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Cornell University Library

Distributed Learning Advisory Committee (DLAC)

Meeting Notes

• News

  Deb announced the launching of the fourth eCornell course from ILR. The Catherwood Library created a Web site to offer open-access library resources to support eCornell students. The group expressed interest in viewing these resource pages.

  Don described a new distributed learning program at Queens University, Canada, which is taught synchronously online. JGSM is looking into offering a joint degree program with Queens. He offered to show a promotional video tape about the program to the interested DLAC members.

• CUL-CIT Collaboration in Distributed Learning

  Oya updated the group on various CUL-CIT collaborations.

  Complementarity in Distributed Learning - During the last several months, CUL and CIT have been working closely to define their roles and identify cooperation opportunities in supporting faculty and students in technology-mediated instruction. One of the products of this partnership is the “Complementarity in Distributed Learning: The Roles of Cornell Information Technologies and the Cornell University Library." Developed jointly during Spring '01 by OIT/CIT and CUL, the document describes the respective primary responsibilities of CIT and the Libraries in the area of faculty support for distributed learning. The document is available at: http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/CUL-CITfinal.pdf

  Faculty Innovation in Teaching Program (FITP) - This new program aims to support faculty who wish to integrate information technologies in their teaching. During the first round of the program, there are twenty projects representing a wide range of technology-mediated instruction methods. CIT’s Academic Technology Center (ATC) is coordinating the implementation of the projects. The project partners include CUL, the Center for Learning and Teaching, Media and Technology Services, and Human and Computer Interaction Group. There is a CUL mailing list to facilitate information sharing among the unit library liaisons. In addition, the CUL group meets periodically to exchange notes and evaluate the collaboration. CUL and CIT are co-sponsoring the Innovation Faculty Forums, which aims to increase the faculty awareness on use of technologies to enhance teaching and learning. Please let Oya know if you'd like to join the CUL-FITP mailing list. The CUL-FITP group is hoping to develop a show-case this summer to demonstrate how CUL is supporting faculty in distributed learning.

  CUL/CIT Unified Service Working Group - Provost Biddy Martin was favorably impressed with the “Complementarity in Distributed Learning: The Roles of Cornell Information Technologies and the Cornell University Library." She asked the University Librarian and the Vice President for Information Technologies to take this document one step further and to create a unified description of services with “one stop shopping” as they would appear to faculty . To that end, Polley McClure and Sarah Thomas created a small working group to assess the components of a unified service (physical or virtual). Chaired by Jim Lombardi (Office of Information Technologies) and Oya Rieger (CUL), the Working Group is exploring how to rationalize service access for faculty interested in using various distributed learning technologies. The group has representation from CIT, Center for Learning and Teaching, and Media and Technology Services. Tony Cosgrave from IRIS is also a member of the working group. The goal is to provide faculty with systematic assistance in identifying relevant resources and services in support of their distributed learning projects.

  CourseInfo - This course management software (CMS) package from Blackboard assists instructors in creating, organizing, and managing course web sites. It provides several features to facilitate course administration and offers interactive communication features. Cornell's CourseInfo services are managed by the CIT's Academic Technology Center (ATC). Currently there are 1600+ CourseInfo sites on the system, of which 700-800 are estimated to be active this semester. Inclusion of CUL resources and services within course Web sites very often depends on the faculty’s own judgment and incentive. There are no ready tools or guides to systematically facilitate this process. Oya Rieger, Angela Horne, and Ira Revels are planning to write a white paper to explore the underlying technical, service, and resource issues to better incorporate the CUL collections and services with these "virtual learning environments" created by faculty. They will be relying on the Distributed Learning Advisory Committee's guidance during their investigation.

  Distributed Learning Student Assistants - The curriculum is designed by the Academic Technology Center to train student assistants who will support faculty innovation across a broad range of instructional technology activities. The purpose of the training curriculum is to provide the students with instructional technology skills to support the needs of small scale faculty projects. Oya and Peter Hirtle were involved in the training program with an orientation session that described the role of CUL in distributed learning and especially focused on copyright issues. This was the first round of the training program and the goal is to increase the library involvement for the future training sessions.

Meeting notes by Oya Y. Rieger

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04/25/02 vwb