Taking Library Instruction into the Online Classroom

Abstract

The proliferation of online courses has led librarians to adapt their instructional techniques and follow teaching faculty and students into the online environment. Moving beyond web pages and online research guides, librarians are now becoming instructional partners in online course management systems. Through an online survey of librarians and a literature review, the authors examine best practices for these “embedded librarians.” Introduction The number of college students taking online courses has risen substantially over the last several years. According to a report by the Sloan Consortium, nearly 3.5 million American college students were enrolled in an online course in the Fall of 2006. This represents 20% of college students and constitutes a rise of nearly 10% over online enrollments from the previous year (Allen & Seaman, 2007, p.1). Improved student access to courses and increased graduation rates are among the key factors driving the growth of online education, and the trend is expected to continue (p. 2). Not surprisingly, the rise in online education has decreased the need for students to come to campus, meaning students are less likely to use physical libraries. Although nearly all colleges and university libraries offer online access to research collections, students are 45 times more likely to start information searches at web search engines than at the library web site (89% vs. 2%) (De Rosa, Cantrell, Hawk, & Wilson, 2006, p. 1-7), and they are twice as likely to learn about new information resources from a friend as from a library website (67% vs. 33%) (De Rosa, et al., p. 1-9). In order to remain relevant, libraries are finding it necessary to take their services to students rather than waiting for students to come to them. Online courses are primarily delivered through course management systems (CMS) that create for students a self-contained learning environment. All assignments are made available inside the CMS for students to view, and when completed, students upload assignments to the instructor within the course module. All communication between students and instructors can take place in discussion boards or email systems within the CMS, and if readings are assigned, they are typically available in the course as an attachment, or at the very least, a direct link to a webpage or article within a database. As students become accustomed to this level of accommodation, they are less likely to venture out to disconnected information sources, especially library websites, which require much more user effort than web search engines (Costello, Lenholt, & Stryker, 2004). In response, libraries and librarians are seeking ways to become a part of the CMS universe -to “embed” themselves -in order to offer students a more painless route to library resources. Similarly, some schools use a CMS to supplement traditional face-to-face classes with the components described above. These “hybrid” classes, as they are often called, exist both in the classroom and online. Some librarians see this online component of the hybrid course as an avenue to extend one-shot face-to-face instruction sessions with classes (Jackson, 2007, p. 459). Many libraries are also offering online information literacy modules in hybrid courses as an alternative to face-to-face instruction. This is one way that libraries are keeping up with increased demand for bibliographic instruction at institutions where student enrollment is growing while numbers of library faculty are remaining constant or decreasing (Kramer, Lombardo & Lepkowski, 2007). Library integration into course management systems has been referred to by a variety of names. In 2004, Kearley and Phillips used the term “embedded librarian” to describe the practice of course-level participation in online classes at the University of Wyoming, and it has appeared in the literature repeatedly since (Hearn, 2005; Hedreen, 2005; Ramsay, 2006; York, 2006). Hedreen suggests that the term is borrowed from “embedded journalists” of the Iraq war (2005). Librarians at the University of Missouri St. Louis refer to their embedded librarians as “course librarians” (Bielema, Crocker, Miller, ReynoldsMoehrle, & Shaw, 2005). When a librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire monitored discussion boards and sent unsolicited emails to students through her university’s CMS, she used the terms “lurking librarian” and “collaboration by infiltration” to describe her work (Markgraf, 2004, p. 17-18). The term “embedded librarian” carries different connotations depending on the setting. At Murray State University, a librarian was “embedded” in an academic department, meaning that her physical office was located outside the library and among the department’s faculty in a building across campus (Bartnik, 2007). Some libraries use the term “embedded” to describe librarians’ immersion in the face-to-face classroom settings (Hearn, 2005). Librarians at Meredith College use the term “embedded” to describe their infusion of information literacy education into the general education curriculum (Carlyle Campbell Library, 2007). The authors will hereafter use the term “embedded librarian” to refer to any librarian who takes an active role inside the online CMS classroom -be it in completely online or in hybrid classes. Levels of service may range from those who provide universal links to external Web pages to those who offer highly interactive content, mass communications, and one-on-one interactions. The purpose of this article is to explore best practices for libraries and embedded librarians seeking to enhance services to online students through a CMS.

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