The first draft of the Accreditation Program Presentation Plan

Dear SLIS Community,

The process of developing a Program Presentation for accreditation is developmental. With this in mind, I want to alert you that the first draft of the Program Presentation Plan is available for review and comment by our SLIS community (you!). The document may be viewed at the following location: Program Presentation Plan Draft I. The initial draft is the result of significant work by many individuals associated with the development of the Plan. I have so many individuals to thank, the dedicated faculty of the School, the students who have graciously agreed to participate in the process and our caring, engaged alumni, to name a few.

The Program Presentation Plan outlines the process the School will follow, and the evidence the School will provide, to demonstrate our compliance with the six accreditation Standards. The next step is to develop the complete Program Presentation, the document that forms the detailed discussion of our evidence to demonstrate our compliance with the Standards for our accreditation visit in 2009.

The Program Presentation Plan, once reviewed and revised and finalized, will be reviewed by the Executive Director of the Office of Accreditation and our External Review Panel chair. These two individuals will examine the Plan, give us their views on our progress and alert us to any issues they see that we need to address as we develop the actual Program Presentation. The Program Presentation will be submitted at the beginning of 2009 to the Committee on Accreditation of the American Library Association's Office of Accreditation.

For now, this is an excellent first draft that includes the work of a dedicated group of individuals who are committed to our success in 2009. The draft will be revised per the feedback we receive through our SLIS Accreditation Web Page, through review and revision by the six standard committees responsible for this document, the Alumni Board of Directors for SLIS, and from the SLIS Advisory Committee.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me or the chair of the standard committee responsible for the chapter.

Thanks
Dean Kelley

The SLIS Accreditation Forum

I hosted the first accreditation forum on Monday, February 11, 2008 for the entire SLIS community. The purpose of the forum was to begin the process of reviewing SLIS's current status on planning for our next accreditation visit and to provide further information on the issues that SLIS is addressing as we prepare our Program Presentation for the External Review Panel who will visit SLIS on March 23 & 24, 2009. I had the event taped so I could provide it to you as part of our efforts to keep you up-to-date and informed about all aspects of accreditation and the progress we're making. I also hope it will generate questions that you will ask me here in my blog so we can have a continuing dialogue and discuss issues that may arise, or concern you, as we progress toward the visit in 2009. The taped event can be accessed here: The Forum Video. Thanks to everyone who attended I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable discussion of the issues of importance to the future of SLIS.
Dean Kelley

The Latest on Accreditation Planning

It is always exciting to share good news. It is my pleasure to announce the creation of the SLIS Accreditation Web site to keep everyone informed of our activities and progress toward re-affirming our accreditation in 2009. The new Web site is available through the SLIS home page by selecting --> about SLIS ---> Accreditation from the left-hand menu at http://slis.cua.edu/. Or, if you prefer, the direct link to the site is: http://slis.cua.edu/about/Accreditation/. The many individuals giving generously of their time are listed at the site as are the documents and presentations related to preparing for an accreditation visit. In addition, the current progress of the School on developing planning documents, and a planning process, are located here for your perusal.

I will also be hosting a forum on accreditation on Monday, February 11th, 2008. I hope to see you there. The event will be webcast and a copy of the event will be made available through the accreditation Web site also. In the meantime, or if you cannot attend the first forum (there will be more!) please do not hesitate to check out our new Web site and share your views, questions, or concerns with me on the process.

The Web site is the hard work of Professor David Shumaker and Ms. Colleen Candrl. I extend my thanks to both of them for their assistance with establishing this important Web site for our SLIS community.

Thanks.
Dean Kelley

Update on Accreditation Status

Much has occurred since I last shared the information about SLIS and our accreditation efforts. The faculty are actively engaged in strategic planning, an essential foundational piece for our upcoming accreditation visit. One important milestone for having a successful accreditation visit in March of 2009 involves regular reporting on our planning process to the Committee on Accreditation (COA), the body that decides whether to accredit a School of Library and Information Science such as CUA-SLIS. In December, 2007, I submitted a detailed report on our progress. For the purposes of ensuring all of our constituents are informed, I attach a copy of the Executive Summary of that document here for your perusal. In addition, the Provost of the University, Dr. James Brennan, and I met with the Committee on Accreditation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to discuss the School's progress and garner their feedback on our approach to reaffirming our accreditation status in 2009. This was a very productive meeting. The response from the COA was generally positive and they did not express any concern with our efforts, in fact, they were complimentary of our efforts. I will provide a copy of the PowerPoint slides of my talk with the COA on the soon-to-be-released accreditation web site. We are currently working on a web site for the accreditation process at CUA-SLIS to keep you informed and to provide a location for documents and updates to supplement my blog.

