Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
What is Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey?
The Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey is a web-based survey. The survey allows faculty at Illinois to express their attitudes and practices related to: Research Processes, Teaching Processes, Scholarly Communications, The Library and Scholarly Societies. Additional information about the survey instrument can be found on the Ithaka S+R website.
What can the University Library learn from the survey results?
A preliminary overview of findings from our local implementation of the Faculty Survey has been released. The national US Faculty Survey 2012 results can be accessed at the Ithaka S+R website.
Unlike other faculty survey instruments (e.g. Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education/COACHE), the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey focuses on discovering how faculty conduct research and teaching activities, and the types of support and information resources they desire. The questions include:
- For research purposes, how do faculty value data, e-books or pre-print?
- During the publication process, what type of support do faculty need from the library?
- How do faculty view undergraduate students’ research skills?
- What type of assignments do faculty assign to lower division undergraduate courses vs. upper division undergraduate courses?
Who are invited to participate?
All full-time instructional faculty (Division of Management Information definition) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are invited to participate. Participation is voluntary and anonymous.
How long does it take to complete the survey?
15-20 minutes. If you leave the survey (such as closing your web browser) before completing it, you might be able to return to the survey at the point where you left off if you use the same computer. However this function will not work at public work stations and web browsers that do not cache web browsing history and cookies.
How is the privacy of participants protected?
First, the survey is anonymous. Second, the Division of Management Information is responsible of producing email addresses for potential participants and the Library has no access to the participants’ email addresses or any information that might be used to link to individuals. Last, only very little demographic information such as title and academic field is captured through the survey. It would be very difficult to identify an individual based on responses.
Survey Dates
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013 – Saturday, February 23rd, 2013.
Dissemination of Results
Ithaka S+R will deliver raw data survey findings and a report of results from the survey within three weeks of the close of the survey. In addition to the raw data, the report will provide visual and tabular reports on each question on the survey in a standardized format. A post-survey working group will be charged with the tasks of reviewing and communicating the survey results to the library community.
Questions & Comments
If you have additional questions or comments, please contact us via assessment@library.illinois.edu.
Note: The IRB has granted the exemption status to this study (IRB Protocol Number: 13469)