Faculty/Librarians Collaboration in Higher Education Institutions: …events.iitgn.ac.in/2017/CLSTL/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/... · 2017-06-13 · Faculty/Librarians Collaboration

Faculty/Librarians Collaboration in Higher Education Institutions:

Modelling Variables

Maria João Amante

CLSTL 2017

International Conference on Changing Landscape of Science & Technology Libraries

IIT Gandhinagar, 2-4 March

Summary

Introduction

Examples of action

Faculty-librarians relations

Methodology

The librarian-library/faculty relationship model

Conclusions

2 CLSTL 2017, 2-4 March, IIT Gandhinagar, India

Introduction

• ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) is a public university established in 1972.

• Strategic objectives of ISCTE-IUL: innovation, quality, internationalization and development of an entrepreneurial culture.

• Approximately 10 000 students enrolled in undergraduate (46%) and postgraduate (54%) programs.

• 17% of foreign students (67 nationalities).

• 370 teachers, 350 researchers and 270 non-academic staff.

• Areas of management, information technology and architecture, social sciences and public policy.


Introduction

• New teaching and learning paradigm presents universities and their libraries with various challenges.

• We must draw on various fields of expertise and develop new strategic alliances between different members of academic communities.

• To maintain their relevance in a changing environment, libraries and librarians need to develop a set of activities considering the heterogeneity of their users: faculty/researchers, students (undergraduate and graduate) and society.

• Work done must have a positive impact on teaching, learning and research activities.


Introduction

• Library’s mission and objectives must be aligned with the institutions mission and strategic objectives.

• Some activities are planned and developed in order to facilitate and promote the work of both students and faculty.

• Nevertheless, not always librarians are successful in their mission.

• Essential to understand how faculty view the competences of librarians and the role that they (and libraries) can play in support of teaching, learning and research.


Introduction

Libraries are central to Research and Innovation

• Libraries spend billions to let students and researchers use books and journals

• They hold and preserve unique collections and work together to provide access

• Libraries support text and data mining and want to make it simpler for everyone

• They work across borders to support international research collaboration

• Libraries provide a safe environment that protects researchers’ privacy

• They respect copyright but need it to work for them

(http://www.ifla.org/copyright-innovation)


http://www.ifla.org/copyright-innovation




Introduction

• Literature, our own study and experience suggest that librarians working in HEI should act as:


o collection managers o service providers o information consultants o metadata producers o providers of virtual reference services o information mediators and valuators o symbolic analysts o research data managers

o knowledge managers o content editors o learning facilitators o instructors in information

literacy o digital rights managers o relationship managers o promoters of cultural activities o ??????

Introduction

• Portugal:

• Working Group of Higher Education Libraries (Section of the Portuguese Association of Librarians, Documentalists and Archivists) published a set of recommendations based on four working areas (2016):

• Support for teaching and learning, specifically in promoting information literacy skills.

• Support for research activities and scientific publications.

• Organizational management partnerships and cooperation projects between libraries.

• Design and provision of services, systems and spaces that facilitate and potentiate

learning and discovery and information management.


Introduction

• To reaffirm the importance of information literacy skills in the academic community

• To develop skills of library professionals to support teaching and learning activities

• To support editorial projects and academic scientific publications

• To ensure institutional repositories aligned with interoperability standards and preservation

• To create support services for scientific data management

• To enhance the library’s role in supporting research

• To promote partnerships with academic community support structures

• To promote and facilitate access to information sources

• To reinvent and enhance the spaces of libraries

• To deepen cooperation networks between professionals and institutions


Examples of action

• Examples of successful activities: faculty and/or researchers

• Book of the month (2007): the main objective is to promote and disseminate faculty and researchers’ scientific output (brochure: book + author’s biography and bibliography; 1 minute vídeo (internal TV channel, Youtube, Facebook).

(http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/servicos/actividades_dinamizacao_cultural/livro_mes.aspx)

• Scholarly communication: ISCTE-IUL Repository (RepositórioISCTE-IUL) (2006). Total of documents: 11323.

(https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/?locale=pt)

• CRIS (Current Research Information System): validation and completion of all the information before being exported to RepositórioISCTE-IUL (since 2013)

• Positive impacts in terms of visibility, dissemination, citation.


http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/servicos/actividades_dinamizacao_cultural/livro_mes.aspx



https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/?locale=pt




Examples of action


Examples of action


48

246

480 398

536

878

1112

1538

2117 2204

1766

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Evolution in the number of documents (2006 – 2016)

Examples of action

• Examples of successful activities: faculty and/or researchers

• Rankings (2012): monitoring the positioning of ISCTE-IUL in HEI rankings. Producing reports with recommendations that should be implemented by top management in order to improve that positioning (ex. affiliation)

• Research and bibliometrics (2010):

• bibliometric indicators for scientific journals

• Impact Factor (IF), SCImago Journal & Country Rank, Cited reference search (Web of Science, SCOPUS, Researcher ID), h-índex, etc.

