Nora Hillyer

Criss Library

Library – 2 – LMS

There were two themes running through each presentation and poster session at this conference: place your library materials where the students are to make it easier for students to access library resources and library course materials; collaborate with the ITS department and faculty to add library content to a course management system.

Students probably sign on to their course management system (CMS) everyday. They can use this system to upload their assignments, read instructions from their instructor, take assessments, and download class presentations. Other ideas on how to utilize a CMS is to add library resources, assessments, and reserves on the system to reach students where they are. The Library – 2 – LMS Conference was an opportunity to learn how other academic libraries are adding library content to their course management system.

The keynote address was presented by Elizabeth Pyatt and Loanne Snavely from Penn State. They presented their solution of adding subject guides, tutorials, and reserves on their course management system. They worked with their information technology team to build a software system that librarians can use to add subject guides and other library resources on their CMS. The system includes drop-down boxes with a list of databases and links to easily add to subject guides. The subject guides can be built for individual classes or for an overall subject. The unique idea about this system is these subject guides can be automatically added to a students CMS account when they register for a specific class. If they have registered for a Computer Science class and there is a subject guide for that class or discipline, the subject guide becomes a part of their resources in their CMS account.

A second session presented how Buffalo State College developed a library tutorial that was shared through a Learning Object Repository on the college’s CMS system. The Foundations of Research tutorial includes gradable interactive activities, is available in a CMS repository, and can be imported into an instructor’s CMS course. There is also a repository of course reserves. The reserves repository has made it easier for students to find their course reserves and has proven to increase resource usage.

Using Blackboard to build a repository of library tutorials and packages was the subject of a third session. The Seneca library in Canada is using their Blackboard system to place tutorials, quizzes, and repositories in their own Blackboard account. This includes a research tab on Blackboard to make the library presence more visible. A dedicated team of librarians has finished several projects of adding content to Blackboard that can be used by course instructors.

Our next step is to prioritize the ideas learned from this conference:

1. Meet with all librarians to discuss the different ideas presented and decide which ones work best for our students, the library, and Blackboard system.
2. These include:
a. Subject guides for our disciplines and individual classes placed in a repository.
b. Build library tutorials, general and subject specific, that can be placed in Blackboard repositories for instructors to add to their Blackboard classes.
c. Set up a research tab on Blackboard with library resources that will be easily accessible for students.
d. Continue with ENGL 116 library assessment plus start adding assessments for upper level classes.

3. Meet with the ITS department for discussion on adding additional library presence to Blackboard.
a. How can this work with our Blackboard system?
b. How can we market this new service to instructors?

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