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New Resource: Pitchbook

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

By Linda Hauck

Villanova faculty and students now have access to Pitchbook. Pitchbook provides data on companies, investors, and deals in the private equity and venture capital space.

Pitch book offers screeners for companies, deals, funds, investors, and service providers. These are not your typical screeners limited to filtering by geography, profitability, and industry.  The screeners are much more granular than most, including specialized criteria relevant to rapidly evolving businesses with deal types, debt characteristics, web and social media metrics, verticals, and patent holdings, to name a few.

The Pitchbook Library Research Center has reports on industries, technologies, and public and private market performance and benchmarks. Here, you’ll find surveys on sustainable investment, European M&A activity, and reports on agtech and food as medicine. Pitchbook is the best tool at our disposal for learning about emerging businesses. If you’re looking for firms working on renewable ocean energy, youth banking, anti-aging, smart packaging, or cannabis beverages, browsing the emerging spaces will get you there.

Use cases for Pitchbook include business development and marketing, tracking competitors investments, environmental scans for innovative products and services, finding potential investors,  analyzing industry and vertical trends, and finding Villanova alumni.

Access Pitchbook with your Villanova email address.  Downloading is limited and regrettably our subscription does not include live support, the mobile app or Excel add on.

 


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.


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Sports Business Research Network (SBRnet) Premium Data

By Linda Hauck

Falvey now has access to premium data on the Sports Business Research Network (SBRnet), which conducts twice yearly consumer surveys of a representative sample of U.S. consumers 13 years and older.  The surveys include questions about sport and team fandom by demographic characteristics (gender, age, income, geography, and education), media usage (social media, device usage, and channels watched), spending on merchandise, sports travel behavior, and select food and beverage consumption patterns and insurance, banking, and credit usage.

This new content compliments the news, directories and additional data sets in SBRnet. There are directories for sports venues, marketing agencies,  sport associations and team and player performance sites.  Its a one-stop shop for sporting goods spending, participation, attendance, fan demographics, and media usage data, downloadable in Excel format. Use it to keep up to date on business developments on everything from baseball to fantasy football, sports gambling, pickleball, and sports law to name just a few topics.

SBRnet is a top pick for sports analytics, marketing and management students.


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.


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A Faculty Perspective on Using OER in the Classroom

Dr. Alicia Strandberg, a recipient of the 2022-23 OER Faculty Adoption Grant, shared reflections about using open educational resources in MSA 8115, a graduate level course on Multivariate Data Analysis.    The questions I asked her about are in bold and a loosely transcribed summary of Dr. Strandberg’s responses follow.

Why did you choose free to use, open licensed books instead of commercial textbooks for this course?

The students in this course have unique characteristics.  The program is 100% online and this is the final course in a cohort sequence.  I needed resources for all different types of learners coming from different backgrounds.  The age and work experience distribution is broad.  Some students are recent undergraduates, others have extensive work experience.  There isn’t one book to meet their varied needs.  I was fortunate that the standard textbook is open.  The additional texts I discovered while preparing the course.  I found them useful for offering an alternative perspective, so thought students might too.

I didn’t want to overwhelm students with resources, so it is important to find a balance.  If using multiple resources, I recommend labeling key and optional materials.  Beyond that it is helpful to specify which optional materials are helpful for students struggling with specific topics.  In my experience, students are less likely to use an undifferentiated list of resources, they are more likely to use them when given a path mapping topics to resources.

One shortcoming is that I’m not aware of a way to track student usage of these materials.  It would be helpful to know how often students utilize these resources and which materials are more popular or less popular.

Tracking usage is a key feature of many online learning systems because it can be used to determine where students have difficulties and need more support, but it also may undermine privacy and have a negative effect on the student-faculty relationship…

I agree there are some concerns there, but I don’t need personalized data. I would love to have information that showed how many students used a resource, such as in a class of twenty five, seven students used one resource. I don’t need to know which seven students may have used it.  That may tell me where more attention needs to be focused.  Meaningful insights can be given by counts.  For example, knowing if there were seven different students or the same one student revisiting a resource could help me address or change my approach to some of the topics.

Were the open resources different than commercial textbooks you’ve used?

