Outline of Assessment Process for Candidates

LAI AWARDS: ALAI, SALAI and FLAI Outline of Assessment Process for Candidates

This document is for Candidate guidance and information purposes. In accordance with the GDPR it provides explicit details of the processes.  Documents collected and data recorded are for the sole purposes of administering assessments, communicating outcomes, facilitating award ceremonies and listing successful awardees’ names in the Annual Report.

Your Application

It is important that Candidates read the criteria for each award carefully  and send application forms, relevant documentation including a scan of the Library qualification award (latter in the case of ALAI applications only), a reflective statement and the appropriate fee to awards@libraryassociation.ie

What happens next?

Applications are acknowledged upon receipt and each application is forwarded to two Assessors.  In the interests of fairness, the entire assessment process is confidential. Neither Assessor knows the other’s identity and Assessors’ identities are not disclosed to Candidates.

How does the Administration Process work?

Responsibility for the management of each application lies with a nominated Administrator.  The Administrators maintain a secure tracking system which basic data necessary for the efficient administration of awards. 

Data recorded include: Applicants’ names, contact details, dates of receipt and acknowledgment of applications, names of assessors and dates of sending applications to them and receipt of assessments. Dates of reporting to Professional Standards Committee, of informing Candidates of outcomes, of ratification by the Board and of final disposal of documents by Administrators and Assessors are all also logged. The award Assessors mark up a checklist co-relating to the award criteria to ensure that all the necessary components of an application are in place and assessed in a consistent manner.

In the case of successful applications:

Administrators report to the Professional Standards Committee that both Assessors have deemed the Candidate’s application worthy of an award. Verbal summaries of outcomes are given at Committee meetings and the Committee are not informed of Assessors’ identities in relation to specific applications.  The Committee meets regularly throughout the year.

The Committee must approve awards which then go forward to Council for ratification.

Candidates are informed immediately post ratification by Council after which they may use the relevant post-nominals.  Awards are officially conferred at the AGM of the Association and a citation is read for each awardee based upon Assessors’ reports and knowledge of the person’s contributions to the profession, public profile etc.

The assessment process may take up to 6-8 months.  The Administrator dealing with a specific application will keep in touch with the Candidate throughout the process.

What happens if the Assessors do not recommend an application for an award?

 If neither Assessor can recommend that an award be made to the Candidate then the Administrator reports this to the Professional Standards Committee at their next meeting.

The Candidate is then informed of the outcome and provided with constructive feedback.

What happens if Assessors disagree over the merits of an application?

If Assessors are divided over an application then the Administrator may seek a third report.  If two out of three Assessors provide positive reports the Candidate will be recommended for an award. 

About the Assessors

The Professional Standards Committee selects Assessors from within the LAI and/or other LIS associations. Assessors are selected because of their expertise, experience and seniority.

They come from a range of LIS backgrounds.  Each signs a non-disclosure form for the duration of his/her service on the assessment panel and must declare any conflict of interest. Each application is assessed against the criteria for the specific award.

Assessors are informed of their obligations to ensure security of applicants’ documentation and data and of the appropriate retention periods.  In general, documents are retained by assessors only until the whole process has been successfully completed.  However, in the event of an application being unsuccessful documentation is retained for a further period e.g. for review in the case of appeal. 

Assessors supply a report to the appropriate Administrator who may use elements of the report in the citation read for a successful Candidate on the occasion of the conferring of awards (LAI AGM).

How long are my documents retained?

  • Tracking data are minimised in a timely fashion and are retained for twelve months post completion of the process for feedback and administrative purposes, for example names of successful Candidates are compiled for the Annual Report
  • Documentation in relation to applications is also retained by Administrators for a maximum of 12 months post completion of the process for feedback and administrative purposes.  

 

GDPR

  • Library Association Of Ireland: Privacy Statement
  • Collection of your personal information
  • How we use your Personal Information
  • Security of your personal information
  • Third party services
  • Updating your personal information
  • Website visitors
  • Use of Cookies
  • Changes to this statement
  • Contact Information

Library Association Of Ireland: Privacy Statement

Introduction
The Library Association of Ireland (LAI) is committed to protecting your privacy. The information you share with us means you will be able to use the services we offer. We only collect the information that is necessary to carry out our business, provide the particular service you have requested and to keep you informed. Our privacy policy gives you details on when and why we collect your personal data and how we use it.

Collection of your personal information

The amount and type of information we collect from you depends on the nature of the interaction you have with us. For example, we ask members who wish to join to complete an application form. In each case, we only gather as much information as is necessary to fulfil the service request. But in general we collect the following personal information:

  • contact information including: home or work address, telephone number, qualifications and email address
  • affiliation and role
  • bank details if appropriate.

Information about your computer hardware and software is automatically collected by the LAI. This information can include your: IP address; browser type; domain name; access times; and referring website addresses.

 

How we use your Personal Information

The information we collect and hold on you will be used in a number of ways, including:

  • to fulfil membership requests
  • to fulfil bookings for attendance at events
  • provision of a LAI service,
  • provision of information to inform you of other products or services available from LAI and its affiliates
  • process payments, e.g. fees for attendance at events, payment of invoices, etc.
  • to facilitate discussion and sharing of knowledge through discussion lists and events
  • to contact you to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered
  • when you use the LAI website.

The LAI will keep your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice and to fulfil our legal obligations. We will not keep more information than we need. The retention period will vary according to the purpose the data is collated.

The LAI does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. The LAI may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your unique personally identifiable information (e-mail, name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party.  In addition, the LAI may share data with trusted partners to help us process payments, perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, member services or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to the LAI, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

The LAI will disclose your personal information, without notice, only if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on the LAI or the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of the LAI; and, (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of members of the LAI, or the public.

Security of your personal information

The LAI discloses personally-identifying information to its management committee, contractors and affiliates in order to provide services available from the LAI. Payment processing is an example of this. They will not use your data for anything other than the clearly defined purpose relating to the service that they are providing.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through LAI public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others. Note: the LAI does not read any of your private online communications.

The LAI secures your personal information from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. The LAI secures the personally identifiable information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorised access, use or disclosure. When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption, and security protocols.

Third party services

The LAI utilises third party services to assist in the delivery of some of our services, e.g. Eventbrite. When you interact with these sites you may provide information about yourself to those third parties. The LAI is not responsible for how they collect, use and share your information. We encourage you to review the privacy statements of the websites you choose to link to from the LAI, so that you can understand how these websites collect, use and share your information.

Updating your personal information

The LAI will endeavour to ensure the data we hold on you is correct and up-to-date. If you wish us to amend or remove the personal information we hold on you, please contact us by email honsec@libraryassociation.ie or write to Library Association of Ireland, c/o 138-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2.We will correct any inaccuracies or remove you from our databases as soon as practicable.

Website visitors

Like most websites, the LAI collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. We do this to maintain the quality of the service, to determine what LAI services are the most popular and to provide general statistics regarding use of the LAI website. The data may be gathered from our website hosts and Google Analytics.

 

Use of Cookies

The LAI website uses ‘cookies’ to help you personalise your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalise LAI pages, or register with the LAI site or services, a cookie helps the LAI to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same LAI website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the LAI features that you customised.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the LAI services or websites you visit.

Changes to this statement

The LAI will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect user feedback. The LAI encourages you to periodically review this statement to be informed of how the LAI is protecting your information.

This statement was last updated on 20th June 2018.

Contact Information

The LAI with review and update this Statement of Privacy. If you believe that the LAI has not adhered to this statement, please write the President, Library Association of Ireland, c/o 138-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.