AARL

The library: an active partner in online learning and teaching

Janet Fletcher and Des Stewart

Abstract: Online learning and teaching in higher education continues to grow at a frantic pace in universities and other educational institutions. Such growth provides many opportunities for libraries. This paper discusses how the library at Southern Cross University has become an active partner in the university's online development by building successful working partnerships with online project teams and other stakeholders.

Online learning and teaching in higher education continues to grow at a frantic pace in universities and other educational institutions. There are a number of reasons for this, including the need to establish market share or recover costs in an environment that impels education providers to seek funding from non-governmental and non-traditional sources. In this environment many of the established mechanisms that were once in place to support teaching and learning have been compromised or overlooked in the drive to 'get online'. In many instances this has included the library. However, it does not necessarily have to be like this. Libraries can take the view that they are part and parcel of the online education industry, that they are key players and stakeholders which can shift from the traditional role of support to one that is active, adaptable and 'in-your-face.'[1] At Southern Cross University (SCU),[2] the library has taken up the challenge to be part of this new paradigm by becoming an active partner in the university's online development.

Defining online

In this discussion 'online' is used in the sense that the Internet and a browser are employed for the purposes of teaching and learning. Other terms used to describe this concept include 'web-based learning', and 'elearning'. In a continuum of online offerings, at one end of the scale there is the minimalist approach often referred to as 'a presence', ie an outline of a course/unit shown on a web page. Units of study which supplement existing courses (face to face or paper-based) by placing resources on a website with a discussion list tend to be called 'web enhanced'. At the other end is a more complete package, the 'designed for online course' that has been designed (or redesigned) from first principles. Such a course encompasses the total teaching and learning experience (course notes, discussion, assessment, resources, enrolment, payment options, etc.) online. Between these two extremes there are many variations and combinations. Considered as components of the broader concept, 'flexible learning', online courses are designed to improve the teaching and learning experience regardless of where student and teacher are located.

Online at Southern Cross University

At SCU, online refers to units which deliver primary course materials via the Internet and which fully exploit the interactive capacity of the technology. It is envisaged that online delivery will lead to students being able to study individualised courses that have been customised to their needs, prior knowledge and capabilities.[3]

The decision to develop a designed for online label established a new direction within the organisation.[4] Applying project management methodology,[5] in 1998 the university centrally funded the development of a suite of fully online units in two schools, the School of Social and Workplace Development and the School of Law and Justice. Two School project boards were established and two project managers were appointed. Teams were assembled consisting of academic staff, educational designers, desktop publishers, screen designers and information technology specialists. But no librarians!

Library support at Southern Cross University

As initial development involved grappling with the technology,[6] it was not surprising that librarians had at first been overlooked and as soon as content production began in earnest library assistance was sought. However, librarians were considered as being able to provide support for online courses rather than looked upon as active partners in developing them. Of course, providing library support is what librarians are good at. From the onset of distance education courses, literature about how libraries are meeting the challenges provides evidence that libraries have long been responsive to the needs of their organisation and have adapted services accordingly.[7] This has certainly been the approach at SCU.

What are now classified as 'traditional library support' (and usually free) distance education services include:

• reference, document delivery and loan services via telephone, mail and fax
• inter-institutional collaboration and service delivery agreements (eg reciprocal borrowing)
• publication of resource and subject guides
• special collections for distance education students
• a dedicated distance education unit and/or appointment of a librarian responsible for distance education services.

Over time these services have been made more accessible through advances in communication and internet technologies and newer services have been added, including:

• networked full-text databases and other resources for remote access
• information skills training over the web
• web interfaces, gateways and portals to the catalogue and other digital resources
• electronic reserve
• web-based document delivery services, including desktop delivery of articles
• literature searches
• electronic suggestion box
• 'AskA' and e-mail services
• 1800 freecall access
• extended service hours
• desktop videoconferencing.

Beyond support

As was discovered at SCU, however, it is increasingly obvious that to remain relevant and even viable, it is vital that library staff anticipate trends, seek new alliances and consider new ways of doing things. There is a need to look at many things in new ways; to 'think outside the square' and reappraise sacred cows. Libraries are being urged to be more creative, to become partners in the work of their clients, and to market the library aggressively as a provider of service rather than as a physical entity. As Creth argues:

... librarians should be seen as part of the solution - contributing to quality education, rather than as part of the problem - contributing to escalating costs.[8]

Similarly, Harley, Dreger and Knobloch[9] comment that 'postmodern' students are finding libraries and librarians so intimidating that they are best avoided. Perhaps there are also academic staff who feel this way, particularly those who are 'technologically challenged'. Amongst the authors' recommendations for ensuring that students continue to engage with the library is the advice that academic librarians should work more closely with faculty and instructors to help develop students' critical thinking processes rather than just provide a service to access resources.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing academic librarians is providing contexts in which students can learn to think critically about their course assignments and their daily lives.

