Report on Technology Projects FY 2013

Accomplishments: Library, Academic Support, Testing Center

I. Projects: a. Website redesign : The site was not done in the last college wide redesign waiting the hiring of new staff to take it on. Also, the redesign

will integrate services aligning it more with the physical changes taking place in the LRC. Major Project i. Current status: Redesign completed, new website is live. Keeping the website current & usable, however, will be a continuous

task. b. Embedded Librarians: Embedded librarians can reach a student population that has traditionally been underserved.

i. Current status: Ongoing -- Each of three librarians is embedded in at least two different distance learning courses. c. Inventory and data maintenance of the library catalog: An inventory is the only way to know what is really in the collection so that we can

begin a collection management process. Repairing the data will enable users to actually be able to locate what we do have and allow for the generation of statistical reports.

i. Current status: Ongoing – Use of student workers has helped move this project along but in doing the inventory other catalog related issues have come up.

d. WConline: Moving online will save paper, time, and human error in transferring records from paper to Excel and help us pull meaningful data from the records.

i. Current status: Completed e. Tutors’ blog and wiki: With a growing staff and deeper training, we need to make sure that tutors have every opportunity to communicate

about sessions, training, and problems. i. Current status: Completed – Fulltime and part-time tutors are very engaged with communication through the blog and wiki.

f. Online tutoring: Our online tutoring isn’t good right now – poorly organized and pedagogically iffy. Moreover, it’s available only for writing. We want to expand to other disciplines and try/explore synchronous possibilities.

i. Current status: Completed – We now offer online tutoring in a variety of disciplines. g. Text/Google Voice: With limited space for computer use and sometimes unexpected hours of high demand, we don’t always have room in

the ASC proper for students to work at computers or with a tutor. With text, these students can work mostly independently in the LRC or get on a waiting list for a tutor. The texts would let us know that the student needs help in the LRC, outside the ASC, or let us tell a student on the waiting list that a tutor is available. Project Mainstay is expanding ways for students to be in touch with tutors as well.

i. Current status: Completed h. MyLabs: Tutors will be embedded in and tutor students in developmental classes that use the MyLabs software. They need training in

troubleshooting and program basics. i. Current status: Completed

i. CLik: CLiK is a local non-profit that provides refurbished laptops to people on the Eastern Shore; Project Mainstay started to work with them in Spring 2012 and plans to continue.

i. Current status: Completed -- CLiK re-connected this spring with 2 laptops that we gave to very deserving students. They are hoping to get a few more, but had a limited number of laptops donated this year.

j. Online Project Mainstay application: The current paper application requires manual data entry; an online application would be more convenient for students and staff.

i. Current status: Completed -- This has been a very successful option for both new applicants and returning Project Mainstay students doing update forms.

k. Investigate becoming a Pearson online testing certified center: The paper and pencil test currently offered by CE will stop being used in 2014. If the testing center is to pick up the online testing, we need to begin now to meet the requirements from Pearson.

i. Current status – Ongoing – Renovation of the testing center is complete. We have become a Pearson testing site will soon be offering the GED.

l. Automate tester registration and data collection in Wye Mills and Cambridge: There are privacy concerns with the paper and pencil check-in system as well as the use of staff time after the fact to manually enter the data.

i. Current status: Ongoing – In setting up the database, we need to establish the criteria for data we want to collect for example, type of test, tester affiliation, or proctoring requestor. There has been flux in some of the criteria so deciding on some of these has made it challenging to move forward with the project.

II. Operational Issues:

a. Patrons generating excessive amounts of color and black/white printing. Resolved: Yes i. Issue: Inability to control printing.

ii. Resolution: WEPA print solution was installed in early spring. Printing reduced significantly. b. Increased need for student computer support. Resolved: Ongoing

i. Issue: Student requests for computer instruction continued to increase. Questions varied from password reset, software instruction, printing assistance, and general computer manipulation.

ii. Resolution: Creation of integrated Help Desk which combined the services of the Academic Computing desk, the Reference desk, and some elements from User Support and the Faculty Development Center. Completed.

c. Training needed for all staff covering the new Help Desk. Resolved: Ongoing i. Issue: There needs to be a consistent level of service offered by the new Help Desk.

ii. Resolution: A group was formed to organize and conduct ongoing training and develop support materials. iii. Issue: Need for Help Desk to be staffed whenever the LRC is open. iv. Resolution: Staff from the library, ASC, and Academic Computing adjusted their schedules to accomplish the coverage. Student

workers have also been hired to staff the desk. d. The loss of Angel necessitated the need for a solution to provide single sign and portal operations. Resolved: Completed

i. Issue: Lack of a portal when Angel contract expired. ii. Resolution: Contract made with CampusEAI to host portal solution.

iii. Issue: Single sign on to various campus systems. iv. Resolution: Contract made with CampusEAI to provide solution.

