Comments About Our Preliminary Report

Please post comments about the “Task Force on Information Literacy Integration and Utilizing Learning Management Systems Preliminary Report” in this discussion thread.

Directions:

1) Click on the “Comments” link below.
2) Type in your name, email address, and comments
3) Click “Submit Comment”

Please Note: Comments made in the blog are public; viewing will not be limited to task force members.

May 18th Meeting

We're getting closer to finishing our preliminary report! I'll be sending out the draft tomorrow. At Thursday's meeting, we can probably hammer out the final the details, send it out the the whole library and brace ourselves for the comments.

Thursday

3-4pm

LL431

InfoLit Task Force Progress Report to Council

Hi All,

Library Council was very pleased with our task force progress report this morning (see the short version I passed out in your email).  Outcomes of the meeting:

1)  Expanding our charge to include collaboration with student and academic affairs groups is approved. 

2)  They asked that we please not limit or remove some of our ideas to the appendix.  They'd rather we suggest everything that we feel is a sound idea in the actual report.

3)  The AzsignMentor idea sparked a lot of attention.  It needs more explanation and fleshing out to help answer people's questions in our preliminary report.

Kudos to us all.  Great work everyone!
Pam

Meeting Notes from April 27th

Brock Allen from the Center for Teaching and Learning met with our group. Be advised that some of these views are very controversial (maybe even upsetting). In otherwords, please don't freak out! Here are some highlights:

Brock's global view of where higher education is heading:

• We're in a process of disintermediation of information. Getting rid of the middle man (like librarians). We can find pretty much what we want on the Internet or on our own. This will be hitting Universities hard in the next 10 years.
• "Gatekeepers" (like librarians) need to be retrained. Technology is making information more easily available.
• Higher education is about student learning, not about teaching.
• We need to strategically look at how the library wants to support learning as opposed to how we want to provide access to information.
• Sources of information that aren't easy to use will become obsolete.
• Brock envisions a virtual system where an avatar of sorts helps people acquire knowledge and information (rather than a librarian).
• Thinks 'information' is not the best word and that we should say 'knowledge.' For example, change the library's name to 'Library and Knowledge Access.'
• We're a world of Autodidacts (self-taught) and don't need an intermediary anymore.

Brock's views on the future and current state on SDSU's campus:

• It is difficult for us to do the type of strategic planning we are proposing (collaboration with other units) because key or allied units are disjointed. There's no council to bring these groups together in terms of educational technologies and information literacy. The best path is for ITS and the Library to create a bond as we overlap and complement each other nicely.
• History: ITS used to do what CTL does. ITS continued faculty development as it relates to technology. CTL concentrates more on the student learning and teaching tips.
• ITS doesn't try to develop instruction/instructional design in Blackboard. They support the technology, not the teaching.
• ITS' media materials are 'dead' because they are only played via closed circuit television in the classrooms. Brock thinks the library should take over the collection.
• The library is the main unit on campus that provides direct support to students.
• Thinks library computer labs will only be useful for another 2-3 years until everyone has their own laptop or other handhel device. So he thinks we need to figure out how the library can remain important to students.
• There's a shift to large 500 seat classrooms on campus (which also increases the number of 200 seat rooms available).
  • Anecdotally, people say that only about 150 students enrolled in the 500 student classes are actually showing up to class in person. There's no accountability.
  • There's a thought that the students in these classes don't need to interact with each other, but there is that need.
  • This could be an opportunity for the library. For example, we have 35 sections of 500 seat classes. Where are those students going to interact?
  • The library can help faculty negotiate contracts with vendors for multimedia text books and lab sessions for these large classes.
  • Librarians can help faculty develop assignments for the large classes.
• The library could be a place to socialize and hold more social events, like colloqiua instead of traditional lectures. For example, students might attend a lecture one week and the next week attend an event that the library helps plan.
• There seems to be a big push to make everything convenient for students.
• Brock thinks that librarians have about 7-8 years to figure out what we are going to do besides being reference librarians because our jobs are going to be extinct.
• Over the last year, CTL, pICT and ITS have been meeting regularly and collaborating. However, it does not seem to be on higher administration's radar to look into a reorganization of these units that would facilitate cooperative management.
• The most pressing issue for the library is to work with ITS so our missions are aligned and complimentary and responsibilities are clearly stated.

Side Note:

SDSU was selected as the only CSU and only school on the West Coast to be a part of a Carnegie project for a leadership cluster on the advancement of teaching. The other schools are:SUNY system, UNC system, Seton Hall, and one other. This project would be working with MERLOT to not only have a media object repository but also include what people have found out about the objects' effectiveness in teaching and learning.

Thursday April 27th Meeting

On Thursday at 2pm in LL431, Brock Allen from CTL will be speaking with our Task Force on the following topic:

DATA < INFORMATION < KNOWLEDGE < WISDOM:
Transformative Roles for Librarians

Brock Allen, Director of the SDSU Center for Teaching and Learning on:
(1) challenges facing SDSU in fostering student learning and why LINFO might be our best hope, and
(2) changing notions of teaching and why librarians might be the best help.

