MAXIMIZING LIBRARY PRESENCE WHILE MINIMIZING

ONLINE MAINTENANCE

Peggy Lynn MacIsaac

Athabasca University, 1 University Drive, Athabasca, Alberta, T9S 3A3, Canada

Keywords: Course management systems, e-Learning, Electronic resource pages, Information literacy, Learning

management systems, Librarians, Libraries, Library & the Internet, LibX toolbar, LMS, Moodle.

Abstract: This paper presents challenges and opportunities for an academic library to increasing its presence in an

online learning management system (LMS). Successful examples from Athabasca University, Canada’s

Open University will highlight the benefits of a collaborative team approach to course development and

LMS software applications. This case study demonstrates how an academic library can participate fully as

an active partner in the learning process. Specific focus is given to the seamless access for students from the

LMS to licensed electronic resources.

1 INTRODUCTION

Academic libraries, in this time of rapid

development of web pages, email, instant

messaging, online tutorials, chat, RSS feeds, blogs,

tag clouding, Facebook profiles, YouTube videos

and Second Life avatars, are challenged to create a

multi-faceted online presence of their own. In

addition, as courses increasingly occur online rather

than in classrooms, academic libraries have an

opportunity to connect with students through the

learning management software (LMS). Presenting

digital library resources to students is a Sisyphean

task of content maintenance. The balance of

developing new online initiatives while maintaining

accurate content is a constant struggle. This paper

explores how Athabasca University Library in

Alberta, Canada, has addressed these challenges.

1.1 Athabasca University Library

Athabasca University (AU) is Canada’s Open

University, serving 38,000 (or approximately 7,300

full-load equivalent) undergraduate, master and

doctoral students at a distance around the world

since 1970 (Athabasca University, 2010). One

course delivery model is Moodle,

an online learning

management system. Some other universities using

Moodle have subject librarians embedded in the

online courses to provide timely and relevant library

related information, and this may be a good fit in

larger university libraries, which are restructuring

their reference services delivery models due to a

decrease of in-person queries and an increased

demand for remote services (Thomsett-Scott &

Reese, 2006). At AU Library there are no subject

specialists; the public service librarians work as a

team of generalists. Nearly all reference and

information literacy services are delivered at a

distance. To have a current librarian embedded in

each of the hundreds of AU online courses would be

an insurmountable challenge.

2 ACADEMIC DIGITAL MILIEU

2.1 Digital Seamlessness

Eales and Scantlebury, writing about Britain’s Open

University, have said that “for Open University

students the Library website is the Library, since

most 1 never visit the physical Library building”

(2007, p. 36). This concept can be extrapolated to

say that separating the virtual library from the online

classroom would replicate a structural relic from

centuries of post-secondary education delivered in

discrete stone and mortar buildings. Makri,

Blandford, Gow, Rimmer, Warwick and Buchannan

(2007) applied decades of research on mental

mapping theory and digital library services usability

to their study of the digital information seeking

behaviour of graduate students. Their research

376

MacIsaac P..

MAXIMIZING LIBRARY PRESENCE WHILE MINIMIZING ONLINE MAINTENANCE.

DOI: 10.5220/0003304803760381

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2011), pages 376-381

ISBN: 978-989-8425-49-2

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

shows that people using digital library resources

relied more on their understanding of other digital

systems such as Google than on metaphors and

analogies to the traditional library (p. 435). In their

online lifestyles, students have come to expect

instant gratification when they seek answers online,

and this leads to an expectation that full text

resources for e-courses are effortlessly available any

time of the day or night.

Much of the literature on library participation in

learning management systems shows that there is a

common objective among libraries to deliver

resources seamlessly within the LMS (Eales and

Scantlebury, 2007, Ge, 2010, Henk, 2010, Jamtsho

& Bullen, 2007, Luther, 1998). This goal is

sometimes in conflict with a librarian’s desire to

build information literacy skills among students.

Often, librarians are asked to balance between

providing desktop delivery of full text sources and

teaching students to find material.

