February 11, 2008 Meeting of User Education Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Members Present: Melody Allison (08), Susan Avery (ex officio), Paula Carns (09), Merinda Hensley (ex officio), Karen Hogenboom (09), Emily Love (ex officio), Lori Mestre (ex officio), Nathan Yarasavage (08), Bernice Harrington (09)

Members Absent: Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe (ex officio) – Chair, Ellen Swain (09), Nikki Wright (08)

Additional Attendees: Melissa Bowles-Terry (Reference Library Instruction GA), Sarah Hjeltness (Information Literacy Services and Instruction GA), Sara Thompson (Reference Library GA)

1. Remaining Meetings for 2007-2008 (All in Library 428)

• March 10, 10-11
• April 14, 10-11
• May 12, 10-11
• June 9, 10-11
• July 14, 10-11
• August 11, 10-11

2. Welcome and Introductions

Lori served as chair for the meeting since Lisa was out sick. The following graduate assistants were introduced: Sara Thompson, Sarah Hjeltness, and Melissa Bowles-Terry.

3. Camtasia Best Practices

G:/InfoLit and Outreach Info/Camtasia Guidelines

Lori announced that the Camtasia Guidelines document, which Sarah Hjeltness presented to the committee in December, has been updated and is now stored in the following directory: G:/InfoLit and Outreach Info/Camtasia Guidelines.

Merinda shared with the group that a recent Adobe Flash update is causing audio issues in Camtasia. A patch is available and Merinda will put information about it in the Camtasia folder (path mentioned above). The group suggested that the information about the Camtasia folder, including the patch info, be shared with LIBFAC-L, because more people than just those on the User Education Committee are using Camtasia. Lori will ask Lisa if she would like to send it out or have Lori send it out.

Susan Avery suggested that it is not necessary for web page links to Camtasia tutorials to include the text “Camtasia” as it is information not necessarily needed by patrons.

4. Active Learning

Susan shared with the group that her group has created a folder in the G;\ drive which contains their research into the strengths and weaknesses of the various online tutorials being produced by the library. This group will meet again this afternoon (February 11, 2008).

5. Awards

This working group is still awaiting direction from Scott Walter, AUL for Services.

6. Community Outreach

High School librarians have been contacted by members of this group to encourage participation in the “Teach the Teacher” outreach program. This program is currently in the primary phases of planning.

7. Courseware Integration

Lori described the research being done by the group to determine the various ways that persistent links to articles can be made. Web pages targeting faculty and faculty librarians are being developed as guides for this topic.

8. Event Calendaring and Registration

Merinda mentioned that a recent upgrade to the registration system is causing minor problems which should soon be resolved. She asked that committee members email her if they would like events added to the public calendar. Any library event or workshop qualifies.

9. International Education Week

Emily shared that last year three films were shown at the Undergraduate Library during this week. This year the group is hoping to invite professors to give talks prior to the showing of the films in the hopes of drawing in more student participation. Last year three films were shown in one evening. Suggestions were made to limit this to fewer films per night.

10. LibGuides Implementation

Merinda again introduced Sara Thompson who has been hired in Reference to work on LibGuides. Sara attended an online seminar with Paula titled, “Blended Librarian Learning Communities Website.” An article written by Jane Nichols and Margaret Mellinger, “Portals for Undergraduate Subject Searching: Are they worth it?” was  the topic. The study looked at  ways to create library portals. The authors ultimately designed their own portal, which interestingly looked much like LibGuides.

Sara added that during the online session of the seminar most of the chat discussions involved librarians who wanted data supporting the usefulness of LibGuides. Because of this, Sara mentioned that perhaps hit counters should be incorporated into current subject guide web pages as they are on the new LibGuides. This data could be compiled to show similarities and differences in use after having made the move to LibGuides. To date, the Undergraduate Library has transferred all of its subject guides to LibGuides.

Sara is currently surveying other institutions to note what is working well in their LibGuides and what they are using for subject lists. These results will hopefully aid development of future LibGuides.

Sara will be available to convert guides for interested librarians. She added that the Learn page of subject guides has now replaced the subject guide listing previously on the Library Gateway. With this increase in visibility, the Committee suggested that a database is needed to search the increasingly long list of LibGuides and other subject guides. A graduate assistant may be needed to create this database and others for instruction. Lori will contact Robert Slater, Web Technologies and Content Coordinator, to discuss this matter.

Lori asked if there were standard metadata or tags that are consistently used when people are creating web guides and pages to help others find the LibGuides. The general consensus of the group was that there are not any (for LibGuides or web pages) and that it would be good to suggest some.  Because of the work that Merinda and her graduate student, Melissa, are doing with LibGuides, Lori suggested that they compile some suggestions to present to the User Education Committee, which might then be sent on to Robert Slater for his consideration relative to broader Library web development.  It was also suggested that Robert be asked if he might come talk with the committee to discuss web development in general.

11. Professional Development for Teaching and Learning

This group has identified possible workshop topics. Paula Carns and Kirstin Dougan are attending Immersion. The group has also provided feedback to Sarah on topics for the InfoLit website. Sarah added that she has created pages on the User Education Committee website for each working group. The committee agreed that working groups should place their meeting minutes in a folder on the G:\ drive. Sarah volunteered to create folders for each working group within the G:\UserEd directory to keep things better organized.

12. Campus Initiative on Student Learning Assessment – Approach and Plans

The following are contributions from committee members of some of the assessments (mostly related to teaching/instruction) that they are undertaking.

Melody Allison – She has received post evaluations of library instruction sessions (from students). As part of their class, students are asked four questions about the library session that they attended earlier in the semester.

Emily Love – No assessments are being done at this time aside from collecting data for University Library strategic plan metrics.

Nathan Yarasavage – They have gathered statistics regarding the effect of changes in the History library that are available at the library’s website.

Bernice Harrington – Evaluations of document management among library staff is being conducted.

Merinda Hensley – One minute assessments for workshops are being used. Assessments are being built into tutorials. As a post evaluation at workshops, emails are sent to Merinda by participants asking what they still wished to know about the library.

Karen Hogenboom – No assessments are in place at this time.

Susan Avery – A survey of Librarian’s Office Hours is currently being conducted.

Paula Carns – Paula is hoping to conduct post library session evaluations later in the semester to determine if there has been a lasting effect of the library instruction session and the benefit/use made of the information from the session, perhaps including how it affected their ultimate paper/grade. She was thinking to do this as extra credit, but perhaps have it required as in Melody’s example.

Lori suggested that, since there are so many types of assessment in place that people are unaware of, a brown bag session for best practices in assessment may be helpful. Merinda suggested the title “Developing Instruction Assessment Strategies.”  Lori will follow up with Lisa on this.

13. Announcements/Discussion

Merinda announced that some of the Learn web pages are currently unavailable. The issue will be resolved shortly.

Center for Teaching Excellence is very interested in partnering with librarians. Karen Hogenboom is currently providing a workshop for them related to service learning. There are also a number of assessment workshops that we can attend. Lori suggested Lisa be informed if people are interested in attending as she is the liaison for that group.

Paula Carns presented her work holding office hours at the Foreign Language Building. Paula is onsite for an hour per week to make contact with students in that area. So far the program has been very successful. In March or April she is planning a brown bag session for the “Librarians on the Go” initiative.

 

Respectfully Submitted,
Sarah A. Hjeltness and Lisa Hinchliffe