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Topic: Cross-institutional collaboration

Blog Post
October 10, 2023

Understanding the Impact of Work-Based Learning

Ithaka S+R to Evaluate a 25-Institution Pilot Program with the Council of Independent Colleges

Colleges and universities are under increasing pressure to better prepare students for the world of work and integrate career preparation into their degree programs. There are many avenues to pursue in these efforts, including enhancing career services offices, revising general education curricula, and coordinating academic offerings with local workforce needs. One particularly promising approach is offering more experiential learning opportunities, like study abroad, service-learning, and undergraduate research. These experiences allow students to apply what they…
Blog Post
September 21, 2023

Generative AI Goes Back to School

Where Things Stand in Fall 2023

The commercial release of ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI created a firestorm this spring in and well beyond higher education. Other types of AI were already being used in university settings, particularly by researchers, but the sudden availability of consumer-friendly tools capable of generating responses to virtually any query transformed AI from a specialized tool into a mass-market product. The rapid spread of these easy to use tools raised important questions about teaching, learning, and research practices in…
Blog Post
August 15, 2023

The Future of Annual Meetings and Scholarly Societies

New Report from Ithaka S+R and JSTOR Labs

As the pandemic recedes into memory, scholarly societies find themselves at a crossroads. For the past several years, the decision to hold hybrid or virtual meetings was dictated by outside forces: it is now a matter of choice. Though the virtual meetings of 2020-22 mostly failed to provide the rich social and networking experiences that in-conference meetings provide, they were more accessible to a much wider, and more diverse, community of scholars.
Research Report
August 15, 2023

Of Meetings and Members

The Interconnected Future of Conferences and Scholarly Societies

As the pandemic recedes into memory, societies find themselves at a crossroads. For several years, the decision to hold hybrid or virtual meetings was dictated by outside forces: it has now become a question of societies’ priorities, mission, and values. It is too early to tell whether the virtual meetings of 2020-22 were anomalies, but a casual observer might reasonably describe the “new normal” as nearly identical to the old one. A closer view suggests a more nuanced picture.
Blog Post
June 15, 2023

Cave Canem and Ithaka S+R to Conduct a Field Study on Black Literary Arts Organizations

Today we are excited to announce an Ithaka S+R research collaboration with Cave Canem, funded by the Wallace Foundation. The project, “Magnitude and Bond: A Field Study on Black Literary Arts Service Organizations,” will focus on Black literary arts organizations from the perspective of sustainability, community engagement, and resilience. Cave Canem, founded in 1996, is a Brooklyn-based, non-profit Black literary organization that serves as a hub for the many voices of Black poetry. Founded by artists for artists, Cave Canem…
Blog Post
June 1, 2023

Coordinating Research Data Services

Key Barriers and Questions

This spring, 107 librarians, administrators, and staff from the 29 universities participating in Ithaka S+R’s Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support project began to identify barriers to streamlining their research data support services. The project’s first two meetings brought together representatives from university units involved in supporting academic researchers: librarians, senior administrators, research officers, and research computing staff. Working primarily in small groups roughly divided by professional capacity, participants described the ways that different university units—and different institutional…
Blog Post
May 15, 2023

Crafting Your Institution’s Strategy for Instructional Support

Announcing a New Program

Ensuring educational excellence is a complex balancing act for universities. As the value of higher education, and who gets to set its agenda, has become the subject of national debate, there are growing expectations around the skills that students will gain through their coursework. The shift to digital-first and AI enabled modalities is providing new opportunities to expand access to education, but is also leading to new challenges to the core values of teaching and learning. As a rhythm of…
Blog Post
March 22, 2023

Campus Strategies for Data Support Services

Welcoming the Second Cohort

What research data services do campuses currently offer and are researchers aware of them? What funding models can support the costs of centralized data services? Where in the larger organizational structure should these services reside? How can institutions make informed staffing decisions to ensure the expertise needed to support current and future services? As the need for robust, effective, and coordinated research data services on college campuses grows increasingly acute, these are some of the key questions members in our…
Blog Post
March 20, 2023

Supporting Public-Academic Library Partnerships

There are many intersections between public and community college libraries, both in the populations they serve and their functions within their local communities. However, there is little guidance on how to forge partnerships between these sectors to maximize resources and better serve students and the larger community. Today, I am delighted to announce the launch of a three-year research initiative funded by ECMC Foundation to help equip the library community to develop and maximize partnerships in order to better provide…
Blog Post
February 2, 2023

Building Campus Strategies for Data Support Services Project Kicks Off

With 2023 coined the “year of data” by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and data-intensive research methods growing across disciplines, campuses throughout the US and Canada are recognizing the strategic need to build a centralized approach to providing data support services to researchers. These services are often provided by the library, in addition to other campus units scattered across the university. Developed over time and with minimal coordination, data support services tend to exist in silos,…
Blog Post
December 5, 2022