I don’t think the textbooks themselves were different, but how students accessed them was.  Because it’s an online course all materials were supplied as links.  I did recieve feedback from a small group of students that they missed paper textbooks and some purchased paper editions, but that is a very small group of students.  So I think it is working well.

What works was involved in redesigning the course around openly licensed books?

It helps that I was the creator of the course.  Because it was going to be an online course, in the design phase we were encouraged to look at open materials and we were challenged to keep costs low for students especially because they are paying graduate tuition.  It was a bit of luck that I really liked the main textbook and it is open.  It is an intermediate book, so I knew for some students it would be challenging to jump in. I needed other resources for students who might need to catch up to the intermediate level.  Faculty collaborated in workshops when designing this program and some of the supplementary materials are used in other courses too.

That’s great, I didn’t realize that on the faculty team level there was such a focus on choosing open and affordable materials.  Do you think that orientation is common or maybe specific to this program.

I think there are bright spots where it is really encouraged and other places where it might be mentioned. In my experience I see it more often at the graduate level.  My undergraduate courses use commercial textbooks, and I don’t think it is realistic to use all open materials, but I do like to use open source materials as optional  resources whenever possible.  That way students that need extra support don’t have to pay an extra fee for materials.

You received a small award for using open educational resources. Do you think this is a good way to encourage adoption of OER?  Can you think of other services that the university could provide?

I’m very grateful to have received this award. This award highlights that open educational resources are  of value to Villanova. The award brings awareness.

To spread the word and have more involvement, I believe taking a team approach would be beneficial.  It would be helpful to know where to find open resources and library resources, knowing that at the end of the day everything we do is to make our students stronger and more capable and successful.  If we can make that path a little easier by relieving the burden of some textbook costs, that’s a good thing to do.  Having conversations at faculty and program meetings will get more people to think about it.

Do you think using OER had any impact on the classroom dynamic?

In all my classes I like to believe students get the most from being in the (virtual) classroom and participating in active classes.  The materials help aid our discussion. Assuming my belief its true, I don’t think there is much difference between a commercial or open textbook, assuming they are both of high quality.

I have had conversations with colleagues about what students do when they need help in the moment, since faculty cannot always be immediately available.  In these moments, many students turn to the internet, where they may or may not find relevant materials or high quality information.  I like to think that when I recommend websites and open source materials on Blackboard, my students will turn to those first.  I know that part of my job is to enable students to recognize quality material too.

Do you have any advice for colleagues that may be considering using OER?

You don’t have to change your primary textbook.  I would start small.  For me what worked well was adding OER as additional resources, then telling students which chapters in the open access resources supplement the primary textbook is helpful.  You don’t have to do this for every topic.  I started by paying attention to patterns in the emails student sent looking for clarification on specific topics.   The questions weren’t evenly distributed, so I focused on the challenging topics.  This approach actually lessened the volume of emails students sent asking for help.  Both sides win;  students get what they need and it eases the workload for faculty.  I like to remind students about these resources, letting them know that I will always respond to their questions but they may be able to get help in the moment by using the recommended OER.


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Research Consults for Data & Statistics

By Linda Hauck

One of the favorite parts of my job is to support students in their search for data and statistics. Some students needs are met by a quick search in Statista, a database that aggregates data and statistics on a wide range of topics or a smart google search employing filetype:xls or site:.gov. These quick solutions are satisfying, for sure, but the real fun happens when students need multiple datasets for data analysis, or a research methods project.

To help these students, I start the conversation by asking about their topic and how they envision using data. We talk about their ideal dataset keeping in mind how it might be generated, who is likely to collect the data, what frequency, granularity, time period, populations, and geographies are needed. If there is an agency or organization that is obviously most likely to compile the idea dataset, it makes sense to start there. If not, doing a scholarly literature review and focusing on the data or methods section of papers will point to potential sources.

This data exploration process can be time consuming but fun!

Grace Liu, Business Librarian at West Chester University, with the advice of Bobray Bordelon, Economics & Finance Librarian/Data Services Librarian at Princeton University distilled the process in this neat infographic.


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.