There is much that remains to be done. Our next milestone is the Plan for Program Presentation we will submit to the COA in March of 2008. I will also be hosting a series of forums to give everyone an opportunity to discuss our progress and ask questions on our approach and status.

Thank you again for your support and interest in SLIS!

The Full Faculty Meeting

It has been exciting here at SLIS. We were fortunate to have had a visit recently by Ms. Karen O'Brien, Director, Office of Accreditation at the American Library Association. She came to SLIS on November 9th and 10th, 2007 to discuss our progress on meeting the Standards for Accreditation. We are steadily making progress for the Program Presentation document for our next team visit to SLIS in March, 2009. The discussions were uplifting and she had many, helpful things to share with us. She also provided important insights into the accreditation process for the entire faculty, who met on November 10th to discuss issues related to the School, teaching and learning and accreditation from 8:30 - 2:00 p.m. Ms. O'Brien's talk can be seen by visiting the site for our faculty meeting
http://digitalmedia.cua.edu/calendar/event_dsp.cfm?event=3863.
I was impressed by the outstanding quality of our faculty, their dedication great ideas, and support for the School. It was a great day for me and I really enjoyed hearing from the faculty on myriad issues. We discussed our newly revised core values for SLIS: Collaboration, community, innovation and excellence. I welcome your thoughts on these ideals that our faculty felt accurately characterized SLIS and supported the greater university's values of Reason, faith and service. We have also developed a new vision and mission statement and we are finalizing our program goals and objectives.
The outcome of the break out groups on Saturday, which were focused on mechanisms to foster community were also very helpful. We're working toward making some improvements in our support for community to help to engage everyone to the greatest extent possible with our busy lives. Do you have ideas to share on how to foster community? Please share!

If you are interested in what we've accomplished to date, the faculty meeting Webcast is a good site to review. I discussed our progress in some depth at the meeting and gave specifics about the planning process we've been undergoing for SLIS to achieve full compliance with the ALA standards in 2009. I welcome your feedback on the faculty meeting, and any thoughts you have about our planning process here in SLIS.

In the near future, I will submit our first, formal report on our progress to the Committee on Accreditation for ALA. Further, we are working on a Web site to keep everyone informed of our activities and documents related to planning and accreditation. Be on the look out for this new Web site, which I'll also announce, soon after the new year.

As we enter the busy holiday season, let me wish you a joyous holiday season!

The State of SLIS

I think it's time for the Dean to weigh in on the status on SLIS and our future as a School. I am delighted to share that SLIS is doing quite well. Also, I need to clarify what it means to be conditionally accreditated. First, we are accreditated, fully accredited. Our full accreditation status will be maintained provided we successfully host a re-accreditation visit in March of 2009. A conditional status means that you go through accreditation in three years rather than seven, as is usually the case. Further, you complete additional documents to establish that you are correcting the problem(s) noted in the re-accreditation visit that resulted in the need to go through the process sooner. Granted, it is preferable to remain fully accredited. However, it is also quite an opportunity to examine the direction of the School, rally the School, University, and the community behind SLIS to ensure SLIS is going in a positive direction. SLIS needed to do some self-examination. I knew this to be the case when I came for my interview. However, there is no need for alarm. Far from it.



SLIS's faculty is aware that the planning process needed to be bolstered. Further, that we need to ensure we engage our stakeholder community (you) in the process. We are dedicated to doing this. If we do it successfully, and I am quite sure we will, we will retain our accreditation status and further, maximize our contribution to the field and to the academic community. We didn't need to revamp the entire program. Nor did the program completely fail its previous accreditation visit. The planning process was considered inadequate. That problem is actively being corrected. Further, the University is strongly behind SLIS and providing resources to ensure our success. SLIS has received permission for new faculty hires, we have identified and obtained a consultant to ensure we meet our ALA requirements head-on and successfully. We are already working to prepare a dynamite report that will demonstrate the greatness of SLIS that did not come out in the previous report. As is oft quoted from Mark Twain, "Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often." Rest assured that we have have been diligently at work ensuring a favorable outcome of the upcoming accreditation visit at SLIS slated for March 23rd and 24th of 2009. So, we've been active but not speaking as loudly as perhaps we should. Our conditional accredited is something we will address wholeheartedly and our university's support for our efforts is stellar.


