Online/Distance Faculty Services Web Site

I attended SummerTech this summer, and created a website specifically for services available to faculty teaching online: http://home.southernct.edu/~hedreenr1/faculty.html (It still needs a little work, but all the essentials are there. There is only so much you can do in a week!)

Many of the services listed are available to any faculty member teaching anything. Advisory services, instruction services, and the full text resources are standard. The "embedded" services are designed for use in online classes. Here is a brief overview of some of those services:

The Embedded Librarian

Would you like to have a librarian visit your online class (but you don't want to go through the bother of getting a "Guest Lecturer" in WebCT)? Do your students need someone to ask questions about basic research techniques and library resources? Enter the "Embedded Librarian".

An embedded librarian, like the embedded journalists of the Iraq War, has a presence within the actual "theater of operations". In this case, that's within the WebCT course. The ideal situation would be to make the librarian a guest lecturer, with the ability to post content, monitor discussions, and maybe even give an assignment. However, from an administrative standpoint, adding a guest lecturer is problematic. Even adding the librarian as a student (and able to monitor and participate in dicussions) can be tricky. Luckily, there are alternatives.

Below my picture in this newsletter is a chat button and chat screen. Both are displayed with a small segments of javascript code and link directly to a text chat service online. The user needs to have Macromedia Flash Player installed, but there are no other downloads and no registration required. When I am online, I get an alert that someone wants to talk; when I am offline, the user can leave a message for me. This can be installed directly in the WebCT environment (see screenshots: Main WebCT page, Chat Page, and Librarian's Side).

Assignment resources are easy: just provide me, or your Subject Specialist, with a description of the assignment(s) and we can provide a list of suggested resources. There are several ways of delivering the content, from simple HTML pages to RSS feeds ready to be pasted (javascript, again) into your website.

The traditional library instruction session is a little more difficult to work online without setting up a separate WebCT instructor or student. However, there are still possibilities. All of the handouts and exercises normally used within a library session can be placed online.

If you are interested, contact me and we can arrange time, "place", and content.

Resources

Distance Education Library Home Page (http://library.southernct.edu/de_home.html) - Links to resources inside and outside the library for online faculty and students.

Library Services for Distance/Online Faculty (http://home.southernct.edu/~hedreenr1/faculty.html) - Library services available for faculty teaching online.

Frequently Answered Questions (Weblog) (http://frequanq.blogspot.com/) - Resources and answers to common questions that come up frequently. This page will be updated more often than the DE Library Home Page, and will also have news, solutions to temporary problems, and resources for particular assignments or difficulties. Long term solutions and resources of interest to the community in general will be added to the DE Library Home Page. Recent posts included a tour of the new MySCSU, and the Password Post, reviewing the various passwords needed for campus.

The Distance Education Library Newsletter - This newsletter will be archived on the web and will contain news, reviews, and commentary. While primarily aimed at online faculty, online students may also find the materials useful and interesting.