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Changes to IPEDS Survey Definitions for 2015–2016—Webinar Recording Available Online

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image CC-BY-SA by Visha Angelova

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Academic Libraries Component adopted revised definitions for FY 2015–2016 as a result of recommendations made by a joint Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and Association of College & Research Libraries, American Library Association (ACRL, ALA) task force in the summer of 2015. The recording of an ARL-ACRL webinar detailing these changes, which aired November 3, 2015, is now available online.

The joint task force recommended and IPEDS accepted changes to definitions of data elements in the IPEDS survey. The task force recommendations with IPEDS responses are publicly available online. Most of these changes impact the way libraries report numbers of items, such as e-books and open access titles, digital government document titles and volumes, other media such as microforms and maps (both analog and digital), databases, and circulation of digital and analog materials.

The annual ARL Statistics survey captures data from the Academic Libraries Component and a number of other IPEDS survey components. To highlight the overlap between these two surveys, ARL has created a crosswalk between the two most current versions of the IPEDS and ARL Statistics surveys: the 2015–2016 IPEDS survey components and the 2014–2015 ARL Statistics (XLS). In cases where the ARL Statistics definitions differ from those of the Academic Libraries Component, ARL includes additional instructions for ARL Statistics survey respondents. If there is no equivalent for a given ARL Statistics survey question, this is also noted.


About the Association of Research Libraries

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in the US and Canada. ARL’s mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at https://www.arl.org/, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/association.of.research.libraries, and Twitter at @ARLnews.

About the Association of College & Research Libraries

The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) is the higher education association for librarians. Representing more than 11,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals, ACRL (a division of the American Library Association) develops programs, products, and services to help academic and research librarians learn, innovate, and lead within the academic community. Founded in 1940, ACRL is committed to advancing learning and transforming scholarship. ACRL is on the web at http://www.acrl.org/, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ala.acrl, and Twitter at @ala_acrl.

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