February 11, 2002 Meeting of User Education Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Members Present: Sue Searing – Chair, Bob Burger, Paul Callister, Lori DuBois, Frances Harris, Karen Hogenboom, Christopher Quinn, Lynne Rudasill, Sarah Reisinger

Members Absent: Linda Ackerson, Cindy Ashwill, Jane Wiles

Additional Attendees: Julia Spann (GA)

Sue called the meeting to order at 9:00am by asking for any revisions to the minutes or the agenda. Nothing was added to the agenda. Meeting minutes from the January 14, 2002 meeting were approved.

1. TA Training and Planning

Thirty (30) people have signed up thus far. This includes:

• 10 – science
• 16 – social science
• 4-6 humanities

Two social science sections may be needed or attendance may have to be capped at 25 participants.

2. LOEX Attendee(s)

The conference is being held in May in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Sue confirmed with Bart that funding is available for this.

Lori expressed interest in attending since she had attended before. Lynne expressed an interest because she thought the topic would be helpful for her in working with faculty.

Sue will poll interest of faculty through the LIBFAC listserv and ask for responses by 5:00pm Tuesday (2/12/2002). The User Education Committee can then vote via e-mail on designated attendees.

3. ALA Reports

Sue and Lori attended the CIC Instructional Librarians meeting. Some of the issues covered were:

1. how subject liaisons are used to promote information literacy/instruction
2. how people are evaluating/supporting teaching librarians
3. how to build an information literacy program
4. how to publicize/promote information literacy– (ACRL has a new brochure coming out, and its usefulness for enhancing UIUC’s user education efforts will be assessed.)
5. credit courses and who teaches them

Sue plans to forward the minutes of the CIC Instruction Librarians meeting to the User Education Committee. For UIUC, the issue of better orienting new teaching faculty and building their knowledge in library services was discussed.

Julia attended an OCLC session dealing with distance learning programs and the applicability of them for various populations. Theoretical and practical perspectives were offered by users of these technologies, and she shared that computer-instructed classes are not without their own challenges. Presenters shared that instructors must consider the students’ perceptions that can often be misperceptions such as the instructor’s being available 24 hours per day, 7 days week and cautioned that instructors — as skilled and knowledgeable as they might be — must be more intuitive sometimes in a virtual environment than in a classroom because considerations for time zone differences, assessment tools and appropriate modalities for communication (e.g., web boards) must be made.

Lynne mentioned that Allison Sutton did a presentation of Blackboard at the Social Sciences Division meeting. Allison encouraged use of Blackboard as a strong communication tool. The division is experimenting with using this tool for communication on division matters.

Karen Hogenboom mentioned that GODORT is developing a web site of government documents instruction sessions with an information literacy focus.

4. Teaching Alliance

The program last Friday (February 8th) was excellent according to those who attended.

The Active Learning Retreat is taking place tomorrow (Tuesday, February 12, 2002). The theme is: “Teaching Students to Think in the Language of Our Discipline.” Sue expressed the need to see more GSLIS faculty participation in Teaching Alliance programs.