Assessing the assessment conference

We’re back from three days in Baltimore, participating in the Building Effective, Sustainable, Practical Assessment conference.  This is the third conference that ARL has sponsored, and this time around Duke staff made two contributions.  Yvonne presented a poster relating our assessment efforts to the new library strategic plan, and Linda, Emily, Yvonne and I gave a lightning-fast presentation about the User Studies Initiative.   The large room was full, and we got some good questions, so I consider our presentation a success.  Folks sought out Linda and Emily at other points in the conference to talk more about their user studies.  Linda worked with CIT’s Shawn Miller on a study of the Cultural Anthropology faculty; and Emily interviewed undergraduate students writing honors theses.  The take-away message from our presentation was:  you can build staff competence and confidence in doing user studies by creating an in-house staff development program. 

Other presentations that impressed me at the conference?  Cornell, which has one of the best library assessment shops in the country, rolled out a conceptually elegant, easy to use, web-based form to report reference transactions, research consultations, and instruction sessions.  I covet that form.  The University of Washington also has a great assessment operation, and they reported on an extensive evaluation and revamp of their LibGuides template, and guide to best practices. 

I know that Emily will have more to say about the presentations that she found useful.  Meanwhile, you can look at the conference program and poster abstracts.  Conference proceedings will be available, but I don’t know when.

It wouldn’t be a library conference without a cranky blog post.  Check out Steve Bell’s rant about seat-saving.

Online language learning tools: try them out!

As part of their efforts to provide resources to learners of foreign languages, the Duke Libraries are currently evaluating several online language learning software packages for potential purchase. Four tools are being considered: of those, Byki, Mango and TellMeMore are currently available on a trial basis to users with a Duke NetID, while the trial of the fourth (Rosetta Stone) will be available soon. The libraries are looking for feedback from the Duke community on these programs, so if you are interested in language learning, you may want to check them out.

So far I've had the chance to explore Byki and Mango, and these are some of my impressions:

Byki offers an impressive array of languages, including many less commonly taught languages (a few of which I had never heard of: Bashkir, Mirandese and Buriat). Although Byki provides grammatical information and a few exercises for some of the languages, its principal offering is an extensive set of audio flashcards for each language: students can use these to translate into or out of the foreign language, or to practice pronunciation and listening comprehension.

While Byki doesn't provide much in the way of grammatical instruction or cultural context, it could be a very helpful resource for pronunciation and vocabulary building, particularly in the case of languages for which instructional material is hard to come by. The trial of Byki runs only until October 31st, so if you're looking to acquire a bit of conversational Buriat, act quickly!

Mango also covers a large number of languages (though not quite as many as Byki). In comparison to Byki, it offers a much more structured and guided language learning experience, presenting and reviewing simple forms and phrases, and then asking the student to combine these to form more complex sentences. If you want an online version of the experience of an introductory language class, Mango might be worth a try.

Some may question Mango's frequent use of English (in instructions, translations, grammatical explanations, and cultural notes). But while full immersion has its merits, as a language teacher and student I've found that a few words of explanation can go a long way, especially when dealing with idiomatic language or grammatical features that diverge sharply from the student's native tongue. So I welcomed the information and clarification that Mango offered.

Mango's lessons don't get into particularly advanced grammar or vocabulary, so it may be more of a starting point than a complete course. But it's definitely worth a look for those who want a smooth and engaging introduction to a new language. It's available to try until November 5th.

Both of these tools, along with TellMeMore, can be found at the libraries' Database Trials page-- and Rosetta Stone will be there soon. Give them a look, and let us know what you think!

Lessons learned from honors researchers user study

As you may recall from previous blog posts, I led a user study of nine undergraduates who spent the 2009-2010 academic year researching and writing honors theses in order to graduate with distinction in May.  I am pleased to report that all nine students did indeed complete their theses and earn distinction and that these nine students helped Duke University meet its goal of doubling the number of students earning this honor (an impressive 25% of May 2010 graduates earned distinction, up from 12% in 2004).

I really enjoyed interviewing and getting to know the nine subjects of this study -- students in biology, history, public policy and program II -- and I spent the late summer analyzing my findings and producing some recommendations for serving honors researchers for the university and the library.  I've shared my detailed report to university administration, directors of undergraduate studies in the participating programs and the library community, but I wanted to share a few highlights here, as well: 

•  Nine of the 19 human and physical resources honors researchers deemed "critical" to the success of their research were related to the Libraries -- students mentioned subject librarians, data services staff, ILL, Search TRLN and the Ask a Librarian chat service, among others 
• Three students used citation management software to format their citations (two used EndNote, one began using RefWorks and then switched to Zotero) -- other students either started to use a tool and then abandoned it due to its complexity or decided from the start to format citations manually 
• Six students said that the library was most critical to their work as they located print and e-resources locally and through ILL
• Four students relied heavily on the libraries' physical spaces; others tended to work in their dorm rooms or apartments
• Four students explicitly stated that the Libraries could stand to do a better job of marketing their services and clarifying the role of the subject librarian in supporting honors researchers    

Bottom line:  Researchers' habits are as individualized and unique as the questions that drive their theses -- while we can draw some conclusions about best practices for supporting these undergraduates, we can't draw clear lines based only on their disciplines, genders or ages (i.e. "Science students don't go to the library to work -- they do all of their work in the lab" or "This generation of students doesn't use notecards or paper/pen for taking notes or drafting their papers -- they do everything online.").

And that's precisely what made this user study so interesting -- it also happens to make our jobs as librarians particularly challenging.  We offer a suite of services in hopes of reaching as many students -- and their particular learning styles and study habits -- as possible, but when it comes down to it, we must continue to get to know our users and their unique perspectives.

Want to know more about this study?  Feel free to get in touch.  Interested in meeting the students who intend to graduate with distinction in May 2011?  Attend a reception for honors researchers, librarians and faculty scheduled from 3:30-4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov 2 in the Rare Book Room.