Gone But Not Forgotten? Are We Adequately Serving our Study Abroad Students? A Case Study in Monteverde, Costa Rica Presented at ACRL New England Conference May 15, 2009

Study background Understand how users who are engaged in study abroad programs (students, faculty, local administrators) interact w/ home institution libraries Trying to get at perceptions while actively engaged in S.A. programs Conducted on site in MV in 2007/2008

Why focus on study abroad students? Rapidly increasing #s of S.A. students – 150% increase in last decade Initiatives across country on internationalization of higher education User group with distinctive needs/ issues Lack of library literature to date suggests little attention has been paid to S.A. students

The Monteverde Zone

Study abroad students in Monteverde 40+ study abroad programs spend some amount of time in the Monteverde Zone each year My focus = longer term research-based programs Methodology – questionnaire survey to students and interviews with students, administrators, and faculty

Survey – purposes … To understand who students are and how they utilize their library at home To ascertain whether they felt they would need to access their library from CR To ascertain knowledge and confidence levels about their university library resources and services available to them as study abroad students while in CR

Survey -- administration … Restricted survey sample to programs in Monteverde for at least 2 weeks – with assignments and research to complete Surveyed students from 10 different study abroad programs Students from colleges and universities around the country 139 surveys completed – 76.4 % response rate

Student use of home library …

Student use of home library from Costa Rica

Access to library databases from Costa Rica

Interlibrary Loan service

Library services for study abroad students

Getting library help from Costa Rica

UVM student response – BURN!! “What do you think some of the challenges are for study abroad students, in getting information for assignments that require some research, while you are in Costa Rica?” “Getting access to online journal article databases. For me, I could probably get access to UVM’s databases, but I don’t know how!”

What do the data tell us? These SA students are regular users of their home institution libraries; from home they use subscription dbs > other services Large % might need to use library from CR High % agree on possibility of db access; confidence level about access is less ILL service – 76% not sure or disagree about possibility (66% not sure) 70% not sure/disagree that info made available about lib services for SA students

Data cont’d. Over half respondents not sure to no confidence about how to get help with library resources/services from abroad Open-ended questions – rich data provide much insight – reinforce quantitative data Student suggestions about what the library can do better to support SA students – extremely helpful

What ways can your college/ univ. library better help S.A. students? Tell us about services before we leave Make sure there are ways of contacting librarians; assign librarians to SA students Have workshop for study abroad students Web page for study abroad students “I think the library should coordinate with the SA office to inform students of their options while abroad for library use.”

Conclusions from survey data… Data driven study, across multiple colleges and universities, suggests that SA students do not fully understand how to make best use of their libraries from abroad Libraries need to focus more on getting info to SA students - there is much we can do Collaboration between libraries, offices for international education, faculty Focus on different venues for promoting library resources and services – pay attention to student suggestions!!

Interviews … Data from 13 interviews includes: 4 faculty 3 on-site administrators 6 students (3 ugrad/ 3 grad) Perspectives of subjects important Richness/ depth of data

Local administrators’ perspective Telecommunications issues most fundamental to address “On the mountain, at the Biological Station, you heard that they got the new connection and the thing blew up because it was hit by lightning – it was installed 3 wks. ago and now their connections are no longer there. I think this keeps us humble …”

Local site administrator … Students can access resources for their research through their university affiliations – “I would imagine that students know how to go online to get information, but here most students use Google or Wikipedia…it’s the job of the university to educate their students on how to access information – whether they are getting that information or not is another issue…”

University faculty site administrator “Student information needs are incredibly inadequately served …We give our students a 100 pg. orientation manual but that’s one area we haven’t given them in there and it would be a great thing to include – a great idea to add that as a section to the orientation manual and a page on a website that describes that … let me write that down; I’m going to be in touch with our librarians…”

Local administrators’ perspectives Identify need for students to be better prepared to access the info they need Identify role of home institution to do this Other issues: –Lack of local expertise to answer questions –Identify students as information rich/ knowledge poor

Unanimous faculty words … “I don’t have interaction w/ the library in preparing S.A. courses; I do not know if the library’s prepared something special for S.A. students.” “The university library supports S.A. programs with access – nothing explicit or direct in terms of S.A.” “There is no info coming from the university library for S.A. students … there is potential for development in this area.”

Cont’d … “To the best of my knowledge, the library doesn’t communicate with S.A. students – I don’t think there’s much of an effort to say that when you’re over there, here are the things you can continue to do from the library.” “I’m not aware that there is a specific program at our college to prepare students for S.A. in terms of library resources. We are currently promoting a lot of S.A. programs and we have a significant proportion of students who do S.A. – something like 40% who do a semester or year overseas.”

Ouch! “I don’t know how well or if that’s addressed at all... It’s a pretty easy thing to fall between the cracks – once they’re off campus, it’s out of sight, out of mind.”

Pedagogy … “One of my concerns about the program is that we don’t take adequate advantage of the research that’s already been done in the areas in which we’re working. For me, I don’t think we’ve got the balance quite right yet … my feeling is that scholarship is a conversation with the literature that’s already been done and we’re not really integrating that as thoroughly as I’d like.”

Faculty … Not on their radar to consider how library could help with their S.A. courses, but were quick to see advantages –Better research by students –Better use of resources to enhance courses “I think that my library would be eager to help with this kind of thing, and they would just jump on this in a minute, and I think that the S.A. office would, too, so I think that there’s a lot of possibility there.”

Students … All students agreed – no info about the library given to them before they left “Some kind of information coming from the library itself for students who go abroad – probably available electronically – would be best” “It might’ve been nice if the Office of International Education and the library worked together a bit more.” “It should’ve been one of the topics of the orientation meetings – we did have a whole list of things we went over – like bring 2 flashlights – but there was no talk of proxy servers - and I think that 3 out of 4 undergraduate students don’t even know…”

Non-traditional undergrad … “You do have to sign up for the proxy server and it’s amazing how many students don’t even know about the proxy server … I go online right through the proxy server – there’s Google Scholar but it just doesn’t make sense. Through the proxy server I have access to all the scientific search engines, subscriptions to the scientific journals, access to the MELVYL catalog …”

So … are we adequately serving our study abroad constituencies? Survey and interview data suggest we could be doing better …

Collaboration … Think beyond traditional units for collaboration NAFSA – “The importance of collaboration among campus stakeholders (is) a critical element of sustained and comprehensive internationalization.” Library Faculty Office of Intl Ed Program Admin.

What can we do/ do better? Greater collaboration Get our word out through different communication venues –Library web site –Study abroad orientation programs –OIE web sites/ program web sites –OIE handbooks/ program handbooks –Liaison programs/ faculty connections –Library instruction sessions Maintain contact with programs while overseas Other ideas/ suggestions?

Thanks for coming! Presented by: Laurie Kutner Library Associate Professor University of Vermont Burlington, VT