E-learning and first-year LIS students: WWW

"Someday, in the distant future, our grandchildren's grandchildren will develop a new equivalent of our classrooms. They will spend many hours in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the difference between light and knowledge." (Plato)

The current situation

The Department of Library and Information Science and Book Studies (DLISBoS, Faculty of Arts (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) has this year implemented new learning model which is called blended learning. Blended learning is the combination of multiple approaches to learning; a typicaly a virtual learning system and face-to-face sessions with professors (Gonzalez, 2004). E-learning module is organized in the system “Moodle” (is a popular open source enviroment that is becoming increasingly widely adopted around the world).
The structure and organization in the virtual learning environment for individual courses varies according to professors’ perception of a suitable organization of his/her course. This makes it difficult for students.

Results

Our hypothesis was that the e-learning is used by all potential users (first-year DLISBoS students), but a lot of them have problems with the usage of the virtual classroom its materials/resources in it. A unified structure of all courses would enable students to use the virtual classrooms and their materials more efficiently. In the end of June we send out e-survey to all first-year LIS students to identify problems with current organization of courses and course materials. We also send out e-intervies to professors about their organization of course materials and possiblities for a unified system. The results confirmed our hypotesis, that sudents use virtual classrooms and have problems with the material usage. On the basis of these results we suggest some improvement for organization of information in our virtual learninig system. We also suggest topics where libraries could participate.

Main Goal was achived and now they only have to be used!

Identify the most convenient organization of information in the virtual department and courses – in the “e-learning moodle”. The most convenient organization of information is in our case the virtual clasroom (VC) “Uvod v znanstveno delo” of professor Maver. We think that all professor in our deportment need to use this VC for strandard of how to organized there VC.

Library - WHAT CAN SHE DO? The virtual library: -Cobiss (better Slovenian catalog) -Catalogues of libraries around the world -The digital collection – here we think of digitalization of publication which are published by our faculty and »National and Univesity Library«(NUL) and are important to our student (like our collection »BiblioThecaria« and publication like ISBD, UDK, …) -Online databases – library subscrubes and gives access to full-text databases related to the subjects taught in the university -Internet resources – the library also provides a selection of internet resources for each of the subjects studies at the faculty. Virtual library services: Virtual reference desk – users find all the information and support they would have to go to any real information or reference center (every question related to the library or documentation sevices). User training – is perhaps one of the most important services provided by the library and where the library has to concentrated most of its efforts.

Conclusion

The results showed that students have problems (with managment of information on virtual learning system) and identify the most convenient organization of information in our e-learning environment.
Our presentation shows the results of the e-questionaire in graphic form and identify places where libraries should be included in this programm. It also shows same results of e-interviews with professors.

Our research project can be helpful for development of our e-learning system and its usability for students, and furthemore for similar e-learning systems at the Faculty of Arts and worldwide.

“The role of libraries has grown in spectacular way, with now abilities, not just site, media, but also with the increasing sophisticated costly electronic resources we have at our disposal, which finally gave rise to new training needs.”

We hope that our library will show us that they are seeing technological changes, not as a mean to reduce there meaning but as a new challenge, to be able to call themselves into new needs of their clients’, develop new skills.

References and acknowledgments

1. http://www.vlib.us/web/worldwideweb3d.html
2. moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=41160
3. http://moodle.org/
4. Kanič, I. (2004), “Ask the librarian”- cooperation of slovenian libraries in system of electronic information services
5. Sarah Guri-Rosenblit, 'Distance education' and 'e-learning': Not the same thing, Higher Education (2005) 49: 467-493
6. E-learning for management and marketing in libraries =e-fomation pour le marketing et le management des bibliotheques / edited by Daisy McAdam, Munchen, 2005 (IFLA Publication, no. 115)
7. Gonzalez, C. 2004. The Role of Blended Learning in the World of Technology. Retrieved May 12, 2007 from http://www.unt.edu/benchmarks/archives/2004/september04/eis.htm.