A-LIEP 2006, NTU Singapore
Wong, K. W. (2006). NUS libraries in a virtual learning environment. Presented at the Asia-Pacific Conference on Library & Information Education & Practice 2006 (A-LIEP 2006), Singapore, 3 -6 April 2006, Nanyang Technological University.
NUS Libraries in a Virtual Learning Environment Wong Kah Wei
[email protected] Senior Librarian NUS Libraries
Objective of this paper : To highlight NUS Libraries’ initiatives that support learning and teaching in the NUS virtual environment.
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12,490 electronic journals 11,350 electronic books 250 reference databases
Providing course readings electronically Course readings are… • Books, book chapters and articles which students are required to read to prepare for their lessons. • Recommended by lecturers. • Also known as RBR (Recommended Books and Readings) materials. • Placed in the library’s RBR collection with a loan period of 2 hours. • Student checks LINC (NUS Libraries’ online catalog) to obtain the call number of the RBR materials.
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Providing course readings electronically • In July 2002, Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library piloted providing some RBR materials electronically. • Articles recommended for RBR are checked against Proquest. • Using Proquest’s Sitebuilder, the library added persistent links of the articles in LINC (NUS Libraries’ online catalog). • Not all RBR materials were available electronically. • Therefore, a student downloads some RBR articles electronically and photocopies those that are in print.
Example : Of the set of BMA5251 readings, only 2 articles are available electronically. Students would still need to borrow the printed copy of the set of the readings to obtain the complete set.
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Lecture notes
Live chat Evaluation and surveys
Webcasts of lectures Forum discussions
Workbins to submit term papers
Scheduling Announcements
Providing course readings electronically • In May 2003, NUS Libraries collaborated with CIT (Centre for Instructional Technology) to develop a service where RBR materials would be provided electronically in IVLE.
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Student logging into IVLE would see My Modules (a list of courses or modules he has registered for).
Leads to list of course/module readings.
A list of readings under Library Resources in IVLE.
PDF files of scanned book chapter Persistent links to article in electronic database Hyperlink to online catalog record
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PDF files are scanned book chapters and/or articles that are not available in databases or ejournals.
Persistent links lead to full-text articles in databases or ejournals.
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A-LIEP 2006, NTU Singapore
Hyperlinks to online catalog (LINC) record showing location, call number and status of RBR book.
A list of readings under Library Resources in IVLE.
PDF files of scanned book chapter Persistent link to article in electronic database Hyperlink to online catalog record
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One of the enhancements was to add a search box to search for a specific reading.
User education initiatives in IVLE • Students downloading articles from Ereserves start to realize that the databases where their course readings are taken from also had other similarly relevant articles. • Trend emerged showing students, who have not been using our databases, were exploring the databases for their term papers.
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Student downloading an article from Business Source Premier realizes he could also use Business Source Premier to search for other articles for his term paper.
Student notices that reading is from Business Source Premier and decides to explore the database in library portal.
User education initiatives in IVLE • Using E-meetings – a service provided by CIT – to bring user education programs into IVLE. • E-meetings allows staff to conduct online meetings over the Internet. • Librarian creates a virtual meeting place where she demonstrates “live” database searches and answers questions from students.
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Teaching part-time and distance learning students in a virtual environment using Emeeting.
Librarian conducts a library tutorial in virtual environment using E-meetings.
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Link is placed at My Module Page to lead student to bibliographies, search maps or online guides.
Leads to bibliography of databases, search maps and online guides.
Example : Links to a list of databases and search map are added to guide students in their project. Ask A Librarian link to email librarian for help.
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Example : Search map for MNO3301 showing some keywords and search strategies.
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Link to search map placed at IVLE.
Links to search map and online
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Text & Readings section in Modules page. Email alert is automatically sent to the library once Text & Readings section is saved.
Future projects with IVLE • Data mining. • Increase access to librarian, library services and resources. • Create a virtual classroom to teach information literacy skills and to interact with students.
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Thank you.
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