As part of the LIS Education & Training Team’s charge, we have developed an inventory of information and technology skills and knowledge needed by LIS staff, as well as College faculty, students and staff. On our inventory we also indicate why and to what extent the skills are needed and include some of the resources currently provided by LIS to support faculty, students, and staff. The team hopes to determine where educational and training resources are either inadequate or missing and to propose more effective ways of delivering essential education and training.
We reviewed a variety of sources including Helpdesk tickets, user logs, and the Middlebury website, and used our own experience with our constituents to come up with this list.
The team concluded that everyone at Middlebury should be expected to have at least an awareness and basic understanding of a large percentage of the computer skills and technologies identified, while some skills are needed by less than 5% of the community. We were surprised by the amount of educational and training resources already available to the College community. The problem is how to create awareness of and effective access to those resources.
The team is now working on the next part of our charge, which is to recommend how to build LIS staff development goals into the performance process; to work in cooperation with campus departments to identify specific information and technology training needs; and to make recommendations for training program development and delivery methods for faculty, staff and students. The recent Lynda.com trial is the first of a number of possible solutions we’re exploring that may be recommended to meet these needs.