Ithaka S+R focuses on the transformation of research and teaching in an online environment, with the goal of identifying the critical issues facing our community and acting as a catalyst for change. We seek to help leaders in academic and cultural institutions to effectively navigate the transition to digital while maintaining their core mission and values. Presently, our research is focused on five major themes:

Ithaka S+R’s research in this area seeks to uncover the success drivers and the obstacles facing those who create and support digital resources in the education and cultural heritage sectors. Over the past several years, we have undertaken a wide-ranging exploration of revenue models for digital content and the key factors that influence sustainability, aimed at project leaders, funders, and other key stakeholders involved in creating and developing digital resources.  At present, we are examining the question from the funders’ point of view, to identify best practices to help funders assist their grantees in creating projects that can deliver value well beyond the end of the grant.

 

 Ithaka S+R is interested in the transformation of the library in the digital age, with an emphasis on academic libraries. We seek to help libraries recognize and address the new challenges that face them in this rapidly changing environment, and to take advantage of new opportunities to strategically reallocate resources away from activities that are declining in value and towards vibrant new roles that will serve the changing needs of users and maintain the library’s position at the heart of the intellectual life of the campus. Consequently, a special emphasis of our work has been on collections management and preservation issues in the transition from print to electronic formats.

Ithaka S+R has developed a deep concentration around evaluating how the needs and expectations of various constituencies, including faculty members, librarians, and students in the academic community are shifting in the digital environment. By developing a broad awareness of the changing needs of researchers as well as deep targeted knowledge of the specific concerns of scholars in a variety of fields, we seek to provide academic administrators, libraries, publishers, scholarly societies, and others with intelligence to help guide their strategic planning for the future. Our Faculty Survey makes up one major component of this theme.

 

With the advent of distance learning, for-profit universities, and online courseware, access to the instructional products of higher education is expanding and pedagogical practices are evolving rapidly. This has implications for the competitive marketplace for higher education, university and college business models, the faculty member’s instructional role, the cross-subsidization of research activities, the kind of content needed to support instruction, and the business models to support its creation and dissemination. These issues have gained new urgency given rapidly increasing tuition rates and the acute budgetary pressures driven by falling endowments and reduced state support.

 

Scholarly Publishing 

The research generated  by academia is published through scholarly societies, university presses, commercial publishers, and others, but the publishing role is changing radically as colleges and universities develop new strategies in response to a changing technological environment. Beyond traditional formats such as the scholarly monograph and the academic journal article, colleges and universities are taking an increasing interest in the wealth of their research outputs and the primary sources generated and collected by universities. Ithaka S+R helps academic institutions themselves as well as their publishers develop a more strategic approach to scholarly publishing.

 

A complete list of our Publications is available.