This table shows that there was a broad range of features found. The highest was 31 items at both the University of Illinois and Ferris State University, and the lowest was 6 at Touro University International. The table also shows that there was no overall major grouping or standard, as there appeared to be an even distribution from high to low with no large gap or jump from one extreme to the next.
The next way of looking at the data involved finding the mean for each of the content analysis items evaluated (Table 4). The mean is the arithmetic average of the scores in a distribution ðP
Xi=nÞ: These calculations were done using SPSS. With an average institution size of 10,955 students, the mean shown represents the percentage of institutions in the study that had these features on their web sites.
The mean percentage of how often the item was found ranged from 100 to 0 percent. The only item that was consistently found 100% of the time was online indexes and full-text databases. The items found 0% of the time were pages that detailed strategies for distance learning effectiveness which would be useful for distance learners to refer to, and video conferencing available for reference and research purposes. Although these two items were not
Table 3. Total Number of Content Analysis Items Found for Each Institution Library Web Site Evaluated.
Institution Type of Institutiona Sum of Items
University of Illinois 2 31
Ferris State University 2 31
Illinois Institute of Technology 2 30
University of Wisconsin–Madison 2 29
Central Missouri State University 2 24
Northern Illinois University 3 24
Nova Southeastern University 1 22
Delta State University 3 22
Walden University 1 19
Southeast Missouri State University 3 19
Saint Anthony College of Nursing 4 15
Kentucky State University 3 13
The Union Institute 1 12
City University 1 12
Dominican University 4 8
Central Methodist College 3 8
Touro University International 1 6
a1 – Primarily distance education institution; 2 – full programs/degrees offered via distance education; 3 – single courses offered via distance education; 4 – little to no distance education.
found at any of the institutions analyzed, they had been found at other institutions during preliminary literature reviews and observation of sites. If the sample size was increased they might have been found in use, yet would certainly still have been at the bottom of the list. The table, therefore, shows
Table 4. Mean Percentage of Content Analysis Items Found.
Content Analysis Item Mean (%)
Indexes and full-text 100
Online reference materials 88.2
Online catalog 88.2
Employee listing 82.4
Journal holdings 82.4
Subject web sites 82.4
E-mail 76.5
ILL information about 76.5
ILL electronic forms 76.5
Policies 70.6
Tutorials 64.7
Webmaster 58.8
ILL materials mailed 58.8
Internal search engine 52.9
Page for distance learners 52.9
Book renewal form 52.9
Arrangement with other libraries 52.9
Electronic feedback mechanism 52.9
News (what’s new) 47.1
Electronic Form 47.1
Books delivered 47.1
E-books 47.1
New acquisitions 41.2
Phone, toll free 41.2
Print materials copied and delivered 41.2
Site Map 35.3
Specified librarian for DE 35.3
Class (credit/non-credit) 35.3
Joint borrowers card 35.3
Mission/vision 29.4
List of subject specialists 29.4
Consultation, research assistance 29.4
Electronic reserves 29.4
Chat 23.5
FAQ 17.6
Links to evaluation of resources 5.9
Strategies for distance learning effectiveness 0
Video conferencing 0
which items are most common. The items least in use would be areas of improvement for institutions not yet providing those services or information.
Table 5 shows the percentage of items found overall for each type of institution. This was done by taking the individual items found and aver- aging them with others within their grouping. This provides a breakdown by the amount of distance education offered.
Surprisingly, institutions that were primarily distance education institu- tions did not have the strongest library web sites. The strongest were institutions that offered degrees from a distance followed by those that offered only individual courses from a distance. This was then followed by the primarily distance education institutions and then those that are not yet offering any distance education.
Table 6provides a look at the most common content analysis items found by specific type or amount of distance education offered. Within each of the four categories, these items were found 100% of the time. This provided a different perspective, with the most common features being found varying among the different types of institutions. While there was consistency found for indexes and full-text databases, there were other areas that tended to differ.