e. Need for GED computer testing. Resolved: Near completion i. Issue: GED testing mandated to go online January 2014. We need to provide access to the service. However, current testing

center is not compliant with Pearson testing center requirements. ii. Resolution: Renovate existing testing center and neighboring classroom into a testing center which is compliant.

f. Elimination of library classroom for testing center renovation. Resolved: Completed i. Issue: Library dedicated classroom to be eliminated due to testing center renovation.

ii. Resolution: Reclaim classroom in the LRC which was in use by regularly scheduled classes. Develop mobile solutions for information literacy classes and others who made use of eliminated classroom.

g. Revision of Developmental Program. Resolved: Ongoing i. Issue: Total revision of the Developmental program caused complete change in the role of the ASC.

ii. Resolution: New procedures put in place: 1. Hiring of additional part-time tutor staff to be embedded in all Developmental classes. 2. TIDE grant from MHEC to cover part-time tutor salaries. 3. Training program for tutors developed and implemented. Funded by MHEC TIDE grant funds. 4. New processes developed for paying part-time tutors from TIDE grant funds. 5. Training for faculty on working with embedded tutors.

III. User Services: a. Help Desk. Resolved: Yes

i. Issue: Need for additional technology/computer support for students. ii. Resolution: Yes

iii. Status: New Help Desk established. Training and staffing are ongoing. b. Embedded Developmental Tutors. Resolved: Yes

i. Issue: Providing tutors to all face-to-face developmental math and English courses. ii. Resolution: Ongoing

iii. Status: All Developmental courses have embedded tutors. c. Embedded Librarians. Resolved: Yes

i. Issue: Providing library service to students in online courses. ii. Resolution: Ongoing

iii. Status: Librarians are embedded in some of the online courses at the request of the faculty member. The Librarians provided direct assistance to the students in the course.

IV. Measures of Performance: a. See attached FY 13 statistical report.

FY 2013 LRC Annual Statistics

Below is an annual compilation of LRC statistics for the Library, Testing Center, Academic Support, and Project Mainstay. LRC Door Count

*Door counter was not functioning for much of May and June. Numbers are underrepresented.

Library Information Literacy Instruction Sessions

Four instructors taught 137 instruction sessions for a total of 135.5 hours of teaching which reached 2,248 unduplicated students.

July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. April May June

1133 5090 14875 15116 12522 5641 6811 7287 7307 11254 6226* 919*

Catalog and Circulation Circulation Totals by Day (July 1, 2012 - June 30, 2013):

Day Of Week Total

Monday 476

Tuesday 482

Wednesday 590

Thursday 526

Friday 230

Sunday 92

Circulation Totals by Day and Hour: Day Peak hour Monday 2 - 3 pm Tuesday 3 - 4 pm Wednesday 2 - 3 pm Thursday 2 - 3 pm Friday 11 am - 12 pm Sunday 2 -3 pm, 4 - 5 pm Overdue items: 150 Missing items: 69 Lost items: 300

Circulation by month: October and November were the heaviest months.

Year Month Total

2012 July 150

2012 August 191

2012 September 274

2012 October 299

2012 November 367

2012 December 80

2013 January 187

2013 February 233

2013 March 211

2013 April 232

2013 May 100

2013 June 75

Circulation by collection: Top 4

1. Circulation Collection (1219) 2. McNaughton (403) 3. DVD (276) 4. Academic Support (87)

Circulation Totals: 1438 Items 1994 Checkouts 405 Renewals 2399 Transactions

Circulation by Material Type: Top 3:

1. Book 2. DVD 3. Calculator

ABC-Clio Ebooks:

Jul ‘12

Aug ‘12

Sep ‘12

Oct ‘12

Nov ‘12

Dec ‘12

Jan ‘13

Feb ‘13

Mar ‘13

Apr ‘13

May ‘13

Jun ‘13

Total

Searches 7 0 6 18 22 5 17 10 36 8 3 2 134

Sessions 10 5 33 47 55 11 99 104 48 17 11 1 441

The most used ebooks:

Daily Life through History: 278 searches, 83 sessions. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Critical Companion - 12 searches, 4 sessions Issues: Controversy and Society (Academic) - 5 searches, 2 sessions World Geography: Understanding a Changing World (Academic) - 17 searches, 3 sessions

ACLS Humanities Ebooks: 243 total searches EBSCO Ebooks: eBook Academic Collection - 538 searches, 111 sessions eBook Academic Collection Trial - 467 searches, 136 sessions eBook Collection - 6664 searches, 2940 sessions Total: 7669 searches, 3187 sessions

Circulation by Day and Hour

Help Desk Questions (Stats on questions asked at Help Desk) 5,010 questions answered in total. This represents an approximate 17% year-over-year decrease from FY12 (6,052 questions). We only started recording questions earnestly in September of 2011, so the actual decrease is slightly greater.

