I'm passing along an announcement from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative; it describes a new initiative on a topic that will interest many in the CNI community. Information technologists, instructional technologists, and librarians will increasingly be asked to demonstrate the value of their programs and services in this challenging economic climate. This EDUCAUSE initiative, focusing on the impact of innovations in teaching and learning, will provide many vehicles for exploring how to conceptualize and generate useful evidence. Joan Lippincott

On August 3, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) launched a new program to explore ways of gathering and collecting evidence of the impact of our innovations and current practices. Called “Seeking Evidence of Impact,” this program will bring the teaching and learning community into a collective discussion and consist of a variety of events, meetings, workshops, and publications over the next 18 months— all united around the theme of “seeking evidence of impact.” More information is available at the program’s website:

One of the inspirations for this program came from conversations we had with CIOs at last year’s EDUCAUSE conference. Faced with difficult budgeting and resource decisions, we found that CIOs were asking if there was data upon which to base such decisions with respect to teaching and learning support. These considerations echoed comments from other communities, all of which indicated an increasing importance on encouraging evidence-based practices in support of our students and their instructors.

This new ELI program is first and foremost an exploration of this theme. While we cannot predict “where” this program will be 18 months from now, we can say that no style, method, or school of gathering evidence will be excluded or privileged. We look forward to engaging with the community on a topic of keen importance to us all.

Please contact us if you have any questions!

best Malcolm Brown, Director ELI < mbrown@educause.edu> Veronica Diaz, Associate Director ELI vdiaz@educause.edu

Malcolm Brown Director, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative email: mbrown@educause.edu IM: fnchron (AIM) Voice: 575-448-1313/vdiaz@educause.edu