Assessment 360: Mapping Undergraduates and the Library at the University of Connecticut

In January 2009, two members of the brand-new Undergraduate Education Team at the University of Connecticut Libraries attended Nancy Fried Foster’s CLIR-sponsored Faculty Research Behavior Workshop at NYU. By the close of that workshop, the outline of an ambitious multi-part study of undergraduates at the University of Connecticut had been drafted; it was formally launched in January 2010 as a four-part study called Assessment 360. The study’s intent was to map where undergraduates were in terms of technology use, their academic study habits, and their use of space. With those positions, or coordinates, captured—if only fleetingly—the library could then assess its current position in relation to undergraduates’ habits, needs, and wishes in order to make immediate changes and outline future work.