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New Resource: ISS Directors and NEO Diversity Data

By Linda Hauck

Villanova faculty and students now have access to the ISS Directors and NEO Diversity Datasets.  The datasets encompass over 27,000 companies, globally.  Characteristics of company board members and named executives are documented.  This is a unique data set because not only are age, nationality and gender of persons recorded but ethnicity is as well.  Ethnicity data sources are by firm disclosure, by survey feedback, and analyst identification.

It is a well documented and rich source of information about company diversity policies, statements and goals too.   Outcomes backed up by numbers and percentages of board and officer composition by ethnicity, gender, age, tenure, and experiential factors are presented. The complete data dictionary is available here.

At present this data is available by SFTP via FileZilla or WinSCP.

Instructions are available here and linda.hauck@villanova.edu or ref@villanova.edu will share the password with authorize users. It is expected that this data will be on WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services) later in the year.  Contact linda.hauck@villanova.edu if you would like to schedule a training session.

 


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.


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New Resource: BoardEx

Villanova researchers now have access to BoardEx, which presents data on companies, board members, and individuals serving on C-Suites in North America, Europe, the UK, and the “Rest of the World” from 1999 to present.  Public, private, and nonprofit organizations are included. Detailed attributes about board members and officers is provided including: age, gender, role, education, employment, achievements, compensation, networks, and committee appointments.  Summary data on organizations include nationality mix, gender ratios, attrition rates, board networks, and remuneration practices.  The use of common company identifiers simplifies linking to other products such as CRSP and Compustat/Capital IQ.

BoardEx data have been a key underlying source for empirical research in accountancy, finance, and management generally and corporate social responsibility specifically.  The Library is thrilled to be able to provide direct access to this data via the Wharton Research Data Services platform.

David Ratigan, Director of the Gmelich Lab for Financial Markets approves registration for faculty and students. Duo security app for two-factor authentication needed.

Photo: Damir Kopezhanov (Unsplash)


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is the Business Librarian at Falvey Library.


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Passport (Euromonitor) Economies: Cities

By Linda Hauck

Graduate and undergraduate business students often work on international market entry strategies for cases and consulting clients. Devising a winning strategy is contingent on analyzing a wide range of data about specific locations. National level data isn’t always sufficient. That’s why the Library added the Cities module to Passport (Euromonitor). Students can spend less time tracking down data and more time interpreting it to solve business problems.

The Cities module contains time series data on consumers, economic conditions, and sustainability. Historic and current consumer data covers demographics, income, expenditures, wealth, and digital access.  The economic variables available include GDP, employment, unemployment, labor force participation, inflation, consumer prices by sector, exports, and wages. Measures of mobility, pollution and climate can be used to assess sustainability potential. Coverage is not limited to the single financial or commercial center of a country: Over 1200 metropolitan areas on every continent are included.

These same data points are contextualized in Cities Reports, which benchmark and rank each city against their home countries and regions using a variety of data visualizations. Significant changes are highlighted as are unique or stand out conditions.

Accessing the Cities Reports and Data can be tricky due to the wealth of information on Passport. TheScreen shot of Passport highlighting area for cities data Economics tab and Search all Categories box enable drilling down to the cities and variables needed.

Passport (Euromonitor) Economies: Cities module isn’t the only Library-subscribed content for learning about urban centers. Statista offers Global Business Cities Reports which feature social, economic, and cultural data.  Access World News and Factiva provide access to foreign language and English newspapers published in cities around the world.


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA is the Business Librarian at Falvey Library.


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Students Speak: Open Access Week Edition

  • Posted by: Linda Hauck
  • Posted Date: November 4, 2022
  • Filed Under: Library News

By Linda Hauck

Villanova students Ethan Shea and Olivia Dunn talk with the Villanova community about open access opportunities.


During Open Access Week, which promotes and celebrates the power openly licensed scholarship and textbooks have for knowledge sharing, students tabled on the first floor of Falvey Library. They asked their peers how they feel about expensive textbooks and access codes, which are not openly licensed.  Their answers, at least those that are publishable, were frank and to the point:

“Sad face.”

“Bad.”

“Very bad.”

“Horrible.”

“Broke.”

“I’m crying.”

