Topic: Research practices
Blog Post
May 3, 2016
Younger Faculty Members Embracing Transition to Electronic Format
In the Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2015, which provides a periodic snapshot of faculty members’ practices and perceptions related to scholarly communications and information usage, we found that there did not appear to be a trend towards a format transition for monographs. If anything, faculty members’ preference for using scholarly monographs in various ways in print format rather than digital format had increased since the previous cycle of the survey in 2012. When Roger Schonfeld and I had…
Blog Post
April 13, 2016
Teaching the US Faculty Survey
The new faculty survey report has arrived! As an LIS faculty member teaching in the areas of Academic Libraries and Sources and Services in the Humanities and Social Sciences, I couldn’t be more excited. Over the past several iterations, I have found the survey reports invaluable in my work as both an educator of future practitioners and a researcher exploring the role of libraries in the 21st Century Academy. The common thread through much of my teaching and research…
Blog Post
April 11, 2016
Using Lessons Learned from University Partnerships to Enhance the US Faculty Survey 2015
Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education on a triennial basis. Last week we published results from the 2015 cycle on topics including discovery and access, research and publishing practices, instruction, and the role of the library. Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field…
Blog Post
April 4, 2016
Tracking Trends in Faculty Research, Publishing, and Teaching
The Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey Findings Released
This morning we published the US Faculty Survey 2015. We have been running this survey on a triennial basis since 2000 to examine the attitudes and behaviors of scholars at four-year colleges and universities across the United States. The survey provides the higher education community with a regularly updated snapshot of its faculty members at a moment in time, as well as trend analysis of changes. What does this latest snapshot show us? Some key findings include: Reversing a…
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…
Blog Post
March 16, 2016
Survey Administration Best Practices: Designing Survey Questionnaires
Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education. Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field the faculty survey, and a newly added student survey, at their individual institutions to gain better insight into the perceptions of their faculty members and students. More than 70…
Blog Post
March 9, 2016
If Chat Is the Next Interface, Can Libraries Reestablish Their Place in the Research Workflow?
Silicon Valley observers are starting to wonder if an interface change is underway. Mobile apps displaced the dominance of the web over the last several years, threatening substantial disruption for advertising behemoths like Google and leaving libraries and publishers ill-prepared to support emerging user needs. If another interface displacement of this magnitude is gathering, there is a major opportunity for libraries to leapfrog ahead. Today, some observers…
Blog Post
March 8, 2016
Imagining the Future of the Library by Studying Today’s Researchers
Lessons from Cornell
Is the library of the future something that will come into view once we crest the next hill? Or will the library of the future be what we make it, based on the best evidence we can collect on current, emerging, and anticipated practices of researchers and the needs of the research community and society at large? Ithaka S+R recently had the opportunity to explore this topic with Dr. Kornelia Tancheva, associate university librarian for research and learning services, Cornell…
Research Report
March 8, 2016
A Day in the Life of a (Serious) Researcher
Envisioning the Future of the Research Library
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…
Blog Post
February 25, 2016
On Seams, Seamlessness, and Methodology
Earlier this month, I encountered a thought-provoking talk by Tim Sherratt making the very strong argument that seamlessness should not be our only goal in designing digital library systems. The talk is a year old but it is well worth reading today. I thank Donna Lanclos for tweeting about it recently. I have argued strongly that we need to reduce the barriers to the use of…
Blog Post
January 28, 2016
Artstor-ITHAKA Community Letter
To our creators, partners and users Artstor and ITHAKA Join Forces We are writing to you as a valued member of our community to share the good news that Artstor, the nonprofit provider of the Artstor Digital Library of images and the Shared Shelf platform for cataloguing and digital asset management, will now operate under the umbrella of its fellow nonprofit ITHAKA, the organization that currently operates three other services: JSTOR, Portico and Ithaka S+R. As you may know, Artstor,…
Blog Post
January 27, 2016
Survey Administration Best Practices: Using Incentives Effectively
Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education. Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field the faculty survey, and a newly added student survey, at their individual institutions to gain better insight into the perceptions of their faculty members and students. More than 70…
Blog Post
January 19, 2016
Religious Studies Project Launch and Training Workshop
My colleague Roger Schonfeld and I launched the religious studies project at Pitts Theology Library at Emory University on January 7 and 8 with the first of two methods training workshops for our institutional collaborators. With funding from lead sponsor the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), as well as the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the religious studies project brings together local research teams from eighteen higher education institutions to investigate the…
Blog Post
December 22, 2015
Looking at the Research Needs of Religious Studies Scholars
This fall, Ithaka S+R announced plans for a series of new projects to examine the research practices of scholars in three diverse fields. These projects are being conducted in close partnership with scholarly societies and libraries and will provide valuable insight for libraries and other service providers of research support services. I am writing today with an update of the strong progress we are making on the first…
Blog Post
November 30, 2015
Survey Administration Best Practices: Sending Invitation and Reminder Messages
Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education. Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field the faculty survey, and a newly added student survey, at their individual institutions to gain better insight into the perceptions of their faculty members and students. More than 70…
Blog Post
November 10, 2015
The Art of Observation
The hallmark method of cultural anthropology is participant observation—total immersion in a social milieu and simultaneous scrutiny of it from an outsider perspective. In a fieldwork project, participant observation may last for months or even years and will usually entail careful documentation in notes, recordings, images, and artifacts. The anthropologist analyzes and interprets observational and other data to create a written ethnography, a document about a culture or society. The anthropological kit also includes a far simpler tool: just being…
Blog Post
October 26, 2015
Announcing Three New Projects
Research Support Services Projects in Agriculture, Asian Studies, and Religious Studies
Ithaka S+R is adjusting and expanding our studies of the research practices and support needs of scholars in individual fields of study to conduct them in partnerships with libraries and learned societies. Libraries that participate will learn a great deal about the needs of their scholars, while providing a valuable professional development opportunity for their librarians. Through this partnership, we will generate a richly illustrated description of the field’s practices and needs and make actionable recommendations for how libraries…
Blog Post
October 26, 2015
Research That Has Impact Institutionally and Beyond
In recent years, Ithaka S+R has expanded our survey research program to have an impact both institutionally as well as nationally. Beginning this winter, we are making a similar expansion and transition for our qualitative projects that study the research practices and support needs of scholars in individual fields of study. Over the past four years, Ithaka S+R has made a substantial transition in our survey research program. Our sector-wide surveys of higher education institutions…
Blog Post
October 14, 2015
Survey Administration Best Practices
Crafting Effective Communications
Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education. Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field the faculty survey, and a newly added student survey, at their individual institutions to gain better insight into the perceptions of their faculty members and students. More than 70…
Blog Post
September 14, 2015
The Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Survey at Virginia Commonwealth University
Focusing on Strategic Investment
During a time of rapid, evolutionary change at Virginia Commonwealth University, John Ulmschneider, University Librarian, turned to the Ithaka S+R Local Faculty Study in spring 2014 to inform decision-making and strategic planning for the VCU Libraries. VCU had recently developed a new university-wide strategic plan and the Libraries were focused on working within this framework to understand and support faculty and their research. As Ulmschneider explained, “We needed good data to help us understand our current faculty even as we expect their…