One way to think through this decision is to ask,

“What is the most important learning outcome?” If

the answer is to have the student recognize a journal

article citation and learn how to find the full text,

then providing direct links within the courseware is

counterproductive. If it is more important to read

and respond to the journal articles, then providing

full text links keeps the student focused and lessens

the tangential task of searching. It is clear that online

learning, delivered anytime and anywhere, shifts the

pedagogical focus to be student centred (Black &

Blankenship, 2010, p. 466, Boumarafi, 2010, p. 277,

Carlson & Everett, 2000, p. 9). This requires

libraries to shift their service model to deliver

content within the student’s digital communities.

Internet technologies are leading the redefinition of

the traditional domains of libraries and classrooms.

2.2 Learning Management Systems

and Libraries

The notion of LMS started to be debated in the

literature around the mid-1990s (Boumarafi 2010, p.

277). According to Dunn & Menchaca, by 2003

“94% of U.S. colleges and universities had

implemented some form of LMS” (2010, p. 473).

Colleges and universities are increasingly using

LMS software to deliver courses for distance

education and in blended learning, where the online

course supplements the face-to-face classroom

experience. Discussions on how to choose an LMS

and the arguments for selecting Moodle are best

addressed by other authors. (See Appleton, DeGroot,

Lampe, & Carruthers, 2009, Carlson & Everett,

2000; Jensen, 2010, Maikish, 2006; Menges, 2009.)

Other widely used LMSs include Blackboard and

WebCT, which have now merged,

Desire2Learn

and Sakai.

Moodle is currently used at Athabasca

University, and the number of AU courses delivered

through Moodle is increasing. Many of the colleges

and universities using Moodle find it flexible and

use it to deliver a variety of instructional services

through learning modules, discussion forums,

quizzes, and a variety of applications constantly

being developed by the open source community of

users (Eales & Scantlebury, 2007, Najduch, 2009).

The power of any LMS is the interconnectivity of

students, faculty and librarians to share resources,

information and ideas.

Black wrote in 2008, and others since then, that

the value of having a library presence in a learning

management system is undisputed (p.496). There are

various taxonomies of roles that libraries can fulfil

in the selection, development and utilization of

LMSs. Shank and Dewald describe these in terms of

macro and micro involvement (2003, p. 38).

Libraries can provide generic access to resources or

virtual reference services at a macro level, or they

can develop course-specific embedded initiatives at

a micro level. Still others describe a library’s role in

terms of deliverables. One is to provide access to

library resources; the other, information literacy

instruction through stand-alone non-credit courses or

library tutorials, modules and quizzes built into

courses (Karplus, 2006, Smale & Regalado, 2009).

Black points out that electronic reserves and

information literacy are the most common library

services deployed within learning management

systems (2008, p. 497). This paper will elaborate on

AU Library examples of each.

While the benefits to creating a library presence

within an LMS may be multidimensional, the stated

challenges seem consistent. At many universities,

faculty members see librarians as playing a minor

role in learning design, for example providing links

to required readings or to the library homepage

(Black 2008, p. 497). Many authors discuss how the

library’s involvement in the learning management

system can enhance overall learning (Date &

Walavalkar, 2009, p. 53, Dunn & Menchaca, 2010,

470). Inappropriate translation of traditional delivery

models into the digital realm can make an online

library presence clumsy and boring (Reinhart 2008,

p. 20). The fundamental strength of the online

learning environment is that it is interactive. Carlson

points out that course materials presented in the

digital realm will be read differently than if in print.

Carlson suggests breaking e-text into chunks of 100

MAXIMIZING LIBRARY PRESENCE WHILE MINIMIZING ONLINE MAINTENANCE

377

words or less because approximately 79% of users

scan web pages while only16% read them word for

word (2000, p. 6). Dunn and Menchaca point out

that users on average spend four minutes viewing an

e-book and eight reading an e-journal (2010, p. 475).

There are “significant challenges for library staff in

the delivery of prompt quality e-services and

content” (Boumarafi 2010, p. 278). Many have

written that the difficulties in integrating digital

libraries into the e-learning environment have been

attributed to software incompatibility between LMSs

and tools such as federated searches, citation

management, content management, integrated

library systems and authentication.

Black and Blankenship summarize these various

challenges well. They wrote, "Students are course

centric in their work and the library resources need

to be presented to them in that context in a

convenient place. At the same time, librarians are

faced with increasing demands on their time and

resources so these efforts must be scalable” (2010, p.

466).

