PART A: Portfolio on the basis of weekly statements
The context
The impact of ICT on education and training implies many changes in learning
and teaching methods, and opens new possibilities in education.
This scenario is well expressed by the term e-learning, i.e. 3rd generation
distance learning with the predominant use of the Internet as transfer,
communicative, collaborative and cooperative means to fill the spatial and
temporal division between teacher and student and within the student
community. However, it also refers to more traditional courses that incorporate
electronic elements into the day-to day teaching and learning process (the socalled hybrid courses).
E-learning sets some issues in the specific context of academic education, as
summarised here:
– University versus commercial organisations. Although university is the
traditional institution which provides education, the e-learning scenario is
made up of an ever-growing number of formative offers from commercial
organisations which have become university antagonists. The advantage
of this competition is the increase in the number and variety of education
opportunities, but the disadvantage is the risk of transforming education
into a commodity and the consequent loss of quality.
– Certification. As new subjects become distance learning courses, it
becomes necessary to certify that these new courses are comparable to
university courses (both as distance and residential courses) so that the
expertise acquired may be spent on the job market. I think this task
should be taken up by governmental institutions in every country.
– Pedagogical models. I do not think it is necessary to invent a new
pedagogical model for e-learning at all costs because the traditional
models developed and tested in the years can be adapted to the new
online educational context whose characteristics exalt, renew and
redefine the pedagogical principle of relationship between student and
lecturer, and between students.
– E-learning and student’s autonomy. Often the common idea about elearning is the belief that this kind of study gives students full freedom in
terms of learning times and manners. On the contrary, mostly in a
collaborative learning context – even more so if it is cooperative – the
constructivist approach of e-learning implies the students’ duty to
respect a timetable (usually set by the tutor) since the good work flow
depends on everyone’s active and punctual participation.
– The role of libraries. Librarian’s role is even more strategic in an online
and distance learning context. Who studies at a distance must have easy
access to qualitative information and documentary resources; the
librarian must prepare digital documentary collections and make them
accessible to remote users through online reference service or adequate
tutorials; another librarian’s task is information literacy teaching to make
students able to search, evaluate and select adequate informative
sources.
Pedagogical, methodological and technological implications
Since the sense of e-learning consists in the related concepts of ‘group’,
‘experience and knowledge sharing’, ‘active participation’ to the process of
new knowledge construction (through exchange of ideas and their
comparison), the added value of technology in the teaching and learning
processes is due to computer mediated communication, where the key word
is just ‘communication’.
The efficacy of distance education is due to the capability to choose the
most appropriate pedagogical models and methodologies for every specific
subject, and ‘then’ the most adequate technologies to them (and not the
inverse process!). In other words, the efficacy of distance education is
based on the right relationship between pedagogical, methodological and
technological models; the point is that this relation is never fixed and static
but is settled each time on the basis of an accurate analysis of the subject
context, the contents, the objective, the students and so on.
Thus E-learning is characterised by great flexibility, i.e. the possibility to
create each time tailored learning processes, adaptable to the non--prefixed
learning contexts and to the ever-changing students’ communities.
Furthermore, pedagogical, methodological and technological choices will
depend on ‘what’ the objective of teaching is, i.e.:
– Knowledge, which consists in learning concepts and contents. In the
Italian pedagogical tradition this has meant for many years notion and
mnemonic learning, but this kind of approach is now being replaced
by a more reflective and creative one.
– Skills, which concern the acquisition of abilities and practical
competence, followed by experimentation and a ‘learn-by-doing’
approach.
– Attitudes, which imply a real deep change in the student’s way of
thinking. Such an ambitious and difficult pedagogic aim requires a
mostly reflective activity spurred on by other students’ ideas and
thoughts, through the reading of books and journal articles, and their
critical analysis.
Nowadays technologies offer many educational possibilities to both replicate
pedagogical models in use and innovate them. It is useful to classify
technologies in narrative, interactive, experimental, communication and
productive media in order to understand their functionality and individuate the
most adequate tool for every teaching event. However, it must to be said that
media cannot be univocally classified since each can have different functions
according to the educational needs it is used for.
From a pedagogical perspective, I think the most innovative use of
technologies is more suitable in the ‘practice’ stage of a teaching event than in
the ‘presentation’ or ‘production’ stages: the innovative power of the media
deals in particular with students’ autonomy and independence in the ‘uptake’
phase of a teaching event and with the possibility given to them to be creative.
