Topic: Research practices
Blog Post
June 1, 2018
Employing Cognitive Interviews for Questionnaire Testing
Preparing to Field the US Faculty Survey
Ithaka S+R is gearing up to field our seventh national US Faculty Survey on the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four-year colleges and universities. The questionnaire for this upcoming cycle has been designed to continue tracking critical trends in higher education from previous cycles while at the same time introducing new questions to address issues of current strategic importance. Having gathered…
Blog Post
April 24, 2018
Now Available: Dataset for Library Survey 2016 at ICPSR
Last year we published findings from the Library Survey 2016. We have been running this survey on a triennial basis since 2010 to examine the attitudes and behaviors of library deans and directors at not-for profit four-year academic institutions across the United States. The Library Survey report aims to provide academic librarians and higher education leaders with information about the important issues and trends that are shaping the purpose, role, and viability of…
Blog Post
April 3, 2018
Joining Together to Support Undergraduate Instruction
A New Program from Ithaka S+R
For over five years Ithaka S+R has successfully developed large-scale research projects through our Research Support Services program to study the research support needs of scholars in disciplines including history, art history, chemistry, religious studies, agriculture and public health. We are now launching…
Blog Post
March 13, 2018
New Thematic Areas for the 2018 US Faculty Survey
Ithaka S+R is preparing to field our seventh national US Faculty Survey on the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four-year colleges and universities. Over the past month, we have had the opportunity to speak with four outstanding project advisors who have helped inform our focus for this upcoming survey cycle. The 2018 US Faculty Survey will be designed to continue tracking critical trends in higher education…
Blog Post
March 1, 2018
Capturing Gray Literature: Lessons from Public Health
Digital technologies have made it easier for scholars to find and access information online—in fact, as the 2015 Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey showed, nearly all scholars in the U.S. begin their searches for information using electronic resources these days. But these innovations largely focus on peer-reviewed publications and fail to capture other forms of information to an adequate extent, despite that more than 60 percent of scholars in the survey say that freely available online materials are an…
Blog Post
February 20, 2018
Nicole Betancourt Joins Ithaka S+R
New Assessment Associate Will Support Growing Surveys Work
We are thrilled to announce that Nicole Betancourt has joined Ithaka S+R as our assessment associate to support our surveys work. Nicole was most recently the assistant project director at Clarion Research, where her work focused on managing market research projects within the transportation, media and entertainment, and technology sectors. At Ithaka S+R, Nicole will be leading the day-to-day operations of our Local Surveys Program–an area where we have seen…
Blog Post
February 15, 2018
The Humanities Digital Divide
On Friday, February 9th I attended the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Office of the Digital Humanities at the National Endowment of the Humanities. It was a jam-packed, vivid testimony to the ODH’s vision and work, featuring a keynote by Kate Zwaard, Chief of National Digital Initiatives at the Library of Congress, and John Unsworth, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries at the University of Virginia, shorter remarks from leaders in the digital humanities (…
Blog Post
February 13, 2018
Gearing Up for the 2018 US Faculty Survey
Notes from ALA Midwinter
Ithaka S+R is gearing up for our seventh national US Faculty Survey on the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four year colleges and universities. Last week at ALA Midwinter, we had the opportunity to meet with library deans and directors and past local survey participants to discuss the evolution of this national survey and gather feedback on possible directions for future coverage.
Blog Post
January 12, 2018
Essential Transformations
The academic library is transforming. This diagram illustrates some of what I see as its most essential transformations. Libraries are transforming in terms of their collections – towards electronic collections, towards shared collections, towards open access, and towards distinctive holdings. Complexities abound for discovery, access, processing, and preservation. And libraries are also transforming beyond collections, towards a partnership with scholars and students in support of research, teaching, and learning workflows. This…
Blog Post
January 10, 2018
Research Infrastructure and the Strategic Decisions of Universities
For the past several years, I have been writing about the turn to research workflow tools. These tools reach deeply into the laboratory and are increasingly important to scientists and other scholars, and they impact the university research office and scholarly communications programs. Scholars need seamless end-to-end research solutions. Major publishers are making substantial investments in this area as they seek to pivot their businesses beyond content licensing. The strategic choices that universities make today…
Issue Brief
January 4, 2018
Big Deal: Should Universities Outsource More Core Research Infrastructure?