2.3 Library and Faculty Collaboration

In spite of the pervasive use of LMSs in post-

secondary education in the United States, Dunn and

Menchaca acknowledge that libraries are rarely

considered when decisions concerning LMSs are

made (2010, p. 473). Of the 27 academic libraries

surveyed by Boumarafi in 2010, 86.1 % stated that

librarians were not playing any significant role in

courseware initiatives (p. 279). Copeland agreed

with this conclusion when she wrote: "It is

disappointing to see that references to libraries' role

in e-learning tend often to be at best superficial”

(2006, p. 201). Black concurred, stating that rarely is

the library involved in the procurement or

management of LMSs (2008, p. 497).

Black and Blankenship highlight successful

faculty-library collaborations being borne from a

development of common goals for the LMS project

(2010, p. 463). A report from the Canadian

Association of Research Libraries in 2001 found that

when librarians were included in the early stages of

course planning, development or redesign they were

able to integrate concepts of information literacy

throughout the curriculum. Faculty members

responded positively because they realized that

librarians have expertise in articulating information

needs, finding appropriate information resources

online and critically assessing the results of an

online search, all of which are key to success in e-

learning (para. 10). Athabasca University’s inclusive

model for collaboration in learning is entrenched at

many levels. There is a librarian included on most

active course development teams, as well as many

campus-wide committees addressing web

development, writing support and student and

frontline services. There is a librarian on the steering

committee for the learning management system

itself. This approach contributes to thoughtful

development of a consistent online library presence

(O’Brien & Wisbey, 2008). AU Library is engaged

in LMS governance, design and development issues.

These three examples show ways that the AU

library has been involved in information literacy

initiatives:

1. The library co-developed an in-depth online legal

studies tutorial that derived its organization from the

knowledge structure of the course.

2. The library worked closely with a professor to

develop assignments aimed at teaching students how

to find, evaluate and synthesize reliable resources on

divisive, contentious current issues.

3. A graded library search skills module was built

into a for-credit course.

3 AU LIBRARY MOODLE

3.1 e-Reserves

In 2002, AU Library developed a digital reading

room (DRR) for course reserves whose architecture

was built and is maintained by AU Library staff

members. Each course in the DRR posts its material

to its own unique DRR file. With the advent of

courses being developed in Moodle, the future use of

the DRR was unclear as interconnectivity is a

strength of any learning management system. Where

available, persistent uniform resource locators

(PURLs) are used to link from the DRR to licensed

e-journals and e-books. In general, PURLs are more

useful links than DOIs to direct students to full text

because properly formatted PURLs maintain the

authentication information needed for a student to

freely access the content to which the library has

paid a licensing fee. Searching by a DOI can lead

the student to a publisher’s fee based access website.

When the database JSTOR changed its PURLs

recently, the value of maintaining links to required

online readings through the DRR was confirmed

because those links were updated globally. Direct

links to JSTOR from different Moodle courses had

to be changed individually. The optimal solution in

terms of easy maintenance is to maintain current

CSEDU 2011 - 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education

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source links in the DRR.

There are several ways AU Library has achieved

good linkage. One is to list the course DRR file as

one of the main resources indexed on the homepage

of the respective Moodle course. The link directs

students to the top of a DRR file to use the

navigational tools within the DRR to find the

reading they seek. Another is to display all the

reading citations throughout a Moodle course. Each

citation links to the related unit of the course’s DRR

file. A third way is to create a pass-through link

from a citation within the Moodle course through a

DRR redirect to the respective full text. For the

student, this is the most seamless since the full text

displays once the citation is clicked. The added

beauty is that the student sees the content displayed

within a pop-up window while the Moodle course

environment remains in the background easing

navigation between the two. Designing simplicity

into functionality ensures both technically savvy

users and digital novices experience problem-free

access.

3.2 Library Block

Many libraries are reaching out to student users

where they are spending their time online (Colvin,

2008, p. 243). The five-year study of undergraduate

students by Judd and Kennedy found that the most

frequented sites and technologies used were the

students’ LMS, Google (notably not Google

Scholar), email and Facebook (2010, p. 1569). In the

Ge study, doctoral students and professors ranked

the Web as the most significant computer

technology to meet their information seeking needs.

The other top five technologies identified were

databases, e-journals, library catalogues, and email

in descending order (2010, p. 450).

