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************* please excuse cross-postings **************** Dear List members, The Research Centre for Museums and Galleries in the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester has been commissioned by Resource: the Council for Museums, Libraries and Archives to research ways of defining and measuring the impact of learning in museums, libraries and archives. This study is one element of the Inspiring Learning Framework that Resource is developing. A copy of the Inspiring Learning Framework paper can be found on the Resource website (w.w.w.resource.gov.uk). Resource is seeking information on the impact of MAL on learning and to use this to demonstrate the value of archives, museums and libraries to government. We would like the research process to be open to comment, and intend to use a number of email lists to inform people working in museums, libraries and archives of our thoughts as they develop. At the moment we are working on defining learning outcomes. We need to develop a generic way of doing this that can be used across all three domains (libraries, archives and museums). By 'Learning outcomes' we are not thinking about processes, for example delivering programmes for specific groups of learners, but about the measurable impact on a child, teacher, adult, visitor , for example thinking in different ways, knowing more about something, changing their mind about something etc). We would be interested in hearing from you, in particular regarding how you define learning outcomes? At the moment we are gathering information on ways of thinking about what might count as a 'learning outcome'. Once we have come to a view of what the answer might be (hopefully incorporating the comments you will send us) we will post our draft definitions of learning outcomes to this list for comment. This will happen in the New Year. Having developed an appropriate set of generic learning outcomes, we will be developing specific research tools for measuring these outcomes. This will include both qualitative and quantitative methods. We will be starting on this work after Christmas and will contact you again about your thoughts on this. Many thanks for your interest. Eilean Hooper-Greenhill Jocelyn Dodd Theano Moussouri John Vincent Marlene Morrison Chris Pickford Francois Matarasso