VATL MIG Meeting held Friday 15th June 2007
Learning Commons 15th Floor Victoria University
300 Flinders Street Melbourne
Making Sense of TAFE Library Statistics – Meeting Notes
Present: Cathie Jilovsky & Annalisa Kristof (Guests CAVAL), Fran Dodd (Gippstafe), Michael Schack (SWTAFE), Anatolij Lisov & Clare Carlsson (Swinburne), Ann Gradzka, Philip Kent, Jenny Tripp & Alexandra Tretiakova (VU), Stephen Harrison & Jim Badger (Holmesglen), Mehmet Tuncel (Kangan), Blanca Pizzani (Gordon), Colin Sutherland & Adrian Shaw (Chisholm), Jenny McIntyre & Narelle Stone (BRIT), Leonie Pope (Box Hill), Annette Sullivan (RMIT).
Apologies: Anne Ritter (GOTAFE), Rachel Neumann (Sunraysia).
1.30 Philip welcomed everyone and introduced the guests Cathie Jilovsky & Annalisa Kristof from CAVAL and panel members Narelle Stone and Colin Sutherland.
Narelle Stone of Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE spoke first and outlined the genesis of this meeting: a special TAFE SPICE user group meeting held earlier this year to discuss which reports to run using SIRSI Unicorn software in order to collect data for the VATL Statistics. At this earlier meeting several questions came up that could not be answered by the SPICE group namely:
· What is the rationale behind collecting the VATL Stats? (Benchmarking? For whom?)
· Is everyone using the same definitions? There seem to be quite a few discrepancies in the results.
· Are these the right statistics to collect?
The full transcript of Narelle’s talk is available here:
Guest Speaker Cathie Jilovsky assisted by Annalisa Kristof compared the VATL Statistics to the CAUL system of collecting and using statistics. CAVAL administers both organisations’ statistical collections. The VATL data is currently collected on Excel spreadsheets annually and collated into one spreadsheet. The CAUL data is input into customised online software by the member university libraries who have individual passwords and logons. There are comprehensive notes, definitions and examples for each field. The software allows members to create sophisticated graphs and reports for the purpose of benchmarking and analysis.
CAUL have a statistics focus group that meets regularly for review.
Although the VATL spreadsheet system of collecting statistics is adequate (and could be improved with more notes and guidance for members) CAVAL can offer a service similar to the one they administer for CAUL. It would involve set-up costs and an increased annual fee to all member libraries (around $1000?). Currently VATL pays $4000 to CAVAL for the annual collation of the spreadsheet information. CAVAL could possibly do a pilot of the online system for us. CAVAL also offer qualitative data services (LIBQUAL).
Cathie gave a demo of the CAUL Statistics site: www.caul.edu.au/statistics
Some of the features in the input area that would be helpful to VATL members were:
· Full definitions and instructions – can be printed from the Help menu
· Value for the previous year
· 10% difference alert
· Notes & comments field
· Examples
· CAUL deemed list – no. of titles attached to various online databases
· Access can be given to more than one person
· Input can be done at any time
Some of the benefits of the output area and the site in general:
· Sophisticated ability for comparison and analysis
· Generation of attractive graphs and data
· Dynamic site – data can be retrospectively amended (with some safeguards)
Some of the issues that we must consider:
· Balance the effort involved in changing our system with the value derived
· Costs – would be significantly more than we are paying at present
· Changes to the way we collect statistics will have implications for retrospective analysis
Cathie also warned against dropping categories without consideration of the implications and changing column numbers in the spreadsheet.
Cathie’s full PowerPoint presentation will be available to VATL members on the VATL web site.
VATL members are invited to the inaugural CAVAL Open Day on October 1st between 9.30 and 4pm at Bundoora.
Colin Sutherland from Chisholm Institute finished off the discussion by stating that no matter which way we collect and display our statistics VATL should decide on the purpose and rationale and to provide more information on the interpretation of the fields. A VATL working party needs to be set up.
Philip Kent summed up the discussion:
VATL must look at the statistics we are collecting, are we gathering the right data, is it serving us well? Should we be collecting data that is representative of new services such as information about online use? It is an excellent idea for VATL to set up a working group to determine what data we should collect, tighten up our definitions including examples before this year’s statistics are collected and to investigate the pros and cons of upgrading to an online system.
Actions:
· Working group to be formed – Annette to put out a call to the VATL List for a rep or contact from each member.
· Working group to look at our data collected and definitions before the commencement of VATL statistics collection in September.
· Working group to prepare a paper on the feasibility/pros/cons of going online.
Discussion finished at 3.30.
Next Meetings (to be confirmed):
· Friday 10 August at a Melbourne location
· Friday 12 October 10am at Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE – Theme “New Technologies”.