A total of 49 participants attended the Spring School, which was held at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. At the end of the week, everyone received a questionnaire. 35 questionnaires were returned. Participants spent a considerable amount of time on the evaluation. A lot of suggestions and comments were given, which were all very valuable for Ticer. We would like to express our gratitude for that!
The first International Spring School on the Digital Library and E-publishing for Science and Technology was a success. All participants indicated they would recommend the spring school to colleagues in the field. All said the summer school was worth its money (77% completely agreed, 19% agreed). 94% of the participants indicated that they will use what they learned in the course when they go back to their libraries.
- "Brilliant course. Very enjoyable and thought-provoking."
- "Thank you very much. The courses and organization were perfect. It was also the opportunity to meet other professionals and exchange ideas and reflections."
- "Very well organized! Useful to meet colleagues from other countries in such context. I'm impressed by the course, learnt much. Good collection of material presented. Inspirational!"
- "Could you organize (shorter and) more specific courses? The course was really well organized. Thank you!"
- "The course has been very useful for me; it was very good to have world experts teaching us; a real privilege! I enjoyed the group and thought the ambiance was very nice and friendly. Thank you very much!!"
- "I'm very satisfied with the school. High level speakers are a real added-value. Their talks were very enthusiastic. Thank you very much."
To 88% of the participants the structure in the programme was clear. However, 41% thought the programme was more than full or even overfull and 33% would like to have had more opportunity for discussion. Participants highly appreciated the fact that the speakers not just flew in for their presentation but that the majority of them spent one or even several days at the course. Also appreciated was the mix in the audience (librarians, publishers and vendors).
In the evaluation, participants could rate a programme item 'extremely good', 'good', 'neutral', 'bad' or 'extremely bad'. With their ratings, we calculated a score from 0 to 5, with 5 being the maximum score. The average score was 4.0.
The following lectures were rated as the best. For privacy reasons, the lecturers are indicated by numbers which correspond with the numbers in the syllabus given to all participants and lecturers.
| Syllabus number | Score |
| 9 | 4.9 |
| 16 | 4.8 |
| 13 | 4.7 |
| 15 and 19 | 4.5 |
The results of the evaluation are not a reason to change our promotion. All 'distribution channels' for information on the summer school worked satisfactory. When asked how participants first heard about the spring school, 25% of the participants indicated that a colleague attended a Ticer course in one of the previous years. 51% of the participants found the spring school on the Internet (WWW, newsgroup or discussion list); only 11% received a paper course brochure; and none of the participants read a press release in a library journal. Communication between Ticer and the participants was considered 'perfect' to 'good' and the combination of e-mail and Ticer's web site to keep participants informed was considered 'very adequate' to 'adequate'.
57% of the participants read their mail daily or almost every day. 68% of the participants agreed that they had plenty of opportunity to read their mail and 7 participants had no opinion. Three persons remarked that the CERN hostel should have network connections for laptops.
The quality of lunches at the CERN restaurant was considered 'very good' to 'good' by 77% of the participants; 60% of the participants thought that the dinners at the CERN restaurant were 'very good' to 'good'. The welcome and farewell dinners were rated 'very good' to 'good' by all participants.
Of the 35 people who filled out the questionnaire, 26 stayed in the CERN hostel. Participants were very pleased with the accommodation. The price quality ratio was considered 'perfect' or 'good' by 88% of them. Most participants (85%) would like to stay in the same accommodation next time.
Ticer home
