Category Archives: Advisory Groups

Meetings of Divisional Advisory Groups for the Library are on hold indefinitely while we try to determine the best way to gather input from faculty and share news.

Agenda:
1. Curricular Technology (Joe)
2. Videoconferencing (Petar)

Minutes:
Curricular Technology

1. Discussion of  digital humanities and partnerships between CTLR, LIS, and faculty. lead by Joe Antonioli.

Joe and other members of the task-force are gathering information on how can LIS & CTLR can best meet the needs of faculty

• What steps can LIS take to improve curricular technology services for faculty?

• Joe’s presentation slides  illustrate the- most common uses of curricular technology by faculty.

• According to the statistics LIS has gathered, the most common use of technology is to store and distribute files

• The two uses of curricular technology in the German department are a website associated with the 2nd year textbook which is licensed and can be viewed by students who have purchased the textbook  and Markin – a marking software recommended by director of the German Schools Abroad.

• The German department views their placement exam as a recruiting tool, and prefer continuation of the paper version.

• The LIS curricular technologists are exploring mobile technology for grading

• The SansSpace Pilot is running this year – LIS is negotiating with them and has not made a decision on whether or not to continue the service

• This past summer there were a number of problems with the German placement exam in Moodle some people we automatically logged out before they completed the exam, in other cases the computer crashed during the exam not allowing the students to complete it. Joe will follow up with the German school director before next summer.

• Bettina Matthias mentioned that she has asked her students in the German play this semester to create either a Facebook persona and page for their characters or to use their cellphones to further explore their character.

2. Video conferencing where are we going and what are the needs. (Petar Mitrevski)

•  Planned as a new service on campus – an existing classroom will be made suitable for video-conferencing. There already are classrooms set up in some of Middlebury’s other locations – just not in Vermont yet.

•  Video conferencing is in some ways similar to Skype – able to call others and collaborate – but Skype is not stable enough, and it is missing some functionality – not all students in a class can be seen on camera at a time

• The ability to have a video conference will be open to anyone, locally here in Vermont and beyond – including Monterey and schools abroad. The platform LIS is considering will be a small piece of software, easy to install on a computer so that it could be sent to someone who might use it to appear as a virtual guest lecturer within a class.

• The Department of the History of Art and Architecture HARC will be piloting the software in December to connect to guest lecturers

• In the future it could be used in a language class, for instance to connect with native speakers -the Spanish Department used Skype that way in a class.

• This past year students abroad studying Portuguese abroad called in and talked about their experiences.

• The proposed software will be relatively easy to use in a classroom

• Bettina Matthias mentioned that she had the students Skype with her mother last week, the proposed videoconferencing software would have worked even better, as her mother couldn’t see all the students she was talking with

• Polycom is the name of the software LIS is considering.

• The lecturer, or other guest will be sent a piece of software which can then be opened on a web browser. In order for the whole class to participate, the classroom will need special microphones and cameras.

• At this point having an in class video conference would need to be arranged through Media Services. Although in the future (over the next 5 years) the hope is that with a dedicated classroom, video conferencing will become self-service.

2013, November 25

Agenda:

1. Curricular Technologies – Joe Antonioli
2. Updates:
   1. Data Management – Wend Shook
   2. Computer Labs & Web Help Desk
   3. New citation guide (go/citation)

1. Curricular Technologies – Joe Antonioli
   1. Joe presented recent statistics showing faculty use of web resources to support their teaching, as well as web resources use by course.  Moodle and WordPress offer a wide range of activities and functionality, but file sharing is by far the dominant activity (more than 16000 files in Fall ‘13).  Faculty are asked: why just file sharing?  Faculty comments included not knowing the range of what is available, whether other services would better fit their needs, and how to get training instruction with their already full schedules.  LIS/CTLR would be interested in feedback on why faculty do or do not use curricular technologies
   2. One interesting statistic showed that not all syllabi are posted on the course hub, despite this being used by nearly every student on campus (particularly at the beginning of semester). Faculty are urged to put syllabi on Course Hub as a more efficient and consistent means of reaching more students, and those present will bring it to he attention of their departments.
2. Updates:
   1. Data Management – Wendy Shook
      1. Wendy is ready to do a soft release of a pilot data repository.  I have a web interface with
         1. visual links to browse the collection,
         2. a DMP information tab,
         3. a supporting policies tab (to simplify DMP writing), and…
         4. a data submission form.  At this point, it only collects basic metadata, and there is not a file upload button because there are size restrictions (and initially I want to have a good look at the data types and formats before I put them into the collection so I can fine tune the process).  Data that goes into the repository will be assigned a DOI – we have that capability now – that you can associate with your research (and if the published research has a DOI I can add that to the data’s metadata) so academics reading your research can find your data.
      2. The content will evolve incrementally, but the overall structure will stay the same.
      3. I am looking for datasets to put into the repository.  If you have data that you would like archived, preserved, and made accessible, please send Wendy an email.
   2. Computer Labs & WHD [channelling Mary Backus]
      1. We are actively compiling usage reports for the public labs, and it is clear that some are under-utilized – possibly because so many students simply use their own.  Question: what would be the impact of decreasing the number of computers supported in the labs? We will also cross-reference those statistics with class schedules before any conclusions are drawn. Question: what would be the impact of decreasing the number of computers supported in the labs?  This is not the plan, but merely the spark to begin a longer conversation.  What would faculty reaction be, for instance, if MBH116/117 no longer had computers, just to spark a discussion of the impact of that kind of decision.
      2. Reminder that there is a new(ish) WebHelpDesk (go/whd).  Faculty can submit their own help requests/fault reports, which will automatically be routed to the appropriate work team.  Many of the bugs have been ironed out, but steady use will improve the process, and, of course, feedback is welcome!
   3. New citation guide (go/citation) [channeling Stacy Reardon & Richard Jenkins]

