1.    Update on the Information Literacy Pilots  - Brenda Ellis began by giving the address go/link (go/infolit), which describes the information literacy initiative at Middlebury and handing out a printout from the site. Currently there are two departments building out the specific set of research skills students are expected to master for graduation – chemistry and the history of art and architecture.  She reiterated the long term goal is to build out information literacy learning goals embedded within each department on campus.

 2.    Update on the changes with the implementation of Moodle 2 Adam Franco demonstrated the few changes/upgrades to Moodle that will be implemented in January. The changes are minor, and in most causes limit the number of “clicks” for several operations – such as adding files to a Moodle site have been decreased. Joy will be updating the Moodle guide (http://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/LIS/Moodle) to reflect the changes.

3.    Update on the Virtual Language Lab  Joe Antonioli explained that this last year, a team invited demonstrations from several vendors for replacement of the old tape driven language labs in Sunderland. The team evaluated several, and was specifically looking for a virtual solution which would not be tied to either a specific space on campus or specific equipment. The group has engaged a vendor and will be running a pilot project this spring, with an eye towards having it fully in place by this summer’s language school.

4.    Demonstration/Discussion of MarkIn Faculty in the German department and the director of the German School abroad have been looking for a piece of software which would assist them in standardizing essay grading, help students see patterns in their mistakes – such as adjective endings, allow the students to understand how to correct their grammatical errors themselves and improve their writing skills. Roger Russi demonstrated how he and several other faculty in the German Department are using MarkIn for that purpose.

Currently, MarkIn uses a Windows platform. It is possible to run the program on a Mac using the Parallels Desktop Program which creates a “second desktop” running the Windows operating system.

LIS purchased 20 seats for this software. Faculty who are interested in using it should contact Lisa Terrier.

If the creators/owners of MarkIn moved the software to a “virtual environment” then machine platform wouldn’t matter. Joy will contact Creative Technology and ask if they have any plans to move the program to a virtual space.

5.    Discussion about etextbooks Terry Simpkins explained that Middlebury was approached by Educause last year and invited to take part in an etexbook pilot with publisher McGraw Hill. Educause and McGraw Hill were interested in adding the participation of a liberal arts college, since most of the usage of etextbooks to date has been by large research institutions. LIS worked with the bookstore to identify faculty using the textbooks offered by McGraw-Hill and contacted those faculty members directly. Terry apologized to any departments who felt that the request to use an etext should have been directed to the department as a whole and to department chairs in particular. LIS doesn’t have any plans at the moment to participate in any more pilot projects – but would do so if there is further interest and would consult more closely with departments before signing on to such an experiment. If LIS were to participate it would be with a project that included multiple textbook publishers so that there would be a broader number of courses/departments participating. Students particularly are hoping for ways to lower their expenses. Depending on the pricing model that publishers use, it is possible that ebooks may be a partial solution to mitigate some of the cost.

Present: Tom Beyer, Bryan Carson, Orlaith Creedon, Florence Feiereisen, Enrique Garcia (co-convener), Rivi Handler-Spitz, Joy Pile (co-convener), Terry Simpkins

1. Information Literacy Pilots

Chemistry has devised a 4 year program that covers courses within the major from 1st year through the senior capstone project.

HARC is still formulating how the program will work given the various courses students take for the major, and the specialized knowledge base of departmental faculty.

Languages present some problems since it is difficult to do meaningful in-language research until the upper levels. This opens the quandary of where info lit should be included in the language curriculum. Should it be the same for all language departments? Tom Beyer mentioned that he has brought in a librarian for the first few classes of the senior seminar to teach research methods.

2. Liaison Program

The liaison program, or more particularly the model of reference service will be undergoing an assessment this spring. This assessment will work in tandem with the LIS space team in order to determine how to best use and redesign two areas – the information desk and the reference desk.

 3. Google/MSLive evaluation

Shel Sax is heading up an evaluation of moving email hosting from the college to the cloud. LIS will be evaluating two services – Google and MicroSoft Live. There are a number of questions/issues: cost, ease of migration, functionality, service level agreements with the vendors, etc. Should we change mail services, there will be a way of migrating any information stored in our current system and we will retain a middlebury.edu address.

