A total of 28 participants attended the first week of the summer school. At the end of the week, everyone received a questionnaire. 24 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 week of the fifth International Summer School on the Digital Library was a success. All participants, except one, indicated they would recommend the summer school to colleagues in the field. 88% said the summer school was worth its money.
- "Thank you! A course with high quality."
- "An excellent course!"
- "I thought it was great!"
- "The course was good, very good."
- "The summer school, apart from being an excellent course, is a very good opportunity to get together with colleagues from all over the world, and share experiences, successes and frustrations with them. The team of teachers is a wonderful one, what can make the learning process more easy and also comfortable. I will definitely try to come to the next summer school. I have learnt in this course that we need to operate changes in our libraries, otherwise we will be lost out there. Coming from a university environment, I feel that the change is urgent, and this course made me feel ready to face the challenge."
- "Organisation in general was super!"
- "Overall, the summer school 2000 was remarkably organised! Many thanks to all involved in the organisation!!!"
86% of the participants could discover the structure in the programme. 29% of the participants thought the programme was overfull and 58% thought the programme should give more opportunity for discussion. A imaginary case study was used throughout the programme to put the knowledge gained in practice. This case study approach was thought very useful by 83% of the participants. General suggestions on the programme were to pay even more attention to staff issues and people management and to include even more real case studies than we already did.
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 4.2.
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 | Comments |
| 12 | 4.8 | summarized themes very well, although the lecturer had not been there during other days of the week |
| 6 | 4.4 | no comments |
| 9 | 4.4 | definitely the most difficult part while changing; no time enough; very good session, so important! |
| 13 | 4.4 | summarized themes very well |
The results of the evaluation are not a reason to change our promotion. All 'distribution channels' for information on the summer school worked satisfactory. 29% of the participants indicated that a colleague attended the summer school one of the previous years. 33% of the participants received a paper brochure on the summer school via direct mail. Communication between Ticer and the participants was considered 'very good' to 'good' (with one 'neutral' response) and the combination of e-mail and Ticer's web site to keep participants informed was considered 'very adequate' to 'adequate' (with one 'neutral' response).
Only 38% of the participants used the Tilburg University facilities to read their mail daily. Most of these participants agreed that they had plenty of opportunity to read their mail in the library. 45% of the participants found the computer facilities at the university excellent, 1 had no opinion.
The quality of dinners was considered very good; the quality of the lunches good. People had very differing opinions about the duration of the coffee and lunch breaks.
Of the 24 people who filled out the questionnaire, 13 stayed in the hotel. After increasing complaints about the noise in a previously used hotel in the city centre, Ticer has been using a new hotel in the woods, very close to the university since 1999. Participants were very pleased with this hotel. The price quality ratio was considered perfect or good by all of them, except one (neutral). Only one participant did not find the hotel quiet, and only one would rather stay in a hotel in the city centre next time.
Of the 24 people who filled out the questionnaire, 5 stayed in the student apartments.The price quality ratio of the student apartments was considered perfect or good by all participants. All 5 people indicated they would stay there again a next time.
