The reference and instruction department
of Rogers Library at Francis Marion University
has automated the creation of their
monthly departmental instruction reports by
consolidating the data collected by multiple
Google Forms. This process will be useful to
any library or department that uses Google
Forms to collect data and is interested in
automating its reporting process.
Background
This system was developed as a result of two
simultaneous initiatives in the Reference and
Instruction Department.
The first initiative was to develop a more
efficient system for tracking the number of
students taught. Our previous system called
for the librarians to, post-instruction, write
the number of students taught on the paper
calendar in the reference office. The departmental
assistant would add those numbers
up manually and enter them into the Excel
spreadsheet that served as our annual report.
Once all the data from all aspects of our
department (including reference, collection
development, archives, government documents,
etc.) were gathered, the report would
be sent to the department head. Even with the
best team, this workflow introduces several
opportunities for human error. Additionally, it
prevented the library dean, department head,
and other librarians from being able to access
up-to-date statistics at any time.
The second initiative was to begin systematic
assessment of our instruction classes
so that we could develop data-driven departmental
plans. Because our classes were
entirely “one-shots” customized for each
class, we had no standard learning outcomes.
Without learning outcomes, there are standards
by which to assess the classes. So we
began assessing the quality of our instruction
through post-instruction surveys sent to the
teaching faculty whose classes we visited.
Simultaneously we would also begin tracking
the content that our librarians included
in their instruction sessions, with the goal of
using that data to eventually develop standard
learning outcomes. The ACRL “Information
Literacy Competency Standards for Higher
Education”1
were chosen as the standard
by which we’d track out content in a postinstruction
librarian report.
This introduced two new sources of instruction
data (a professor assessment form
and a librarian report) in addition to the attendance
records we were already dealing
with. We set out to find a way to automatically
collect all of the instruction data into one report
that would serve as an up-to-the-minute
summary of our instruction.