Seneca Libraries and Blackboard:

Our Experiences to Date

Library2LMS - April 18, 2008The College at Brockport (SUNY)

Presented by:Jane Foo,

Manager, Digital Library Systems & Information Services

Jennifer Peters-Lise Metadata & Digital Services Librarian

Seneca College

• Largest college in Canada• Students:

– 17,000 full-time– 90,000 part-time

• 4 major campuses, 4 satellite campuses• Many diploma programs• 9 Bachelor’s Degree programs

Seneca Libraries

• 4 libraries

• Approx. 70 staff:– Librarians = 10 full-time, 2 part-time– Library technicians = 37 full and part-time– Library digital services staff = 3 (+1)– Administrative staff = 5

• Programmers = 0

Acknowledge: No Man is an Island Full Integration

Understand: Information-Seeking Behaviour Just in Time (in the right context)

Provide: Superior User Experience What Users Want

The Dream Scenario

Seneca Libraries & BlackBoard

Seneca - BlackBoard TimelinesJanuary 2000 Library Web site redesign (Learning Commons)

Fall 2000 Launch of BlackBoard CMS (Version 5); first demonstration of library material in BB

Spring 2001 Brief trial: “Research by Subject” (subject guides) in each course's navigation bar

January 2002 Release of MySeneca portal (with 2 library modules)

Fall 2004 Pilot of BlackBoard e-reserves

Spring 2005 Library tab and modules is approved by the IT Council

Fall 2007 Launch of Course Readings System pilot; academic honesty tutorial package

March 2008 Launch of My.Research tab

2008 Winter Semester: approx. 4000 courses in BlackBoard

• Portal Tab

• e-Reserves

• Blackboard Packages

• Repositories

• Library e-Learning

The Portal Tab

Pre-Login

Post-Login

Library Tab – The Original Proposal• Name: My Library• Purpose: Provide custom library tools & resources for

course work within BlackBoard for “a complete online academic learning environment” experience

• Primary Audience: Students• Modules: A mix of templates and building blocks

developed in collaboration with the BlackBoard administrator

What we did not want: Recreate the library Web site

First Version of the Library Tab (2005)

Reduced First Version (2005)

Research Tab

Library Modules

Library Tab – The Outcome

• Name: My.Research• Purpose: Showcase research done at Seneca• Primary Audience: Students, Faculty,

Employee, Alumni, Applicants• Modules: Mostly templates• Plus: Announcements and surveys

Building Blocks – What We Want1.Search Library Resources

2.My Library Account– Books taken out– Books on hold / requested– Fines information – Renew Books

3.My Journals / Magazines• Search for journals, magazines, newspapers and books• Bookmark them for later use or to share with others

Building Blocks – What We Got• Custom search module

• Tabs within modules (“Tabules”)

• Some template variety (layouts, images, colours)

• Content maintenance via simple (custom) XML

Tabbed Module Template

Library Tab – Now and the Future

• My.Research was launched April 1, 2008• Future revisions to the search module (federated

search tab; a-z list change)• More interactive library modules:

– PURL generator (faculty)– Video channel– My favourite articles / journals / databases

• Building blocks created by the library

e-Reserves

e-Reserves – the Beginning

• Back in 2004 we realized we needed to start thinking about creating an e-reserves collection

• But where to start? Might as well start with Blackboard!

e-Reserves – Blackboard Constraints

• No administrative access to Blackboard

• To gain access to courses ITT requires faculty to get approval from their program Chair

• Facilitate e-reserves without having access to the teacher’s course in Blackboard

e-Reserves in the Content System

• Content System

• All staff, students and faculty have a “My Content” section

• Library has access to a shared “Library Content” section

e-Reserves in the Content System

1. Library staff or faculty find links to readings online or scan print materials

2. Post links in the Library Content portion of the Content System

3. Faculty link to the readings from their course

4. Library staff update readings as required

e-Reserves in the Content SystemPositives:• Familiar system

• Pushing materials

• Logical hierarchical display of readings

• Library has full access to the library content folder

• No additional costs

Negatives:• Have to rely on faculty to

create the link in their course

• Cataloguing

• Reports

• Statistics

• No administrative control

e-Reserves Research Committee

• Bb not the best system for e-reserves• Research committee to investigate alternatives

