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Objective: This study sought to better understand the research expectations of first-year students upon beginning university study, and how these expectations differed from those of their professors. Most academic librarians observe that the research expectations of these two groups differ considerably and being able to articulate where these differences are greatest may help us provided more focused instruction, and allow us to work more effectively with professors and student support services. Methods: 317 first-year undergraduate students and 75 professors at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, NS were surveyed to determine what they each expected of first-year student research. Students were surveyed on the first day of term so as to best understand their research expectations as they transitioned from high school to university. Results: The gulf between student and professor research expectations was found to be considerable, especially in areas such as time required for reading and research, and the resources necessary to do research. While students rated their preparedness for university as high, they also had high expectations related to their ability to use non-academic sources. Not unexpectedly, the majority of professors believed that students are not prepared to do university-level research, they do not take enough responsibility for their own learning, they should use more academic research sources, and read twice as much as students believe they should. Conclusions: By better understanding differing research expectations, students can be guided very early in their studies about appropriate academic research practices, and librarians and professors can provide students with improved research instruction. Strategies for working with students, professors and the university community are discussed.

Deb, I think this would be right up your alley. He's asking a lot of the same questions you ask, with some interesting links on the last page to other resources. Sections: 1. Is higher ed too big to fail? 2. Innovators wanted 3. Think like a startup 4. Lean startups 5. Build, Measure, Learn 6. Three Essential Qualities 7. Too much assessment, not enough innovation 8. A strategic culture (not plan) 9. Microscopes and telescopes 10. Real artists ship

In March, Inside Higher Ed released an "inaugural" Survey of College & University Chief Academic Officers.  This report was the fourth in a series of surveys of senior academic leaders with the three other reports conducted in 2011 focusing on admissions officers, chief business officers, and presidents.

There is so much potential for museums, galleries and libraries to think more broadly about how their collections can help and inspire anyone who needs them - whether it's artists, designers, business people or academics.

If we ever get into the archive and/or Institutional repository business, this would be a killer app. Yup, it would all live in the cloud.

Yep, some of the examples from other ProfHacker posts about class assignments where students curate their own courses = way cool.

Researchers at the Information School at the University of Washington released an important and thought-provoking report in late 2009: "Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age."1 The study confirms and expands on the results of other reports. Its particular value is the size of the population studied, the diversity of institutions represented, and the use of both a survey and follow-up interviews for data collection.

Libraries are changing, despite their facades. And they're changing to high-tech service companies with embedded librarians, according to some library professionals. Of course, that assumes they aren't defunded out of existence. For ladies and gentlemen of a certain age, the library is changing too fast. For kids, it's changing too slow.

"The NCSU Libraries Mobile Scavenger Hunt is an interactive, technology-rich way to introduce students to the library. Developed in response to student and instructor feedback collected in 2010-2011, it leverages the motivating power of situated learning and the fun of team game dynamics to orient students to the Libraries' spaces, promote the use of emerging technologies, and foster confidence in using the Libraries' collections. The activity is run using iPod Touches and several free apps and online tools. Students answer Scavenger Hunt questions using Evernote, a free app for multimedia note-taking, which is installed on the iPod Touches distributed to the Scavenger Hunt teams. Librarians are able to monitor students' answers in real time as they are entered into Evernote, keeping score on a Google Docs spreadsheet."

The main difference between great librarians and Helicopter Librarians is that the former are focused on providing excellent service whereas the Helicopter Librarians are committed to building radically great relationships that students are comfortable with, similar to their relationships with their Helicopter Parents.

"The messages or lack of messages from educational institutions on these practices is generating a learning black market which masks the sheer scale of these new modes of engagement."

What does your community want and need from a library? If you're a librarian, chances are you've made efforts to find out, to strategically plan, to adjust services to local interests and changing needs. Rarely, though, do any of us get to see a broad view of our library community through the filter of independent data.

Today we are launching the OCLC WorldShare Platform, a shared technical infrastructure that will support a growing number of OCLC services and applications. This platform will enable library developers, partners and other organizations to create, configure and share a wide range of applications that deliver new functionality and value for libraries and their users.

"another open source ILS called Kuali OLE. Kuali is a open source extensible service driven library management system geared towards academic and research libraries."

A bookmarklet to add to any browser to run a search on a specific item from Amazon, WorldCat, etc. in our OPAC.  Search for "Briar Cliff" and we're the first result. Drag the bookmarklet link to the browser's bookmark bar. 

Presentations on LibGuides, library applications, web analytics

First open-access e-version issue