Wanting to increase the library exposure to

students, AU Library customized a LibX toolbar,

Internet browser plug-in that allows students to

quickly search a select number of library resources

from anywhere on the web. Using the LibX toolbar,

students can easily move from reading non-

academic online material to finding relevant

scholarly literature. Its design is a clean single-row

toolbar with one search box. The Googlization of

searching has made the single box an optimal user-

friendly search standard.

This clean but robustly functional single search

box layout was the design inspiration for the

development of the AU Library Moodle block.

Knowing that screen real estate is at a premium, it

had to be kept concise. One design criteria was to

avoid scrolling and the wordiness that tends to lose

the students’ attention. The library sought to link to

a few key portal pages within the AU Library

website, presenting a functional search tool as

streamlined as the AU Library’s LibX toolbar. When

the librarian presented the initial design concept, its

functionality did not fit the Moodle learning

environment. Fortunately, with time and creativity,

AU computing services staff developed the coding

to allow students to search select AU Library pages

and licensed databases. The library block also

contains some static pages.

Both versions of the AU Library Online Public

Access Catalogue (OPAC) on the Millennium

platform are displayed. The version called Encore,

referred to as AU Library Catalogue 2.0 on the AU

Library website, has a single keyword search box

and provides intuitive click-through features to

refine searches. The Web-Pac Pro version has a

more robust multi-field, multi-row search capacity

for effective and efficient navigating. There is value

to AU Library in providing access through two

different interfaces to the same collection of

catalogue records. It suffices various information

seeking needs.

Students can also search some AU Library web

pages from the Moodle block. The Journal Title List

is for searching for known articles. AU Space is

Athabasca University’s repository of AU staff and

faculty research. The e-books search option is a

populated search of the Web-Pac Pro version of the

AU Library Catalogue.

Keyword searches are provided to seven general

databases which are relevant to all disciplines taught

at AU. This search option is not a federated search.

A federated search tool can be integrated into future

versions of the AU Library Moodle block once AU

has finished developing a tool that works well for

AU Library resources.

Only three static links are included. One to the

AU Library Help Centre providing tips on such

topics as the research process, using online tools and

citation styles. The second is a link to a list of AU

licensed databases sorted by subject. The third static

link is to the library’s Contact Us page.

A notable omission is a direct link to the AU

Library homepage. Instead, there is a dynamic

search of the AU Library website, which is

functionally preferable.

3.3 Future Research and Developments

By conducting student usability testing, AU Library

could identify how users understand the library

MAXIMIZING LIBRARY PRESENCE WHILE MINIMIZING ONLINE MAINTENANCE

379

services as presented within Moodle courses. This

could inform future developments such as tailoring

library resources to specific courses and allowing for

student modification of library tools. As Black

points out, “opportunities will increase as the variety

of tools in the toolkit expands” (2008, p. 500).

Reinhart aptly describes our current understandings

and manifestations of e-learning environments as

mere glimpses of the emerging digital classroom

(2008, p. 25). We have not yet achieved the desired

balance of technical efficiency and pedagogical need

(Williams van Rooij, 2009, p. 686) in the pursuit of

excellence in e-learning.

4 CONCLUSIONS

AU Library has shown how an academic library can

increase its online exposure and minimize

maintenance time through thoughtful design. The

initiatives described include full participation in

course development policy through relevant

committees.

The centuries old model of the student walking

across campus from the lecture hall to the library to

seek information is shifting to a student-centred

delivery model where movement from the online

course environment to the digital library is seamless.

The cross-department team-based approach to

course development allows a librarian to be included

as a subject matter expert on information literacy

skills, leaving the technical wizardry to those who

have a fuller understanding of the software and the

creativity to develop and share new applications for

the open source learning management system called

Moodle. All this contributes to AU Library

becoming an active partner in the learning process

and significantly enriches the educational experience

of AU students through the thoughtful use of library

resources.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Time to complete this research was provided by

Athabasca University Library. Thoughtful critiquing

was provided by Anne LePage, Burke Mortimer and

Reg Silvester.

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NOTES

For further information visit: http://moodle.org

For further information visit: http://www.blackboard.com

For further information visit: ttp://www.desire2learn.com/about/

For more information visit: http://sakaiproject.org/about-sakai

For further information visit: http://www.libx.org

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