Table 7 shows some of the most interesting correlations found after re- viewing the data. Significant nonparametric Spearman correlations were found using SPSS for the content analysis items of amount of distance education offered and for size of institution. This is a measure of the re- lationship between two variables ð1 6P
d2=nðn2 1Þ:It was found that the more that distance education was offered, the more likely that certain features were available on the web site: circulating books delivered to the student, reference available via e-mail, and interlibrary loan materials mailed directly to the students home instead of having to pick them up in person. As for the size of the institution, the larger the institution the more likely that it would provide the following services: books could be renewed online by student, reference librarians would be available for consulting, bibliographic instruction classes were offered in one form or another, bib- liographic instruction tutorials were available online, synchronous chat software was in use for reference transactions, and most importantly the overall sum of content analysis items would be high.
Looking further into correlations, it was found that there appeared to be no significant correlation between the amount of distance education offered and the overall sum of items found (0.076). There was also no significant correlation between the amount of distance education offered and the size of the institution (0.238). What this appears to show, then, is that the amount
of distance education offered does not make as much of a difference as to the amount of services and information provided to distance education students via a library web site as does the actual size of the institution. This means that just because an institution offers distance education courses and degrees does not mean that the library has necessarily increased or improved its services to meet the needs of distance learner. The factor that seems to make the most difference is simply the size of the institution, which may relate to a larger staff and larger budgets. Those institutions with the largest
Table 6. Content Analysis Items that were found at 100% of the Institutions by Institution Type.
Content Analysis Items Amount of Distance Education
1. Primarily 2. Degrees 3. Courses 4. None
Indexes X X X X
E-mail X X
News X
New acquisitions X
Internal search ENGINE X
Webmaster X
Employee listing X X
Policies X X
Page for DE students X
Online reference materials X X
BI tutorials X
ILL info X
ILL forms X
Books renewed online X
Online catalog X X
Journal holdings X X
Subject web sites X X
Table 5. Percentage of Content Analysis Items Found at Each Type of Institution.
Type of Institution Items Found (%)
1. Primarily distance education 37.4
2. Offers degrees from a distance 76.3
3. Offers courses from a distance 43.2
4. Does not yet offer any distance education 30.3
student populations tend to have the most features on their web sites.Fig- ures 1 and 2 graphically demonstrate the correlation between size of insti- tution and the sum of items found as well as the amount of distance education offered and the sum of items found, respectively.Figure 1shows a plot of the size of each institution in regards to the number of students enrolled with the sum of their web site features from the coding sheet. SPSS software added a line showing the correlation and how it increased with institution size.
Figure 2 shows a similar plot with the same sum of features found, but with the amount of distance education offered. This time, no correlation was found, showing that the items were not related. The amount of distance education offered made no difference in the total number of web site fea- tures found.
From these results from the content analysis we have seen that there is an apparent lack of preparation by colleges and universities serving distance education students in terms of library services. Those larger schools with naturally larger budgets and staff tended to have stronger library web sites and services. In the next section, we will see that interviews and surveys found some additional issues.
Interviews
A total of four phone interviews were conducted during the month of October 2002, the first being a pilot study. All of those interviewed readily answered all of the questions I asked. The first, we’ll call Maria, is Professor and Instruction Services Librarian at a large public university. The Table 7. Significant Correlation Content Analysis Items for Amount of
Distance Education Offered and Size of Institution.
Content Analysis Items Amount of Distance Education Offered
Content Analysis Items Size
Circ books delivered 0.575 Renew books online 0.650
Ref E-mail 0.574 Sum 0.618
Ill materials mailed 0.507 Ref consult 0.606
BI class 0.603
BI tutorial 0.553
Ref chat 0.510
Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Sum of Web Site Features
40 30
20 10
0
Size of Institution (# of Students)
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0 -10000
Fig. 1. Graph of Size of Institution Versus Sum of Web Site Features (Produced in SPSS).