InfoLit Task Force Meeting Notes from April 6th

James Frazee and Jon Rizzo from ITS came and spoke to our group.  Here are some highlights:

 

There are numerous building blocks that can be added on to blackboard (building blocks meaning third party software that integrates with Bb).  Some examples ITS is considering: 

• Turnitin.com (plagiarism detection software)
• Respondus for generating assessments
• Learning Objects to create wikis and blogs

In fall, ITS may hold a session to get faculty input on which building blocks they would most like to see at SDSU.  The Library may want to think of some building blocks that may help our cause.

 

ITS is working with pICT this summer to help a few departments make some broad moves to blended learning (online and in-person components to courses).  The primary departments are: Nursing, Accountancy and Social Work.  [Task Force: there may be some solid opportunities here to get infolit into these departments while collaborating with ITS and pICT].

 

If funding permits, by the year 2010, all centrally scheduled classrooms will be technology-rich learning spaces (or smart classrooms).

 

Turnitin.com is not heavily used on campus and ITS is looking for ways to promote it.  This may be an area that the library can assist with by offering more plagiarism awareness and instruction (ACRL standards 5 so this is definitely in our charge).  Pam chimed in that perhaps we can consider bring the tutorial she created over to support student learning in this area.

 

Blackboard licensing rules and other considerations: 

• Bb can be used for matriculated students and for faculty/staff
• We can create “Library Courses” to use Blackboard
• Please be sensitive to ITS’ workload and really try to be as self-sufficient as possible with our usage.

 

ITS is looking for more automated technology training to replace and/or supplement some of the BATS program.  [Maybe we can create an animated tutorial that specifically shows faculty how to integrate the library into Bb].

 

A few ways Bb is being used (other than for courses):

• RWS has an instructor portal in Blackboard.
• Accounting majors have a “homeroom” Bb site where the department can post jo information and items of interest to the professional development of students
• Latest ‘Tech Stars’ on the ITS website highlights how faculty are using Bb.

 

The Library could consider creating discipline-specific “courses” on Bb, even for every major, like our subject guide pages.  This could be linked to registration so all majors get the course on their WebPortal.  This could also be for specific levels…like Senior Biology majors get a different site than Freshman.  There are 72 academic departments on campus.

 

Newer faculty see Bb as a way to make their jobs easier.

 

There will be huge upgrades to Bb this summer, including hardware, upgrade to an Oracle server, upgrade Bb itself, an operating system.

Meeting Agenda April 6th

IL Task Force Meeting Reminder
Thursday, April 6th
3-4 pm in LL431

Instructional Technology and Support (ITS) (http://its.sdsu.edu/) will be visiting our group.  Please take a look at their website to get an idea of what they do.  I sent them a short summary of some (not all) of our brainstorming ideas to give them a taste of what we've been working on.

Agenda for March 30th Meeting

Task Force on InfoLit Meeting Reminder and Agenda
March 30th
LA 78
2:00-3:00 PM

Agenda:

Please come prepared to brainstorm these areas (also it would be super if you could type up your ideas and send them to me electronically or post them in the blog):

Expand the Library’s Outreach and Collaborate with Teaching Faculty

Question: How can we effectively encourage faculty to integrate information literacy into learning outcomes and the curriculum?

Expand the Library’s Outreach and Collaborate with Technology Staff Across Campus

Question: How can we strengthen communication and collaboration among various campus technology partners (ITS, pICT, and others)?

Assess the Success of our Efforts

Question: How can we assess our efforts to enhance information literacy with educational technologies, encourage faculty to integrate infolit into the curriculum, and the strength of our collaborations?

Meeting Notes and Brainstorming March 23rd

March 23rd

IL Task Force Meeting Agenda March 23rd

IL Task Force Meeting Agenda

March 23^rd

3-4pm

LL431
1) Decide which portions of past GIG reports should be continued in our report.

2) Start brainstorming. Everyone should come to the meeting with at least two technology-based ideas that support research, outreach, infolit, etc that you would love to see implemented in the library. Feel free to think big, look to the future, and suggest ideas that may even seem nutty (i.e. – pretend there are no boundaries to what we can feasibly do and share what you would really love to see).

Feel free to post your ideas in the blog by adding a comment here: http://iltaskforce.wordpress.com/tag/brainstorming/

3) Discuss the possibility of defining categories, organizing, giving structure, etc to our charge. I’ve taken a stab at this. Take a look and we can discuss at the meeting:

Enhance Information Literacy by Utilizing Educational Technologies

Question: What educational technologies can enhance and support information literacy and student learning?

Expand the Library’s Outreach and Collaborate with Teaching Faculty

Question: How can we effectively encourage faculty to integrate information literacy into learning outcomes and the curriculum?

Expand the Library’s Outreach and Collaborate with Technology Staff Across Campus

Question: How can we strengthen communication and collaboration among various campus technology partners (ITS, pICT, and others)?

Assess the Success of our Efforts

Question:  How can we assess our efforts to enhance information literacy with educational technologies, encourage faculty to integrate infolit into the curriculum, and the strength of our collaborations.

4) If time allows, we may discuss a list of people our group should meet with and how.