Online Course Support
The Woods College of Advancing Studies has plunged into online instruction, and the Lynch School of Education is poised to follow. The BC Libraries are already collaborating with the Center for Teaching Excellence to develop a palette of online teaching strategies and tools to support these and other online course offerings as they emerge. Library staff has been focusing on learning online tools for instruction and consultations, assembling links to electronic resources in dedicated course guides, and adding electronic materials to the library collection.
Enid Karr, Senior Research Librarian/Bibliographer, and Sally Wyman, Head, Collection Development & Research Services provided support for two online courses in the Woods College Sustainability Professional Certificate Program, taught by Dr. Jennifer Cole in Spring 2018. For “Eating and the Environment,” they team-taught an introduction to online library materials using the BigBlueButton conference integration in Canvas. For “Wetlands Science and Policy,” schedules didn’t permit synchronous instruction, so Sally and Enid pre-recorded a video class session with Panopto Lecture Capture, which students could watch on their own schedules. They also embedded customized library guides in Canvas.
They both foresee deepening contact with students in these courses by using Zoom or Google Hangout for video consultations, and establishing online “office hours”.
The collaboration with Dr. Cole began with emails early in the Fall of 2017, months before the beginning of the classes; plans were finalized via Facetime conferences. Enid notes that lead time is especially important for planning library collaborations in online courses, because so much technology is involved.
Another successful collaboration, Julia Hughes, Senior Research Librarian/Bibliographer, worked with Dr. John Fitzgibbon of the Center for Teaching Excellence and instructor in Woods College, to provide materials for a course in Comparative Politics in Fall 2017. Their efforts focused on both building the collection and creating an online guide. Dr. Fitzgibbon said the guide created a foundation to create student assignments “that developed their skills as researchers and political scientists” by providing “all the academic, data, and media resources that they would need to be successful in their work.”
An early start during the summer gave enough lead time to focus discussion and planning on the library collection. Materials Julia assembled opened some new areas for Dr. Fitzgibbon to explore with his students, and some assignments he had planned revealed gaps in the collection that Julia could amend through purchases. Also,the library reserves department had time to purchase and scan print materials–such as textbook chapters–to make them available as online reserves. Again, Dr. Fitzgibbon noted: “Amy Howard and her team in Course Reserves allowed me to create a textbook specifically for the topics I wanted to cover in the course, at no cost to the student.”
Julia said the early collaboration allowed the course to grow organically, beyond the limitations of existing resources. Dr. Fitzgibbon added that with the library’s work “I was able to create innovative assignments knowing the library had provided the relevant material students needed to be successful.”
Enid Karr and Steve Runge, Learning Commons Manager, have created a guide for anyone developing an online course: BC Libraries support for your online course. The guide covers how to find library help for your online students, finding & requesting appropriate materials for your class, adding a librarian to Canvas, how to access software and citation management tools, and finally copyright and fair use issues.
If you will be teaching an online course in the Fall, please reach out to your subject librarian to discuss how a librarian can enrich your course with the best possible online resources and support.