– Scan of 17 existing e-reserves collections across Canada

– Built 4 prototypes

• Decided to use a digital library system

e-Reserves in a Digital Library System

• Address many of the negatives of Bb – Cataloguing capabilities– Can import MARC records– Similar to ILS– Statistics – Reports– Administrative Control– Same logical hierarchical display as Blackboard

Web site

Journal article

Blackboard as Interface and Storage

• Give faculty a link to put in their Bb course

• Use the content system as our file server for digital objects (pdfs, images, docs, videos, etc.)

e-Reserves – the Future

• EDC will not be supported much longer

• Testing alternative digital library software

• Hoping for a more automated approach in the future

Library Packages for Blackboard

Blackboard Packages

• What are they?– Items (links, documents, tests) and settings (adaptive release,

gradebook) assembled into a file that is imported into a Blackboard course.

• Allows the library to pre-package customized information for faculty to use directly in their course.– items with a sequential order (e.g. tutorials & quizzes)– a group of numerous misc. items – items for numerous faculty

Examples of Packages

• Links to an online tutorial, e-reserves list, and MLA guide - misc. items

• Slides from an IL session and links to recommended databases - misc. items

• Links to selected modules of an online tutorial, and an assignment - sequential

• Link to an APA tutorial, an APA quiz, a link to the APA guide on the library website - sequential

Blackboard Packages

• Why not just send the links to the teacher?

Academic Honesty Tutorial

• Given the rights to modify “You quote it, you note it” created by Vaughn Memorial Library, Acadia University

• College-wide rollout

Academic Honesty Tutorial

• The tutorial does not include an assessment tool

• Offer the ability to measure student success, but have the option of not using an assessment tool

• Created 2 question pools: 1 for pre-assessment, 1 for post-assessment

• How can we make it easier for faculty to administer the quizzes? i.e. not paper quizzes

Academic Honesty Tutorial Package

• Combines components of tutorial into one package:– 2 quizzes – 1 pre, 1 post– 2 question pools from Respondus– Link to the tutorial– Settings for Gradebook– Adaptive release

Creating the Tutorial Package

1. Create a dummy course on development server.

2. Delete all default content.

3. Import the question pools.

4. Create two tests using the “pools” and random block.

5. Set adaptive release rules.

6. Edit Gradebook settings to record the scores of the quizzes but remove the weighted option.

7. Export the course (it exports as zipped file).

Importing a package into Blackboard

Academic Honesty Tutorial Package – the Future

• Iron out a few bugs (mostly with Gradebook)

• New Grade Centre will roll-out in Sept

• Looking to automate the process of importing the tutorial package into certain courses in Bb.

Repositories

• EDC is being discontinued. Until we implement new digital library software we are using Bb Organizations as temporary homes.

• Not promoted widely but accessible in a pinch.– E.g. Information Literacy Repository

Library e-Learning Pilot - Fall 2008

• Create an organization in Bb specifically for faculty to access library e-learning modules

• Faculty want to come to out f2f sessions but don’t have time or can’t travel

• Modules will mirror f2f sessions – e.g. YouTube and Copyright, Wikipedia

• An assortment of media – streaming video, screencasting, voice tools, online tutorials, etc.

Presentation:

jennifer.peters-lise@senecac.on.ca

Yahoo & IM: senlibjennhttp://people.senecac.on.ca/jennifer.peters-lise/

jane.foo@senecac.on.ca

Yahoo & IM: senlibjanehttp://people.senecac.on.ca/jane.foo