To ensure that the library continues to be included in major online initiatives, library staff at SCU have taken on board the requirements of the online learning environment and its strategic importance for the future of the university. Senior library staff regularly meet with stakeholders involved in the online projects and lobby at online committee meetings to promote the skills, expertise and knowledge of librarians and library technicians. It is argued that librarians' formal training together with their understanding of academic requirements means that library staff are expert in managing information regardless of format. Other attributes such as having a sound understanding of information literacy issues, strong customer focus, long track record of working with academic staff, teaching experience, and knowledge of working in a networked environment, are promoted at every opportunity. These attributes have certainly helped library staff in gaining online positions that were advertised university-wide and in some cases, externally.

As a result, library staff are now very much a part of the online teams. What is new here is that apart from the day-to-day advice and support that library staff are providing, a number of them have either been seconded to or permanently joined Schools to work in online projects. One library technician, for example, is now a project manager for one of the largest online projects and another library technician is a research assistant. Librarians at both campuses have been seconded for a day a week to search for Internet resources and train academic staff in finding their own resources. One librarian has been employed to undertake research on the teaching aspects of online and yet another librarian is involved in writing scripts for the School of Law and Justice's training videos.[10] These activities are considered as an extension to the librarians' normal liaison roles. However, in some circumstances, gaining support from academics to include library staff in the online team has required staff to think of ways actively to demonstrate the benefits of their work. This has involved finding more appropriate resources than what had already been chosen; demonstrating how they could assist in providing student support thus reducing academics' workload; and guiding academics in developing their own research skills.

The integration of the library's information literacy online tutorials with the online courses has also been a valuable tool used by librarians in their involvement with the design of teaching, learning and assessment strategies. By preparing examples in the tutorials to complement the assessment requirements of the courses, librarians are able to demonstrate to academic staff the value of incorporating information literacy activities within their courses. The relevance of the examples to the learning process also means that students are motivated to carry out the tasks.[11]

Librarians also contribute to various university online committees, at both operational and strategic level. The Online Users Group, for example, consists of a small group of academics, plus staff from Southern Cross Online, Information Technology and the library. This Group evolved from a 1999 working party which undertook an extensive review and evaluation of the university's web-based course management system, which resulted in the university changing systems.[12] The Group reviews how to utilise the technology for allied developments. In 2000-2001, for example, this has included utilising BlackBoard (the university's current web-based courseware management system) to create personalised portals for staff and students.[13] Another committee, the Online Support Group, consists of academics and staff from Southern Cross Online, Information Technology, Teaching and Learning and the library. This forum provides staff with an opportunity to discuss successes and problems, impacts of new initiatives or changes in service delivery, and developments within the university. When the library, for example, changed a number of databases from Ovid to ProQuest, thereby changing course research material, the implications for online courses were raised at a meeting and strategies were put into place to ensure a smooth transition. Both groups report issues and developments to the Online Review and Co-ordinating Committee which is a sub-group of the University Executive.

The library has been successful in playing a key role in managing copyright and intellectual property matters and taking on archival responsibilities for the content of the online courses. On the library's recommendation, an information management officer position was created, funded originally by the online projects, to develop new systems and to manage copyright, intellectual property and digital resources produced for the online courses. It soon became evident, however, that the role of the Information Management Officer extended beyond the online projects. The objectives of the position are thus evolving to include fundamental information management issues at university-wide level.[14]

Having library staff working on the online project teams has been excellent in raising the library's profile and in particular, in recognising the versatility and skills of library-trained people. The staff involved have learned about project management and online technologies, often being paid at a higher level than their substantive position. An additional benefit has been the opportunity for remaining staff to work in different positions within the library.