This scenario gives lecturers and online course designers many opportunities to
experiment and try out new solutions, and turns their work into an exciting
challenge.
E-learning environments
The choice and equipment of virtual learning environments must reflect aims
and objectives of the course to be supported, the educational methodologies to
be adopted and the learning styles to be taken into account.
For these reasons there is no ‘best’ web platform but the importance and value
of its requirements differ on the basis of the principles above.
There are many different technological offers in this field, from on-the-road
products to in-house solutions through open source software. However, before
the analysis, evaluation and choice of the platform to be used the type of
learning environment to be equipped, i.e. structured or unstructured, based on
synchronous or asynchronous communication, should be taken into
consideration.
These methodological choices affect both the student and the course provider
(in terms of work load).
Through my OET experience I have observed that there are two needs which
must not be ignored in an online course:
– Connecting activities
– Feedback, i.e. the opportunity for students to have a check, resume the
discussion and underline the most important points of it; it should be
better doing this work weekly.
A structured learning context requires much more care by the tutor and
lecturer but is better from the student’s point of view.
In my OET experience the lack of a fixed structure and reference roles was felt
as a problem and the students’ solution was the creation of a reference grid
and the choice of supporters among group members with the main functions of
connection and supervision.
This was possible just because we had the OET model as a common
background; otherwise it would be really difficult for this managing spirit to
originate from beginners at their first online distance learning experience.
I think asynchronous communication is better than synchronous because it is
easier to structure and follow, it gives everyone the same possibilities to
participate without space or time constraints, and communication flow is easier
to observe and manage for the tutor.
Role of facilitator
Rethinking about methods and pedagogical models tied to e-learning also
implies a change of the traditionally considered roles, the introduction of new
reference figures and the revaluation of supporters’ roles.
The key function of all the people involved in online courses management is ‘to
facilitate’.
The lecturer’s role changes from the traditional stereotype which sees him/her
as the main, if not the only provider of knowledge, to be listened to in silence.
The teacher now becomes a ‘facilitator’, i.e. promotes activities among
students, gives them suggestions, allows them to explore autonomously
knowledge, skills and attitudes to be acquired, always giving them reference
points, such as the syllabus, which has a strategic role for both students as
content and methodological guidance, and teachers for planning and revision.
A new role is introduced, i.e. the tutor, who has fundamental importance in
online learning since s/he has a connecting function as reference point and
supervisor.
S/he should not intrude in any way, but help students to study autonomously
and facilitate communication flow within the group.
When there is no tutor two options could occur: either the team does not work
well, with a high risk of students dropping out, or the group members establish
a structure to follow and soon choose someone to act as tutor. However, the
latter option happens only with very motivated, responsible and
communicative people.
The tutor should understand group dynamics, encourage active and
collaborative participation of students, help each of them to follow their own
learning style, support their motivation, manage online communication flow
and give feedback; from my personal experience the online learner needs
many more suggestions, explanations, confirmations about the learning
process than a residential learner.
PART B: Essay on The librarian’s role in online learning
Information Society and life long learning
One of the aspects of the Information Society is the strategic value given to
information; who can access punctual, precise and appropriate information
according to their own needs, as fast and as efficiently as possible, has more
opportunities to succeed both in their studies and their job, and more broadly
they can create new knowledge. This implies the need for life-long learning,
and at the same time it implies the risk of making people feel lost in the
overload of information.
Life-long learning involves learner autonomy, i.e. being able to manage one’s
own need for information. The librarian as ‘information professional’ has a key
role supporting autonomous learning. His/her traditional task is to act as
intermediary between documentary and informative resources, and users. This
task is much more delicate and important when there are remote users who
thus cannot access the library directly, and its resources and services, as is the
case with long-distance students.
The diffusion of e-learning as a way of education and training provision,
through online or hybrid solutions, implies a good dose of autonomy in learning
and sets the users in a new remote context, increasing the need for reference
people as facilitators of their learning process. Among them the librarian must
indeed be included.
ACRL Guidelines for distance learning library services
The importance of the librarian’s role in supporting distance learning was
recognised in 1963, the year of the first edition of the American College and
Research Libraries (ACRL) Guidelines, revised many times in the following
decades (the last revision was in 2000).
