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Assessment @ UNT Libraries

This guide is meant as an introduction to assessment at the UNT Libraries with relevant resources for anyone interested in starting their own assessment project.

General Information About Datasets

Much of the following education data are restricted in some capacity, and for good reason. In this era of big data, true de-identification is difficult to impossible to achieve, and it takes very little effort to cross-reference identifying information and discover the identities of individuals in supposedly anonymous datasets. The amount of detail and demographic data that some of the following datasets provide creates additional responsibility to use these data wisely and to exercise caution before publishing resulting data openly. More information about de-identification, ethics, and related topics will be available with the Data Privacy Policy at a later date. 

General Education Data 

IPEDS Data
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) conducts a number of interrelated surveys each year and makes them available through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Every institution of higher education receiving federal funding must respond to the IPEDS survey. Since 1966, these surveys included the Academic Libraries Survey (ALS), and in 2014 the separate ALS was rolled into the main survey and became simply the AL component of the survey. IPEDS has a resource page to help understand and report on the AL/ALS. As of 2024, there has been a proposal to eliminate the Academic Libraries survey, which ACRL, ARL, ALA, and ASERL have all objected to. Please keep that in mind when planning a project using these data. 

ARL Statistics and Salary Survey
The ARL Statistics publications compile data on ARL member library collections, expenditures, staffing, and service activities. As a current institutional member of ARL, we have access to ARL statistics. Access to the ARL Statistics Digital Publications are available for editions from 2004-present, and the ARL Salary Survey is available for editions from 2005-present. Access is available by password or IP range, so UNT Library employees should be able to access these data from a computer that is on campus. VPN access has been spotty in the past. 

ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics  
The ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey is the largest survey of academic libraries in the country and is composed of three parts:

  • Questions from the IPEDS Academic Libraries Component. Every institution of higher education receiving federal funding must respond to the IPEDS survey. The ACRL survey asks every library question required by IPEDS, with instructions and definitions completely aligned since 2015. ACRL survey results are available quickly: typically three months after the survey closes.
  • A selection of questions about academic libraries not included in IPEDS, which IPEDS sometimes use as test questions for future surveys.
  • A section of questions about library trends every year features a different topic. 

ACRL has a libguide with information regarding the surveys: https://acrl.libguides.com/stats/surveyhelp   
Access is password restricted, but we have institutional access. Please contact the Assessment Committee if you do not know the username and password for access to the dashboard. 

Association of Theological Schools (ATS) Survey Data 
These data are on members of the ATS only (which UNT is not) but the link is included in case of interest. 

UNT Data

UNT"s Data, Analytics, & Institutional Research (DAIR) provides access to several resources for those interested in institutional data. 

  • The Common Data Set is available in PDF format 
  • DAIR's Insights Dashboard allows access to UNT-wide data, where you can explore dashboards and datasets about student enrollment, demographics, and more. You must first attend a training for Insights Dashboard use through Bridge before being allowed access. If the Bridge link is down or you otherwise are not able to obtain access that you should have, please contact DAIR directly

UNT's Data Repository

The UNT Data Repository is housed in the UNT Digital Library and serves as a central archive for the research datasets of our UNT scholars. We offer guidance and support for managing, sharing, and preserving your data. There are a number of options available to you including licensing your data, length of time to preserve the data, and levels of access.  The Data Repository works in conjunction with the UNT Scholarly Works repository to ensure long-term access to the full range of research outputs from UNT. 

Depositing your data in the UNT Data Repository facilitates discoverability and preservation, allows others to cite your data, and satisfies requirements by many grant-funding agencies. For more information on research data management initiatives and services through the UNT Libraries, please see our Research Data Management pages.

We collect a lot of data about UNT Libraries, and we want to share that data with you. We are currently determining the best ways to share this data and figuring out exactly what data we can and cannot share. 

Stay tuned as this section is a work in progress!

Data Privacy Statement - A Work in Progress

One of the Library Assessment Committee's projects for the next year is to develop a library data privacy statement and policy. 

What is a data privacy policy?

A data privacy policy governs how the library protects and uses your data. Many libraries have data privacy statements, and we want to build one of our own.

Some privacy statements at other libraries:

Why should we have a data privacy policy?

We believe that we need a privacy policy statement for the following reasons:

  • We want to have guidelines that standardize our data practices across library divisions, particularly for how we use and safeguard library data for assessment or research purposes.
  • We want to educate patrons about what data we collect, what we store, and what library values are regarding your privacy.

How do we plan to create this policy?

We hope to talk to students and faculty to learn about their values and concerns around data privacy. We then plan to consult with library employees and administration to help us construct a policy that reflects library values, is easy to understand, and aligns with university standards. We want to then share this policy with our stakeholders as part of our ongoing outreach to our patrons.

When do we plan to complete this project?

We hope to complete this project in FY2025.

Suggestions

If you have suggestions for this guide, please contact the Assessment Committee

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