The application deadline for the ACRL program “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success” (AiA), has been extended to 5 p.m. Central, Wednesday, March 25, 2015.

Explore how your library contributes to student success during this 14-month program, made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and described on the ACRL website. Librarians from the successful applicants will each lead a campus team in developing and implementing an action learning project which examines the impact of the library on student success and contributes to assessment activities on campus. The librarian team leaders will be supported in this work by a professional development program with sequenced learning events and activities at key junctures. The AiA program, a cornerstone of ACRL’s Value of Academic Libraries initiative, employs a blended learning environment and a peer-to-peer network. It is undertaken by ACRL in partnership with the Association for Institutional Research and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

Institutions that participated previously in AiA may apply to participate a second time, or institutions applying for the first time may submit two applications for two teams and projects. In the first essay describing the proposed project, they should explain briefly why a second team/project would be helpful to their institution.

ACRL is now offering up to 20 scholarships that would underwrite half of the $1200 registration fee. Scholarships will be awarded to institutions that have demonstrated the strongest commitment to support the team’s project over the course of the AiA program and the clearest connection between the team’s project goals and institutional priorities. On the application form, each applicant will be asked to indicate whether their institution is seeking a scholarship.

ACRL will use this third year of the AiA grant to inform how it can best support the community in developing and carrying out assessment projects going forward. The IMLS grant covered the majority of the costs for developing the AiA program and for delivering it the first two years. The third year of the grant marks a transition year to determine if this program is sustainable or if other models better address the needs of the community.

Learn more about the program in from the recording / presentation slides of an online open forum held February 10 for prospective applicants. Strong results from AiA teams are already evident in the recently released report synthesizing more than 70 projects from the first year with an accompanying executive summary to share broadly with campus stakeholders and a searchable online collection of individual team project descriptions. A second year of AiA is well underway with an additional 70 institutional teams.

Read full details about participating in the third year and apply online by 5 p.m. Central, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. Applicants will be notified of their status by COB Friday, April 17. Contact ACRL Senior Strategist for Special Initiatives Kara Malenfant with questions.

ACRL is pleased to announce the selection of two new facilitators for the program “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success” (AiA), made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. They are:

• Eric Resnis, who serves in a dual appointment as Assessment Coordinator in the Center for Teaching, Learning, and University Assessment and as Organizational Effectiveness Specialist in the Libraries at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio
• John Watts, ‎Undergraduate Learning Librarian at University of Nevada Las Vegas

“We are so pleased to have Eric and John join the facilitation team. They each bring valuable skills and knowledge that will ensure that AiA continues to engage a robust learning community,” said Mary Ellen K. Davis, ACRL executive director. “As the higher education association for librarians, ACRL remains well poised to continue supporting academic libraries in demonstrating alignment with and impact on institutional outcomes.”

Strong results from AiA teams are already evident in the recently released report synthesizing more than 70 projects from the first year with an accompanying executive summary to share broadly with campus stakeholders and a searchable online collection of individual team project descriptions. A second year of AiA is well underway with an additional 70 institutional teams and a third year of AiA will start this spring, creating a significant impact on the profession’s capacity to demonstrate, articulate, and promote the value of academic and research libraries.

“As AiA team leaders themselves during the first year of the program, John and Eric bring valuable firsthand experience with what it takes for librarians to lead campus teams in assessing library impact on student learning and success,” said AiA co-lead facilitator Debra Gilchrist, vice president for learning and student success, Pierce College, WA. “We were fortunate to have had a strong pool of applicants to serve as facilitators and saw this as evidence that a healthy community of practice is developing with a deep commitment to collegial, peer support,” added AiA co-lead facilitator Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, coordinator for information literacy and professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Resnis and Watts join Gilchrist, Hinchliffe and other AiA facilitators April Cunningham, library instruction coordinator at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, CA; and Carrie Donovan, head of teaching & learning for the Indiana University Libraries in Bloomington, IN. They collaborate closely with ACRL staff member Kara Malenfant and Karen Brown, professor at Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science who serves as project analyst and grant evaluator.

Applications to participate in the third year of the program are still being accepted. Find out more about AiA on the program homepage. The AiA program, undertaken by ACRL in partnership with the Association for Institutional Research and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, is a cornerstone of ACRL’s Value of Academic Libraries initiative.

ACRL is seeking applications from all types of higher education institutions for 125 teams to participate in the third year of “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success (AiA),” made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and described on the ACRL website. Librarians will each lead a campus team in developing and implementing an action learning project which examines the impact of the library on student success and contributes to assessment activities on campus. They will be supported in this work by a professional development program with sequenced learning events and activities at key junctures. The AiA program, part of ACRL’s Value of Academic Libraries initiative, employs a blended learning environment and a peer-to-peer network over the course of the 14-month long program, which runs from April 2015-June 2016.

Learn more about the AiA program from the recording / presentation slides of an online open forum held February 10 for prospective applicants. It provided background on AiA and details on how to apply for the third year plus featured two AiA librarian team leaders who talked about their experiences participating in the first year.

Read more about how to apply for AiA, and apply online by 5 p.m. Central, Wednesday, March 4, 2015.

Is your institution thinking of applying for the third year of “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success” (AiA)? Gather your potential team members to learn more about the program and how to apply in an online open forum to be held Tuesday, February 10, 2015, 1:00pm-2:00pm Central. As part of the forum, hear briefly from two AiA librarian team leaders about their experiences participating in the first year.

Sign up to attend by COB Monday, February 9, and full instructions about accessing the online meeting room will be emailed directly to you the morning of February 10. There is no fee to attend, but advance registration is required. Unable to attend? The forum will be recorded and a link posted afterwards on the AiA program webpage.

Read more about how to apply for AiA, and apply online by 5 p.m. Central, Wednesday, March 4, 2015. Curious to know how the first year’s AiA assessment projects turned out? Read the new report “Academic Library Contributions to Student Success: Documented Practices from the Field” which synthesizes results from over 70 higher education institutions from across North America which recently completed team-based assessment projects. You can also search our online collection to read a detailed description about each individual project.

ACRL has released a new report “Academic Library Contributions to Student Success: Documented Practices from the Field” which synthesizes results from over 70 higher education institutions from across North America which recently completed team-based assessment projects. These projects, from the first year of Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success (AiA), resulted in promising and effective approaches to demonstrating the library’s value to students’ academic success.

The findings from the assessment work of the first cohort of campus teams are impressive. By demonstrating the variety of ways that libraries contribute to student learning and success, academic librarians are establishing connections between such academic success outcomes as student retention, persistence, GPA, engagement, graduation, career preparedness, and different aspects of the library (e.g., instruction, reference, space and facilities, and collections).

Many of the projects are replicable at other academic libraries or contain elements that can be adapted to a college or university’s unique institutional context. Libraries can learn about ideas and strategies that promote evidence-based demonstrations of an academic library’s contributions to student learning and success through the wide variety of projects. Find out more:

• Academic Library Contributions to Student Success: Documented Practices from the Field (PDF) full report synthesizing findings.
• Executive Summary (PDF) to share broadly with campus stakeholders.
• Search individual team project descriptions.

AiA is a three-year project sponsored by the ACRL in partnership with the Association of Institutional Research and the Association of Public Land-grant Universities, and with funding from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. When the project concludes in 2016, over 200 higher education institutions will have participated in developing assessment methods and tools.

Interested in participating in the next round of Assessment in Action? ACRL is seeking applications from all types of higher education institutions for 125 additional teams. Apply by March 4, 2015, to participate in the third year of the program, April 2015-June 2016.