49% were directional questions.

Database Usage Top Databases *

* Out of EBSCO, Films Media Group, Gale, and ProQuest databases, which form the vast majority of our use. The fact that all of the top 10 are EBSCO is almost certainly due to the fact that the “Articles” tab of the search box on the library home page searches all EBSCO databases at once. 406,481 searches were performed in the databases by the vendors listed above.

Full-Text Articles The library’s EBSCO, Gale, and ProQuest databases provided full-text access to articles 47,240 times during FY13. 723 film titles were streamed via Films on Demand.

Database Publisher FY13 Total Sessions

Research Starters - Sociology EBSCO 14199

Academic Search Premier EBSCO 9675

Image Collection EBSCO 9260

PsycARTICLES EBSCO 5488

Literary Reference Center EBSCO 4919

MEDLINE EBSCO 3935

Business Source Premier EBSCO 3863

MasterFILE Premier EBSCO 3820

Health Source - Consumer Edition

EBSCO 3772

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition

EBSCO 3760

Total for all databases EBSCO, FMG, Gale, & ProQuest

116925

Projects

Website Redesign Top 10 Pages

• 13,410 searches in the tabbed search box* • 9,100 clicks on library database links • 8,976 clicks on outbound links • 142 emails initiated • 90 downloads of LRC documents.

Other metrics indicate that the redesign improved the LRC site, including decreasing the bounce rate from 38.96% to a mere 26.26% and decreasing the exit rate from 35.25% to 32.94%. These figures indicate that visitors were more likely to find what they were looking for and stay on the new LRC site, rather than land on the site and immediately leave.

* denotes new feature or content of the redesigned LRC website.

Page Title Pageviews Avg. Time on Page (mm:ss)

Library 27,053 02:38

Academic Databases 10,891 04:59

Academic Support Center 5,854 00:35

Sample Questions 2,844 03:10

Search* 2,453 01:08

Testing Center 2,153 01:06

Staff Directory* 1,744 00:30

What Can You Do in the LRC?* 1,697 01:55

For Center Staff* 1,632 17:38

When is the LRC Open? 1,292 01:20

Total (all pages) 71,427 02:30

Social Media YouTube

AskLRC Blog 1,752 pageviews, 42 total posts, and 13 shares on social networking sites. Facebook 125 Likes as of June 30th. Most popular post: May 22nd at 8:48am, 49 people reached, 8 clicks on embedded link, 5 Likes.

Testing Center

VIDEO VIEWS ESTIMATED MINUTES WATCHED LIKES

Saving to a Flash Drive Tutorial 9,855 10,381 27

Using Google Drive to Create & Share Presentations 882 1,438 3

Research Skills | FSC 101 Online 274 1,214 1

What's New in NoodleBib 240 739 1

How To Eject A Flash Drive 231 258 0

Use an APA or MLA Template 172 239 0

Evaluating Sources | FSC 101 Online 163 715 0

Getting Results - ENG 101 Composition Research Paper 128 97 0

Where to Look - ENG 101 Composition Research 96 161 0

Where to Look - ENG 101 Composition Research Paper 80 93 0

Total (all videos) 12,572 15,944 34

Accuplacer: Credit Students 1527 WIB Students 423 CE Students 185 CLEP 48 Makeup 823 Proctor 89

Academic Support In total, the ASC recorded 9,478 sessions in the 2012-13 academic year. Over the course of the year, we implemented, evaluated, and updated data collection methods several times to help tutors enter records more efficiently and accurately and to help us interpret data more effectively. Because the Fall 2012 semester was a data-collection pilot, records are incomplete and leave us with gaps in the fall 2012 data. There is also some overlap in session information, with some technology/admin help happening during other recorded sessions. Moreover, we didn’t collect the focus of sessions for some time, only the course and tutor information; this means that we don’t have accurate information on which of the “other” sessions, science sessions, or technology sessions were for writing projects across the disciplines. All of these issues have been addressed for the 2013-14 academic year.

Center Usage

Science tutoring includes all BIO, CHM, GEO, NUR, PTA, SCI, and SGT classes, as well as PED 103.

The reports show that a significant number of the math tutoring sessions moved from the ASC and MSC into the classroom, as expected. Developmental writing tutoring is also moving to the classroom. The amount of science tutoring also expanded dramatically with the expansion of tutors for science classes we had not previously supported. We will be using these results to reinforce the need for accurate data collection with the part-time staff and to make the data report form as simple and accurate as possible. We will also use them to make decisions about where to focus our resources. For example, we will build on the success of embedded tutoring by bringing tutors to students directly in classes where this arrangement makes sense -- science labs, online courses -- and by working with other groups on campus to set up guided group study sessions where students will already be (e.g., working with SAIL/FOCUS to embed tutors in their study sessions).

