This document summarizes a study on assessment planning for distance education library services. It discusses how assessment planning is important for strategic planning but is often overlooked by libraries. While businesses focus assessment on determining financial value, libraries tend to focus on internal effectiveness and outcomes. The study also finds libraries could improve assessment by addressing intangible impacts, financial value, and technology services. It suggests libraries innovate their assessment metrics and processes to provide more sophisticated data for strategic decision making.

1. Assessment planning for distance education library
services: strategic roadmaps for determining and
reporting organizational performance and value
Larry Nash White, Ph.D.
Department of Library Science
East Carolina University
April 30, 2010

2. Today’s roadmap
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

3. Something to think about….
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

4. Background to the Study
 Assessment planning is a critical but frequently overlooked
component of an overall strategic planning process for an
organization.
 Assessment results (and their proper analysis for meaning)
provide organizational leaders, administrators, and
stakeholders with information to determine effectiveness and
efficiencies within the organization while ensuring resource
maximization in usage.
 The assessment process results enable organizational leaders
to initiate future oriented organizational strategic decision
making and planning in order to develop and execute a
strategic roadmap of activities that generate organizational
impact or value for its customers and stakeholders.
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

5. Background to the Study II
 Thus, the assessment planning process (and its results) serves
as the foundation for the organization’s strategic roadmap;
organizational leaders develop and adjust the strategic
roadmap in order to generate the most effective strategic
outcomes and value creation possible for the organization’s
customers and stakeholders.
 The success or effectiveness of the organizational leader’s
ability to develop and adjust the strategic roadmap for the
organization and be able to determine and report assessment
information is then very critically dependent on having an
effective assessment planning process in place in the
organization.
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

6. Literature Review
 Library Science literature findings
• Few references made to assessment planning for the whole of an organization and its
financial impact or value; most findings specifically dealt with assessing smaller components /
activities of the organization instead of the organization as a whole or in reporting qualitative
outcomes.
• References made to assessment planning were most frequently focused on planning
outcomes assessment for components or activities of the library organization; again not
looking at the whole of the organization in terms of determining and reporting financial
impact and value.
• When assessment planning is referenced, the process is performed almost exclusively as a
separate process in the wider strategic planning processes of the organization and is not
generally found in most libraries’ organizational strategic, tactical, or long range plans.
• What assessment planning is performed is primarily internally focused on effectiveness and
outcomes (especially in academic, school libraries) and efficiency (public libraries) assessment
results. Thus, the resulting data and information (and its analysis) are limited in scope and
usefulness to library organizational leaders in determining and reporting financial impact /
value or in strategic, tactical or long range planning activities.
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

7. Literature Review II
 Library Science literature findings (cont.)
• Libraries tend to use the same limited number of assessment and assessment planning
activities over time. There seems to be very little innovation from within the library
profession itself in the area of assessment, especially in the areas of metrics, analysis, and
use or customer / service environment feedback mechanisms in the assessment planning
process.
• Libraries tend to use less complex assessment processes and planning activities, thus the
results of these processes often lack the sophistication necessary to provide an effective
ability to determine and report organizational both financial and outcome impact and value
or effectively address organizational leader’s information needs for creating the
organizational strategic roadmap.
• Of the few references to assessment planning in the literature, most assessment planning
processes (whether for a component of the organization or the whole organization) were not
designed to account for technology services, options and developments: online services and
customers and the scope of organizational impacts created by technology in service delivery
were frequently not accounted for in assessment planning processes.
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

8. Literature Review III
 Business literature review
• Assessment planning in businesses frequently focused on
determining and reporting financial organizational value
and value creation, cost avoidance, return on investment
(ROI) and return on assets (ROA)
• Assessment planning was frequently integrated into
organizational strategic, tactical, and long range planning
processes and was conducted on a regular basis.
• Assessment planning and the metrics of assessment seem
to include regular innovation of the assessment metrics
and processes, with assessment planning reflecting these
ongoing innovations.
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

9. Literature Review IV
 Business literature review (cont.)
• Assessment planning in most businesses was a complex
processes, using complex assessment metrics and processes,
yielding a more sophisticated assessment result for
organizational leaders to use in strategic decision making and
planning.
• Assessment planning in businesses frequently incorporated and
the assessment and planning of intangible financial impacts and
values used or created by the business organization.
• Businesses tended to support and operate a stronger culture of
assessment that supports assessment planning processes.
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

10. Developing an Assessment Plan
 component list of the more traditionally identified assessment
plan components in library assessment planning:
• Goals
• Objectives
• Metrics (indirect and direct)
• Data collection
• Data analysis
• Reporting
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

11. Observable Trends in Assessment Plan
 how infrequently all of the library assessment plan
components address the financial impact or value
information needs routinely and ideally to be addressed
through assessment planning. As noted earlier, the
literature suggests that assessment activities in libraries
do not seem to focus on determining and reporting
financial organizational impact and value, though there is
a frequent use of more qualitative impact assessment (i.e.
outcomes)
 assessment activities and planning generally occurs on a
smaller organizational scope
 the focus of the assessment component categories
seems to be mostly internal to the library and not external
to the library’s service environment
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

12. Observable Trends in Assessment Plan II
 need to shift from the traditional accountability types of component use to a
more flexible and engaging type of use to help the libraries adapt their
assessment planning processes and allow the assessment process to focus
more on the strategic impacts and value at the organizational level
 many types of libraries (especially academic and school libraries) use outcomes
assessment to demonstrate the organizational impact and value of the library to
customers and stakeholders
 the use of outcome assessment in public libraries is becoming more frequent,
especially in the areas of determining and reporting community impact to
outside funding sources (i.e. grant agencies)
 as outcomes assessment is more qualitative in nature and most effective when
used to address qualitative performance inquiries, predominately used to
determine impact and value on a smaller scale than the whole of the library
organization, these leaves a gap in the assessment planning scope / coverage
and the resulting assessment information available to library leaders and
administrators for developing strategic plans and in strategic decision making
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

13. Component frequencies of use in assessment
plans: traditional format
Assessment Plan Efficiency Effectiveness Financial (i.e. Return on Community
Component investment (ROI) / Outcomes
Return on assets
(ROA) / Cost
avoidance / Value)
Goals √√√ √√√ √ √√
Objectives √√√ √√√ √ √√√
Metrics (indirect) √ √ √ √
Metrics (Direct) √√√ √√√ √√ √√
Data Collection √√√ √√ √ √√
Analysis √√ √√ √ √√
Reporting √√ √√ √√ √√
√ = Infrequently √ √ = Consistently √ √ √=
Frequently
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

14. Future of Assessment Planning
 there are some significant opportunities for improving
assessment planning processes
• intangible efforts, resources, impact, and value that are not
traditionally reported in library spreadsheets and assessment planning
• traditionally these have been called “library goodness factors” but in
modern terms are called terms like intellectual capital, social capital,
human capital, etc.
• when a library fails to determine and report its intangible resource use
and value and the resulting intangible values created, it significantly
underreports its overall organizational impact and value and increases
the management challenges of these intangibles by library
administrators and leaders
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

15. Possible Assessment Plan Components and
Use Focus Areas
Focus Areas->
Assessment Customers / Intangible Financial Impact Knowledge / Expertise
Plan Stakeholders Resources / Efforts and Value
Components
Strategic
Needs
Learning
Entrepreneur
/ Innovation
Accountability
/ Access
Alignment
Demonstration
Analysis /
Feedback
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White

16. Questions and Contact
Information
Larry Nash White
whitel@ecu.edu
252.328.2315
11/24/12 Copyright 2010 by L. Nash White