Tell Us What You Want Lessons in Student Centered Service Design

1. Tell Us What You Want Lessons in Student Centered Service Design Information Services & Resources (ISR) Bucknell University

2. Background • Intro to ISR and Bucknell • Why we undertook creating the group • Creation of group • Bucknell Strategic Initiative for Student Centeredness

3. Bucknell University • Bucknell University, located in Lewisburg, PA, is a highly selective, private, nonsectarian, co-educational university founded in 1846. • 450-acre campus includes more than 100 facilities • Approximately 3350 students, 300 faculty and 700 staff members

4. Information Services & Resources (ISR) • Information Services & Resources (ISR), formed in 1997, is the merged library and technologyservice organization • 90 staff located in two buildings • Wealth of services • Network • Library • Computing support • Telecommunications • Media services • Instructional Technology

5. Making ISR more student centered • Focus attention on services provided to students. • Support Bucknell’s goal to be student-centered. "Bucknell’s residential life and co-curricular program willfully support its academic program," and will provide an "integrated environment for student learning and growth.“ (The Plan, BucknellUniversity) • Require new levels of collaboration and coordination between academic affairs, student life and students.

6. What do all of you do? • How many of you have included students on a planning group? • How many have included students on a project team? • How many of you have a “great relationship” with your school’s student life staff? • Do you meet regularly with student focused staff on your campus?

7. Understanding our students • ISR Assessment Team • Merged Information Services Organizations (MISO) Survey • LibQual+ • Longitudinal study • Focus groups • Student Research Project • Usability studies for our products

8. Getting Started Focusing on Students • Creation of Student Outreach Group (SOG) – September, 2004 • Made up of ISR staff from key student services • Meet regularly to plan events, communication, and more • Creation of Student Advisory Group (SAG) – January, 2005 • Group meets monthly over lunch • Students given a task before each meeting • Assistant Director of Res Life attends

9. Student Outreach Group • Centralize student advocacy efforts • Create formal ties with students • More effective communication • Channel student input • Design better services from the students’ perspective • Taking advantage of “networking opportunities” with students • SOG staff members are “known faces” on campus • ISR is thought of as a student-centered organization

10. Creating SAG • Developed a charge • Recruiting Students • General call for volunteers and staff recommendations • Representation from all class years • Monthly meetings • Students give us feedback on our services • Help us set priorities and suggest new services • Perform tasks for us, such as interviewing their peers • Beta test new services/systems • Phil Marquis ’07 student advisory board member

11. Activities of SAG meetings/students • Plus/delta exercise • Prioritization of ISR services • Photographs of the building with annotations • Things in library they felt needed improvement • Feedback on first year mailings • Communication preferences • How students prefer to receive communication from ISR • Collaborative study environment (LINK TO PHOTO) • Students redesigned a work area • Library presence in myBucknell portal (LINK TO PDF) • Input into useful library services for portal

12. Outcomes of SAG • ISRBuddy (IM Service) created because of SAG feedback • Design of collaborative work area on Level 2 • Improving BUTV • Expanded equipment desk inventory • Streamlined communications with first year students

13. Resulting Partnership/Outcomes • Campus Wide Student Outreach Group • Build relationships within Student Life staff • Working relationship with Student Government • Staff involvement with student organizations • Our student employees (200+ students) • Partnering with Environmental Center and Environmental Club on campaign

14. An Example: Orientation (the biggest coup) • RA Training • Graduate Student welcome • Hall mentoring • Abroad students • “Faces and Places” – ISR has the biggest presence in this event

15. Lessons learned • Don’t assume you know what students want or care about • Informal information gathering is invaluable • Working with the Student Advisory Group • We need to do better at timely follow-up. • Attendance is a problem, especially at semester crunch times. • Recruitment is difficult. We often have too many student employees on the group • Number of staff vs. students at meetings

16. Future projects • Panel discussions • Testing and feedback about systems - (redesign/rethinking of library catalog) • Digital music • Technology Fair at the Bookstore • Print Wisely Campaign

17. Make and take: • Student outreach doesn’t have to be a huge process • Let’s take a few minutes and think about immediate steps you can take on your campus. • Turn to your neighbor, introduce yourself, discuss these with each other. • What projects or services could benefit from student input on your campus? • What are you currently doing to engage students? What more could you do?

18. Do you know…. • Who is your campus’ student government president? (Do you know what they look like?) • Who is the Director of Residential Life? • Do you know the name(s) of the student(s)working your circulation or help desk at night? • Who on your campus is in charge of planning orientation activities? If you don’t know these answers,consider forming a student outreach team.

19. Building a community of student outreach • Interested in a higher education student outreach blog? • Ideas for building a community? • Email us: • ioneill@bucknell.edu • lveloz@bucknell.edu • jcsnyder@bucknell.edu • jzappe@bucknell.edu