explore this question. Using the methods of design anthropology, collecting artifacts and conducting interviews, the Ithaka S+R and UNR…
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Research Report
March 18, 2015
Personalizing Post-Secondary Education
An Overview of Adaptive Learning Solutions for Higher Education
For the past decade, the conversation about technology’s potential to transform higher education has grown louder and larger, encompassing more voices, opinions, and topics, and driving changes at a global scale. Participants in this discussion speculate about the possibilities for Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to make quality education more broadly accessible to an international set of learners, deliberate over the value of leveraging business analytics to help students through degree programs, and debate the impact of technology-enabled learning on…
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Research Report
March 11, 2015
Online Learning in Postsecondary Education
A Review of the Empirical Literature (2013-2014)
Courses that incorporate online learning are increasingly a fact of life for American college and university students.[1] The share of postsecondary students in the United States who took at least one online course has increased every year for the past decade—to a high of 34% in the fall semester of 2012.[2] Even as the prevalence of online learning continues to grow, however, there remains a dearth of rigorous research done on the learning outcomes associated with…
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Research Report
March 4, 2015
The Effects of Rising Student Costs in Higher Education
Evidence from Public Institutions in Virginia
In Virginia and elsewhere, higher education faces an unstable future. Demographic, economic and technological changes are driving transformation in all that we do. Higher education – access to it, knowledge created and disseminated through it, and outcomes produced by it – will be the key to innovation and prosperity. At the same time, public higher education faces an unprecedentedly challenging landscape as it seeks to fulfill its public purposes and responsibilities. Its transformative potential for our nation is at risk. The risk…
Research Report
December 11, 2014
Technology-Enhanced Education at Public Flagship Universities
Opportunities and Challenges
Public research universities are under great pressure to increase access, lower costs, and improve instruction, even as they face diminishing financial support from the states they serve. Against this backdrop, Ithaka S+R, with funding from Lumina Foundation, undertook a study of ten institutions in the Public Flagships Network (PFN). Over the course of the 2013/2014 academic year, Ithaka S+R interviewed 214 individuals, ranging from presidents and provosts to key administrative officers and staff, to department chairs and faculty. Members of…
Research Report
July 10, 2014
Interactive Online Learning on Campus
Testing MOOCs and Other Platforms in Hybrid Formats in the University System of Maryland
Online technologies show promise for educating more people in innovative ways that can lower costs for universities and colleges, but how can higher education leaders move forward, confident in their choices about how best to integrate these technologies on their campuses? With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ithaka S+R is working to help provide the answer. Since November 2012, Ithaka S+R has been working with the University System of Maryland (USM) to test a variety of…
Research Report
June 18, 2014
Sustainability Implementation Toolkit
Developing an Institutional Strategy for Supporting Digital Humanities Resources
What do the digital humanities look like on your campus? What types of projects are your faculty undertaking? Which will require longer-term support, and where will that support come from? What roles do your service units, centers, and digital labs play in the various life-cycle stages, and is this clear to faculty? This toolkit will help administrators create a coherent institutional strategy for supporting digital humanities activities and the valuable outputs that they generate.To get started, follow the three steps below.…
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Research Report
June 18, 2014
Sustaining the Digital Humanities
Host Institution Support Beyond the Start-up Phase
As more and more scholars experiment with building digital humanities (DH) resources, how are their host institutions approaching the challenge of supporting these diverse projects over time? In this study, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ithaka S+R explored the different models colleges and universities have adopted to support DH outputs on their campuses. This final report, Sustaining the Digital Humanities: Host-Institution Support beyond the Start-Up Phase, and the accompanying Sustainability Implementation Toolkit, are intended to guide faculty,…
Research Report
April 30, 2014
Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Art Historians
This study, funded by the Getty Foundation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, looks at how art historians' research practices are evolving in the digital age. Intended primarily for the museums, libraries, academic departments, and visual resources centers that support research in art history within the U.S., this project focused on five key areas: 1. The emergence of "digital art history," and how it is diverging from the broader understanding of the digital humanities. 2. The interconnected scholarly communities that…
Research Report
March 27, 2014
A Guide to the Best Revenue Models and Funding Sources for your Digital Resources
There are fewer barriers than ever before for those who wish to build something on the web, whether an online journal, a website with tools for teaching, or a digitized collection of rare and unique materials. Yet, no matter who creates these resources or how they were initially funded, there are substantial costs involved in keeping digital resources up and running for the long term while continuing to deliver value to those who use them. With the support of the…
Research Report
March 11, 2014
Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2013
In the Ithaka S+R US Library Survey 2013 report we examine how the leaders of academic libraries are approaching systemic changes in their environment and the opportunities and constraints they face in leading their organizations. While exploring key topics covered in our 2010 survey of library directors, such as strategic planning, collecting practices, and library services, in 2013 we also introduced a new emphasis on organizational dynamics, leadership issues, and undergraduate services. The 2013 Ithaka S+R Library Survey was sent…
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Research Report
November 20, 2013
Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History
Cornell University
Upfront investment in user-friendly back-end systems allows for continual growth The Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History (HEARTH) is a digitized collection of academic and popular monographs and journals comprising the core literature of home economics, or, as it is more commonly known today, human ecology. Created at Cornell University’s Mann Library, which serves primarily Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Human Ecology, HEARTH was launched in 2003 with the support of a two-year…