Librarians have put together a new citation guide for students. The guide provides an in-depth overview of why, when, and how to cite, as well as specific advice on how to cite in APA, Chicago, MLA, and other styles. The guide was also designed as a resource for the new first year Academic Honesty Tutorial. Because the guide is new, we are seeking student and faculty feedback on how the guide can be improved. Please send suggestions to Wendy. You can add the link ‘go/citation’ to your course syllabus or website to encourage your students to use it

Faculty choose which topics will be discussed at their meetings. A list of potential topics for this fall’s meetings is below. We invite faculty to request topics not on the list too. We hope that most if not all of the groups will meet before the end of November.

All groups will discuss:

• Curricular technology support [Joe A] – CTLR and LIS have been asked by the academic administration to explore ways in which the support for curricular technology and digital scholarship can be integrated into the overall work of faculty development within the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research. The CTLR-LIS Task Force on Academic Technologies plans to spend the fall looking internally at our current practices, and also exploring how other schools have approached this. The group would like to hear feedback from faculty.

All groups may choose additional agenda items from this list (or offer other suggestions):

1. Wireless [Billy Sneed] – Faculty, please let us know what you’d like to hear about. Some ideas to consider: Stats on usage, advice on how to request better coverage, description of recent upgrades and future plans.
2. Potential reduction in number of computer labs and/or  computers in each lab [Mary Backus] – We want to look at usage patterns, and also at alternative ways of providing access to software and computational resources. One goal is to make sure that we aren’t overspending on computer labs in an era when more students are doing their work on their own laptops. We need to understand the possible impacts on the curriculum of these potential shifts.
3. Analog Sunset [Petar] – (Some groups already discussed this last year.) Goodbye VHS, goodbye LaserDisc, hello digital video recording and more. We can provide updates and answer questions.
4. Citation and Style Guide for students [Carrie] – This fall, we revamped our Citation and Style Guide for students. We now provide more examples on how to cite sources, and more advice on when and why to cite. We also removed a lot of extraneous information. The guide can be used on its own, or as a supplement to the new Academic Honesty Tutorial. We’d like to hear your feedback. You can take a look in advance: http://go.middlebury.edu/citation.
5. Time to resolve computer issues [Mary Backus] – We have moved to a new incident tracking system called Web Help Desk. You can now submit incident tickets through the web, check on the status and history of your technology issues, and access a knowledgebase of known issues and troubleshooting steps to resolve common issues. We hope you find this new service allows us to resolve your technology issues more quickly, and allows you to keep track of the status of your technology requests more conveniently. We would like to hear your feedback.
6. Data management [Wendy] – Wendy will bring us up to date on the status of science data management, data management planning, and a pilot data repository in the making. Questions and comments welcome.
7. Videoconferencing [Petar] – The College has set a goal to strongly support academic departments to venture into videoconferencing. We will provide updates, and we would like to hear your thoughts. Are there any problems right now with videoconferencing on campus? How might you use videoconferencing?
8. Online registration [Dave Ludwig — and we would hope to include staff from the Registrar’s Office too] – Historically, the course registration process has experienced numerous and repetitive problems. Since 2011, much work has been done to improve the Banner system as a whole, but also the registration process specifically. We would like to determine how much our efforts have resulted in a noticeable improvement, and whether (to the extent that faculty may be aware) there is still frustration with poor performance issues.