Outstanding Achievement in Assessment Nominees -- Group Category
Awarded to a person for the promotion, development and application of assessment. UGA Libraries' employees are constantly evaluating services, collections, current logistics, etc. (e.g., surveys, usability studies, focus groups, etc.). Nominations should discuss and provide specific examples of how the nominee has contributed to assessment practices, as well as how his/her/their assessment has contributed to the continuous service quality improvement within the UGA Libraries.
<emma> Fan Club (Caroline Cason (SLC Reference) and Kristin Nielsen (Collection Development))
How has the nominee contributed to assessment practices (e.g., identifying outcomes, assessing results, and modifying procedures/services) in the UGA Libraries, as well as the nominee's department? Please provide specific examples.
Caroline Cason, Kristin Nielsen; As defined on the Electronic Markup and Management Application (<emma>) tutorial, <emma> is a "customized editing software provides for instructor-specified document type descriptions (DTDs) or "tag sets" to be used with particular assignments. It also provides a means of ensuring the correct identification and up-load of marked-up compositions back into the system archive that manages peer-review, instructor comments, portfolio creation, assessment, and access permissions." (Located at: http://lachesis.english.uga.edu/emma/help/fscommand/emmaV2/what.htm)
Caroline Cason and Kristin Nielsen have teamed up with Ron Bathazor (<emma>'s creator from the English Department) to analyze the sources cited in the student papers. From these analyses, not only do they gather data on students' use of library resources and Internet sources, they examine the correlation between pedagogy and research behavior and draw conclusions as to the Libraries' role in students' research process and academic output.
How has the nominee's assessment contributed to the continuous service quality improvement within the UGA Libraries?
Since the project includes determining whether the University of Georgia Library owns the resources used in the students' papers, its findings complements formal assessment taking place in Interlibrary Loan. Additionally, Caroline and Kristin determine what method of access (e.g., print or electronic) was used for cited sources (not including non-proprietary websites). These findings complement assessment techniques and decision making in Collection Development. Finally, the instruction librarian (and professor) can look at the sources used to determine whether specific learning outcomes (e.g., whether the students properly determined scholarly vs. popular in order to write a paper based on scholarly findings) were achieved from teaching strategies in the classroom.
What else do you think the ASSET Awards Committee should know about your nominee?
The true beauty of the <emma> project is that is a genuine collaboration not only between Collection Development and Reference; its collaboration bridges across the teaching faculty, students, and librarians. The information gathered from their findings will effect the collections, the teaching strategies used, as well as how students use libraries' resources in their projects and papers.
