November 14, 2011 Meeting of User Education Committee

1. Agenda Review

Lisa reviewed the agenda and asked committee members if there were any additional items to add. No additions were made.

2. FYI – Upcoming 2011-2012 Meetings – 10:00-11:00 am

3. Acclamations and Accolades

Kirstin shared that a faculty member gave her a gift card as an expression of gratitude for her service in the classroom.

Carissa shared that she has been invited by the Executive MBA Program to teach a session in Chicago.

4. Working Group Updates

• Copyright Instruction – Charging this group is pending review of the charge and membership by Sarah Shreeves and the Scholarly Communications Committee.
• Undergraduate Research Award – Lisa will meet with JoAnn Jacoby, Merinda Hensley, David Ward, and Susan Avery in early December to discuss where the award would be best managed within the University Library system.
• Instructional Spaces – Lisa noted that recommendations for members have been received for all divisions and the first meeting will be scheduled in January.
• Advanced Composition – Everyone selected for possible membership in this group has accepted and the first meeting is scheduled in early January.
• Rare Book and Manuscript Instructional Space – Lisa noted that this group had a demonstration of high-tech camera/imaging system options for the room last week. The committee discussed a few highlights of this new hardware that will facilitate instruction, including full-screen display and video and image capture. Lisa noted that, after a recommendation for equipment is made, a plan for installation will be prepared by Library Facilities, Library IT, and the Rare Books and Manuscript Library.

5.      Funding Updates

• LibGuides Funding – Lisa noted that funding has been allocated to the Art & Architecture Library, the Education and Social Sciences Library, and the Office of Information Literacy. Additional funding is still available and interested librarians should contact Lisa Hinchliffe. Lisa encouraged committee members to help identify libraries that could potentially have interest in using the available hourly funds for LibGuides creation.
• ACRL Immersion Funding – Lisa is in contact with the one faculty member who indicated interest and availability to complete her nomination to ACRL.
• Megan Oakleaf Visit – Lisa noted that Megan has agreed to visit the University Library in Spring 2012. She is willing to conduct a workshop session for the Library as well as present an open lecture for anyone on campus to attend. Lisa will work with her to settle on specific dates as soon as possible.
• Synchronous Online Instruction System – Lisa and Beth Woodard met with the Office of Continuing Education (OCE) to review Blackboard Collaborate (formerly named Elluminate). This campus unit has a site license and offers a cost-share pricing model as well as maintenance and support and unlimited simultaneous use. The hosting fee from OCE also allows space on their server. The Staff Development and Training Advisory Committee recommends requesting funding for this tool. The committee also supports requesting funding for this tool. The committee discussed that it is a web-based tool that requires a headset with a microphone and that it will be accessed on individuals’ personal desktop machines. OCE will set up the server and provide training for everyone who needs to do instruction.

6.      Project Updates

• Instruction/Outreach for the ORR Transition to SFX – Merinda discussed the status of LEARN and LibGuides objects. A graduate hourly assistant has been hired to create instructional materials. Video tutorials on subjects such as locating journals and working from incomplete citations are currently being created using Camtasia. Webpages will be live by the end of the week. Merinda noted that material will be sent out to the committee for feedback.
• Media Commons – Merinda reported that the group has not yet met.
• 314 Policy – Lisa sent the committee’s feedback to Sarah Shreeves. The key bag will need to be cataloged and then a library-wide announcement will be sent out with instructions on how to check out the key. The committee also discussed problems with reserving conference rooms through Microsoft Outlook; the system is not generating the proper notifications. The committee noted that requests have been filed through OTRS. Peggy will follow up and review outstanding tickets.

7. Events

• Introduction to Clickers – This session is scheduled for Wednesday, November 30, at 10:00. Susan mentioned that there is interest in seeing how to run a complete session. It was noted that it might be helpful to have TurningPoint software installed on the computers in the Undergraduate Library Teaching Lab (Room 291) for participants to interact with the software and get the most benefit out of the session. Susan will follow up with Library IT to discuss this possibility.
• Follow-Up to Deb Gilchrist and/or Assessment Immersion – This session will be scheduled for January. An effort will be made to identify a day when another professional development event is not scheduled.
• Rubrics (Megan Oakleaf) – No details about dates are set yet.

8. Discussion Items

• User Education Committee Membership and Structure – One recurring topic during the recent open forum sessions facilitated by the Divisional Structure Task Force was whether committees should be divisionally represented. At this time only three committees have divisional representation: Administrative Council, Collection Development Committee, and Faculty Review Committee. The committee discussed the User Education Committee’s membership and structure to determine if the committee would benefit from divisional representation. The committee noted that it is important to have people on the committee who are invested in and engaged with the topic; if members are appointed to represent divisions, it does not mean that they will be active in the conversation. The committee discussed the possibility of making the agenda available in advance of the meeting and inviting all with interest to attend. A possible issue was also raised that this model could dilute the committee structure and be contrary to the faculty service culture in the Library. A question was raised: Does the mission of the committee get distorted if it evolves into an interest or discussion group? The conversation concluded with a decision to leave the membership and structure as it currently is.

• First-Year Students and Peer-Reviewed Articles – The committee continued its recent email conversation concerning first-year undergraduate students and written assignment expectations. The email conversation was sparked by, “‘I need three peer reviewed articles’ or the Freshman research paper,” a blog post by Meredith Farkas (http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2011/10/27/i-need-three-peer-reviewed-articles-or-the-freshman-research-paper/). The committee discussed the possibility of working this topical issue into a brown bag session sometime in the future. The committee will address this more in depth at another meeting due to time constraints.

9. Announcements

A call for nominations for the Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian Award has been made by ACRL. The committee will help facilitate the nomination process if there is a recommendation from within the Library. Submissions are due to ACRL by December 2, 2011.

Submitted by Emma Clausen