Issues for library services

Though the benefits are plenty a number of issues are emerging. It was thinking about these issues that was the catalyst for the authors organising workshops at recent conferences, Ausweb2K and Information Online 2001.[15] These one-day workshops were held for librarians and other interested parties who were involved in developing online courses. Educational design, libraries' experience with online initiatives, information literacy programs and products, and potential challenges and opportunities were discussed. A major theme of the workshops was the impact of library staff being seconded to online projects. This has been an issue in SCU's experience with online development. Though short-term contracts are good staff development, provide an opportunity for the library to reappraise traditional duties and are beneficial in raising a library's profile in its organisation, they can be disruptive to library operations. It can be difficult to assimilate staff who have been working at a higher level on projects back into the 'boring' library. At SCU, this is exacerbated as 'short-term' contracts have now extended into years. It may be frustrating, for example, for the library technician who has been working as an online project manager for a university school to return to a position that does not require as much responsibility and leadership.

Similarly, competition for 'glamorous' jobs can be fierce and thus destabilising if a number of staff apply - and it is usually the best staff who are successful. Even with short-term contracts, the selection process can be long, time consuming and stressful for applicants. At SCU, project staff have been required to re-apply for their positions every three to six months which results in staff acting in the vacated library positions also being uncertain of their roles. Furthermore, when positions are earmarked for returning staff, it is expensive and time consuming constantly recruiting and training inexperienced staff to replace those temporarily absent. It is also difficult to plan restructures or reorganisation of library operations. The library at SCU has recently undertaken a review and some changes to positions have not occurred due to uncertainty in staffing of future online projects.

As well as the impact on staffing, online development influences all areas of library operation. Libraries will need to work even more closely with other areas of their institutions, including information technology, academic departments and administration. Many universities have already implemented or are planning to implement web-based courseware management systems (WCMS). Ensuring that the system integrates with current systems, including the library, is essential to its success. This becomes even more important if, as with SCU, the WCMS becomes the institution's de-facto portal interface. A library needs to consider how to incorporate its online resources and services so that access to them via such a portal is seamless to the user. This requires considering at what level of the portal should the library be represented - is it better to have library services and resources at point-of-need at MyUniversity level, or is a MyLibrary a better option? Is it possible to do both? At SCU, librarians contribute to the student (MySCU) and staff (staff.scu) portal homepages by regularly notifiying the university's web co-ordinator of library announcements and links to specific resources. Soon they will be able to make these changes themselves. Portal development and subsequent security issues also raise the need to reassess authentication and authorisation processes. What may have been appropriate in the past may now not be suitable.

This is particularly important when providing seamless access to resources. Clients who log-on to a WCMS do not want to come across further barriers. At SCU this has required the library liaising with its vendors to seek technical solutions to access problems. In one instance this has resulted in documents being pasted directly into courses, ie students are not required to access resources from the vendor's site. Providing access like this is quite a radical change to the standard linking process and is an example of what libraries can achieve in their negotiations. No doubt as online development continues to grow so will the need to continue the discussion with vendors. Of course one of the most important issues that libraries discuss with vendors is the cost of digital resources. If the cost of electronic resources were to escalate beyond the reach of many institutions, the ability of libraries to provide online resources would be severely curtailed.

Other issues that were discussed at the conference workshops included the implications of providing support for online courses. Libraries at institutions such as SCU, which have a long history of distance education courses, are better equipped to deal with such support than those libraries that have only on-campus students. However, online courses may require libraries to seriously consider providing 24 hour support resulting in the need to look for partnerships and affiliations with other institutions and companies around the world. The global marketplace has also led institutions to consider building affiliations with other organisations to provide suites of online courses. Again, such partnerships have implications for how libraries offer their services and may result, for example, in re-aligning staff roles and library structures to accommodate more than one library. No doubt these issues and others will fuel discussion at future conference workshops.

Conclusion

As the trend for flexible delivery continues to grow, bringing with it new ways of learning and teaching, educational libraries are reassessing their role.[16] As well as continuing to develop and expand support services, SCU Library has taken up this challenge by becoming a key player in online learning development. This has been achieved by demonstrating to members of the institution that the specialist knowledge and skills of library staff are vital components of effective online delivery. Through participation in relevant committees, management of copyright, intellectual property and other information management activities, and most importantly, building successful working partnerships, the library's reputation as a leader in online delivery is now well established.