Research universities have developed in symbiosis with a robust set of commercial providers that serve their needs. From food service providers to run dining halls to private equity firms to manage parts of the endowment, outsourcing has allowed universities to remain more focused on their core educational and research functions. But universities have also at times elected to outsource academic infrastructure. Commercial firms have developed a major role in several significant university functions, including scientific publishing, library management systems, and…
Blog Post
December 14, 2017
Workflows and the Highly Collaborative Public Health Scholar
Today Ithaka S+R is publishing the report Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Public Health Scholars, which provides actionable findings for organizations, institutions, and professionals who support the research activities in this dynamic field. Our research was undertaken collaboratively with research teams at seven academic libraries in the U.S., six of which have also made their local findings publically available as companion publications. This work is part of an ongoing effort at Ithaka S+R through our Research Support…
Research Report
December 14, 2017
Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Public Health Scholars
Ithaka S+R’s Research Support Services Program investigates how the research support needs of scholars vary by discipline. In 2016-2017 Ithaka S+R examined the changing research methods and practices of public health scholars conducting research through U.S. institutions. This project was undertaken collaboratively with research teams at seven academic libraries with the goal of identifying services to better support public health scholars. This report aims to provide actionable findings for the organizations, institutions, and professionals who support the research process of…
Blog Post
December 13, 2017
What is Researcher Workflow?
Over the past two years, I have been urging that academic information professionals, including librarians and publishers, give greater attention to how they might support a growing share of the researcher workflow. But what is researcher workflow? The researcher workflow can be defined in a number of ways. For laboratory scientists, it includes research design and funding, moves through data collection and analysis, and takes them to assessment and showcasing. This very rough schematic offers…
Blog Post
December 5, 2017
Examining Research and Teaching Practices of New Zealand Faculty Members
Over the next year, Ithaka S+R will partner with the academic libraries in all eight New Zealand universities to explore and deepen understanding of scholars’ research and teaching practices and needs. Ithaka S+R has been examining the attitudes and behaviors of academics nationally in the US and the UK every three years since 2000 and 2012 respectively, and have now partnered with more than 80 colleges and universities to study these topics in the US, Canada, Australia,…
Blog Post
November 27, 2017
A New Project on Indigenous Studies Scholars
I would like to begin by acknowledging the Lenape, the traditional caretakers of the land on which Ithaka S+R is located. Today, Manhattan (from the Lenape word Manahatta) is still the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and beyond. I am grateful for the opportunity to work for Ithaka S+R on this land.[1] Here at Ithaka S+R, we have developed a certain kind of expertise in scholars’ information activities, both through our triennial U.S.
Blog Post
October 16, 2017
Supporting Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars
This Fall Ithaka S+R is launching a new project to explore the research support needs of Civil and Environmental Engineering scholars. Civil and Environmental Engineering focuses on the built and natural environment, including the design and maintenance of infrastructure and buildings and stewardship of natural resources. Our project seeks to develop a holistic understanding of these scholars’ information needs by attending to the full life cycle of their information activities, including information discovery, management and dissemination. Of particular interest are…
Blog Post
September 7, 2017
Community College Library Support for Student Success
Ithaka S+R and Northern Virginia Community College Launch New Research Project
Ithaka S+R regularly and extensively studies the perspectives, practices, and needs of faculty and students at four year colleges and universities to inform future roles for the academic library. Today, we are excited to announce that we will be expanding this work over the next 18 months to partner with seven community colleges in assessing and improving library support of student success within a community college context. We are grateful to the Institute of Museum and Library Services…
Blog Post
August 29, 2017
The Center for Open Science, Alternative to Elsevier, Announces New Preprint Services Today
The past year has been a momentous period for preprint-driven open access. Elsevier has made two major acquisitions, of SSRN with its edited research networks and of bepress with its Digital Commons institutional repository service. Springer Nature sibling Digital Science has worked to develop its presence too, expanding figshare as not just a data repository but as a full institutional solution and more…
Blog Post
August 8, 2017
University Libraries Are Putting the Student First
Perspective from US Library Leaders
Last week’s article in The Guardian from Alterline’s Ben Hickman, entitled “University libraries need to start putting the student first,” proposed that university libraries need to put evidence on student needs and practices at the heart of their decision-making. The author included a number of suggested areas for improvement – for example, the provision of ample space, friendly engagement with librarians and library staff, and accessible resources. As UK higher education transitions towards taking a more student-centric approach as…