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Copyright David Consiglio, Pattie Orr, and Andrew White, 2006.

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Measuring for Soup: The MISO Survey

David ConsiglioPattie Orr Andrew White

NERCOMP - March 22, 2006

What is MISO?

Merged Information Services Organizations Survey“The Bryn Mawr Survey”

A web-based quantitative survey designed to measure use and effectiveness for students, faculty, and staff of the services and resources of merged library and computing units

• Development of the Survey

• Pilot Implementation

• Benefits

Developing a Culture of Evidence

• Services

• Trends in skills

• Use of new technologies

• Future directions

• What services to stop

How Are We Doing?

Questions Asked by the MISO Survey

• What kinds of information technologies are faculty, staff, and

students using and with what levels of skill?

• How do faculty, staff, and students perceive the value of offeredservices, communication, and support?

• What is the preference of faculty, staff, and students forlearning about information technology?

• How do faculty, staff, and students prefer to solve problemsrelated to information technology?

• What obstacles do individuals face in their use of technology?

• What benchmarks for excellent information technology deliverycan be established for merged library and computing

organizations?

• First instrument developed at Bryn Mawr College 2004• MISO Developed in 2005 by 5 Pilot Schools

– Bryn Mawr College– Bates College– Middlebury College– University of Richmond– Wellesley College

• 15 Additional Schools in Spring 2006• Collaborative in nature• Project funded by pilot schools• Steering committee

– CIOs and survey team from the 5 original pilot schools– Encouraged and supported by CLIR

History of the Survey

University of Richmond– Patricia A. Schoknecht, PI* – Doug West, PI as of 12/05– Kathy Monday, VP for

Information Services

Bates College– Andrew W. White, PI – Gene Weimers, VP for Library

and Information Services

Bryn Mawr College– David M. Consiglio, PI– Elliott Shore, CIO &

Director of Libraries

Wellesley College– Pattie Orr, PI– Micheline Jedry, VP

Information Services and College Librarian

Middlebury College– Carol Peddie, PI – Barbara Doyle Wilch, Dean

of Library & Information Services

Fall 2005 Pilot 

*Pat Schoknecht is now the CIO at Wagner College and continues to work on the survey administration.

Survey Timeline

• First met January 28, 2005 to begin process

– Multiple iterations

– Feedback from institutional colleagues

• Feb 2005 - Completion of first draft

• March-April 2005 - Focus groups

• Summer 2005 - Develop optional questions

• Fall 2005 - Implementation at pilot team schools

• Spring 2006 - Implementation 15 participant schools

2006 Survey Participants 

Mills College

Mitchell College

Mt. Holyoke College

Rhodes College

Sewanee: the University of

the South

Wagner College

Wheaton College (MA)

Barnard College

Beloit College

Brandeis University

Bucknell College

Connecticut College

Dickinson College

Earlham College

Kenyon College

Survey Questions

• Three instruments developed

– Faculty

– Staff

– Students

• Three question categories

– Core

– Optional

– Local

• Six question types

• Eight service areas assessed

Sample Questions

• Core Question

– Over the course of a semester how often do you use the following services?• Course Management System (customized for each school)

– Responses: Never, Once or Twice a Semester, One to three times a month, One to three times a week, More than 3 times a week

• Optional Question– How strongly do you disagree or agree with the following statements with regards to

the ERP (customize for each school) support staff?• Friendly• Knowledgeable • Reliable• Responsive

– Responses: Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Somewhat Agree, Agree, Not applicable

• Custom Question

– Over the course of a semester, on average, how often do you use the following services?

• Speech telephone directory assistance line (x4000)

– Responses: Never, Once or Twice a Semester, One to three times a month, One to three times a week, More than 3 times a week

Survey Logistics

• Full population of faculty and staff

• Sample 700 students (based on similar size populations)

• Confidential but not anonymous

• IRB approval required

• Information Sharing Agreement required

• Data administered by Bryn Mawr

Data Handling

• Participating institutions need approval from the survey development team before sharing any results of other institutions/ISA

• Participating schools need an IRB approval or exemption

• Participating institutions receive their own data as well as summary data across all institutions

• Institutional level data – share it, see it

• Data collected and administered through BMC

Using the Data

• Ways to manage comments-either end of the bell curve.

• Sharing data with staff and sharing with the community.

• How we’re parsing data-know your community.

Tales from the Trenches

• What did we learn?

• What can we stop doing?

• What can we do better?

Summing It Up

• Positive feedback

• Value of participation

• Addresses known need

• Provides benchmarks

• Flexible for individual institutions

Want to Learn More?

• http://misosurvey.org• Send Inquiries to: surveyinfo@misosurvey.org