Learning Outcomes

Attendees will benefit both in theory and in practice. Attendees will come away with a few discrete toolkits, techniques, case studies, and curricula that are openly available and able to be used to conduct assessment activities at contexts across libraries and archives. Additionally, attendees will join the thoughtful panel conversations weighing ethical considerations across the development of assessment design. The audience will participate in nuanced discussions around the ethical uses of AI/ML, differences between “library assessment” and “library learning analytics” in terms of data collection, and the implications for privacy and ethics across these projects.

Key Topics

Panelists will be encouraged to delve into potential gray areas of library assessment and discuss the data collection and analytical methods that have enabled them to ethically provide data-based evidence to their stakeholders while balancing staff and patron privacy in line with the ALA code of ethics. In practice, how do these grant awardees balance the ALA Code of Ethics, for example: “We provide the highest level of service to all library users” with “We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.” While its own branch in the recent LAC conference, we will also closely examine how diversity, equity, and inclusion can be prioritized and respected in library data collection and use.

Plan for attendee engagement

In addition to time being set aside for Q/A from attendees, the session will highly utilize Menti (https://www.menti.com/) or another similar live-polling tool. The session will begin with a couple of Menti demographic polls. This will enable the panelists to better understand the level of expertise and experience of the participants in the room. Prior to each round of questions for the panelists, the attendees will be polled again with a provoking question, asking them to gauge their initial perspectives. This is intended to get the audience thinking about nuance and the potential applications, not just theory, of questions the panelists are about to address. Just prior to the Q/A, a Menti round will be used to ask folks to reflect on and share their top priorities related to at least one of the areas in the presentation. This is intended to enable participation from all of those in the room; even those who generally won’t raise their hand during a conference session will hopefully feel comfortable enough to post their question confidentially in writing for the panel to consider and address. At the close of the session, a final quantitative Menti poll will ask attendees if they have learned about new tools, whether their perspectives on data and privacy have shifted as a result of the session, and whether they anticipate using these new tools or knowledge at their home institutions.

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