John T. Harwood (ITS)Loanne Snavely (Libraries)

Penn State

Copyright John T. Harwood and Loanne Snavely, 2003. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires

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January 2003

"Where's the Library for this Course?" Moving the Library to Where the

Students Are

Welcome

This presentation is designed to answer the question posed by David Cohen in the EDUCAUSE Review May/June 2002:

"Course Management Software: Where's the Library?"

Where’s the Library for this Course?

• Over 400 databases, 4,000 journals, 4 million books

• Subject specialist librarians• Classes and guides (both web and paper) to

assist students• New building / great web site

Both our physical library and our virtual library are full of students,

so why worry?

The Problem

• Students love to use the Web • The library is “out there somewhere”• For most of our 83,000 students, the

library is not where they usually are!• If the “Library” is more than 1-click

away, why bother, dude?

The Problem (cont.)

Most CMS software leads students to one of three places for information sources

1. No resources

2. Other general Web resources (free) or

3. Purchased database (cost passed along to higher ed institutions)

An Example

• What students get from one CMS that contracts with an “academic database.”

• Linked from prominent button called “Web Research.”

• Choose category

• Simple search interface

• Scary results

What Do Students Think When They Get Search Results ?• Currency: “Homelessness” is no longer

an issue – not even a newspaper article in 6 months

• Depth: Not much is being written about it – must not be important. Only 10 articles in 16 months

• Scholarship: It isn’t being treated in a scholarly way since no scholarly journals appear in this scholarly database search.

If Our CMS is Not Part of the Solution ….• Then it’s part of the problem.

• When PSU adopted ANGEL in 2001, we wanted to integrate the CMS with the Libraries.

• But with 24 campuses and more than 13,000 sections per semester, how in the world would we do that?

• And did I mention 5,000 fulltime faculty?

A Word about ANGEL

A Word about ANGEL

• ANGEL is a course-management system developed by CyberLearning Labs

• A key criterion that led to our adopting ANGEL was the ease with which we could integrate other IT services and resources

• ANGEL’s ease-of-use has led to incredibly rapid adoption

A Word about ANGEL at PSU

• Approximately 3,400 sections are using ANGEL this semester

• ~45,000 students are enrolled in at least one course that uses ANGEL

• ~4,500 faculty and TA’s are using ANGEL

• Since this is only our third semester, we expect usage to grow

What does ANGEL actually do?

ANGEL (like Bb and WebCT) handles• Syllabi

• Schedules

• Announcements

• Course materials (PowerPoint, exercises, movies, problem sets, etc.)

ANGEL (like Bb and WebCT) handles• Message Boards

• Chat

• Dropboxes (rather than email to the instructor)

• Shared file space (for team projects)

• Quizzes, Surveys, Polls

A CMS should include the Libraries, but does it?• At Penn State, we wanted to find a way

to integrate the Libraries’ resources into our CMS

The Solution

How to get the CMS and the Library together

Choose the Right Goals

• “Push” high-quality library resources appropriate to the subject of the course to the students via a “Subject Guide”

• Make reserve reading for the course immediately available through a dynamic link to the online catalog

• Achieve a “one-click” environment for faculty and students

• Make it work with a single “sign-on,” too!

Identify the Partners

• University Libraries – Librarians and Reserve staff

• ITS – Teaching & Learning with Technology – Instructional design and project management

• ITS – Administrative Information Services – ANGEL programmers

• ITS – Digital Library Technologies – library programmers

Have an Aggressive Timeline

• The pilot – Fall 2002 – Select Librarians learn to use the subject guide template and begin working with individual faculty to link guides

• Currently: All librarians are working on guides and linking them to courses and department/majors.

• Long Term – Our goal is to have a guide for every ANGEL course.

Plan the Project – and Follow the Plan• The time frame challenge – matching up

our work schedules

• Project management

• Discussions with librarians – what do we need? How can it work?

• Meetings with group to envision end result

Move from Ideas to Reality

• Translation of ideas by instructional designer onto paper

• Subject guide template by AIS programmers

• Reserve modules by AIS and DLT programmers

Find the “Killer” Features

• Link an existing guide• Create a new subject guide with template (no html

skills required)• Reproduce and edit guides for various courses.• Guides can be saved to library server and used as a

general subject guide.• Basic guide structure must be very flexible to suit

different disciplines, types of resources, etc.

Under the Hood: Subject Guide

• Contact information

• Books

• Articles

• Research tips

• Create new header

• Rearrange headers

Linking guides

• to an individual course

• to all courses in a department or major

• When a departmental level guide is attached to a course, a customized guide can be requested.

Advantages for Students• Always have suggested resources at point of need• Hotlinks to subject appropriate databases, websites,

etc. • Subject guides appear “just in time” - when and

where they need it for each course.• Consistent location on Tools menu, so students don’t

have to remember what lesson or where on syllabus it appeared.

• Eventually will appear in each course so students can count on finding appropriate scholarly resources for each course in each course.

Advantages for Faculty

• Same as for students!

• The default is to have the course guides – no need to request them

• The Libraries will automatically update and enhance the resources

• Students may be reminded to use critical resources in more than one course (strategic repetition, not redundancy)

Advantages for PSU

• Sources selected by PSU Librarians, in consultation with PSU faculty, for PSU curricula

• Sources paid for by PSU (once)

Let’s have a look…

Summary

Under the Hood: Reserves Link

• Seamless generation of dynamically populated reserve lists • Lists contain links to full text electronic reserves as well as

citations to traditional reserve materials.• List is always current• Instructor activates reserve link in ANGEL after placing

materials “on reserve” with the libraries.• Students authenticate once.• Students find the list in the same place on the Tool bar for

each course.• Instant results save on student frustration and error

Seven steps saved. Before: • 1. exit ANGEL • 2. go to PSU Homepage• 3. enter library web site. • 4. enter the CAT (online catalog) • 5. authenticate to view reserves• 6. enter course name, number, or instructor

name• 7. search

After:

• Click reserve link

(which automatically sends a search to the CAT with the student ID, instructor ID and course number, executes the search and displays the results.)

Our solution

• Brings the library to where the students are• Promotes the resources the University has

invested in• Eliminates paying for resources twice• Helps students learn to use quality library

resources rather than a search engine - one step on their way to information literacy.

• Enhances student learning and their overall educational experience.

Summary

• Silos are bad; integration of resources is good. The key is partnership.

• The CMS, like the portal, can become a “glue” for information resources tailorable to faculty and students

• The Web has NOT solved the challenge of “information fluency” – that must occur within courses and programs.

• “Push” technology and “just in time” are keys to our success