Technology, Change and the Academic Library

Case Studies, Trends and Reflections

Jeremy Atkinson

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780128232286
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Gestión

Massive technological change has been impacting universities and university libraries in recent years. Such change has manifested in technological developments impacting all areas of academic library activity, including systems, services, collections, the physical library environment, marketing, and support for university teaching, learning, research, and administration. Many books and papers have examined these changes from a technical perspective. However, there is little substantive reflection on what technological change means, and how best to get out in front of it, for the academic library.

Technology, Change and the Academic Library systematically reflects on technological innovation, the successes, failures and lessons learned, the nature, process and culture of change, and key aspects including impacts on library staff and users, roles and responsibilities, and skills and capabilities. The book takes an international perspective on the massive change currently affecting academic libraries. The title gives an overview and literature review, considers technological innovation and change management, future technologies and future change, and provides information on further reading. Case studies describe the rationale, aims, and objectives for particular technological innovations, and consider methods, outcomes, and recommendations for the future. Finally, the book reflects back on how technological change can best be wrought in academic libraries.

• Gives library managers and librarians insight into how best to identify, plan, and implement technological innovation
• Provides a wide-ranging overview, literature review, and a series of reflective case studies on technological innovation in libraries
• Emphasises current trends, lessons, and critical issues for putting technological innovation into place
• Offers an international perspective on technological innovation in the academic library
• Uses a critical methodology to reflect on what works, what does not, and how managers can apply lessons from real cases worldwide

Section III

Case Studies

Outline

• 4 Developing massive open online courses
• 5 Implementation of a Leganto Reading List service at Curtin University Library
• 6 Transforming information advisory services in university libraries: A case study at the University of Sheffield, UK
• 7 Accelerating student learning in communication and research skills: the adoption of adaptive learning technologies for scenario-based modules
• 8 Developing an online book finding tool for a university library
• 9 The White Rose University Press: an academic-led open access publisher
• 10 Mutual benefit from library collaboration with computational biologists: the cropPAL project at the University of Western Australia
• 11 Brave new world?: Cardiff Metropolitan University Library Service’s implementation of a next-generation library management system
• 12 Scottish Higher Education Digital Library: the e-book journey
• 13 Engaging tertiary students with university archival collections and digitisation processes
• 14 Planning and implementing an automated storage and retrieval system at the University of Limerick
• 15 Making researchers’ lives easier and managing risk at the University of Adelaide: The research data project
• 16 E-books and changes in collection management at Leeds University Library
• 17 Universities, Jisc and the journey to open

4

Developing massive open online courses

Susan Halfpenny and Stephanie Jesper, Information Services, University of York, York, United Kingdom

Abstract

The Information Services Team at the University of York developed two massive open online courses (MOOCs) on the FutureLearn platform, on the topics of Digital Citizenship (launched 23 January 2017 and repeated 10 July 2017) and Digital Wellbeing (launched 15 October 2018 and repeated 21 January 2019). Their aim was to extend Library and IT provision beyond information and digital skills, towards research-led educational resources, exploring the digital skills deficit and the social, political and economic impacts of digital technologies. Both courses were 3 weeks long and consisted of articles, tests and videos representing research and discussion-provoking opinion, incorporating collaboration with academic and support staff from across the University. Creating the courses was enjoyable and beneficial to service development, raising the profile of the team within the University whilst extending the University’s educational reach (course sign up was international and averaged 2806 per course run). Participant feedback was positive.

Keywords

MOOCs; collaboration; course development; digital citizenship; digital wellbeing; online courses; digital literacy

4.1 Context

Since 2014 the Information Services Teaching and Learning Team at the University of York has undertaken a range of projects to develop online digital literacy provision. The initial focus was to develop a skills hub, resulting in our Skills Guides.¹ We then sought to extend provision beyond information and digital skills, towards research-led educational resources, exploring the digital skills deficit and the social, political and economic impacts of digital technologies. Widening the coverage of our online educational resources provision would enable us to engage beyond our traditional user groups, enhancing our outreach and inclusivity.

Complementing this departmental vision, the broader University Strategy (University of York, 2014) stated a commitment to extend online learning provision, including the development of a pilot programme of massive open online courses (MOOCs) which aimed to:

• • Enhance the University’s reputation for innovation in teaching and the provision of a rich student experience
• • Showcase the strength of York’s programmes, with the potential to engage new and diverse audiences
• • Support the University’s objectives in demonstrating research impact and enhancing student recruitment
• • Develop partnerships with other institutions, and identify potential commercial and scalable distance learning opportunities

These aims aligned to our own objectives.

For the pilot the University partnered with the MOOC learning platform FutureLearn in early 2016, agreeing to develop four courses within 2 years. Following calls for proposals, the Teaching and Learning Team were successful in their bids to develop two MOOCs: Becoming a digital citizen: An introduction to the digital society (2016) and Digital Wellbeing (2018).

4.2 Project implementation

With our proposal for the Digital Citizenship MOOC accepted, we assembled a small project team to coordinate, lead on development of course materials, and ultimately deliver the course. This proved a successful approach which we repeated for the Digital Wellbeing MOOC.

