Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

In my role as the library dean I have already been engaged with data-driven student success initiatives. We are still working to implement use of EAB on our campus. The company offers a set of tools that can track grades and registration (OK – we already do that). It also provides functionality that tracks visits to the tutoring center, the health and counseling centers, and can analyze how successful students are when they take specific classes and specific times. If you guessed that faculty are very wary of that last bit of analysis you’d be correct.

Libraries have long counted up the books on their shelves to show their value. That meant Harvard University’s library (with 18.9-million books) was clearly superior to Duke University’s (with 6.1-million volumes) or University of California at Riverside’s (with a mere 3 million titles).

These days, though, libraries are finding new ways to measure their worth. They’re counting how many times students use electronic library resources or visit in person, and comparing that to how well the students do in their classes and how likely they are to stay in school and earn a degree. And many library leaders are finding a strong correlation, meaning that students who consume more library materials tend to be more successful academically.