ACRL Assessment Discussion Group

For our discussion topic this month, let's focus on DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility).

• How have your libraries assessed your EDI initiatives?
• How have your libraries endeavored to ensure DEIA principles inform your assessment efforts?
• What impact has DEIA assessment had on your library's policies/operations?

I'll start by sharing an example from my library. We develop broad assessment goals every few years that align with our strategic plan, as well as more focused objectives for each goal that are assessed annually. We've tried to build DEIA into our overarching goals (e.g., "Prepare students to conduct research requiring use of information resources in order to advance student success/equity"). This has helped us keep a DEIA focus in the objectives we assess each year (as well as the measures and success criteria we use to assess them). An example objective for this goal is "Enhance information literacy and familiarity with Cabell Library among VCU's first- and second-year undergraduates, advancing student success and equity." We've added questions to our instruction evaluation form asking whether students felt their instruction was safe and inclusive. These eval questions now form one of our measures for assessing whether we've successfully met that objective.

How about your libraries? I'm eager to hear what others are doing to assess their DEIA efforts!

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