Survey of Assessment Practices in Higher Education: ISBN #: 1-57440-100-9 The Survey of Assessment Practices in Higher Education presents results from an assessment benchmarking study with more than 80 participants. The study presents data on college assessment efforts, including but not limited to: the size, budget and scope college assessment offices, salaries for assessment officers, number of employees working on assessment issues in and out of assessment offices, the use of standardized testing, types of tests used, use and type of remedial courses, use of incentives to take standardized assessment tests, use of instructor evaluation questionnaires and other methods of instructor evaluation, impact of assessment on merit-based pay, tenure and other personnel decisions; methods for evaluating adjunct and regular faculty; level of faculty involvement in assessment; impact of curriculum changes, use of survey software in assessment, use of assessment consultants, seminars and other services – and many other aspects of college assessment programs and policies. Higher Education Reports

Survey of Student Retention Policies in Higher Education: ISBN: 1-57440-097-5 The Survey of Student Retention Policies in Higher Education presents data from a benchmarking study of the retention policies of 40 American colleges. Data is broken out for public and private colleges, by Carnegie class and enrollment level, to allow for easier benchmarking. This 100+ page study presents data on: spending on consulting services to aid in student retention, spending on conferences, reports and other information and analysis about retention; percentage of colleges that have a dean or other high level administrator for retention; retention rates for students; ways in which colleges track and present retention data; perceived impact of financial assistance on retention; perceived impact of severity in grading on retention; perceived impact of tutoring services on retention; perceived impact of psychological counseling services on retention; perceived impact of general economic conditions on retention; perceived impact of involvement in extra-curricular activities on retention; perceived impact of the quality of food services and residence halls on retention; use of interviews of transferees or drop outs from the college; use of interviews of graduates of the college; importance of exit interviews; percentage of colleges that maintain records on students that are engaged in few or no extracurricular activities; description of college info literacy policies; percentage of colleges that offer child care services to students; role of part time job finding services; perceived importance of career services division for retention; perceived importance of the academic advising services unit for retention; perceived importance of peer mentoring for retention; percentage of colleges that intervene at pre-determined thresholds of student difficulties such as number of classes missed or low grade point average; description of college efforts to reach out to help high risk students; College spending on tutoring services; Projected future spending on tutoring services; Perceived impact of tutoring services on retention; Source of tutors; Cost of Tutors; percentage of residence halls that have student advisory centers; percentage of colleges that have hired consultants to advise on the academic advising services; Annual Budget of the academic advising unit; number of full time equivalent positions allocated to the academic advising unit; description of rate of growth in the college’s financial aid to students over the pats two years; description of changes in tuition levels; perceived view of the need to increase financial aid or lower tuition in order to maintain or enhance enrollment; institutional attitudes towards the encouragement of instructor-student interaction outside of class; percentage of students that need special help in reading, writing or pronouncing English; percentage of colleges that offer ESL. Higher Education Reports

Survey of Library Services for Distance Learning Programs: ISBN: 1-57440-098-3 The Survey of Library Services for Distance Learning Programs presents benchmarking data from more than 100 college libraries worldwide concerning their programs for serving their distance learning students. This 145 page report gives extensive data, broken out by size and type of college, for public and private colleges, and for U.S. and Non-U.S. libraries. Among the more than 500 tables of data presented is information about: use of real time chat and virtual reference services for distance learners; percentage of libraries that offer special classes for distance learners; future plans to offer information literacy courses to distance learners; policies on providing web pages, blogs or listservs that specifically serve the needs of distance learners; number of interactive online tutorials provided to distance learners; state of relations between the library and distance learning instructors; percentage of libraries with equivalent of library orientation program for distance learners; the role that libraries play in distance learning orientation; percentage of libraries that maintain agreements with other colleges to offer library services to their students; percentage of libraries with an official liason to the distance learning program; percentage of libraries with a full time position devoted to distance learning; staff size for library distance learning staffs; policies on line item in the library budget for distance learning; evaluation of distance learners use of the library; evaluation of distance learners information literacy skills; distance learner attitudes towards the library; assessment of the reference needs of distance learners; electronic reserve policies for distance learners; spending on shipping costs to serve distance learners; library’s primary means of shipping books and other materials to distance learners; library staff responsible for serving distance learners; provision of remote assistance by the library in how to use the courseware management system; level of access to library databases provided to distance learners; copyright issues; annual salary of librarians devoted to distance learning. Libraries--Information Science