The basic principle of these guidelines is the need to guarantee equal access
provision of library services to all users, whoever and wherever they are,
through academic institutions, according to the belief that one of the first
responsibilities of higher education is to instil life-long learning skills through
general bibliographic instruction and information literacy in academic libraries.
The librarian’s involvement in the distance learning system considered in every
phase of the processes that occur within it – from project to management and
evaluation of the learning and teaching events – is considered of fundamental
importance for the help s/he can provide: the kind of approach which is meant
to be promoted in this way is a sort of connection and integration between the
various resources (human first of all, but also informative and documentary)
and tools which ensure the quality of the distance learning proposal, in order
to facilitate access by students and give them a high-quality course.
The Association of College and Research Libraries has identified the following
as essential library services for long-distance students:
– reference assistance
– computer based bibliographic and informational services
– reliable, rapid, secure access to institutional and other networks,
including the Internet
– consultation services
– a program of library user instructions designed to develop independent
and effective information literacy skills
– assistance with and instruction in the use of non-print media and
equipment
– reciprocal or contractual borrowing or interlibrary loan services using the
broadest application of fair use of copyright materials
– prompt document delivery, such as courier system and/or electronic
transmission
– access to reserve materials in accordance with copyright fair use policies
– adequate service hours for optimum access by users
– promotion of library services to the distant learning community, including
documented and updated policies, regulations and procedures for
systematic development, and management of information resources.
This kind of complexity of services raises a series of issues to reflect on and
compare with, with the need to discuss them in a fixed appointment which has
been set for years now, the ‘Off campus library conference’, at its tenth edition
in 2002.
During the last one of these conferences the equipment of electronic reserves
was one of the most discussed topics, especially for what the ways and
techniques of print materials digitalisation, and their management together
with other digital documentary resources. The aspects and problems related to
remote access to library resources and services are particularly felt, especially
regarding the delicate legal implications on copyright that arise.
Librarian and e-learning environments
Thus e-learning is part of the librarian’s competence from two points of view:
on the one hand, e-learning becomes an extra opportunity to reinforce,
diversify and make traditional library services for on campus students more
efficient; on the other hand, with e-learning the librarian becomes an
important support in online courses for long-distance students as a guarantee
of equal opportunities as residential students.
There can thus be different levels of librarian involvement in the use of
managed learning environments: s/he can participate in online course
management and offer his/her expertise, and s/he can also use e-learning
tools for the provision of general bibliographic assistance and instruction to
both on-campus and off-campus students.
Furthermore, the librarian as information professional can act as trainer on
information literacy in online courses. Being information literate means
recognising when information is needed, identifying it, locating, evaluating and
using effectively information needed for the particular decision or issue at
hand. According to American Library Association (ALA) students must be
competent in six general areas:
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Recognising a need for information
Identifying what information would address a particular problem
Finding the information needed
Evaluating the information found
Organising the information
Using the information effectively to address a particular problem
These skills are considered of fundamental importance for every higher
education student, both residential or at a distance, and it is the librarian’s
task to teach them.
OCLC E-learning Task Force
In 2003 the Online Computer Library Centre (OCLC) set up a task force on
libraries and enhancement of e-learning with the aim of answering open issues
about the librarians’ job supporting distance learning. They have been
recognised the specific task of creating and maintaining digital asset
repositories and creating standards for interoperability.
Cataloguing and classification skills are part of the librarian’s cultural and
professional curriculum and according to OCLC they should be invested in
creating descriptive metadata to catalogue and classify learning objects
fostering their research and sharing, and encouraging the widest use of these
through the creation and management of appropriate repositories.
Furthermore, the integration between the library and the managed learning
environment is recommended to guarantee more visibility to library services,
and to promote them with distant students ensuring a high quality online
learning context.
The librarian’s skills
The tasks the librarian traditionally carries out imply s/he must have a series of
skills similar to the ones of the tutor, first of all communication and
interpersonal skills, which as we know are the basis of both the tutor’s work
and library activities, such as information assistance to users, reference
service, information literacy instruction.
These librarian skills adapting themselves to computer mediated
communication with all its implications renew in an online context, where the
librarian’s role changes from provider of information to facilitator and
instructor.
