Bernd W. Becker

Embedded Librarianship: A Point-of-Need Service.

Librarianship has experienced a few growing pains over the past several years as its relationship with technology matures into a productive partnership. Being overzealous to adopt new technology can sometimes lead to more setbacks than advances in the profession. However, a recent wave of research has been discussing the benefits of integrating technology such as course management systems and social software such as Facebook with library services to meet patrons at their point of need. The findings are exciting, and the practice does not require an advanced degree in computer science. What makes this approach even more unique is that it incorporates nonlibrary software already being adopted by the patron rather than attempting to persuade the patron to adopt new library software. Nearly every college and university uses some type of course management system (CMS) such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, or Moodle. Once used solely for online courses, CMS is now utilized in hybrid and on-site classes as well. Library integration into CMS has been referred to by a number of different names. However, the most common is embedded librarian. The concept of “embedded” was popularized as war correspondents began reporting from within the events of a crisis, calling themselves embedded journalists. Similarly, embedded librarian describes any librarian that takes an active role inside the online CMS classroom. This course-level participation may range from providing links to external Web pages to offering highly interactive tutorials. Communication takes the form of group e-mails, discussion board postings, and one-on-one interactions. The CMS provides a structure in which a librarian can become a part of the course. By including the librarian at the course level, students and faculty have immediate access to library assistance, advice, suggestions, and resources. It’s been found that

Learning Analytics: Insights into the Natural Learning Behavior of Our Students

The migration from traditional classrooms to online learning environments is in full effect. In the midst of these changes, a new approach to learning analytics needs to be considered. Learning analytics refers to the process of collecting and studying usage data in order to make instructional decisions that will support student success. In learning analytics, usage data can refer to a wide range of information being produced by the observed population. Researchers will data mine server logs, discussion forum posts, time stamps, or any other systematically recorded data that reflects the behavior of the users being studied (Brown 2011). Colleges and universities already collect extensive amounts of student data. These data, though, are typically used to create a profile of the current and past student populations. Rarely do these seem to be used beyond creating a demographic or economic profile. Learning analytics, on the other hand, places a greater emphasis on the qualitative data that originate from learning behavior. The necessary tools and technology used to study learning analytics are starting to become simplified, allowing librarians to develop a better understand of their students learning habits. Rather than analyzing college students’ general learning behavior, learning analytics can provide insight into the learning styles or patterns of a specific subset of students. The subset studied can be students defined by their major (psychology), course (PSYC 101), or a defined behavior or activity (students who contact librarians). Potential data for learning analytics are generated with every interaction we have with students. Education theorist George Simens suggests colleges and universities partake in learning analytics to assess the influence of academic practices within

Connecting MOOCs and Library Services

In case you blinked and missed it, there is a new buzzword in education: “MOOCs.” These massively open online courses (MOOCs) can serve hundreds or thousands of students without the institutional hurdles found in classes at a university, such as acceptance requirements and physical location. Some schools are working with partners like Udacity and Coursera, while others schools are using home-grown websites or applications like iTunes U to deliver free instruction. With this rapid growth in pedagogy come growing pains, and none are feeling MOOC pains more than bricks-and-mortar universities. As business interests in MOOCs increased, a group of educators met in Palo Alto, California, to draft the first MOOC Bill of Rights that aims to establish goals and boundaries within MOOC education (Kolowich 2013a). For libraries in particular, MOOCs raise the questions of how and where library services fit into the MOOC model. The concept of MOOCs first emerged in 2008 when Stephen Downes and George Siemens took a chance to open the registration for their learning theory class to anyone with an Internet connection. The class quickly grew from 25 University of Manitoba students to 2,300+ students from all over the world (Parry 2010). Built on the theory of “open teaching,” the Downes–Siemens course has become a model for MOOCs, and has advanced the recognition of online education as an acceptable form of instruction. In the context of changes that have occurred in online education, MOOCs are a natural evolution of services that were already in high demand. Apple’s iTunes U, for example, has been used as a repository for educational audio and video content since 2004. The service allows open access (via iTunes) to many prerecorded lectures and presentations from colleges, libraries, and museums. Just after its 3-year mark in 2007, iTunes U had

