Assessing the Academic Networked
Environment: A CNI Project

CALL FOR STATEMENTS OF INTEREST AND EXPERIENCE

Background

"Assessing the Academic Networked Environment" is a timely project for CNI given the increasing importance of assessment and evaluation in higher education. Despite the fact that many institutions of higher education have built significant networks and have connected to the Internet as part of the evolving National Information Infrastructure (NII), there is little knowledge of how such connectivity has affected the academic institution. To maintain accountability, as well as a commitment to providing quality services to users, institutions may wish to address such questions as:

• What is the volume and type of networking taking place on a particular academic campus?

• Who are the users that access the academic network and what types of services do they utilize?

• How has access to and use of networked information resources and services affected teaching, research, learning, service, and other aspects of traditional academic life?

McClure and Lopata's pioneering study Assessing the Academic Networked Environment: Strategies and Options provides important new research and tools for those in higher education focusing on assessment. CNI published this manual in March 1996.

This project builds on the foundation of the McClure/Lopata work. Although the assessment techniques offered in the manual were reviewed and critiqued by a number of expert panels and networking experts, the measures included have not been formally field-tested by academic institutions. CNI is seeking six to ten higher education institutions to participate in this project by field testing the types of measures proposed in the McClure/Lopata work.

This Project supports a breakthrough in furthering assessment by building on work and understanding already achieved - to provide clear evidence that it is now possible to use ongoing assessment techniques to study the uses, impacts, costs, and effectiveness of networks and networked resources and services. Field-testing will result in this project's creation of an assessment handbook which builds upon the manual, demonstrates through practice the validity of these assessment approaches, and fine-tunes the assessment methodologies.

Ultimately, the project will result in being able to better design and manage networks and networked services for the academic community. In addition, it is anticipated that users of these networks will be better able to incorporate these networked services in their various educational activities.

Goals and Objectives

The goal of this project is to provide better information and knowledge to the academic community regarding the assessment of networks and networked-services within the framework of the work conducted by McClure and Lopata.

The main objectives of the project are:

Provide a range of communication mechanisms for CNI Task Force members and others to share information and experiences about assessment techniques related to academic networks and networked services;

Field test the McClure/Lopata manual in a number of different academic settings;

Hold two institutes where institutions participating in the field tests can share knowledge about their successes and problems using the manual and disseminate that information the larger academic community; and,

Revise appropriate sections of the manual based on the knowledge that has been learned from the field tests, institutes, and other sources of information and advice.

Overview

The project will start in early 1997 and continue through Fall, 1997. The project coordinators will be a team of CNI staff; a Visiting Fellow, Christopher Peebles, Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University; and Charles McClure, Distinguished Professor, Syracuse University.

Two groups of three to five institutions each will work separately and together under the auspices of the project. One group will be made up of large research institutions (Carnegie R1 and R2) and the other group will be made up of other types of academic institutions. Each institution's participation will be team-based, drawing from appropriate sectors of the institution, e.g. networking, libraries, academic computing, etc. The participating institutions will be selected based on their response to this Call.

Participating institutions will appoint one individual to serve as the liaison with CNI, to coordinate the field testing and other project tasks at her or his institution, to attend project meetings, to attend the two institutes with her or his institutional team, and to prepare a report that summarizes her or his institution's field test results and recommendations. The liaisons will also work with the project coordinators to develop the procedures for the field testing, with particular attention to producing information to be used to revise the measures in the McClure/Lopata manual.

Participating institutions will be responsible for the travel and lodging expenses of their teams attending the two institutes and any expenses on their own campuses related to the field testing procedures. CNI will be responsible for the expenses of the project coordinators and for other expenses associated with the two institutes and subsequent publication(s).

Other institutions will be able to participate in the field testing of the McClure/Lopata manual by using information, guidelines, and forms made available through the CNI Website. The project coordinators will also integrate into their reports any relevant information on the measures provided by other institutions.

Instructions and Further Information

Representatives of institutions who are interested in participating in this project are encouraged to direct their questions about and their replies to this call for statements of interest and experience to:

Joan K. Lippincott				202-296-5098
Associate Executive Director			fax 202-872-0884
Coalition for Networked Information		joan@cni.org
21 Dupont Circle				http://www.cni.org/
Washington, DC 20036

Replies to this call for statements of interest and experience should:

• declare your institution's interest in participating in the project; and indicate which group (R1/R2 or other institutions)

• describe what your institution has already accomplished, and how, in the project; and,

• identify and profile the liaison and other key people that your institution would involve as a team in the initiative.

Please indicate your institution's interest in participating in this project by December 20, 1996. Full responses to the call should be received by January 31, 1997.

CNI is seeking grant funding for the two institutes and will hold them contingent on funding.

Additional Information

CNI, a joint project of the Association for Research Libraries, CAUSE, and Educom, was founded in March, 1990 to promote the creation of and access to information resources in networked environments in order to enrich scholarship and to enhance intellectual productivity.

Currently 202 organizations and institutions belong to the CNI Task Force, a group that makes special contributions to the CNI's projects and activities. Included in the Task Force membership are higher education institutions, publishers, network service providers, computer hardware and system companies, library networks and organization, and public and state libraries.

Periodically CNI issues a call for statements of interest and experience as a vehicle for announcing initiatives in a manner that promotes the widest and fairest possible identification of institutions, organizations, and individuals willing and able to contribute to those initiatives. Each call provides a brief description of the initiative in question, and some calls include supporting documents.

Institutions and organizations do not have to be members of the CNI Task Force, or of ARL, CAUSE, or Educom to respond to a call for statements of interest and experience.

Statements of interest and experience are reviewed by CNI staff with the assistance of the leaders of relevant CNI working groups and the guidance of members of the CNI Steering Committee. Other parties are involved as needed. Additional information is sometimes requested during this review process.

Reviews of statements if interest and experience are carried out in as expeditions and as flexible a fashion as possible, taking care to balance the benefits of a wide and fair search for institutions and organizations able and willing to contribute to particular initiatives with the benefits of focused and timely action on those initiatives.

Upon selection of the institutions and organizations to participate in a given initiative, CNI staff will notify all those who submitted a response to the call of their status.

Additional information about CNI and its program can be obtained from the person identified above and from the following Internet servers:

URL: ftp://ftp.cni.org/
URL: gopher://gopher.cni.org:70/
URL: http://www.cni.org/

Interested parties are encouraged to stay in touch with CNI and its program by subscribing to its Internet news distribution service by sending the following, single-line message to listproc@cni.org:

subscribe cni-announce <your name, first name first>

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