The Digital Citizenship MOOC had the ambitious launch date of 23 January 2017, with all content to be completed for FutureLearn’s quality assurance checking by the end of November 2016. This gave less than 6 months to get the content written, filmed, and uploaded onto the FutureLearn platform. Not only would we have to write quickly, but, with no prior experience of developing MOOCs, we would also need to gain knowledge of best practice for online learning and ascertain how to use the FutureLearn platform.

Our first task was to write the course outline and promotional materials for FutureLearn². This involved developing learning outcomes, storyboarding each activity and step across the 3-week course, scripting the promotional video, and liaising with the University’s chosen film company about the brief. At the same time, we began developing our understanding of how the FutureLearn platform worked: learning the different types of steps (activities, discussions, videos, quizzes and tests) available; how to upload and edit content; and the markup and style used. With our later Digital Wellbeing MOOC, we had the advantage of familiarity with the platform functionality, making the development of the promotional content and course outline³ more straightforward.

We initially took a linear approach to writing the first week of the Digital Citizenship MOOC, but writing this content gave us new insights and ideas, so we returned to our storyboard spreadsheet to rearrange weeks 2 and 3. This did not invalidate the planning we had done; rather it demonstrated its usefulness as a working document by keeping a log of what we had written and what needed doing, whilst allowing us to redraft our course structure and identify holes worth filling. When it came to planning the Digital Wellbeing course, we retained this spreadsheet storyboard approach (albeit simplified) and could again quickly reorder steps whilst retaining an overview, essential to our keeping within our deadline.

As we developed the Digital Citizenship MOOC, we sought feedback from FutureLearn on both content and approach, submitting week 1 for quality assurance at the beginning of October 2016. We found this useful. Not only did it reassure us we were doing things right, and provide direction on the remaining content, it also ensured we had a third of the content completed via the pressure of a midpoint deadline. The feedback was positive, including suggestions for further discussion points and questions. We incorporated these, resulting in lively learner contributions during the course run. For the Digital Wellbeing MOOC, we had more experience of what worked as successful approaches and logical structures, so did not submit for early feedback.

We knew early on that success hinged on academic contributions. They would provide validation and enable learners to engage with research. Such collaboration would be essential in an online course on a social science topic. Within Information Services (which includes Library, Archives and IT Services), we had the skills and knowledge to develop content on digital literacy, information literacy and the digital skills agenda. However, the course needed content beyond this to meet the learning outcomes and the objectives of the project. For learners to engage with practitioner experience and research conducted at the University of York, we needed to include academics and professional staff from other support services.

Collaboration and partnership would undoubtedly benefit Information Services, raising our profile as an educational provider within the institution by further communicating the breadth of learning and teaching we offer. It would also benefit our academic colleagues, enabling them to engage with new, diverse audiences about their research, demonstrating impact and further communicating their outputs. Our only concern was academic staff time, and whether our ambitious timeline of under 6 months would prove a barrier.

Of the staff we asked to contribute to the Digital Citizenship MOOC, all agreed to provide content. These included researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences, as well as participants from Careers and the Students’ Union. Contributions predominantly took the form of a ‘talking head’ video, supported by a short commentary and links to open access content such as journal articles and press releases. We also solicited contributions from within Information Services, mostly in the form of articles and discussions.

The Digital Wellbeing MOOC proved a greater challenge. Partly this was the nature of what is a relatively new, underexplored topic, but a big impediment was our request that, to reduce video editing costs, contributors provide scripts before filming. We promptly learnt that it is easier to get a contribution from an academic if they can come without having to write something first. By changing our plans and accommodating this we were able to get contributions from academic colleagues across all three Faculties at York (Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences), plus professional services staff from our Open Door wellbeing team.

The scale of collaboration in both projects required a robust, streamlined process for receiving contributions. We asked for written contributions to be submitted as a Google Doc, enabling us to edit and collaborate on content before uploading to FutureLearn. One of us took sole responsibility for copy editing and uploading content, including sourcing images and cross referencing to other course steps.

We had a budget of £4000 (per MOOC) for the development of video content and the creation of the promotional video. Keen for as many contributions as possible, for the Digital Citizenship MOOC we organised two separate days of filming, a week apart, better enabling us to coordinate calendars and find times that suited our contributors (luck in this regard meant that we only needed 1 day of filming for the Digital Wellbeing MOOC). We employed a commercial film company, Digifish, to film and edit the content, including the promotional video.

4.3 Service delivery

The Digital Citizenship MOOC welcomed its first learners on 23 January 2017. On the start date, we had 3742 ‘joiners’, increasing to 5953 by the end of the first run.

The course was designed to take place over 3 weeks (whilst FutureLearn makes all content available from the launch date, courses on the platform follow a suggested ‘week’ structure). Each week had an overarching theme and specific learning outcomes addressed by four themed ac...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of contributors
• About the editor
• Acknowledgements
• Section I: Introduction
• Section II: Technology and Change Management in Higher Education and Academic Libraries
• Section III: Case Studies
• Section IV: Reflections
• Abbreviations and acronyms
• Further reading
• Index