Upping engagement with digital resources

» Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpott/5815313924/in/photolist-btEkj4-5dYatQ-jcdAY-rWWRSS-rufutA-seukxX-9xdGBV-omtHDB-omchz6-cwGMGQ-4DZ9wY-9RT1eb-tZn22-f3KtB-4TxXvm-cArqDf-nsSh6d-8isKjp-ypktZE-33EhCb-2a3XS-9H6k3a-a6Mewp-9H6jSF-bFkrJV-9H6kXr-6fq2C6

» Engagement is about more than ‘making contact’ or ‘pushing information out’.

» When are trying to engage people we need to aim for a deeper level of interaction:

› Not just one way

› A degree of commitment

› Trust relationship

› Openness

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Upping engagement with digital resources

» Image credit: Pixabay

» The world of libraries and learning resources has changed, the nature of the book has changed.

» It’s not just about e-books, though that tends to be the type of digital resources that comes up most often as an issue. Other types of resources are important too.

» Issues we face in engaging people with digital resources include:

› Changing LRC roles and profile of the LRC, digital resources are often not a high priority outside the LRC

» Digital resources are not just the preserve of the LRC

» We’re in an environment where information and content is no longer in limited supply.

› Content – getting the right content – it isn’t always available in the way we want it

› Changing learners – understanding discovery and use of resources

› Importance of search engines and Wikipedia – for staff as well as students/learners

› Attention economy

› Learners and students are pragmatic, will tend to use what they need to use to get through assignments

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» Jisc and others have been working to understand the changing world of digital resources in education – including e-books – for some years.

» Everyone has had high expectations of e-books. But have they come of age yet?

» E-books in education: realising the vision had some case studies from FE http://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/detail/10/ebooks-in-education

» Migrating to e in UK Further Education (Jisc, 2010)

» https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Documents/migrating_to_e_in_FE_report.pdf

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http://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/detail/10/ebooks-in-education/

» Jisc work on discovery focussed on HE https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/make-your-digital-resources-easier-to-discover

» Research from the HE sector – predominance of search engines. Some university libraries are moving away from the ‘opac’ and encouraging more use of discovery layers, Google Scholar, reading list software.

» Comparatively little FE research

» City of Glasgow College project http://newsletters.cityofglasgowcollege.ac.uk/ulib/

» Discussion - what do we know about learners and staff discovery (and use of) resources? How do we know?

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Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeper#/media/File:Bee-keeper.jpg

» E-books for FE engagement at Alton College

» Information provided by Barbara Frater, Learning Resources Centre Manager

» Announcements e.g. new titles, including images of the books in the emails as an extra prompt.

» Talking to individual teachers and at times going to their desks and showing how to access them

» Many of the BTEC titles are very appropriate to our needs and once the teachers had discovered that they made good use of them

» Some of the subject areas have gone over to CTECS and I have tried to encourage teachers to investigate and make use of the free e-books when they are planning their resources.

» They can be used in in a whole class which probably contributes to the high usage

» Having Shibboleth makes for seamless access from home.

» We run an Early Years Education Foundation Degree at the college. Many of the e-books are very useful for this course and I have promoted these with the teacher and the adult students at their induction.

» Make the e-books as easy for the students to access as possible by having links to them in various places within our VLE. We created an area and grouped all our online resources together. These can be accessed using the link - an eye-catching green circle on the first page of Moodle. I plug this every time I talk to students.

» The e-books can be found following that link and they are also catalogued within Heritage library system.

» Even more useful for the students probably is that links to individual books can be put into the

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subject courses on Moodle, e.g. on course home page the images of two textbooks act as links to the e-books.

» Thank you also to other colleges which have shared their experiences with me!

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» Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beehive,_Alton,_Hampshire_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1417197.jpg

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» https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/digital-student

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»Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Compass_align.jpg

»Align with wider college processes (quality, learning and teaching strategy etc)

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» Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/reidrac/4371882781

» Lead into exercise – in groups prioritise ideas on cards using stickers – each person in the group has 10 stickers. Can also submit up to 3 additional suggestions.

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»http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/he-in-fe

› Springer

› Annual reviews – free 6 month trial

› OUP – extended free trial 60 days

»http://www.amdigital.co.uk/m-collections/collection/migration-to-new-worlds/

»As part of the Jisc agreement, 10% of the content is also openly accessible to all UK residents. Simply read and accept terms of use when prompted to access the documents.

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» A couple of things that are not Jisc Collections as such, but digital content developments that Jisc has some involvement with

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