For these reasons the librarian sometimes does not just have a supporting role
in online teaching and learning activities, but s/he can also be involved in
online courses e-tutoring as a leading person.
A recent study on roles and competence for distance learning programs in
higher education identifies thirteen roles needed to implement and manage a
distance education course, among which is the librarian. It is stated that many
roles are typically assumed by one position on the basis of different contexts
and situations, yet all these roles should be considered in staffing and training
decisions.
The study goes on listing a set of thirty general competencies to be considered
necessary to varying degrees across all roles because they are a fundamental
skill set that can be considered entry level for any of the roles. They are:
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Collaboration/teamwork skills
Basic technology knowledge
Interpersonal communication skills
Language proficiency
Knowledge of the distance learning field
Writing skills
Questioning skills
Skills in development of collaborative,
environment
Adult learning theory
Knowledge of support services
Feedback skills
Organisational skills
Technology access knowledge
student-focused
learning
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Planning skills
Software skills
Knowledge of intellectual property, fair usage and copyright regulations
Facilitation (discussion) skills
Public relations skills
Multimedia knowledge
Presentation skills
Consulting skills
Evaluation skills
Group process skills
Editing skills
Project management skills
Change agent skills
Negotiation skills
Needs assessment skills
Data analysis skills
Personal organisation skills
Besides it is significant to observe from this study that the specific
requirements for the librarian, which are obviously ‘library research skill’, are
also part of the functional requirements of instructor/facilitator. This confirms
what was said before about the affinity of the librarian’s and the tutor’s role in
online learning.
The librarian’s tasks
Delivering quality access, environments and resources that meet the needs of
the distance learner is the mission of librarian. According to this aim his/her
activities will concern these main areas:
– Documentary resource management, that means digital collections
setting, from their selection to cataloguing and classification,
management of databases and electronic journals subscription, creation
of electronic reserves also through the digitalisation of print materials,
learning objects management through the creation of the right metadata
codes. All these activities have legal implications, in other words the
librarian must be able to manage use permits and copyright constraints
respecting intellectual property.
– Reference service, which now gains a remote dimension and makes use
of synchronous and asynchronous means of communication (chat
reference is becoming even more popular especially for quick answers)
to help distant learners find the information they need.
– Technical support to digital document resources access. This is a very
delicate aspect of distance learning: because of their ‘learning dimension
at a distance’ remote students risk feeling alone and losing heart if
something does not work. Technical problems, especially if they occur at
the beginning of the online learning experience, are the main causes of
desertion by distant students; technical tools which work well are the
basis for students’ participation in the online learning and teaching
process. For this reason particular attention must be paid to technical
problems due to web platform access in general and to the tools and
services it offers in particular. It should be one of the librarian’s main
cares to assist students in remote access to digital documentary
resources and help them solve problems that might occur.
– Information literacy, which consists in giving distant learners adequate
tools for autonomously managing their learning, being able to clarify and
satisfy their informative needs, and exploit resources and tools available,
also finding them autonomously by surfing the Internet.
– Inter library loan and document delivery. According to the principle of
guaranteeing equal conditions both to distance students and to
residential ones, the librarian should also guarantee access to the print
bibliographic material (books and journal articles) to online learners
through the traditional services of inter library loan and document
delivery. At the same time these services should be free and as quick as
possible. In order to improve their efficacy, American academic libraries
have started a collaboration through proper agreements with both
American and foreign public libraries on which they rely for the provision
of books and other print materials to their distance students.
Sometimes distance students have problems in getting access to library
services of university which provide them online courses, and for this
reason they often go to the nearest libraries – usually the public ones –
which have to manage informative needs outside their competence: they
haven’t indeed specific resources for these kind of needs.
In order to solve this kind of situations American academic libraries have
decided to shift this trend – that is a signal of distance learning system
bad working – in a concrete advantage to off campus students
formalising this collaboration. The result is the possibility for remote
students to have widespread library services and the possibility for
agreed public libraries to properly assist them. Agreements imply indeed
the provision by distance learning libraries of funds to public libraries to
buy specific materials useful to distance students.
In view of service convergence all these activities should be carried out within
the learning environment, since it provides a logical place for information and
knowledge to be created, also making library services accessible and usable
from it; this kind of integration of tools and services is intended to make the
students’ activities easier to perform.