Students reported spending significant sums on their course materials this semester: 25% spend up to $99, 20% spent $100-199, 20% spent $200-299, 21% spent 300-399 and 10% spent over $400. Some students raised questions about access code fairness. “Shouldn’t have to pay to access HW,” stated one student. Another student questioned access to assessments stating, “Access codes aren’t a good tool b/c they force us to pay $60-130 to take assessments, which should be covered by the school.”

Villanova students are incredibly resourceful, yet they are sometimes pushed to ethically questionable practices when it comes to finding access to expensive materials. They borrow books from each other, Falvey library, CASA, and other libraries through Interlibrary loan. They rent. They take advantage of free trials.  They use online “file sharing” libraries. They buy books from online vendors and return them within the 25-day free period…And the cycle repeats.

In the end, students were very appreciative of the faculty and programs on campus that make textbooks more affordable, especially Father John Abubaker, Lance Kenney, John Olson, PhD,  Farid Zamini, PhD, and the Humanities Department.

For more information on open access materials, check out the Affordable Materials Project (AMP). AMP promotes knowledge sharing by encouraging the adoption of openly licensed textbooks and homework systems by the OER Faculty Adoption Awards and helps delivers eBooks with unlimited user licenses at no cost to students.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.


 


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Open Education Resource Faculty Adoption Grant

International Open Access Week is an occasion to promote and celebrate the equitable sharing of knowledge. One way Villanova, through the Affordable Materials Project(AMP), encourages knowledge sharing is by supporting faculty who adopt open educational resources (OER). The Open Educational Resource Faculty Adoption Grant has much to celebrate!

Open educational resources are teaching and learning materials, often textbooks, that are typically free to use and a have Creative Commons license permitting reuse, adaption, and sharing. This means students don’t have to pay for OER e-textbooks and faculty can customize them to meet their learning objectives. The OER Faculty Adoption Grant was established to recognize faculty for all the effort that goes into revising syllabi, lesson plans, assignments, and assessments.

Past OER Faculty Adoption Grant recipients shared insights and tips about their experiences in forums recorded in 2022 and 2021.  Students participated too and noted the use of OER offered a welcome reprieve from financial pressures and contributed to their class engagement and participation.

Past awardees, Dr. Stephanie Katz Linkmeyer and Professor Jeanne Liedtka, spearheaded departmental evaluations of OER for General Chemistry I (CHEM 1151) and OER for Corporate Responsibility and Regulation (VSB 2007) which resulted in OER adoptions.  Fall 2022 is the first semester OER will be used by all sections of these courses, resulting in significant cost savings for students.

Applications are being accepted for the OER Faculty Adoption Grant through Nov. 18, 2022. Subject librarians can assist with finding suitable OER. For eligibility requirements, review criteria, and grant requirements, click here.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian


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New Business Model Canvas Guide

The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a key tool used by both entrepreneurs and existing organizations to launch, grow, and sustain businesses and social enterprises.  Villanova’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship coaches innovators across campus on how to work through the BMC for their ventures.

Completing a Business Model Canvas is a key requirement for competing in the Villanova’s Student Entrepreneurship Competition (VSEC), held during the spring semester, which awards over $20 thousand dollars in prize money.

The Library collaborated with Stephen Green, Assistant Director of the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to curate a Business Model Canvas Guide with databases, books, articles, and research tips for filling in the BMC.  When I met with Green in the IDEA Lab, he said completing the BMC is required for VSEC because it is a necessary tool for “visualizing and analyzing any ventures’ strategy.”  He remarked that “teams use the BMC to stay on track and keep each other accountable.” Determining optimal revenue or profit models, he noted, prove to be most challenging for many teams.

The Business Model Canvas Guide may be ideal for entrepreneurs with a DIY orientation. But Business Librarian, Linda Hauck, is also available for consultations for those who appreciate a personalized, targeted approach.

Talking with fellow entrepreneurs is another great way to generate ideas about how to approach populating your BMC. Nova Women Entrepreneurship Panel, held on Monday, Oct. 17, at 5 p.m. in the IDEA Lab is a great opportunity to learn from founders. You can register here.


Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is Business Librarian at Falvey Library.

 


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Last Modified: October 5, 2022

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