This study is intended to examine the effects of teacher and librarian collaboration in Alaska secondary schools and its impact on student learning through the lens of social network theory. Deborah Rinio, Librarian in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, and doctoral student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is conducting this study.
Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. Any contact information collected for the purpose of the study will be used only for communication between yourself and the researcher and will not be shared with anyone else.
The study will be conduced in three phases over the course of one semester. Your participation is needed for the first phase; a short survey that will take approximately 15-20 minutes. Based on the results of the first phase, a representative grouping of librarians (based on frequency of collaboration and years of experience) will be selected to participate in the second phase. Your participation may be requested again for the second and/or third phases. You are not obligated to participate in this or any future portions of the study. If you participate now, it does not obligate you to future participation. You may choose not to answer all questions or not to participate in one or more portions of the study, even after beginning the survey.
The results of the study will be used for scholarly purposes only. All responses will be stored in password-protected format for use by the researcher only. Results of the research will be published anonymously with no individual school, district, or person identified.
If you have any concerns or questions about the study, please contact: Deborah Rinio at djrinio@alaska.edu or 907-479-2261 x123; Dr. Gary Jacobsen, Doctoral Thesis Advisor, at gjacobs9@uaf.edu or 907-474-5924; or the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Institutional Review Board. The UAF Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a group that examines research projects involving people. This review is done to protect the rights and welfare of people involved the research. If you have questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant, you can contact the UAF Office of Research Integrity at 474-7800 (Fairbanks area) or 1-866-876-7800 (toll-free outside the Fairbanks area) or uaf-irb@alaska.edu.