The design and assessment of the Learning Commons at the University of Iowa

The academic library has become a nexus of collaboration and engagement with university resources, and, increasingly, academic librarians in higher education institutions are creating flexible environments that can accommodate a range of activities. The University of Iowa designed and built the Learning Commons on the first floor of the Main Library with a variety of group study rooms, open study areas, and computing resources. The results of the assessment suggest that approximately 75% of first-year students had used the Learning Commons. Compared with students in engineering and business, a greater percentage of students in the liberal arts reported using the Learning Commons, suggesting that the informal learning environment was more suitable to students in these disciplines. Indeed, the most commonly cited reason for non-usage of the Learning Commons was already having a preferred place to study. The more students believed they could use their laptops in the Learning Commons and the more they believed they could concentrate, the more satisfied they were overall with the Learning Commons. The authors discuss the implications of this research for other institutions who are seeking to implement similar learning environments.