Discipline Wye Mills Cambridge/Easton Online Embedded Total

Math 1406 118 1 4491 6016

Writing 704 36 24 483 1247

Science(s) 1374 295 7 5 1681

Technology/ Admin Help 214 79

587 880

Other 242 21 3 2 268

No Tutoring/Room 123

Projects Grants

Several grants helped the ASC staff tutors in the Center and embedded in classes in several disciplines. The OPT-INS grant supported tutoring this academic by funding writing tutoring and an embedded tutor in a section of FSC as well as training for writing tutors associated with embedded classes. The OPT-INS grant deferred $3,722.53 in the Fall 2012 semester. The Math 023 and 031 grants supported tutoring this academic year by funding embedded tutors in developmental math classes for $770. The TIDE Grant is in progress, with an end date of August 15, 2013. Final report is due on September 15, 2013. The TIDE grant paid $50,194.31 of the ASC’s tutoring expenses this year, including tutor pay and training to allow 26 tutors to meet CRLA Level 1 certification. Tutors also helped staff the testing room for developmental math using TIDE funds. In the 2013-14 academic year, the ASC will work with two grants that include support for tutoring: the DEBS grant for PASS courses and the Who Will Care? grant for nursing. The DEBS grant will support tutoring and training in the upcoming academic year, but the $50,000 budgeted to support tutoring will cover fewer hours, so ancillary support that can be covered elsewhere on campus, like testing, will not be covered by grant-funded tutors. Spending on the DEBS grant for tutoring will begin with the August 31 payroll. The WWC grant will provide embedded tutors in high-risk nursing classes. Heather Westerfield will act as liaison between the ASC and Nursing Department on issues of hiring, training, evaluating, and scheduling tutors.

Projects Tutor training

We spent most of the fall semester planning and implementing a comprehensive tutor training program that would allow us to meet CRLA Level 1 Certification requirements for staff. Through the spring semester, 26 tutors achieved Level 1 certification through structured monthly meetings, intensive pre-semester meetings, and ongoing meetings with their lead tutors. We also drafted a training program that allowed us to apply for CRLA Level 2 and Level 3 certification, which is pending review by CRLA. Also, Taten Sheridan developed a new-tutor course for new hires without significant tutoring experience that allows them to learn about not only their discipline but the discipline of tutoring before we throw them into working with students. The course includes readings and discussion and requires observations before the tutor is ready to be on the schedule independently. This has led to better, more consistent tutoring practice, especially as we try to hire more student and peer tutors for the opportunities tutoring work provides them and to make the budget. Lead tutors We developed a role for the senior, full-time tutoring staff to meet the new demands placed on the Center with a larger, wider part-time staff. Starting the fall semester, Marylu Towey took on the role of lead tutor for science; Taten Sheridan, lead tutor for writing; and Anne Miller, lead tutor for math. Over the course of the year, these roles have changed a bit, with Marylu and Anne working together, to lead the math tutors, and science tutors, depending on their home campus.

Data collection Data collection has been a priority for the ASC this year. We purchased and started using WC Online (WCO) last summer to address the manual database entry of tutoring records by an administrative assistant. The existing database was difficult to search and required too much manual manipulation of Datatel and student information. WCO generates student records that are searchable and reports that tell us about usage. In the fall semester, we started using WCO with the full staff, and we learned ugly lessons from the data we got out of it. Most importantly, we had not standardized the fields, so tutors and receptionists had to type course, instructor, and session focus information into text fields. This resulted in nigh-unusable data. To remedy this, Taten worked with WCO to customize the fields and created drop-down menus for all but the comments field for the spring semester. For the new semester, we will add a “session focus” field to identify not only the course but the tutoring focus -- math, writing, technology -- and, in writing, sub focus -- pre-writing, citation, editing, drafting, and so on. We are also working with IR to generate reports on the persistence, success, and completion rates of students using the ASC, as well as more information on the demographics of the ASC’s users. IR created a custom form that will generate a campus organizations entry on student records by the semester they used the ASC, including the course they visited us for and the number of minutes they spent being tutored by course. We are updating student records in WCO in order to ensure the upload to Datatel works properly.

Outreach We present on the ASC and Project Mainstay at each New Student Orientation session, including the “Welcome” spiel, the Q/A with parents, and a table at the tour. The ASC also does class visits to provide students information on our services and a chance to ask questions about what we can do for them. In the fall semester, we presented in 99 classes; in spring, 71. Over the course of the year, this broke down to 28 science classes, 46 English classes, 16 FSC classes, 72 math classes, and 1 business class. Project Mainstay We exceeded our target goal of 215 student participants this year with 217 enrolled. All grant points were awarded to us again this year which puts us in a very strong position for the next grant cycle in two years. Marion Herb the director retired and the search for an replacement is ongoing.