(via Gwen Gregory, IACRL President)
As the higher education association for librarians, ACRL supports academic and research librarians as change leaders in their campus communities through programs like Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success (AiA). The more than 200 participating AiA teams are contributing to innovation in higher education assessment by creating approaches, strategies, and practices that document the contribution of academic libraries to the overall goals and missions of their institutions.
Through AiA, librarian-led teams carried out assessment projects over 14 months at their community colleges, colleges and universities. The projects examined the impact of the library (instruction, reference, collections, space, and more) on student learning/success. Learn more in the new Assessment in Action Bibliography, listing dozens of journal articles, conference presentations and other public reports. This bibliography aims to be comprehensive, capturing all scholarly and practice-based literature and presentations about AiA and campus projects conducted as part of the AiA program by campus team members, facilitators, and ACRL staff.
Stay tuned for more on AiA results in the weeks ahead through:
AiA Project Synthesis: A report synthesizing the second year AiA projects and leadership of campus assessment teams will be coming out in early 2016. For the first year synthesis, see the full report and executive summary to share broadly with campus stakeholders. Find first and second year poster abstracts, images and full project descriptions in a searchable online collection.
Putting Assessment into Action: Selected Projects from the First Cohort of the Assessment in Action Grant. This forthcoming ACRL case book, edited by Eric Ackerman, will showcase 27 short reflections by first year AiA team leaders on the inquiry methods they used in their assessment projects. Assembled into three groupings — Assessing Information Literacy and Library Instruction; Assessing Outreach, Services, and Spaces; and Longitudinal Assessment — the cases describe assessment methods used and the successes and/or failures of these methods along with lessons learned.
College and Research Libraries: The March 2016 special issue of ACRL’s scholarly journal will proudly features a selection of 7 action research studies by AiA teams, along with an introductory essay. The aim of the special issue is to help C&RL readers learn more about action research as an approach to scholarship and showcase examples of fruitful action research studies undertaken by AiA teams.
For additional background on the Assessment in Action Bibliography, go here.