Start Flipping Out With Guide on the Side

During the golden age of library instruction, information literacy classes were semester-long affairs. Each week, students were exposed to the intricacies of catalog queries and the secrets of databases, and were taught how to evaluate the quality of online information. The instructional librarian was given full control of the pace and the content, administering graded quizzes and finals that tracked the growth of students’ information literacy skills. It was information literacy nirvana. It’s a different scenario today, though. Librarians are expected to pack the essentials of information literacy into a 75-minute workshop, usually targeted at a specific course. Truth be told, they are lucky if it’s even a full hour of instruction; extra time is usually factored in for students to find the designated computer lab in the library and get settled. If the institution is preparing for an accreditation visit, then expect the possibility of an information literacy skills pre-/posttest that will take up another 10 minutes of class time. You then find yourself having to somehow incorporate both a lecture and active learning exercises into a one-shot session that will teach students everything they need to know about library research. This is the trend that is the bane of academic library instruction. We are reassured that our services are valuable, yet our allotted time with students diminishes. Fortunately, many of these time constraints can be avoided as we adopt a new, promising approach to classroom instruction: Flipping.

Understanding and applying the technology forecast of the 2010 Horizon Report

At the beginning of each year the New Media Consortium releases the Horizon Report, which aims to identify and describe emerging technologies that will “likely have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative inquiry on college and university campuses within the next five years” (Johnson, Levine, Smith, & Stone 2010, 3). In this issue of the “Electronic Roundup” I will highlight four of the Horizon Report’s emerging technologies (mobile computing, open content, electronic books, and simple augmented reality) while discussing how we might incorporate them into our day-to-day service to patrons.

Gamification of Library Instruction

Gaming in the library is a topic of interest that has evolved rapidly over the past few years. There have been library board games, quiz show events, and arcade games purposed to either increase interest in the library or teach patrons how to use library services. The American Library Association (2011) officially acknowledged library gaming with its formation of the Games and Gaming Round Table (GamesRT). “Gaming” in this context is broad and usually refers to the addition of games to the library collection, using games as an outreach tool, or games as an instructional tool. In this sense, the focus is on the game itself, and how the game fits into the library’s ecosystem. Gamification, on the other hand, is when the principles of gaming, or game mechanics, are applied to a productive activity to support its effectiveness. In this sense, the game is not necessarily the focus of the activity, but gaming principles are used within an activity to enhance the experience. The reference scavenger hunt, for example, is the gamification of traditional reference services. Participants in the hunt experiment with different tools while learning the intricacies of reference sources. There is an element of fun with a freedom to fail. However, gamification is not always about making a task more fun. In fact, the game mechanics could easily be operating below the user’s perception. Cognitive scientist James Paul Gee (2003) has identified several teaching and learning mechanics used by video game developers to teach players how to succeed through long, complex, and difficult tasks. Gee looks beyond flashy graphics or sounds, and seeks out the design principles that make video games into a successful learning experience. In regard to instructional librarianship, Gee’s principles can be incorporated into information literacy instruction.

The Quantified Self: Balancing Privacy and Personal Metrics

Crowds gather outside of government buildings to protest the National Security Agency’s clandestine monitoring of Internet activity. Countless numbers of citizens demand that the government respect the private nature of their digital lives. Yet how many of these protestors use social media to broadcast where they are and what they’re doing? Despite the Snowden leaks and personal protests against the NSA, we willingly allow strangers a glimpse into our daily routines. We share everything from life events to musings in the form of status updates and snapshots. Are we digital hypocrites? Are we feeding the NSA behemoth that we’re trying to eradicate? No, not really. What we are doing is simply living day-to-day in a digital age when technology and privacy have a fickle, tumultuous relationship. Humans are social beings who will continue to communicate and relate to one another, both online and in person. How governments and commercial entities access this information is being worked out in the courts and through personal choices. However, when all is said and done, digital privacy is not a black-and-white issue. It’s a complicated topic dependent on circumstances, once of these being “informed consent.” Social media is only one of the means in which people digitize their personal lives. In 2006, Aaron Patzer founded Mint.com, a personal financial management service. With consent, Mint automatically analyzes personal spending to provide suggestions for saving, as well as spending alerts. It boasts more than 10 million users who allow Mint access to their bank transactions, purchasing habits, and credit card balances. As of 2014, it claims access to over 17 million individual financial accounts.

