1 / 14

Evaluation in French Academic Libraries Library evaluation and University evaluation

Evaluation in French Academic Libraries Library evaluation and University evaluation. Pierre CARBONE. Governance : from centralization to autonomy. University libraries (UL) centralized & department libraries autonomous Means allocated to the UL by the French Education Ministry

svein
Download Presentation

Evaluation in French Academic Libraries Library evaluation and University evaluation

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Evaluation in French Academic LibrariesLibrary evaluation and University evaluation Pierre CARBONE

  2. Governance : from centralization to autonomy • University libraries (UL) centralized & department libraries autonomous • Means allocated to the UL by the French Education Ministry • 1984, service commun de documentation : unique library system implementing the university policy • 1989, Contract policy with universities (4-year contracts) • 2007, law : Liberty & Responsibility of the Universities financial autonomy (including staff costs), global budget for teaching, research and other activities EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  3. Statistics of French university libraries • Annual surveys since 1974 : consistent data series on activities, resources & means for national budget programming ; but no data on department libraries • 1988, Annuaire des bibliothèques universitaires (The French University Libraries Directory), published by Documentation Française (2006 under press) • Rankings by category of university (discipline, size) • Integration of data on electronic resources & services • Internet http://www.sup.adc.education.fr/asibu/ , access to results since 1999 and options for generating personalized figures and comparisons EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  4. From statistics to evaluation • 1984 : a new independent authority : Comité national d’évaluation des universités, new procedures of peer-assessment, public reports • 1984-1988, national project of indicators for the UL (tableau de bord)… not successfull at that time, but progress of ideas with public debate & training • 1989, New public policies evaluation programmes in all the administrations for renewing public services • Taking into account the peculiarities of each university and evolution to project management and monitoring (vs processes ) EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  5. Contract policy & indicators • 1984, contract policy for research activities • 1989, contract policy for all university activities • Adequation of national / local policies • Four-year projects linking library objectives to teaching & learning and research goals and projects • Allocation of means after negotiating the contract (for the ULs, 50% of government funds) • Indicators for measuring the achievement of objectives EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  6. Evaluating the 4- year contracts : the main national and local indicators • According to national policies : • Largest weekly opening hours of the library • Data on libraries not managed by the UL • % of UL acquisition expenditures in relation to total acquisition expenditures of the university • % electronic resources with remote access • Specific projects financed during the contract : local indicators (e.g % of undergraduates in business sciences attending IT training sessions) EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  7. Budget law & indicators • 2006, new structure for the national budget : assignments (40), programmes (150) and actions (500) vs hundreds of chapters and articles for each ministry • In the Higher Education & Research programme : • one action Libraries & documentation • one objective : Optimizing the access to library resources for teaching, learning & research • Political use of indicators (Parliament, Government) • National indicators from the user viewpoint : • Weekly availability of seats per student • Visits per registered user (only physical visits for the moment) • Access to electronic resources : items downloadedand % of delivery EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  8. Users evaluating the library • More autonomous system, more user-oriented • Influence of the users’ perceptions on the outcomes • Users surveys in many universities, mainly at the beginning and at the end of a 4-year contract • LIBQUAL+ (http://www.libqual.org/ ): national project with LIBER and ARL, 10 ULs in 2008-2009 • 3 levels of service minimal/ optimal / perceived ; • 4 aspects : resources, services, facilities, staff • 1-9 scale EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  9. Benchmarking • Context of each UL partly different, partly similar • Not only at national scale, but also at international scale • Not comparing data but ratios & indicators • More competition, need for best practice • Need for comparison with the environment (neighbours, similar libraries, etc.) and to learn from others • Standards : ISO 11620 Performance indicators for libraries 2nd ed, IFLA Measuring quality 2nd ed • 2008, French annual survey revised to allow international standardized comparisons EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  10. Impact • The library as a piece of a system • Relations between library activities and student achievements (diploma)? • Relations between library activities and research achievements (patents, publications…) ? • Need for evaluating the library in a university quality assessment process, not only on specific criteria EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  11. University quality assessment • ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education http://www.enqa.eu/ ) : • 2005, agreement on standard references, • 2007, register of national assessment independent agencies • 2006, AERES (Agence d’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur), public report on all the universities before the 4-year contract renewal • Assessing the abilityof universities to develop quality insurance, but at this time no indicator on ULs EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  12. Combined approaches • Not only statistical data, but also indicators • Not one indicator but 3 or 4 to have a global view • Not only indicators, but also user surveys and benchmarking • Also quality assessment methods • Also external reports and studies, public debate • Not recipes but various ways of learning more and more to do the right thing EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  13. References • Asibu : http://www.sup.adc.education.fr/asibu/ (annual survey of the French university libraries) • Libqual+ : http://www.libqual.org/ • ISO 2789 : 2006, Information and documentation, International library statistics, 4th ed. • ISO 11620:2007, Information and documentation, Performance indicators for libraries, 2nd ed. • ENQA : http://www.enqa.eu/ • AERES : http://www.aeres-evaluation.fr/ EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

  14. Thank you for your attention ! pierre.carbone@education.gouv.fr EUROLIS London May 15, 2008

More Related