Coordinating Research Data Support Services Across Campus

Announcing a Second Cohort

This fall, Ithaka S+R announced a new cohort-based research and consulting project to help universities coordinate research data support services across campus. Demand for the first cohort has been overwhelming, making it clear just how timely and important this topic is to university leaders. For this reason, we are pleased to announce that we are organizing a second cohort so that more universities can participate in this project.
Blog Post
September 27, 2022

Supporting Quantitative Learning in the Social Sciences

New Report Details Challenges and Opportunities

Social science classes play important roles in teaching quantitative literacy to students because they ground quantitative reasoning in contexts that resonate with undergraduates. Understanding how social science instructors teach quantitative skills and identifying instructional barriers can help libraries and other university units support faculty and students. Today, Ithaka S+R releases findings from one of the largest in-depth studies of teaching practices across social science disciplines, conducted in partnership with librarians from 20 colleges and universities in the United States.
Research Report
September 27, 2022

Fostering Data Literacy

Teaching with Quantitative Data in the Social Sciences

“Fostering Data Literacy: Teaching with Quantitative Data in the Social Sciences” explores why and how instructors teach with data, identifies the most important challenges they face, and describes how faculty and students utilize relevant campus and external resources. Full details and actionable recommendations for stakeholders are offered in the body of the report, which offers guidance to university libraries and other campus units, faculty, vendors, and others interested in improving institutional capacities to support data-intensive instruction in the social sciences.
Blog Post
September 22, 2022

Better Serving Library Patrons Behind Bars

New Project to Expand Public, State, Law, Prison, and Academic Library Collaboration

Over the past several years, public, state, academic, and law libraries have increasingly sought to serve people in prison through a variety of services. Now, with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Ithaka S+R is undertaking a planning project that will set the stage for future partnerships to develop and pilot wrap-around library services to meet the information needs of people who are currently incarcerated.
Past Event
September 21, 2022

Closed Door Conversation: The Inaugural Art Museum Trustee Survey Report

Black Trustees Alliance for Art Museums

On September 21st at 4:00 – 5:30 pm, the Black Trustees Alliance for Art Museums (BTA) is hosting a closed-door conversation with BTA membership to share the complete findings from the Inaugural Art Museum Trustee Survey. Liam Sweeney and Deirdre Harkins will present “The Characteristics, Roles, and Experiences of Black Trustees,” alongside BTA Data Chair Celeste Watkins-Hayes. The session will end with a Q&A session, giving attendees the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. The final report will be…
Blog Post
September 6, 2022

Coordinating Research Data Support Services Across Campus

Announcing the Launch of a New Cohort-Based Research and Consulting Project

Data-intensive research methods are used by researchers in a wide and growing number of disciplines and are now central to the research enterprise. As these methods spread, universities are making significant investments in developing campus services to provide critical support for big data research. We are excited to announce a project that will bring together a select cohort of librarians and campus representatives to develop strategies for coordinating campus data support services.
Blog Post
August 23, 2022

Technology Access in Higher Education in Prison Programs

New Survey Launch

We are excited to announce the launch of a new survey on the landscape of technology access in higher education in prison programs. This survey is a part of Ithaka S+R’s larger work on access to information for incarcerated students and the role of media review in higher education in prisons. While early research on the expansion of educational opportunities in prisons is positive, existing research suggests that educational and skills-based inequities hinder system impacted learners.
Blog Post
August 10, 2022

How Can Data Librarians Support Data Communities? Part Two

An Interview with Amanda Rinehart

Data communities provide social and practical incentives for scientists to voluntarily share and reuse data with colleagues. In order for data communities to emerge and grow, they need support. Information professionals, such as data librarians and research computing specialists, can advise data communities on best practices for data sharing and help them create or improve the required infrastructure, such as online repositories and metadata schemas.
Past Event
August 31, 2022

Collaboration Between Researchers and Information Professionals to Promote Data Sharing

Long-term collaborations between research communities and information professionals are relatively rare: yet, the expertise data librarians and other information professionals bring to the table can accelerate FAIR data sharing efforts. Drawing on findings from our recent NSF-funded workshop on promoting data sharing in STEM fields, Ithaka S+R and the Data Curation Network will host "Collaboration Between Researchers and Information Professionals to Promote Data Sharing" on August 31, 2022, from 2:00 - 3:30 pm Eastern. The webinar will bring together information…
Blog Post
August 9, 2022

Sustaining Scientific Data Sharing Communities

Findings from an Incubation Workshop

The sharing of research data is essential to open science, and major funders have made significant investments in building an infrastructure of domain and generalist data repositories to support data sharing. While barriers to data sharing remain a challenge, many communities of researchers actively and voluntarily share and reuse data to advance science in areas of mutual interest. Understanding the successes and challenges these “data communities” face is important to providing support for their evolving needs as they grow, and…