Ebooks in the Library: The Current State of Research

The library is in a constant state of flux as it attempts to keep up with trends and advances in technology. At times it seems that every aspect of the library is being examined within the scope of modernizing and improving patron interactions with the spaces, services, and collections. The literature within the field of library and information science reflects these changes. There is no shortage of evidence-based research for librarians to review in order to seek out best practices to future-proof the library. This is especially true for the topic of ebooks, on which hundreds of studies and reviews are being published each year. In addition to being one of the hottest topics, ebook research holds another distinction as well: It is the most confusing and conflicting research that I have come across. While you can find several ebook studies that seem to be in agreement, you will easily find several others within the same scope that may provide results that are drastically different. This is true in a very broad sense, as well as for the ebook research that is limited to types of libraries, types of patrons, and/or types of usage. Keep in mind that library governance is a delicate mix of democratic and bureaucratic decision making. This can make it difficult for a library to implement change when every evidencebased decision is countered by opposing evidence. Then there’s the surplus of anecdotal evidence, which can add another layer of complexity to an already contentious issue. Maybe you have yet to experience the ebook debate on your campus or library, or maybe you are in a position where you get to have final say in how your library operates. If so, then I envy you. I spent the 2014/2015 academic year caught up in a campus-wide debate fueled by miscommunications, misunderstandings, and outlandish accusations regarding the library’s

Research Faux Pas: The Stigma of Wikipedia

Imagine, if you will, hosting a research party and inviting all of the major databases. Everyone who’s anyone would be there. The EBSCOhost collection would show up as the popular trust-fund kids who become trendsetters. They drive the fully featured cars with all the bells and whistles. They namedrop famous researchers and scientists as if they’ve been friends forever. JSTOR arrives wearing a top hat and a monocle, peppering conversations with primary accounts of adventures in the humanities. ScienceDirect and CINAHL would be engaged in deep conversations about global warming and vaccination research. Lexis/Nexis would be making small talk about current events and legal dramas that are unfolding in world news. Then Wikipedia shows up to this party and suddenly the room goes silent. Web of Science won’t even make eye contact with him. “Who invited this imposter?” whispers one of the ProQuest databases. The agitation is almost tangible. Even though he could easily mingle with any of the guests and has brought enough food and drinks for everyone, Wikipedia stands alone in the corner of the room. He’s the most popular person in the world, yet no one is happy to see him at this research party. He evokes disdain in the hearts of his peers. Wikipedia finally snaps and screams, “What did I do to deserve this? Why do you all hate me so much?” PsycINFO looks over and says, “You’re a liar, Wikipedia! You’re untrustworthy and lack integrity. You have 1,350 administrators, 6,000+ reviewers, and countless editors making you the poster child for dissociative identity disorder. Your presence soils our reputations in academia. Please leave and don’t come back.” This is the stigma of Wikipedia in the world of scholarly research. It can contribute to the research process and be very useful, but it has a negative connotation that it just can’t seem to shake. In a sense, it was born with a bad

Get Smart: Raising the Intelligence of DIY Library Smart Objects

In discussing technology, “smart” is a descriptor that implies a certain amount of computing and information exchange taking place. One of the most common uses of the term would be “smartphones” such as the iPhone. Not only is it a phone, but it is also a computing device programmed to access and retrieve information from the user, the environment, and the Internet. In education, the company SMART Technologies has found a niche as a supplier of SMART Boards, digitally interactive white boards for the classroom. In general, these technologies are called smart objects: physical, relatively inexpensive computing devices that connect users to the Internet or some other information repository. The imagination of Silicon Valley provides a future vision of homes filled with smart dishwashers, smart televisions, and even smart light bulbs. However, there are still a few years between now and smart homes. A gradual adoption of smart objects will pave the road to this vision. Libraries have the potential to be a space where they are introduced to smart object transition of upgrading everyday objects to smart objects.