College Information Literacy Efforts Benchmarks: ISBN 1-57440-099-1 College Information Literacy Efforts Benchmarks presents the results of an information literacy higher education benchmarking study. More than 110 colleges from the United States and Canada participated in the study; data is broken out by size and type of college, for public and private colleges, for US and Canadian colleges, and even by number of in-class instructional sessions given. Uniquely, this report also breaks out data separately at institutions at which librarians have faculty status, an at which they do not. The 175 page study presents an enormous wealth of often completely unique statistics, including data on: use of library personnel for instruction, instructional work load, change in number of presentations or classes, Assessment of skill level of students in the following areas: Boolean searching, evaluation of website information credibility, recognition of plagiarism, use of the online library catalog, use of search engines, use of periodicals databases, and use of eBook collections; frequency of issuing tests to assess student skills in Access, Excel, Word, Windows and other common programs, frequency of use of information literacy tests of various kinds for incoming freshmen and transferees; percentage of colleges that require an information and/or computer literacy test for graduation, means of performance assessment for information literacy and other library science instructors, use of librarian and instructor assessment forms; length of time spent in information literacy sessions, role of information literacy in student orientations and introductions, percentage of colleges that offer information literacy services trough a distance learning student orientation; percentage of colleges with a 0,1,2 or 3 credit information literacy course, plans to develop such courses, the cross listing of such courses; rate of requiring information literacy training within the context of a basic introductory English composition of other type of basic course; overall likelihood of adaptation of a format information literacy graduation requirement; current offerings and plans to offer an online information literacy course; percentage of colleges with librarians that serve on the curriculum committee; use of blogs, listservs, course management systems and social networking sites for info literacy purposes; view of the English Department’s performance in carrying out information literacy responsibilities; availability of and use of interactive info literacy tutorials; software programs used in developing tutorials; use of video tutorials; assessment of the library’s role in student computer technology training; use of special “drop-in” sessions,; use of information literacy instructional labs, number of seats for such labs, capacity utilization for the labs, age of the lab; forecast level of investment in technology, space, software and equipment for information literacy purposes over the next three years. Libraries--Information Science

The International Survey of Institutional Digital Repositories : The study presents data from 56 institutional digital repositories from eleven countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, South Africa, India, Turkey and other countries. The 121-page study presents more than 300 tables of data and commentary and is based on data from higher education libraries and other institutions involved in institutional digital repository development. In more than 300 tables and associated commentary the report describes norms and benchmarks for budgets, software use, manpower needs and deployment, financing, usage, marketing and other facets of the management of international digital repositories. The report helps to answer questions such as: who contributes to the repositories and on what terms? Who uses the repositories? What do they contain and how fast are they growing, in terms of content and end use? What measures have repositories used to gain faculty and other researcher participation? How successful have these methods been? How has the repository been marketed and cataloged? What has been the financial impact? Data is broken out by size and type of institution for easier benchmarking. Libraries--Information Science

Emerging Issues in Academic Library Cataloging & Technical Services: This report presents nine highly detailed case studies of leading university cataloging and technical service departments. It provide insights into how they are handling ten major changes facing them, including: the encouragement of cataloging productivity; impact of new technologies and enhancement of online catalogs; transition to metadata standards; cataloging of websites and digital and other special collections; library catalog and metadata training; database maintenance, holdings, and physical processing; relationship with Acquisitions; staff education; and other important issues. Survey participants represent academic libraries of varying sizes and classifications, with many different viewpoints. Universities surveyed are: Brigham Young; Curry College; Haverford College; Illinois, Louisiana and Pennsylvania State Universities; University of North Dakota; University of Washington; and Yale. Libraries--Information Science

