Factor analysis of the Brain Check Survey

2013 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Children who have a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are under-identified and lack appropriate educational supports to help them achieve their academic goals. Because TBI can greatly impact a child's ability to succeed at school, there is a need for a convenient and effective way to screen for TBI in students who are struggling in school so they can obtain appropriate school-based services. The purpose of this study was to work toward establishing construct validity for the Brain Check Survey (BCS), which is a parent-report questionnaire intended to help school personnel screen for possible TBI in students. The BCS can act as a starting point in the process of qualifying students for Special Education, a 504 Plan, or Response to Intervention assistance. In five different school districts in Colorado, parents completed the BCS for their child who was recruited from one of three groups: has identified TBI, is currently receiving special education services for diagnosed specific learning disabilities, or is considered typically developing. Construct validity was tested using multiple factor analyses: 1) all participants combined (typically developing, traumatic brain injury, and specific learning disability), 2) elementary, middle, and high school level categories of all participants, and 3) all ages from the typically developing group only. These factor analyses confirmed the two-factor construct of the BCS that measures student Symptoms and Behaviors. The analysis also gave insight into two distinct aspects of behaviors that the instrument is measuring: Cognitive Processing and Behavior Control. The positive findings from this factor analysis study suggest that the BCS has strong construct validity and can be effective in screening students for possible TBI

How Can Researchers\u27 Browsing Behaviors Inform Library Space-Planning?

This study is an in-depth, qualitative analysis of the ways academics at the Claremont Colleges browse library materials, both print and electronic, for their research. Many academic libraries today are struggling with the question of how best to accommodate the quantity of print materials they routinely acquire as those volumes increasingly strain the capacity of their physical spaces. It is hoped this project will help these institutions identify which subject-based collections and which format types researchers need to have immediately accessible for physical perusal and which they can browse productively online

Sustaining the Digital Humanities: Host Institution Support Beyond the Start Up Phase

This project builds on the Ithaka Case Studies in Sustainability, which helped to surface the significance of the host institution as a key element in the survival of digital humanities projects. To unwrap the layers of assumptions concerning the sort of support a host institution is expected or hoped to be providing, this research will be based on a sector-wide scan to map key points in a project’s lifecycle when the host institution is likely to play a role and "deep dives" at two institutions to develop an in-depth picture of the range of digital humanities projects on these campuses. By examining the institutional support ecosystem and the value system that undergirds it, we will provide both project leaders and university decision-makers the data, examples, and guidance they need, including a toolkit to conduct their own research, to work together to encourage the long-term sustainability of the digital humanities resources that continue to enrich the scholarly landscape

Infrastructure for Open Access: Mechanics, Economics, Politics

Using the Pennsylvania State University Libraries as a case study, this essay explores the development of a library-based open access publishing program, and illustrates how open access library publishing can facilitate open access models by providing additional infrastructure for the dissemination of scholarly content

Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries

Sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and conducted by Ithaka S+R, this study provides insight into how ARL libraries are managing and funding the hundreds of digitized special collections they have created and that they believe to be critical to their futures. This is the first survey of ARL institutions that specifically attempts to understand and benchmark the activities and costs of supporting these collections after they are created. By looking at questions of management, costs, funding sources, impact, and outreach, the survey offers data that will deliver insight to all those engaged in sustaining digitized special collections

Searching for Sustainability: Strategies from Eight Digitized Special Collections: A Report from Ithaka S+R and the Association of Research Libraries

This report aims to address one of the biggest challenges facing libraries and cultural heritage organizations: how to move their special collections into the 21st century through digitization while developing successful strategies to make sure those collections remain accessible and relevant over time. Through a cooperative agreement as part of the National Leadership Grants Program, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), in partnership with Ithaka S+R, to undertake in-depth case studies of institutions that have worked to build the audience, infrastructure, and funding models necessary to maintain and grow their digital collections. The eight collections profiled provide useful models and examples of good practice for project leaders to consider when digitizing their own materials. We hope that these case studies will encourage greater discussion among individuals in the academic library and cultural heritage communities about the reasons why they invest so much time and energy in the creation and ongoing management of their digitized special collections, the goals they set for them, and the planning needed to realize those aims. These questions become even more pressing in an environment where the traditional sources of funding for digitization are beginning to wane. In the coming years, the ability to identify secure sources of support and to demonstrate impact over time will undoubtedly become increasingly important