If you have been concerned about SLIS's future. Don't be. I do not make it a habit to bet on a losing horse. In fact, I don't bet. I ensure that when I come to an institution, and make it my home, I ensure the odds are in my favor. SLIS is strong, it's a great program. It's a program with a great deal of potential and its future is bright. You have my word that we will be better than we were before and we will achieve much through the self evaluation process that is self study. Most people will tell you I don't give my word unless I can deliver. SLIS will deliver in 2009 and for every student that enrolls in our program. Be a part of a brighter tomorrow. Be a part of something that promises to be even better than it has been before. Be a part of SLIS!

The next gen of librarians, JSTOR and the journal Science - What do they have in common?

The controversy concerning the future of libraries has been in the New York Times and most recently, the latest edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education in the article: Young Librarians, Talkin' 'Bout Their Generation . The view of the "next generation" of library professionals is fascinating. What concerns them most? One area of concern, one area I think is a fundamental issue for the profession (and will continue to be) is intellectual property, ownership and the scholarly record. The librarians interviewed indicated that librarians need to take more control, assert their authority, take back their power, and change their perspective on what they can and cannot demand from publishers who depend, at least in part, on libraries as their customers (as one interviewee accurately pointed out). Further, they see a future heavily invested in digital, which makes sense. I was surprised, however, that they were not so adamant about the end of analog, but, they did see the integration of multiple technologies (hopefully in a coherent whole) that will shape their futures. It was also very reassuring for someone like myself, who is no longer in her thirties (!) to have such an articulate, engaged, and tech-savvy group of individuals taking the reins (so to speak) as the field evolves and looks to its future.

The issue affecting these young librarians are apropos of the issues currently facing the library community, especially in academe. The continuing controversy concerning the decision of the publishers of Science to withdraw it from JSTOR is heating up, and for good reason. When JSTOR came into being, and librarians began to provide it to their clientele, they did so with the expectation that the journals included would be there for the foreseeable future. It was not a situation where there wasn't a quid pro quo, librarians paid for the access to this publication and the price was certainly fair for all the publishers involved. Further, as one of the librarians involved with purchasing at the time, I know that that purchasing resources such as JSTOR affected myriad collection development decisions that are difficult, or impossible, to reverse because of Science's decision to pull out.

The Chair of the Council of Library Directors for the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions (USMAI), Dr Celia Rabinowitz, stated in the recent Chronicle article that this is a significant loss, and further, it might result in a growing reliance on print to offset the ever growing need of publishers to extract more for their publications. While I certainly support the publishers right to make a profit, I balk at the loss of a scientific publication from an aggregated database resulting in its loss to the learner, scholar, and next generation. Once lost, there is no more opportunity to serendipitously find Science when searching through databases for materials. That is indeed a serious loss for learners, researchers, and the libraries who serve them. I also found it profoundly disturbing that Science felt it needed to pull out even when it does not index its journal into JSTOR for five years. Clearly, there is little or no loss of revenue at the end of a five year period for a publication that is about scientific discovery. Couldn't they consider lengthening the time before they contribute to JSTOR as an alternative to simply pulling out entirely?

In an emerging world that is ever more focused on cross-disciplinary research, being "an island" in the field, ie, not participating in an aggregated database that combines resources for a myriad of fields like JSTOR, is counter intuitive to the choices and preferences of science researchers. The only bright spot in all of this is that few publications would be interested in being isolated, Science is one of the few that would consider this to be in their interest.

In an era where musicians, some of the finest (e.g., Radiohead), are choosing to allow the consumer to pay what s/he thinks is fair for their latest album, I think the idea of paying more for the same information, such as the Science model doesn't have a bright future. We will see what happens with Science and whether they reconsider their approach. We will also see if they consider their debt to the scholars, librarians, and future scholars who make their journal possible and are the primary users as well.

In a word, librarians, unite! We've got the power! Apply pressure and let's see if we can be as successful as Radiohead! :-)