References

1. A Lipow 'Serving the Remote User: Reference Service in the Digital Evironment' in Information Online and On Disc 99: Strategies for the Next Millennium. Proceedings of the Ninth Australasian Online and On Disc Convention and Exhibition Sydney Information Science Section Australian Library and Information Association Canberra 1999 pp106-126
2. Southern Cross University's main campus is situated at Lismore, far north New South Wales. Other campuses are located at Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie and University Centres at Coolangatta, Murwillumbah, Grafton, and Sydney. A new campus at Tweed Heads is to be operational for trimester one 2002. Programs are offered from 14 schools and four colleges and include the Schools of Law and Justice, Resource Science and Management, Business, Education, Health Sciences, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Natural and Complementary Medicine. Some 12,000 students are currently enrolled with the University, over half of these in off-campus mode scattered around Australia and overseas.
3. M Wallace and A Ellis (unpub) 'Social and Workplace Development On-line Project' Discussion Paper School of Social and Workplace Development Southern Cross University 1999
4. S Sawkins and F Archer 'Designed for Online: Making Use of the Internet to Enhance Students' Learning Environment' in EDUCAUSE in Australasia '99: People and Technology: Doing IT Right Sydney Sydney Beech Press 1999
5. R Phelps, T Ledgerwood and L Bartlett 'Managing the Transition to Online Teaching: The Role of Project Management Methodology in the Learning Organisation' in Moving Online: A Conference to Explore the Challenges for Workplaces, Colleges and Universities, Gold Coast, Queensland Lismore Southern Cross University Press 2000 pp203-216
6. K Pattterson, A Ellis and D Brice 'Client Versus Browser: A Case History from Southern Cross University' in Moving Online: A Conference to Explore the Challenges for Workplaces, Colleges and Universities, Gold Coast, Queensland Lismore Southern Cross University Press 2000 pp190-202
7. See, for example, Association of College and Research Libraries Guidelines for Distance Learning Services 2000 Available http://www.ala.org/acrl/guides/ distlrng.html [11 July 2001]; P Brophy 'Distant Libraries' Library Management vo1 3 no 6 1992 pp4-7; J Cooper 'A Model for Library Support of Distance Education in the USA' Interlending & Document Supply vol 28 no 3 2000 pp123-131; B Sloan Service Perspectives for the Digital Library: Remote Reference Services 1997 Available http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~b-sloan/e-ref.html [11 July 2001]
8. S Creth The Electronic Library: Slouching Toward the Future or Creating a New Information Environment Follett Lecture Series 1996 Available http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/papers/follett/creth/paper.html [11 July 2001]
9. B Harley, M Dreger and P Knobloch 'The Postmodern Condition: Students, the Web, and Academic Library Services' Reference Services Review vol 29 no 1 2001 pp23-32
10. M Edgar 'Electronic Library Support for Online Course' in Moving Online: A Conference to Explore the Challenges for Workplaces, Colleges and Universities, Gold Coast, Queensland Lismore Southern Cross University Press 2000 pp287-289
11. B Lingham, J Fletcher and G Henderson 'Online Tutorials: New Horizons in the Delivery of Flexible Online Training' in Revelling in Reference 2001 RAISS - Reference and Information Services Section Symposium Forthcoming conference Melbourne 12-14 October 2001
12. S Sawkins, A Ellis and S Gardner 'Changing Cars in Mid-Race: A Case History of a Web-based Courseware Management System Transition at Southern Cross University' in Ausweb01, the Seventh Australian World Wide Web Conference, Coffs Harbour, New South Wales Lismore Southern Cross University Press 2001 Available http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw01/papers/refereed/sawkins/ [11 July 2001]
13. See an example of the students' portal at the MySCU Showcase Available http://www.scu.edu.au/showcase/main.html [11 July 2001]
14. H Wood, J Fletcher and D Stewart 'Beware the Black Hole: Policy Development for Managing Information in the University Environment' in Educause in Australasia 2001: The Power of 3 Gold Coast Queensland 2001 Available http://www.gu.edu.au/ins/its/educause2001/content2a.html [11 July 2001]
15. Both workshops were titled, 'How can libraries respond to the issues of online, web-based learning?' They were held at Ausweb2K, the Sixth Australian World Wide Web Conference, Cairns, Queensland 2000 Available http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw2k/program.htm and Information Online 2001 Sydney New South Wales 2001 Available http://www.csu.edu.au/special/online2001/brochure/satellite.htm [11 July 2001]
16. T Rosseel Leading Ideas: Supporting Distance Learners: Innovations in the Field Association of Research Libraries Washington DC 1999 Available http://www.arl.org/diversity/leading/issue6/rosseel.html [12 July 2001]

Janet Fletcher is network services librarian, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore 2480, NSW. E-mail: jfletche@scu.edu.au.nospam (please remove the '.nospam' from the address).

Des Stewart is library services manager, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore 2480, NSW. E-mail: dstewart@scu.edu.au.nospam (please remove the '.nospam' from the address).