The Open Education Resource Phenomenon: Free Educational Resources for All

The staggering cost of textbooks and educational resources has become a constant student concern. Student organizations are asking that college instructors consider new ways of making course textbooks and resources more accessible and affordable to them in future class-settings. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Worldwide Open Education Communities (OER) are being created on the Internet, so everyone can gain access to reputable, free online subject resources never made available before. These OER communities provide access to open textbooks, online courses, online journals and software through open licensing, thereby making these resources freely available to anyone to use, re-mix, improve or redistribute

Learning Through Collaboration and Partnership

Collaboration is vital when it comes to serving academic library patrons. In 2014, the Ottawa University library benefitted from six different partnerships. Along the way, librarians learned valuable lessons which can be applied to future collaborative endeavors

Exploring the Revision of the ACRL Information Literacy Standards

The Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) information literacy standards are currently under revision. As a result, several new concepts have been introduced that will no doubt impact information literacy across the United States. What do librarians understand about the new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2014) that is being developed for application in academia? How will the new Framework (2014), the revision to ACRL Standards (2000), impact the way librarians structure and teach their information literacy classes? This paper summarizes the revisions that have been made up until the last ACRL recommendations draft from June 2, 2014 and comments on librarian concerns with the revisions and their probable impact on the information literacy classroom

The politics behind the library plagiarism tutorial: a case study

This article describes the educational politics and processes involved in vetting the creation of an online plagiarism tutorial at a small Liberal Arts college in the Midwest. The first three phases of the ADDIE Instructional Design model was used to develop the course, but its rollout was indefinitely suspended, awaiting a faculty vote. The plagiarism course modules are described along with the pending review which has led to a redesign of the course modules in favor of implementing a reflection course module

Library Transformation: The Futures School Experience Applied to Practice

Attendance as a member of the Plains Cohort at a three-day Futures Foundations in Natural Foresight Workshop taught by the Kedge Futures School (TFSX), provided the researcher with the opportunity to explore the theoretical ropes of library futurism alongside the natural foresight framework and the many futurist tools, like futures wheels and scenario building, that are so vital when participating in library futures strategic planning. This paper explains trend patterns and analyses and the importance of sensemaking to futures scenarios creation and how each connects to library transformation

Can Smaller Colleges Use the AAC&U Rubrics?

This article introduces the American Association of Colleges and University’s (AAC& U) Value Rubrics to smaller colleges and describes how the Value Rubrics (2009) offered free to download from the AAC&U website may be used as effective assessment tools in academic and information literacy courses and programs on their campuses. This article also describe why and how a small Kansas college has proceeded to use the AAC&U Value Rubrics alongside the SAILS pre- and post-test to assess a for-credit information literacy course offered to undergraduate students

Are You MOOC-ing Yet? A Review for Academic Libraries

What is a MOOC? What should librarians know about MOOCS? This article introduces librarians to Massive Open Online Courses by discussing the historical development, key structure and features that make them a unique teaching platform, and some of the potential opportunities for librarian participation

The Yellow Brick Road to Digitization: Two Small Kansas Colleges and their Journey

In 2015, The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) offered small private academic member colleges an opportunity to compete by writing collection proposals, for a three year grant digitizing teaching and research collections, funded by the Andrew C. Mellon Foundation. Forty-two CIC member teams were selected to participate in the Consortium on Digital Resources for Teaching and Research. Teams consisted of a librarian, and a faculty member, who worked with CIC and Artstor staff, using Artstor Shared Shelf to digitize proposed collections. Teams made digital collections accessible and usable in the classroom, wrote yearly project reports for CIC and attended yearly team workshops in Washington, DC. Two Kansas teams were selected in 2015: the University of St. Mary, De Paul Library and Ottawa University, Gangwish Library. The University of St Mary team consisted of the special collections librarian, a history professor and the library director. The team has digitized photographs and ephemera from the Bernard H. Hall Abraham Lincoln collection. The Ottawa team consisted of two faculty members and the library director. The team digitized two Sociology teaching collections: The John Henry Kilbuck Collection, a collection of Yup’ik Indian artifacts, SOC 30152: Indigenous People in the Contemporary World Collection, a collection of Ottawa Indian articles and images and an archival collection for Communications, Pi Kappa Delta: National Honor Society for Forensics. Session presenters will provide a description of how the team projects have been implemented at their colleges, what has been learned during implementation and how projects have benefited their student communities and how they will be used for teaching in the future

Exemplary online information literacy courses at selected four-year colleges and universities

Doctor of PhilosophyCurriculum and Instruction ProgramsDebbie K. MercerTwenty three in-depth qualitative telephone interviews were conducted in this multiple case study with instruction librarians at eight four-year colleges and universities. Snowball sampling was used to select instruction librarian, information literacy department head and administration participants employed at institutions recognized by Association of College and Research Libraries for exemplary information literacy best practices: information programs. The questions researched in this dissertation were: How are selected four-year colleges implementing exemplary information literacy courses? How do exemplary four-year college library information literacy courses implement the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education (2016)? How do exemplary four-year colleges and universities implement digital literacy and the six frames of the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2016)? The Association of College and Research Libraries Standards (2000) and the Framework for information literacy for higher education (2016) were used as a foundation for this study. A conceptual framework was built in this study around information literacy historical underpinnings and five major national educational reports that were submitted to Congress between 1983 and 1989. These reports accelerated the information literacy agenda in institutions. The major study findings suggested that information literacy programs in institutions were most successful when the library’s program was supported by the institution’s administration. Successful information literacy course and program implementation in all eight institutional settings were dependent on the collaborative arrangements made between the instructional librarians and the faculty. Online information literacy courses were not common at the eight institutions. Information literacy instruction was blended and information literacy tutorials provided to students had online-components. Instruction librarians were using best practices in six areas that directly related to the development and design of the information literacy course: in their reference interactions with students, in choosing information literacy and teaching and learning models that would fit their institution’s programs, in the development of information literacy curriculum, in curriculum and program administration procedures and in assessing their information literacy courses and programs. Findings also indicated that although there was a great deal of anecdotal evidence that instructors provided that their students were information literate when they graduated, and that they were lifelong learners, no institutions had implemented tests for seniors that determined whether they were graduating information literate

Increasing Accessibility to Library Resources and Services by Adding Closed Captioning and Transcripts to YouTube Videos

Accessibility to library resources and services in academic libraries is fundamental to serving the discovery and scholarship needs of all students and faculty, whether they have disabilities or not. Equitable access in higher education can affect student grades and retention, but accessibility touches many different areas in library services, including making the physical building accessible, as well as instructional materials, the library’s website, Libguides, and library resources to those with vision, physical, and cognitive disabilities. Accessibility is vital for students with disabilities to obtain a college degree and complies with federal law. However, it also improves access to higher education for all students, including English as a second language students and those with different learning styles and undiagnosed disabilities. Come hear this presentation about accessibility that focuses on increasing the accessibility of online instructional tutorials on YouTube