 4. Classrooms and labs

Currently there are 44 “non-smart” classrooms on campus, plus several other spaces used as classrooms during the Language Schools. What is the best method and what should be the schedule and priority for converting them? LIS will convening a group this fall to prioritize upgrade requests, resulting in a budget request for conversion. This group will also be looking at near-future technologies such as small portable projectors that might impact the upgrade decisions.

 5. Innovation: digital humanities, cyberinfrastructure

Three College-wide task forces on innovation have been created, each of which will have LIS representation. Additionally, LIS is forming a group to provide services to the community relating to digital resources and ideas relating to their use in a liberal-arts pedagogy. The LIS group, led by our Head of Collections and Digital Initiatives, is still in its formative stages, but they will be charged with thinking about the services needed and how best to deliver them. This may include an inventory of what is already happening on campus. LIS is investigating how digital resources from special collections, the lecture archive and other sources could or should be integrated. Midd Lab may fit in as sort of a “PR” arm to highlight interesting uses of digital technology in humanities research and pedagogy.

6. Moodle

Is up and running. The number of classes using either Moodle or WorPress is similar in number to the numbers of Segue sites in the past. Segue will become read only by the spring and migration tools, or the ability to archive material on the sites as static HTML or PDF will be available in the spring. Rivi mentioned the problems she has with transferring information from a Word document to Moodle. Bryan related that this problem was a problem for the intersection of almost all WYSIWYG editors with MS Word. It was suggested that faculty help Alex schedule a workshop or create tutorials, focused on the best practices for creating documents that include diacritics — or are written in non-Roman characters or alphabets — into Moodle or WordPress.

 7. Investigation and digital solution for the “Language labs”

Aline Germain-Rutherford and Alex Chapin are heading up this task-force. They have sent out a request for input on specifications from faculty. Although they have begun documentation, no timeline for completion has yet been set.

Tom Beyer cautioned against spending and investing large sums for infrastructure. Many of the functions of a “language lab” can be done with cheap technology such as an iPhone or other smart phones. These devises can now easily record a video and send or upload it. The Google translate app for smart phones enable students to quickly learn vocabulary and hear it spoken, just by talking into their smart phone.

This year Tom is experimenting with Skype and other simple technology to record and stream faculty meetings and lectures, allowing faculty to attend virtually.

Enrique and Florence mentioned that language departments need students to create portfolios of their written and oral work that can follow a student’s progress across 4 years, especially since a student may have a different teacher each semester. These portfolios would enable faculty to track the progress of students and also know which issues remain as problems – either in grammar or in pronunciation and enable to better tailor and monitor instruction.

8. Ebooks

Joy briefly mentioned that we have access to a collection of about 45,000 ebooks through EBL. Purchase will be on a patron driven model. Tom asked about using this service for recent translations of literature, which he uses as class texts. We ran out of time to fully explore all the issues surrounding ebooks – and will discuss it more in depth at the spring meeting of this group.

Attending: Joy Pile, Enrique Garcia (co-conveners), Orlaith Creedon (French),  Rivi Handler-Spitz (Chinese), Stefano Mula (Italian), Brenda Ellis (LIS), Bryan Carson (LIS), Alex Chapin (LIS)

• Brenda Ellis described the Information literacy initiative (research and tech skills development and assessment) and document created by a team within LIS, as a response to the re-accreditation process.
• Alex Chapin and Bryan Carson described the “course hub” and detailed what has been complete to date, and the rest of the time line for that project. They also talked about Course management systems (Segue replacement) and the pilot project. For the most current information on this topic read the Segue to Segue blog.
• Joy Pile gave a brief overview of digital and other sources Midd users have access to through  CRL

• Joy requested that faculty poll their departments  in advance of Language Advisory Group meetings in order to develop relevant agendas. Topic can be posted here.
• Joy demonstrated the page: LIS Priorities http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/lis/about/priorities

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