DataQ: A Collaborative Platform for Answering Research Data Questions in Libraries

DataQ is an IMLS­-funded project led by the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, GWLA, and GPN to develop an online knowledge-­base of research data questions and answers curated for and by the library community. Publicly submitted questions to DataQ are reviewed by an Editorial Team of experts from 15 institutions across the United States. The site also includes links to resources, best practices, and practical approaches to working with researchers to address specific research data issues. This update from members of the Editorial Team will discuss outcomes and future directions following the first year of the DataQ project

The Form Of Learning Is The Learning Of Forms: Models Of Socialist Aesthetic Education In Gorky, Hacks, And MüLler

Most readers of politically committed literature dismiss it either because they disagree with the content presented in it or because its ostensibly crass instrumentalization of art in the service of a socialist program negates its aesthetic value. In the 20th century, these views were more often than not borne of a prejudice against Socialist Realism, the official method for producing art in the Eastern Bloc, which relied on a didactic relationship between art and its message in order to communicate with and educate its audience. The socialist literary and theoretical works by Maxim Gorky (Russia/USSR), Peter Hacks (East Germany), and Heiner Müller (East Germany) stand in stark contrast to this didacticism of Socialist Realism, as they are underpinned by philosophical and aesthetic commitments drawn from romanticism, classicism, and avant-gardism, respectively. In the works I examine, artistic form is embraced as the quality that makes art a vehicle uniquely suited to the political education of its audience. The authors' depiction (Gorky), description (Hacks), and staging (Müller) of the aesthetic theories upon which their pedagogical artworks depend do not aim to reduce those literary works to the communication of a specific socialist message; rather, the audience arrives at a more general and truthful way of thinking principally by engaging with the form of the artwork. As in Socialist Realism, the radical education promoted by Gorky, Hacks, and Müller has political consequences, but for them, this education takes place both as readers and audiences assimilate the tendentious content of the texts and as they engage with the artworks' formal structures. For these authors, art has the capacity to inspire spiritual (Gorky), ontological (Hacks), and behavioral (Müller) exercises that in turn enable readers (Gorky), viewers (Hacks), and participants (Müller) to participate in and create new forms of thinking. In the process, they become agents, creative producers of thought who have received a more sustainable and liberating education than the didacticism of Socialist Realism could ever provide. What these works share is a commitment to teaching how to think over learning what to think

Sustainability implementation toolkit: developing an institutional strategy for supporting digital humanities resources

This toolkit will help administrators create a coherent institutional strategy for supporting digital humanities activities and the valuable outputs that they generate. In addition this tooklit will help to: Understand all of the stages in the digital lifecycle of a project, from project planning to preservation and outreach. Assess the range of project types and complexity, so that your solution can include both scale solutions and customized support where it is needed. Clearly communicate the paths of support to campus faculty. Articulate institutional expectations for project leaders. Obtain the commitment of key stakeholders

Sustaining Our Digital Future: Institutional Strategies for Digital Content’

This study, conducted by Ithaka S+R, with funding from the Jisc-led Strategic Content Alliance, grew from the findings of earlier studies showing that both funders and project leaders alike rely very heavily on their host institutions to support and sustain digital content, beyond the end of the grant. While the primary focus of this study is the lush, if unruly, terrain of higher education institutions, academia is not the only sector enjoying an era of digital growth. As museums and public-facing libraries seek to expand their reach beyond their physical spaces, digital activities have become a core part of their strategy. And so, as well as an assessment of the university environment as a “host” for digital content, this study includes a more exploratory look at how cultural heritage institutions think about and plan for sustaining and enhancing the value of their digital collections. The cultural sector offers very different models and allows us to draw initial conclusions around these useful models for others to replicate, experiment with and develop further