This study gives extensive data on how US higher education faculty use course reserves, particularly through their academic libraries. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: which faculty use course reserves? How much? How satisfied are they with the services academic libraries provide for course reserves? Do they put print materials on course reserve? Digital materials? How easy is it to use course reserves? How easy is it to integrate course reserves with course management systems? What can be done to improve course reserve systems?
This 70-page study is based on data from a survey of 806 higher education faculty randomly chosen from nearly 500 colleges and universities in the USA. Data is broken out by personal variables such as work title, gender, personal income level, academic discipline, age and other variables, as well as institutional indicators such as college or university type or Carnegie class, enrollment size, public or private status and others.
Just a few of this report’s many findings are that:
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34.43% of adjunct faculty in the sample put materials on course reserve in the academic library.
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37.22% of faculty felt it was very easy to put materials on course reserve.
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Faculty of Asian origin were much more likely than others to worry that they were abrogating copyright or licensing strictures when they put materials on course reserve.
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Faculty at the smallest colleges were particularly dissatisfied with the ease of integrating content on course reserve into course management systems.