Building Sustainable Services at the Small(er) Scale

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Hello!I am Ryan ClementCurrently Data Services Librarian at Middlebury College. Formerly at Reed College. You can find me at @rkclement

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

1.Small(er)?What we talk about when we talk about small liberal arts colleges

Characteristics of small LACs

● Primarily undergraduate● Primarily non-professional

degrees● Highly residential● Selective● Very low student-faculty

ratio (13:1)● Teacher-scholar model● High-touch expectations

Funding for Research

● Almost all from Federal funding (93%)

● As opposed to many similar institutions (around 30-50%)

● Biggest sources: NSF, H&HS, NASA

Source: http://colleges.startclass.com/

What we support@ Middlebury

Data Discovery Data Management & Curation

Software Support and Data Analysis Data Visualization Data Preservation

Data Services Librarian secondary

Science Data Librarian Soon

Digital Archives Librarian Soon

Student Tutor Program

Soonsecondary

2.Setting the foundationGetting data services up and running

Faculty behaviors and attitudes

Infrastructure

Middlebury● 8 systems within

○ Some home-grown

● 7 systems outside○ Some home-

grown● Unitask systems

Already too complex for a small(er) organization!

Flowchart: Patrick Wallace, Middlebury Library

We can’t handle another flowchart!

Flowchart: Patrick Wallace, Middlebury Library

“ At liberal arts colleges, the big opportunities around data services center on students.

- Mark Dahl, Lewis & Clark College

Middlebury▪ Thesis & other student work (varies)

▫ SCA collects some▸ ~5000 theses, about 10% digitized

▫ Electronic thesis archive▪ Student Symposium

▫ Posters, slides, etc.▪ Where is student data now?

▫ In departmental servers, file cabinets, student laptops...

Student Work

Our graduates come to your graduate and professional programs

3.Instructional AssessmentWhat can we see through a form?

Three Forms of Instruction

Individual Consultations▪ Science Data

Librarian, typically▫ DMP

assistance▪ Data Svcs Librarian:

social sciences & humanities

▪ Assessment: typical stats tracking

One-topic Workshops▪ Varies, mainly open

(not class-based)▪ Mainly aimed at

social science and humanities

▪ Students, faculty, staff

▪ Assessment: post-workshop feedback, reflection

Longer Workshops▪ NW5C Data Curation

Workshop (model)▪ Lab/team-based▪ Covering “data

management and curation basics”

▪ Students, faculty, librarians

▪ Assessment: pre- and post-workshop knowledge/behavior assessment, DCPs, reflection

4.Our WishlistWhere do we go from here?

Assessment Wishlist▪ Repository system - usage, staff time▪ Repository system - user experience testing▪ DMPs - who is doing what they said they would▪ Outreach - who on campus are we not reaching (social sciences,

humanities, Digital Liberal Arts…)▪ Add assessment and data literacy competencies to research

methods classes (Info Lit project)

And let’s try to avoid making another flowchart...

Measuring what YOU need

Image: Shutterstock via Lifehacker

So...how are we defining success?

EASE -> simplifying processes, eventually reducing staff timeUPTAKE -> making sure users are using what we buildOUTREACH -> increasing our reach in the social sciences and humanitiesEDUCATION -> reaching students more effectively through the curriculum

Thanks!!Ryan ClementData Services Librarians, Middlebury@rkclementrclement@middlebury.edu

Credits

Special thanks to all the people who made and provided these awesome resources for free:▪ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival▪ Photographs courtesy Reed College (slide 13) and

Middlebury College (slides 1,2,7, & 8), others as noted▪ Flowchart courtesy Patrick Wallace, Digital Archives

Librarian, Middlebury College