Instruction Committee
Meeting Minutes
2/16/2011

Announcements:
IB students coming on March 23^rd. Those on the Instruction Committee who wish to help with the orientation, should block their calendars (for the morning, at least).  We will be having a general welcome and orientation in the morning, at Mann, and break off into discipline-specific sessions later in the day.  

Lance: Lance announced that the Freshmen Reading project book has been selected. It's Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow. He asked if there more that the library can be doing around the Freshmen read? Is the a question for the Instruction Committee, Reference and Outreach or both?

Tony: Blackboard migration update; training in will be provided across campus in late Spring. CIT has decided not to include the Library content in the new interface (Ask a Librarian link, Library button, Refworks link under tools) although it will be there in those courses that have been migrated. On a related note: Within the new BlackBoard "Community" tab, Tony suggested we may wish to have a Services for Undergraduate section.

Committee agreed that we may want to use this as an opportunity to think about how to work with faculty to customize our content in BB.

Committee Administration Update

Jaron welcomed Lance and announced that he would be the co-chair for the remainder of his term on this committee, and interim chair, in May, when Jaron goes out on Leave.

Update on Library Guides

Wendy asked about forming an instructional technologies subcommittee (or subgroup) to take the place of the current Guides subcommittee. Lance and Jaron mentioned that this recommendation will be in included in the Guides subcommittee final report, due on April 15^th.

Lance mentioned that there may be other ideas about the organization/display of Course Guides and that future usability testing of LibGuides, etc. will be included in his report.  One thing we know is that the discoverability system for LibGuides isn't working.

 Wendy and Gaby shared some of the preliminary findings of their focus group on usability testing of Course Help. Focus group research will resume once changes have taken place in the design of Course Reserves. One question to consider: "who is the client (who receives the report) and who implements the recommendations? Lance mentioned that the first part of the Guides report will be to identify all of the stakeholders.

Tracy shared information about some instructional technology sessions she attended at the Music Libraries Conference including short, instructional videos and podcasts. Wendy suggested the Instruction Committee might be involved in some of these efforts (rather than individual library units). Tracy mentioned that having a template would be helpful in terms of creating a unified look. Jaron asked if this was a project the committee wanted to take on and when. Tony mentioned that we will want to coordinate with the University identity template. Wendy offered to coordinate.

Information Competency Institute:

Mary, Claire, Theresa and Oya met to discuss the ICI, and decided that we will take a year hiatus to restructure (for scalability, sustainability). In the interim, Camille and Jaron suggested that PSEC Instruction provide similar workshops for CUL teaching staff, perhaps an instruction "summer camp." Jaron discussed an idea for a librarian "teaching certificate." Discussed the idea of a common foundation for teaching skills.

Update on Instruction Web site and calendar-ing system.

Content for Course-related Instruction page focused on marketing to faculty. Wendy, Lance, and Camille volunteered to help working on this.  It's set to be launched for the fall (August 1^st). May include student and faculty testimonials.  Carla will help with design.

Workshops:   Main task, how can users see what's available from any library, without checking each library's list. Is there an automatic way to feed from the calendaring system? There may be a new calendaring system on the horizon that will help with this. More information coming soon.

Jaron will set up another meeting to discuss Goal 4 in the Library Strategic Plan.

Discussion Group. First Friday in March, at Mann, during lunch hour 12-1:00pm. Jaron offered to co-lead the discussion.