February 9, 2015 Meeting of User Education Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Members Present: Susan Avery (ex officio), Sarah Christensen (ex officio), Michelle Dewy (16), Harriett Green (16), Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe (ex officio) – Chair, Jemma Ku (ex officio), Jameatris Rimkus (15), Janelle Sander (16), Scott Schwartz (15), Elizabeth Sheehan (15), Mark Wardecker (16), Sandra Wolf (16)

Members Absent: none

Additional Attendees: Sarah Crissinger (Information Literacy GA), Crystal Sheu, Kirsten Feist

 

1. Welcome and Introduction

Sarah and Crystal introduced themselves and said a little about what they are currently working on. Sarah’s Open Educational Resources (OER) LibGuide might be a good topic for a future User Education Meeting so committee members can review it. Maybe there could also be a more formal demonstration.

2. Agenda Review

Members asked about the workshops with international students being added to the agenda. Lisa mentioned that she is still trying to work those details out.

3. Acclamations & Accolades

Beth mentioned that the Data Management Savvy Researcher workshops are now in their second iteration. They have decided to make it a series of three individual workshops that will each be offered twice. This is a great example of trying something new, seeing how it works, and then learning/ restructuring based on data and feedback.

4. Library Gateway Discussion

Jemma updated the committee on some changes to the Gateway, including the ability to see all library hours at once but also see the weekly view for hours in advance. The team is currently trying to minimize their work on the gateway and move forward with a new CMS. They are testing Drupal and WordPress.  Mark is working with the information architecture group on the team to focus on structure.

Lisa reminded members to submit feedback to the entire group so everyone remembers what changes need made. E-mail itweb@library.illinois.edu.

A major issue that was brought up is having a page to find a subject liaison. Mark will mention this to his group, as we currently only have a “Find a Subject Library” page. It will need to be decided what level of specificity is appropriate. Even having a basic list would help. Some members had trouble finding the current “Find a Subject Library” menu. We should use analytics to make sure that users are finding and using this button.

As the library’s web presence changes, members should go to the UX librarian interviews and share their perspective about the new librarian understanding instruction and understanding our greater library structure.

5. Ithaka Graduate Student Survey

Lisa mentioned that there was a blizzard in New York on the week they were supposed to work on questions. She hopes to work on them more this week. The University of Chicago just released their survey this week. This might be a chance to compare results. User Ed members should let the committee know if they know of other schools we might like to benchmark with.

6. Strategic Planning- Spring Open Forum on Online Teaching/ Learning

Lisa passed out a handout that covered the campus strategic plan and the language we are using in reference to transformative undergraduate education. Last fall the committee came up with a lot of different ideas related to this but we’d like to start to solidify our plans for an evant.

This could be a two hour event. Campus leaders in undergraduate education could do a panel on their experience with transformative undergraduate education. Lisa mentioned a few people she had thought of: Chuck Tucker (Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Innovation), Deanna Raineri (Associate Dean of

Instructional Technologies and Information Services), and Chris Higgins (Associate Professor in the College of Education who chairs a committee on general education and is more focused on the big picture of educational philosophy).

This could take many different formats. It would probably be 30-45 minutes of panel and then small group work or briefings. We would want to wrap up discussion by synthesizing across these big areas.

Some suggestions from the committee:

•  Highlighting practitioners who have done innovative work

• Understanding the purpose – we want this to inform the December 2015 Library Strategic Plan. We need short term, concentrated thinking about how the library wants to transform undergraduate education. Maybe part of the session needs to explore what we already do? The Strategic Planning group is responsible for the overall plan but not for generating all of the ideas so the User Education committee can help with that effort.
• Harriett mentioned the history source lab that uses digital editions of primary texts and focuses more on undergraduate independent study work. Maybe we could talk about that effort since it’s related to an entire deparment?
• LAS also does some teaching workshops we could talk about – large enrollment classes, active learning, etc. Crystal will point Lisa to the contact person.

Lisa might gather more ideas/ examples from around campus with a WebTools form so subject librarians can point to what themes they are seeing in undergraduate education.

7. Open Discussion/ Announcements

Sarah Christensen briefly talked about her work with Lisa on her digitizing knowledge project. One goal is to have an online collaborative space for doing homework and collaborating with peers. This would enhance our online presence for students.

The committee wants to make sure that this is something students really want and that it isn’t too invasive. We could interview them or use a white board technique similar to the UGL. Sarah mentioned that this is still very early in the process and there is still a lot more to think about.