(http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/recursos/investigacao_bibliometria.aspx)


http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/recursos/investigacao_bibliometria.aspx



Examples of action

• Examples of successful activities: students

• Information Literacy to bridge the gap between libraries and users (2005)

• Bibligraphic references (APA, ISO 690, Harvard, IEEE, NP 405, ACM)(http://www.iscte-

iul.pt/biblioteca/guias_referencias_bibliograficas.aspx)

• Citation

• Plagiarism (http://iscte-iul.pt/Libraries/PDFs_SID2/literacia_2.sflb.ashx)

• Brochures (Concept of IL, Plagiarism, How to communicate: oral presentations, Criteria to evaluate information available on the Web, Information resources available at or througout ISCTE-IUL) (http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/recursos/literacia.aspx)

• User Support Guides (databases, interlibrary loan, bibliographic catalogue, etc.) (http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/guias_tutoriais.aspx)


http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/guias_referencias_bibliograficas.aspx




http://iscte-iul.pt/Libraries/PDFs_SID2/literacia_2.sflb.ashx




http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/recursos/literacia.aspx




http://www.iscte-iul.pt/biblioteca/guias_tutoriais.aspx




Examples of action


Examples of action


• Information Literacy:

• User Training (2005): Library calendar, on demand (faculty) and e-learning (using

Blackboard: ABI/Inform Complete; B-on; Retrievo).

• PhD Seminars

• Inclusion in Higher Education (Special Needs Students)


Examples of action


• Information Literacy: 79 courses (12 on demand, 67 library calendar); 719 participants; 521

questionnaires (2016)


26.9%

44.5%

28.6%

Library services andresources

Information retrieval indatabases

Scientific publication andreferences management

• Participants by sessions category

20.9%

1.7%

54.7%

15.9%

6.7%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

Bachelor degree Specialization Master degree Doctoral degree not reply

• Participants by academic degree

Examples of action


• Information Literacy: 79 courses (12 on demand, 67 Library calendar); 719 participants; 521



• Match with participants expectations

3.67

3.56

3.48

3.46

3.33

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7

Lecturer

Space

Training programme

Supporting documents

Duration of training sessions

• Global evaluation (average): 3,56

97.3%

2.7%

Yes

No

Examples of action


• Information Literacy: 79 courses (12 on demand, 67 library calendar); 719 participants; 521



0.2% 2.5%

15.7%

56.8%

24.8%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

Very low Reduced Reasonable Good Very high

• Impact on participants knowledge

Examples of action


• Information Literacy:

• PhD Students Seminars

• Effectiveness and Efficiency in the use of information (Contents: Research and evaluate sources of information, distinguish the various forms of citation and bibliographic styles, identify strategies and tools to prevent plagiarism, manage references automatically – Mendeley).

• Scientific Publishing (Contents: Publish in scientific journals (Scopus and Web of Science), identify the quartile of a journal, metrics impact and visibility of publications (ORCiD identifier), publishing in open access.

• Introduction to Mendeley (Contents: Create an account, Install Web importer, Citation and Word Plug-In, Add documents - files or folders, apply tags and notes to a document, create and edit a citation, create a bibliography.


Examples of action

• PhD Students Seminars: 10 courses; 119 participants; 107 questionnaires (2016)


• Global evaluation (average): 3,56 • Global impact on participants knowledge: 3,98

3.75

3.63

3.62

3.46

3.37

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8

Lecturer

Supporting documents

Training programme

Space

Duration of training sessions

98.1%

1.9%

Yes

No


Examples of action

• Inclusion in HE: 6 courses; 170 participants; 162 questionnaires


• Participants working with special needs educations students • Global evaluation (average): 3,44 • Global impact on participants knowledge: 3,96


55.0%

45.0%

Yes

No

93.8%

6.3%

Yes

No

Faculty-librarian relations

• Under-use of information resources and negative impact on teamwork of low

levels of interaction between faculty and librarians.

• Various empirical studies have observed how relations between faculty and librarians are often problematic and even tense (Marchant, 1969; Davis and Bentley, 1979; Budd and

Coutant, 1981; Cook, 1981; Divay et al., 1987; Oberg et al., 1989; Ivey, 1994; Dilmore, 1996; Byron, 1997; Feldmann and Sciammarella, 2000; Ducas and Michaud-Oystryk, 2003; Manuel et al., 2003; Christiansen et al., 2004;).

