Ithaka S+R provides strategic consulting and related services to help universities, libraries, museums, membership organizations, scholarly publishers, foundations, and other not-for-profits effectively navigate the digital landscape. Our experience shows that many organizations aim to use information technology to meet needs in research and teaching but do not always have the time or the expertise to develop their strategies fully.

What we do:

• Market Research and Analysis.  A sound strategy requires a thorough understanding of the surrounding environment. We conduct focus groups, literature reviews, surveys, and online research to provide both quantitative and qualitative data analysis for our clients.

   

  For a decade the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey has been an essential guide for those looking for trends across higher education. Now, academic leaders have the opportunity to implement Ithaka S+R's Local Faculty Survey and Local Student Survey at their own institutions to understand the impact of the emerging digital landscape on research, teaching, and learning outcomes. These surveys provide institutions with a heightened awareness about their campus constituents and help academic leaders manage and address environmental change. 

• User Research Services.  We provide a range of user research services to libraries, universities and cultural institutions.  By employing anthropological methods, we make it possible for our clients to engage their constituents in the process of assessing existing services, spaces and technologies and determining ways to improve or change them.  We are also available to train clients’ staff members in a range of field-tested methods to gather data on the work practices of their users.

• Strategic Planning for Organizations and Programs. We provide assistance in developing short and long-term strategic plans that help organizations adapt to and benefit from the rapidly changing digital technology landscape. We help our clients identify goals, priorities, business models, organizational structures, and implementation strategies that will position them to succeed and grow.

   

• New Product and Service Design. We help our clients to translate ideas for new products and services into solid offerings that respond to their constituents’ needs. Building upon market analysis, we help our clients to define the “Who/What/When/Where/and How” of new product and service models.

   

• Business Modeling. Financial sustainability is a major concern for innovative digital projects. We know that there is no simple formula for achieving sustainability; a custom approach is required. We work with our clients to help them understand the unique value of their digital resource programs, to plan for their ongoing costs, and to evaluate an appropriate mixture of earned and donated sources of support.

   

  In 2013, Ithaka S+R launched a new Sustaining Digital Resources Training Course to introduce digital project leaders to the fundamentals of sustainability planning. Launched with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this course offers participants the practical skills needed to develop ambitious, yet realistic plans to help their projects grow and have impact over time. The Course builds on a series of highly successful sustainability planning workshops led by Ithaka S+R staff in the United States and United Kingdom.

• Grant writing. We help our clients from the earliest stage of their projects by helping them identify funding sources and developing grant proposals to help support research projects, new programs, and products.

   

• Project Management and Facilitation. Launching an online resource or program initiative is difficult, and the organizational processes that have worked in the past may not suffice. We provide project management and facilitation services for innovative initiatives and partnerships. We help with meeting design, discussion facilitation, work planning and coordination, and other services to help projects move forward effectively and efficiently.