The Survey of Library Database Licensing Practices: ISBN#:1-57440-093-2 The study presents data from 90 libraries – corporate, legal, college, public, state, and non-profit libraries – about their database licensing practices. More than half of the participating libraries are from the USA, and the rest are from Canada, Australia, the UK, and other countries. Data is broken out by type and size of library, we well as for overall level of database expenditure. The 100+ page study, with more than 400 tables and charts, presents benchmarking data enabling librarians to compare their library’s practices to peers in many areas related to licensing. Metrics provided include: percentage of licenses from consortiums, spending on consortium dues, time spent seeking new consortium partners, number of consortium memberships maintained; growth rate in the percentage of licenses obtained through consortiums; expectation for consortium purchases in the future; number of licenses, growth rate in the number of licenses, spending on licenses for directories, electronic journals, e-books, and magazine/newspaper databases; future spending plans on all of the above; price inflation experienced for electronic resources in business, medical, humanities, financial, market research, social sciences and many other information categories; price inflation for e-books, electronic directories, journals, and newspaper/magazine databases; percentage of licenses that require passwords; percentage of licenses that have simultaneous access restrictions; spending on legal services related to licenses, and much more. Libraries--Information Science

Library Use of E-books, 2008-09 Edition: Library Use of E-books, 2008-09 Edition ISBN: 1-57440-101-7 Data in the report is based on a survey of 75 academic, public and special libraries. Data is broken out by library budget size, for US and non-US libraries and for academic and non-academic libraries. The report presents more than 300 tables of data on e-book use by libraries, as well as analysis and commentary. Librarians detail their plans on how they plan to develop their e-book collections, what they think of e-book readers and software, and which e-book aggregators and publishers appeal to them most and why. Other issues covered include: library production of e-books and collection digitization, e- book collection information literacy efforts, use of e-books in course reserves and inter- library loan, e-book pricing and inflation issues, acquisition sources and strategies for e- books and other issues of concern to libraries and book publishers. Libraries--Information Science

Academic Library Website Benchmarks: Academic Library Website Benchmarks (ISBN 1-57440-094-0) is based on data from more than 80 academic libraries in the USA and Canada. The 125+ page study presents detailed data on the composition of the academic library web staff, relations with the college and library information technology departments, use of consultants and freelancers, budgets, future plans, website marketing methods, website revision plans, usage statistics, use of software, development of federated search and online forms and much more. Data is broken out by enrollment size, public and private status, Carnegie Class, as well as for libraries with or without their own web staff. Libraries--Information Science

Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites: ISBN 1-57440-096-7 Publication Date: 2/2008 This report presents data from more than 120 academic, special and public libraries about how they use and relate to the mega-internet sites such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, eBay, Amazon, and others. In many ways the mega-sites have transformed library management, fostering change in information literacy education, library marketing and public relations, cataloging, digitization, collection management and other aspects of librarianship. Library patrons often learn their initial information searching skills from the internet sites, as well as their formative information gathering experiences, creating a set of experiences and expectations that they bring to the library. This report provides hard data on exactly how libraries are dealing with the emerging internet giants, how they are adopting, negotiating, repelling, embracing and in every way developing strategies to provide the best possible information services to their clientele. Libraries--Information Science

The Survey of Distance Learning Programs in Higher Education, 2007-08 Edition: ISBN #: 1-57440-087-8 The study is based on data from 45 higher education distance learning programs, with mean revenues of approximately $2.35 million. Data is broken out by size and type of college, for public and private colleges and for high, medium and low growth enrollment distance learning programs. The 200-page report presents more than 750 tables of data exploring many facets of distance learning programs, including revenues, cost structure, rates of pay, student demographics, program growth rates, current and planned use of new technologies, catering to special populations, and many other financial and business aspects of managing distance learning programs. Higher Education Reports