• Both librarians and faculty are committed to the academic success of students.

• Both share a desire to ensure that students acquire the competences required by knowledge-based societies.


Faculty-Librarian relations

• Study focuses on ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL).

• Uses the Librarian-Library/Faculty Relationship Model (LLFRM) to engage in a statistical exploration of the perceptions that faculty have of relations with librarians.

• Identifies the key variables affecting the willingness of faculty to collaborate with librarians.

• Analysis based on data gathered from a survey questionnaire and from a focus group.



• Factors causing tensions:

o Different views of the role that each group should play in decisions about library acquisitions, and the mission and goal of libraries (Marchant, 1969).

o A lack of awareness among faculty of the qualifications and professional training of librarians (Biggs, 1981).

o Differing views of the role that each group should play in library management (Biggs, 1981).

o The culture of faculty, which is characterized by professional autonomy and freedom (Hardesty, 1995).

o The fact that faculty is not aware that it can ask for the help of librarians, or is ashamed to do so (Kotter, 1999).

o The fact that faculty do not believe that librarians can contribute to resolving problems (Kotter, 1999).



• Factors causing tensions:

o The isolation of librarians, who sometimes forget to establish or avoid establishing channels of communication with faculty.

o The fact that librarians are often satisfied with small improvements, and fail to participate with more commitment in the life of the university.

o Lack of time, resources and support from university administrators.

o Difficulty that librarians have in understanding campus culture.

The relationship between academic librarians and teaching faculty has been variously described as appreciative, one of eternal enemies, one of harmony and good will, and one of disparate visions and inadequate communications. Faculty do not universally agree that academic librarians are their equals academically or that they should have faculty rank/status (Church, 2002: 21)


Methodology

• Different sectors of the teaching faculty have different informational behaviours.

• All faculty were asked to participate in the study.

• In order to better validate the results, two distinct methods of data collection were deployed:

o One qualitative (a focus group)

o Other quantitative (a survey)


Methodology

• Survey

• 33 multipart questions with a four-point response scale. • Most of the questions were designed specifically for the survey, although

some were taken from pre-existing questionnaires. • Questions covered:

o Personal background o Library use o The perceived roles of libraries and librarians o The views of teaching faculty of librarians in teaching activities,

research teams and teaching planning teams o Faculty perceptions of the role played by librarians in teaching, service

provision and collection management o Librarians’ information and documentation skills most valued by faculty

• Test survey (21 faculty).


Methodology

• A total of 175 faculty (46.3% of the total) responded to the survey questionnaire.

• Responses worked into a database and processed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel.

• Use of descriptive and inductive statistics to treat the data and univaried and mostly bivaried analyses.

• Hypotheses tested and validated using simple linear regression to establish whether the variables were pair-related and if the relationship was positive or negative.

• Relationship between subsets of variables established through multivariate analytical tools, namely Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).



• Librarian-Library/Faculty Relationship Model developed (LLFRM) based on:

o our professional experience o a review of the literature o on the data gathered from the focus group

• To determine the extent to which socio-cultural factors contribute to the

willingness of faculty to engage in team-work and to collaborate with librarians.



Figure 1. The Librarian-Library/Faculty Relationship Model



• Our working hypotheses are as follows: 1. Identifying and understanding the needs of faculty relates positively with the

favourable perception of faculty.

2. Satisfying the needs of faculty relates positively with the favourable perception of faculty.

3. Communication or interactive marketing relates positively with the favourable perception of faculty.

4. Favourable perception of faculty relates positively with trust in librarians and the services provided by libraries.

5. Favourable perception of faculty relates positively with the level of commitment of faculty to librarians and libraries.



6. Favourable perception of faculty relates positively with the willingness of the

faculty to collaborate with librarians and libraries.

7. Trust of faculty in librarians and libraries relates positively with the willingness of faculty to collaborate with librarians.

8. Commitment of faculty to librarians and libraries relates positively with the willingness of faculty to collaborate with librarians.



• Testing the hypotheses of the model

• Simple linear regression to test and validate our hypotheses and check whether variables were pair-related and whether the relationship between them was positive or not.

• We used new variables:

o some resulting from the PCA (Principal Components Analysis) of question 18 in the survey (how much teachers agree with a set of statements about satisfaction, communication, trust, commitment, collaboration and relations with librarians).

o another (on perception) based on the mean responses to question 13 of

the survey about perceptions of the importance of the roles played by librarians.



