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Category: Carleton

Selecting a Sample of Papers to Assess for Information Literacy

Published by Iris on Thursday, June 16th, 2016
Here at Carleton we’re getting ready to do our next ILSW reading. It’s my first time coordinating the project (the amazing Heather Tompkins who coordinated in the past has moved on to another institution), and I’m working with our fantastic Institutional Research folks to select a sample of papers, but I’m also curious to know any ideas or advice you, gentle reader, might have about the sample selection process.
We select our papers from the campus-wide Sophomore Writing Portfolio, where every sophomore has to submit 3-5 papers for rating by the Writing Program and faculty and staff volunteers (which is actually going on as I type). We typically select 100 portfolios (sometimes a little more), creating a representative stratified sample… and of course the first big question is “representative of what.” In the past we’ve used gender and portfolio reader score for this first selection, making sure that we read portfolios from about the same proportion of men and women as we have on our campus, and reading proportional numbers of portfolios that were given a Pass, Needs Work, and Exemplary score. This year we’re also balancing proportional U.S. White, U.S. Student of Color, and International Student portfolios.
Once the portfolios are gathered, we then run at least one more pass to select individual papers from those portfolios (we read one paper per student). We have the option of balancing out papers based on:
  • What the Writing Program calls “Gen Ed:” Science, Reasoning, Social Inquiry, Arts Practice, Humanistic Inquiry, Lit/Art Analysis
  • Characteristics the students identify about each their submitted papers, choosing from: reporting an observation, analyzing complex information, interpretation (of data, text, art, etc), documenting sources, articulating and supporting a thesis driven argument. (Papers can fall into more than one category but must fall into at least one category).
  • Department housing the course for which the paper was written (History, Biology, etc)
  • “Overlay” (A Carleton thing where faculty have the option of saying that their courses are Writing Rich, enhance Quantitative Reasoning, Intercultural Domestic Studies, and International Studies)
The big questions, of course, are how far we want to control the sample given our relatively modest sample size, and exactly what controls matter to how we’re thinking about our reading and our results. If you were faced with these choices, what might you use to select that single paper from the full portfolio? And are there other demographics that you would use to select the portfolios themselves?
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Get your applications in! The search is underway!

Published by Iris on Monday, October 12th, 2015

Come work with me! The search committee for our Reference & Instruction Liaison Librarian for Humanities and Digital Scholarship position is meeting soon to start reviewing applications, so get your application in soon. I’ve gotten a sneak peak at some of the job duties as I’ve been the interim digital scholarship person, and it’s really a neat area to be involved in on our campus. What started as an experiment is now growing wings, so it’s right at that interesting stage where there’s a lot going on and a great network of people to work with, but it isn’t a solidified program on campus so the new librarian will have plenty of room to move the program in interesting directions.

Also, you’d get to have a trading card made for you to match this year’s postcard theme.

Here’s the job ad:

Carleton College seeks a Reference and Instruction Librarian to join us in a lively, imaginative and team-based program of information resources and services. The library is committed to an intellectual partnership with the faculty in integrating information literacy into the curriculum of the college. Our information literacy program is linked to a college-wide initiative to address the basic literacies (information, quantitative, visual, writing, and speaking) that cut across the curriculum. Our digital scholarship work happens throughout the library and is done in close collaboration with colleagues on the faculty and in ITS.  We place a high value on a solid grounding in the world of scholarship, regardless of format.

This is an ideal position for an individual who is 1) looking for an opportunity to work in an institution focused on teaching, in collaboration with an unusually fine group of students, faculty and colleagues; 2) committed to excellence in teaching and to information literacy as a liberal art; 3) deeply rooted in and excited about humanities research; and 4) engaged in the methods of digital scholarship and its application to the liberal arts.

The full job description and application instructions can be found here: https://jobs.carleton.edu/postings/2456

Founded in 1866, Carleton is a private, highly selective liberal arts college with 1950 undergraduates located in Northfield, Minnesota, 45 miles south of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Best known for its academic excellence and warm, welcoming campus community, Carleton offers 37 majors and 15 concentrations in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. Carleton is committed to attracting and retaining a diverse group of faculty and staff and offers a comprehensive benefits package.

As they say in all the best commercials: Apply Today!

I’m happy to answer any questions you might have, or direct you to members of the search committee who can also answer questions. Or you can contact my department head (and search committee chair) Ann Zawistoski.

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Big fun with small data

Published by Iris on Sunday, October 11th, 2015

While I’m on shift this Sunday (during the most glorious fall day we’ve had, on a day that combines Family Weekend and Homecoming Weekend), I played around a bit with our chat reference statistics.

Our students have never really used chat reference much. In part this was our fault (we didn’t have a very friendly chat widget and we didn’t have the unlimited funds needed to have 24/7 reference service) and in part this was because on a small residential campus, the majority of the people who wanted help while we were on staff were already in the library. (That’s what students told us when we asked, and the data from this year bears it out by a slim margin.)  So last year we’d fielded three whole chat reference questions in the first four weeks of school.

This year we’ve switched to QuestionPoint, which means we have 24/7 reference and access to a chat widget that looks a lot more like chat widgets people are used to seeing. Now here’s where the big fun with small data comes in. Because last year’s n was so small, I can say that this year we’ve had a 800% increase in chat questions. Woo!

If we’d changed nothing but the interface, we would likely have answered just the 5 questions that we have answered while on shift this term (66% increase), but the change in librarian coverage has made a huge difference. 15 of this year’s 27 questions were answered while we weren’t on staff, and another 7 question were answered while we were on staff but otherwise occupied. So that’s pretty cool. Usability and coverage FTW!

Updated to add: I was curious to see how the service is working from a cost/benefit perspective. We donate a specific number of hours per week based on our FTE, and it looks like the formula is working ok. We have answered 29 questions for other institutions, and between the help the collective has given us us and our own efforts, our patrons have gotten 27 questions answered.

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Come work with me!

Published by Iris on Thursday, June 18th, 2015
Photo by Brenda Gottsabend
Photo by
Brenda Gottsabend

Have you been wanting to come work at Carleton? Here’s your opportunity!

The library at Carleton College seeks a Reference & Instruction librarian to join us in a lively, imaginative and team-based program of information resources and services. The library is committed to an intellectual partnership with the faculty in integrating information literacy into the curriculum of the college. Our information literacy program is linked to a college-wide initiative to address the basic literacies (information, quantitative, visual, writing, and speaking) that cut across the curriculum.

This is an ideal position for someone who is 1) looking for an opportunity to work in an institution focused on teaching, in collaboration with an unusually fine group of students, faculty and colleagues; 2) committed to excellence in teaching and to information literacy as a liberal art; and 3) deeply rooted in and excited about interdisciplinary or area studies. We place a high value on a solid grounding in the world of books and scholarly information.
The full job description and application instructions can be found here: https://jobs.carleton.edu/postings/2383
If you have any questions, feel free to contact either me or the Head of Reference and Instruction — we’re both on the search committee and happy to talk to you about the position. My contact information is here, and Ann’s is here.
Edited to add: Some people have asked if we are deliberately looking for entry-level librarians, and the answer is that we are deliberately NOT restricting our pool to only people who have a specific amount of experience. If you would like to come work with us, please apply!
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