Last spring 20 liberal arts schools offered the same survey to faculty, staff and students on their campuses. Many of them are a lot like Bryn Mawr, small and selective with merged Library and Information Technology departments. This group of colleges was looking to find out how well their departments were delivering services and how well they were doing compared with other similar schools. That survey has become known as the MISO survey (Merged Information Services Organizations) or the Bryn Mawr Survey. It was developed and administered here at Bryn Mawr and more schools are interested in taking it each year. In time, the data from the survey will show not only how well the Information Services department is doing, but will provide information about how the demand for those services has changed across similar colleges.
What have we learned?
The services that are most important to Bryn Mawr faculty are Library Databases and Access to Online Resources from Off-Campus. The services that are most important to students are On-Campus Computer Labs and Blackboard. The services that are most important to staff are the Help Desk and Virtual Bryn Mawr.
Although a small but growing population of our community use the following technologies in their daily work, more faculty at Bryn Mawr use these technologies for academic use than at any of the other colleges surveyed:
- Blogs
- Podcasting
- Instant Messaging
- Wikis
85% of students have a laptop/notebook computer, 19% of students have a desktop computer, yet on-campus computing labs is the most important service for students.
So how do we measure up?
The data is remarkably consistent. Which means that most of the respondents answered the questions similarly and the experience of the Bryn Mawr community is not much different from the other liberal arts
colleges that participated.
Examples?
Everyone uses email. Almost 100% of faculty, students and staff that took the survey use email for academic or personal purposes.
Students instant message for academic reasons, faculty don't, staff don't, so students are working with their classmates and peers in ways they aren't working with their professors.
Everyone agrees that Virtual Bryn Mawr and having access to electronic resources off campus are important. But what is most important? Faculty=Tripod, Staff=Help Desk, Students=Computing labs
What are we going to do with this knowledge?
Dave Consiglio has just returned from EDUCUASE where he organized a symposium for participating schools and presented summary results as a part of the conference program, Measuring for Soup: the MISO Surveydata. If you have questions or comments about the data, please contact David Consiglio at dconsigl[at]brynmawr[dot]edu or x6534.
For more detailed data from the survey, please feel free to browse the IS staff would like to have more in depth conversations about the services offered by IS and how we can proceed in improving them. Few people responded in the Spring for a call to be a part of focus groups, but if you forgot, or have renewed interest, please respond via a comment or directly to jlacovar[at]brynmawr[dot]edu.
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It's October! Which means the leaves on Merion Green are changing, the days are getting cooler and there is plenty of apple cider to drink! But what is really exciting is that it is also time for the 7th annual Guild Halloween Open House. Just like last year we will have it on the same day as the dorm trick or treating, Tuesday, October 31st from 3-5PM. 
We are up to our eyeballs in wasted paper!