Sum of Web Site Features
40 30
20 10
0
Amount of Distance Education Offered
3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5
Fig. 2. Graph Amount of Distance Education Offered Versus Sum of Web Site Features (Produced in SPSS).
second, Sarah, is Head of Distance Education and Instructional Library Services at a primarily distance education university and has an Ed.D.
in Educational Technology. The third, Kathy, is Assistant Professor of Information Services at a smaller college library and has multiple duties. The fourth, Paula, is Distance Education Librarian at a smaller state university.
The first point discovered came across immediately at the beginning of the interviews. There is quite a variety of ways that libraries are arranged and staffed to support distance education students, and there is still a good deal of flux as the environment continues to change. One librarian seemed to have a straightforward position in responsibilities and title. This new po- sition, which is actually focused on a single purpose, has only been in ex- istence for 10 months. The incumbent has been there 3 years after completing her MLS and previously worked as an Instructional Services Librarian. Other libraries still blend these positions together and have not yet increased staffing. This requires librarians to split their time between multiple duties and may not have the luxury of developing any one area as an expertise.
Maria: I’m library instruction services librarian so I’m over library instruction and information literacy. And I’m also the coordinator for library services for distance education.
Other libraries have unusual circumstances and arrangements. Take, for instance, the combined academic and public library. While the distance education librarian works primarily with distance education students, there are still additional issues that she must deal with.
Sarah: My title’s head of distance and instructional library servicesyThe library spe- cifically is the library research and information technology center and is a joint use facility between the university andyPublic Library System, and, as a result we (my department) do the bibliographic instruction for on campus, online, and distance stu- dents.
Finally, one smaller library was forthright and stated how many different responsibilities can be given to each person. She has the opportunity to really do the work of several positions.
Kathy: I work as reference librarian. I also do the systems stuff which really is not very muchyWe have very little systems work to do anymore. I do maintain, developed and maintain the library’s web page, in addition to many other duties here on the campus.
We’re a small school. We have to wear lots of hats.
The complexity of some of these institutions can mean that there are wide- ranging groups of people involved with providing services to distance
education students. Smaller libraries may take on more responsibility, com- mittees may range from informal to formal, and different people on the respective campuses may have a voice. Some libraries are making changes and adding staff.
Sarah: Now we have a part-time person who deals with the day-to-day issues of web maintenance, but she’s just overwhelmed and we are in the process of interviewing for a webmaster position. But I think a lot of the decisions about how it’s going are more committee based.
Interviewer (I): So that would mean you have in place policies and procedures and guidelines fory
Sarah: I don’t know so much of written down policies, I mean we’ve got policies for how we deal with the public. I don’t think we have written policies in the department or the library, but the university has policies that say what colors we can use, what fonts we can use and so forth.
Other libraries have more internal structure and make decisions themselves.
Kathy: I assume if you’re going to say do you have a committee, we have our staff. And there’s like six of us, seven of us that are full-time library staff.
I: So it’s like an informal committee?
Kathy: Yes, it’s an informal group process. I manage and maintain it.
Libraries may also reach out to other departments on campus but do so in different ways. This interaction can take the shape of a variety of forms.
Paula: There’s not really a committee. It’s basically just been me working with people.
The bulk of our classes are in the university center for extended learning, and I’ve kind of worked in conjunction with them to see what services they thought were needed.
A concept that was held across libraries regardless of any other differences (sizes, budgets, and so forth) was the idea that distance education students should have equivalent library service as those provided students studying on campus. Interestingly, the services that these libraries did offer varied.
Some did a better job than others, yet they all held to the idea of com- parability of service provided as a common value. It was also interesting in that they all expressed it so strongly and in very similar ways. (Researcher emphasis is in italics.)
Maria: Our goal is to provide library services and resources equivalent to those provided to on campus students.
Sarah: We try to provide equal or equivalent services for all our students
Kathy: We try very hard to treat them exactly as if they are a student in our library, only we communicate with them by phone or email.
Paula: We basically started with the premise that they should have access to at least all of the services that our students on campus have. And then we extended that. They’re not available to come here and check out our book materials so we deliver our books to them for free.
