Managing the Changes Brought by New Technologies: Ithaka’s Research Program

1. Managing the Changes Brought by New Technologies: Ithaka’s Research Program Roger C. Schonfeld Manager of Research, Ithaka rcs@ithaka.org Educause Live! August 22, 2008

2. Agenda • Quick introduction – Ithaka and its research unit • Key strategic issues facing academia • Relevant Ithaka research initiatives • Discussion: other key strategic issues

3. Brief Overview of Ithaka • Ithaka promotes innovation in higher education by helping pioneering initiatives to thrive. • Our roots are in the foundation community and the development of JSTOR and ARTstor. • We pursue our mission by creating, nurturing, and assisting innovative organizations and projects that use technology to facilitate change in the scholarly community. • Focus on sustainability.

4. Research Objective: To understand the strategic impacts of new technologies on higher education and to help colleges and universities adapt. We structure our research around a variety of strategic issues that we see facing higher education in the medium term in an attempt to provide valuable intelligence to help colleges and universities respond effectively.

5. Guided by an Advisory Committee • Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President and Chief Strategist, OCLC • Amy Friedlander, Director of Programs, Council on Library and Information Resources • Catharine B. Hill, President, Vassar College • Ronald Larsen, Dean, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh • Wendy Lougee, University Librarian and McKnight Presidential Professor, University of Minnesota • Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information • Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian for Collections and International Programs, Yale University • Sarah Porter, Head of Development, JISC • Bradley C. Wheeler, Chief Information Officer, Indiana University

6. The Format Transition Assumption: There is a massive, rapid, and inevitable format transition underway for scholarly publications – away from print and towards electronic-only collections. Concern: The organizational imperatives associated with this transition are deeply complex, and many academic libraries and scholarly publishers are not well-equipped to exercise the leadership necessary for this transition to occur with maximum efficiency and minimum losses. Research goal: Providing academia with the policy basis needed to transition effectively and responsibly away from print and towards increasingly electronic-only collections. Projects: Economic and decision-making studies; histories; infrastructure optimization analyses

7. Scholars’ Needs and Practices Assumption: Digital content, tools, and services are permitting rapid changes in the needs and practices of scholars, albeit unevenly distributed by institutional type and discipline. Concern: Many community information-services organizations, both campus libraries and IT groups and affiliated providers such as JSTOR and Project Muse, lack the resources to analyze these changes with sufficient speed and depth to react in a timely and effective manner. Research goal: Helping information-services organizations meet the needs of scholars by understanding their changing attitudes and practices. Projects: Faculty surveys; analysis of changing scholarly publishing behaviors.

8. Knowledge Dissemination Assumption: The networked environment affords powerful new opportunities to expand access to learning and scholarship. Concern: Amid widespread enthusiasm, it is sometimes difficult to design initiatives that are most likely to benefit potential users and prove sustainable in the long term. Research goal: Examining how knowledge can most effectively be disseminated from colleges and universities to researchers and learners, especially using new technologies. Projects: Analysis of university publishing; examination of developing-world constraints; study of online course dissemination

9. New Resources and Methods for Teaching Assumption: Digitization and the networked environment have led to the creation of new resources that can contribute to education, affording opportunities to transform teaching practices and the learning experience for undergraduates. Concern: Investments are not always aligned with actual pedagogical needs, while at the same time teaching practices sometimes evolve all too slowly. Research goal: Studying the demand for new resources and pedagogies while examining barriers to their adoption that may productively be alleviated. Projects: Image use and provision at liberal arts colleges; faculty attitudes and practices on sharing course materials

10. Discussion • What are discussions of these issues like on your campus? • How are these issues discussed in your professional community? • What other strategic priorities are you faced with in your work? • What other strategic priorities does your institution face today or will it face in the future?

11. Roger C. Schonfeld Manager of Research, Ithaka rcs@ithaka.org (212) 500-2338