• Testing the hypotheses of the model


IV DV R2 Adjusted R2 F Test> Beta

Understanding

Satisfaction

Communication

Perception

Perception

Perception

Trust

Commitment

Perception

Perception

Perception

Trust

Commitment

Collaboration

Collaboration

Collaboration

0.134

0.046

0.133

0.108

0.096

0.157

0.364

0.304

0.129

0.040

0.128

0.103

0.091

0.152

0.360

0.230

25.818;p=0.000

8.147;p=0.005

25.904;p=0.000

20.638;p=0.000

17.621;p=0.000

31.572;p=0.000

96.727;p=0.000

43.423;p=0.000

0.366

0.214

0.365

0.329

0.310

0.396

0.603

0.455

Table 1. Testing the hypotheses


• The model of analysis o Path analysis: to test the model associated with SEM (Structural Equations

Modelling) with the support of AMOS 17.0 software.

o SEM is a good tool for examining behaviour and attitudes.

o Used to verify and validate initial hypotheses.

o Allows one to identify relationships that were not initially proposed.

A preliminary analysis of the results shows the model’s heuristical potential : 45 % of willingness of faculty to work with librarians.



Chi-Square (χ2) = 159,596 with df =10

CMIN/DF=15,960 Figure 2. The Initial Librarian-Library/Faculty Relationship Model



• To adjust the model we introduced changes to take into account possible new direct relationships between the independent (understanding, satisfaction and communication), the intervening (perception, trust and commitment) and dependent variable (collaboration).

• Some relationships, however, that destabilize the model. • Analysis of the results shows that there is a better fit between this

intermediate model and the data.



Chi-Square (χ2) = 18,421 with df =1

CMIN/DF=18,421 Figure 3. The Intermediate Librarian-Library/Faculty Relationship Model



• Elimination of one relationship (between satisfaction and perception) considered in the first version of the model because it was not significant.

• Elimination of other non-significant relationships (between understanding and trust; satisfaction and commitment; communication and commitment; and between communication and collaboration).

• Maintenance of all the other variables and relationships of the first model.

• Addition of some new relationships (not considered in the first version of the model) between understanding and commitment, understanding and collaboration, satisfaction and collaboration, and communication and trust.

• Our final model explains 58 % of faculty willingness to work (collaborate) with librarians.



Chi-Square(χ2) = 24,404 with df = 6

CMIN/DF=4,067 Figure 4. The final Librarian-Library/Faculty Relationship Model



• The final model confirms the correlations established by the initial model (except between satisfaction and perception).

• The identification and understanding of needs is a determining variable in the willingness of faculty to collaborate with librarians:

• has a direct impact on collaboration

• has an indirect impact mediated by perception and commitment.

• The identification and understanding of needs is also crucial to cultivate trust.

• Satisfaction has a direct impact on collaboration and also has the highest correlation with other variables, most notably trust.



• 48 percent of trust is determined by satisfaction, perception and communication.

• Communication does not have a direct impact on collaboration. It has the lowest value of the set of variables examined, and is the only one that does not correlate directly with the others. Its impact is indirect, mediated by perception and trust.

• The final version of our model allowed us to confirm the relationships established by the initial model as well as to identify a range of new relationships and allowed us to achieve a good fit between the LLFRM and the data (CMIN/DF=4.067) and 58 percent of explanation of the dependent variable (faculty willingness to collaborate with librarians).



• 48 percent of trust is determined by satisfaction, perception and communication.

• Communication does not have a direct impact on collaboration. It has the lowest value of the set of variables examined, and is the only one that does not correlate directly with the others. Its impact is indirect, mediated by perception and trust.

• The final version of our model allowed us to confirm the relationships established by the initial model as well as to identify a range of new relationships and allowed us to achieve a good fit between the LLFRM and the data (CMIN/DF=4.067) and 58 percent of explanation of the dependent variable (faculty willingness to collaborate with librarians).




Variables Direct Impact Indirect Impact Total Impact

Identification and understanding

0,23 0,15 0,38

Satisfaction 0,21 0,10 0,31

Communication --- 0,09 0,09

Perception 0,12 0,09 0,21

Trust 0,20 --- 0,20

Commitment 0,32 --- 0,32

Figure 1. Direct, indirect ant total impact on Collaboration

Conclusions

• Key faculty characteristics (gender, age, department, degree or academic qualification, professional category, and the length of time spent at the institution) explain 14 % of faculty willingness to collaborate with librarians.

• Identification and understanding of needs is the first most significant variable.

• Commitment is the second most significant variable.

• Needs satisfaction is the third most significant variable.


Amante, M. J., Extremeño, A. I., & da Costa, A. F. (2013). Modelling variables that contribute to faculty willingness to collaborate with librarians: The case of the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 45(2), 91-102.

Thank you!

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Faculty/Librarians Collaboration in Higher Education Institutions: …events.iitgn.ac.in/2017/CLSTL/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/... · 2017-06-13 · Faculty/Librarians Collaboration