All librarians interviewed also felt that they were meeting the needs of their distance education students. Some expressed this more strongly than others and some less. Nonetheless, they all felt that, regardless of the differences in services offered, that adequate library services are provided. Some of this may have been due to pride in their job, and some may have felt that they were doing the best job they could with the resources at hand. But, at that point in the interviews, it did not seem fair to conclude that a formal needs assessment is regularly done by any of the librarians or that they could really detail student needs satisfaction.
Maria: I think that we usually meet it pretty well.
Sarah: My library I think does very well. In fact I think it’s one of the best libraries in the country in terms of that because we do BI for all students, for all distance students one way or another and it may be one shot, one hour but we do reach all of them.
Kathy: Our distance education studentsyhave full access to our collectionyWe try very hard to treat them exactly as if they are students in our library only we commu- nicate with them by phone or email. But that communication needs to be initiated by the student. We do not contact every single student. They do have to initiate the contact. We have done web searches, we’ve done database searches, we’ve done ILL searches and sent the materials down to those students for them to use. A couple of our programs do require research papers for every graduate. We have to be able to support that.
Paula: Just my impression. I’d say we probably meet their needs, gosh, probably fairly well. I wouldn’t say excellent.
Another area of service that was emphasized by more than one person was the importance of bibliographic instruction. It was felt that creating a pow- erful web site, offering numerous services, providing a wealth of online resources, and librarians to support the students can only go so far. The impression was that it is the instruction of students in what resources are available and how to use them that is what is most important. If the students know they are there but do not know how to effectively access them, they are also of no use.
Kathy: What I’m working on, the big push or project right now is we’ve just moved bibliographic instruction into the English classes. So that’s kind of a new thing. And as we do that we’ll probably redevelop a little bit of our web page, because hopefully we’re going to be creating better consumers.
Sarah: On a program by program basis. For the school of business we do online tutorials that are tied right now to a specific class that is being moved next term to require pre- service that all incoming students will have to do along with technology training. For the doctoral students (we have six doctoral programs in education), we have different ap- proaches for each of the programs. It just varies. If the students don’t come to campus and they’re not online, then we are site based and go physically to the siteyAnd, as a result, I think that bibliographic instruction is particularly important, and, if that piece is not there, all the other pieces for a distant student aren’t very helpful.
Sarah: My library, I think, does very well. In fact I think it’s one of the best libraries in the country in terms of that because we do BI for all students, for all distance students one way or another and it may be one shot, one hour but we do reach all of them.
Sarah: For BI, we probably provide better services for the distance students than we do for the on campus students because we assumed for a long time that students on campus had reasonable access and could ask for help, and we mandated that something be developed for the off-campus students.
There are also several different ways in which the determinations of services are made. Feedback is generally believed to be important, and librarians want to know what the students and teaching faculty want. Some ap- proaches for collecting data that were cited include surveys, focus groups, working closely with those involved, educating those involved, and forming committees. One way that librarians thought would be useful is providing a form or an e-mail link on the library home page in order for patrons to send feedback at any time. However, those links seem to be generally ignored.
This may be due to the fact that it is taken for granted and overlooked, or patrons are too busy and do not want to take the time for unsolicited feedback.
Maria: So it’s the library, the online teachers, and the administrative unit that oversees distance learning which is within the continuing education department.
Maria: On every single page of every online course there’s a link to the library home page, and on that home page there is a big link at the bottom, and I mean not just in tiny print, that says we welcome student comments and suggestions.
I: Do you get many comments or suggestions?
Maria: I don’t. I get hardly any. It’s very prominent on the page, but I get very few.
Maria: So we try to go to the outlying areas and meet with distance learning students, and we did do focus groups in April with distance learning students in Moab. And we met that time with the public librarians and the school media librarians or the people who are in charge of the computer labs in the schools. So we get a lot of good feedback there, and that helps.
Sarah: A couple of ways. We’ve done a couple of focus groups recently, one for faculty, one for students, and one for the general public. When we go out and do training we do a