Purpose & Goals

Academic programs at Thompson Rivers University are evaluated every seven years through an intense, faculty-led program review process, involving curriculum mapping, stakeholder surveys, a SOAR analysis, a collaborative self-study, and an external review. The TRU library had previously received external review reports in 2007 and 1998 but had never participated in the full program review process. However, in 2023–24, the library took our first foray into the academic Program Review. It was considered something of an experiment, with acknowledgements by all involved that adaptations to the process would be needed. Unlike other academic programs that mainly support students, the library supports the entire university community. Our goals were the following: 1. To determine what adaptations would be needed to the academic program review process. 2. To holistically conceptualize and frame the library’s services as an academic program and communicate this framing to relevant stakeholders 3. To determine if the program review process as it exists is valuable and worthwhile for the library and the university, in terms of quality assurance and continuous improvement.

Design & Methodology

In partnership with the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and the Office of Quality Assurance, we proceeded with the Program Review Process, discussing necessary adaptations along the way. 1. Creating Learning Outcomes: This review process was the first time that the library had conceived of itself as an academic program with our own learning outcomes (PLOs). We decided to base our learning outcomes off the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. 2. Curriculum Mapping: The next step in the regular program review process is to map PLOs to courses in the program. Since the library does not have courses, we had to conceptualize our work areas in terms of how they would meet the learning outcomes. We also realized that, unlike other academic programs, mapping work areas to learning outcomes alone does not describe our work. The library doesn’t just support students, but also infrastructure. To reflect this developed a crosswalk to map our programs onto the infrastructure that we support. 3. SOAR analysis: Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results. There were no adaptations needed in this process, but we were able to collectively identify themes in each of these categories that we had not been able to express before. 4. Surveys: Because the library does not have its own students or alumni, we decided that rather than send out our own surveys it would be more productive to add a few library-related questions to other cohorts’ surveys. Librarians collaboratively developed the questions that we most wanted to ask both students and faculty. 5. Collaborative self-study: Much of the original self-study was based on enrollment rates and student figures, so we needed to adapt to identify and discuss the data that would be most relevant to our unique program.

Conclusions

We were pleasantly surprised at how few adaptations were needed to make the academic program review work for the library. Furthermore, the adaptations that we had to make were inventive and generally helped reveal aspects of assessing our work that we have struggled with identifying. For example, having survey questions included in other cohorts’ surveys will over time give us a broad overview of feedback from our closest stakeholders. Having our services framed and communicated as an academic program essential to the academic mission of the university is often something libraries struggle with, when administrations over-focus on resources, to the exclusion of library services and other work to steward these resources. Developing our curriculum map and PLOs was a succinct way to summarize and communicate the educational value of our services. The process so far has been highly valuable. It has been a forum for many difficult but productive conversations as a department about determining our values, priorities, and directions. Our newly established PLOs have already been well-used to align and direct our work. The self-study was a rare opportunity to reflect deeply on many aspects of our program as a whole. While we focused in this round on adapting the existing review elements, I wonder if there are any elements specific to the library that we would want to add in future program review years.

Implications & Value

We would suggest that more academic libraries engage in these methods, or pieces of them, for the goals of identifying values and priorities, and continuous improvement. We are not aware of many other libraries who have established PLOs for their department, but it is an extremely worthwhile exercise, that helps align work priorities to educational value. If your university undertakes any similar review processes adding tailored questions about the library can be far more valuable than attempting to survey the entire community yourself. Finally, the reflective component of coming together to have these conversations helped unite our vision of what the library is and does. There were many disagreements, but we were able to come to a hard-won consensus in most areas of our program review work. When I am called upon to explain the difference between librarians and other faculty members, I generally sum it up as such: librarians support and educate students, but we also support a massive amount of educational infrastructure that is essential to the programs and services we provide. This infrastructure is maintained by our faculty because the choices we make in configuration and support are tied to the learning outcomes we want our students to achieve; they are also tied to our philosophy of service, informed by values, such as promoting access and operating with an ethic of care for our community. Technology alone cannot support learning outcomes, because technology is a tool whose ends are determined by those in control. Having this holistic vision of the library can be extremely helpful in understanding and communicating what we are and what we do.