Focus on Assessment - Feb 21, 2011

Much of the work of the Libraries is accomplished by councils, committees, work groups, task
forces, and hot teams, but we don’t always stop and take time to assess their effectiveness. In
March 2008, we appointed the Digital Initiatives Steering Committee (DISC) whose charge was,
among other things, to set policy and procedures for digital project implementation including
metadata creation, interface design, digitization, preservation, etc. Since this was a new
committee, the members’ terms of appointments were for one year, and we said that we would
assess whether the committee would continue after that initial year. We took some time to figure
out how we wanted to conduct the assessment process; this article explains our methodology.

The first thing we did was to determine what type of evaluation we wanted to perform. We
decided on what was essentially a 360° evaluation of the committee. A 360° evaluation is one in
which you gather information from those involved, their supervisors, and those who report to
them. Our version of the 360° evaluation was that we would talk to the committee members
(self-assessment), talk to the stakeholders (those whom DISC served), and formulate our own
opinions (those to whom DISC reported). We then needed to determine what types of questions
we wanted to ask those we interviewed. We asked the members of the committee the following
questions:

    • What has been the most successful work that DISC has undertaken this year?
    • What have you enjoyed most about working as a member of DISC?
    • How do you understand your own role on the committee?
    • What work do you still think needs to be done?
    • If you could fix one thing, what would it be?
    • Is there anything else you’d like us to know?

Our conversations with the stakeholders were more open-ended. We wanted to know how the
process of having something digitized from their collection worked for them, how well the
committee communicated with them during the process, and if they had any improvements to
suggest.

These interviews took place over a three-week period, and we spent anywhere from thirty
minutes to an hour with each of the participants. We tried to both be in attendance for each
conversation.

In addition, we asked DISC members to conduct their own self-assessment and share that with
us.

At the end of this process, we wrote a summary to DISC detailing what we heard from them and
from the stakeholders. We outlined the committee’s strengths and the areas needing
improvement. We also detailed next steps.

Based upon this assessment, we ended up disbanding DISC and creating the Content
Stewardship Council. We also disbanded the Digital Technology Advisory Group (DTAG) and
formed the Digital Operations Team.

We learned several lessons from this process. One of the most crucial things we learned was the
importance of having a very clear charge for a committee. We also benefited greatly from
listening to members of the committee and to the stakeholders. We had some opinions going into
the process, and the assessment validated some and disproved others.

We recommend this process highly to anyone who charges a committee. We assess each other’s
performance through the SRDP process and the Faculty Review process, and it is just as
important to regularly assess the committees that we appoint.