World Campus updates

Hello everyone,

I have met many of you, but for those who I have not my name is Victoria (Torrie) Raish and I am your online learning librarian. Look for a monthly update for me on collaborations and happenings between the library and World Campus/residential online programs.

The following are four major initiatives described at a high level that are happening to increase the library presence for World Campus students.

1. Connecting to the Library for New Students: A set of connecting activities to prepare students for success by becoming competent with essential library services and connecting them to Penn State. Status: Piloting in the fall.

2. Flexible, Granular Modules for Lower-level Courses: Modules to introduce students to information literacy concepts such as critical thinking, evaluating information, ethics, access, and citations. Will be created and kept in CanvasCommons for use in courses. Status: Creating initial content, need courses with which to integrate.

3. Embedded Librarian Program: In research-intensive/capstone higher-level courses a librarian will be embedded in the course with the instructor and serve as a just-in-time, personal connection to advanced subject matter and effective research in that field. Status: Identifying potential courses, will start with 5-6 courses.

4. Graduate cocurricular Program: Microcredentialing (badge) modules that will be used for returning graduate students and introduce them to essential scholarly inquiry skills, build a community with their future cohorts, and use the library effectively as a graduate student. Status: Piloting in the spring in two programs, LDT and WFED.

If you have additional ideas or ways that I might go about these initiatives I would love to hear them. If any of you are already working with World Campus please let me know so we can make the most of our capacity here at the library.

You can reach me at victoria@psu.edu, my Twitter handle is @raishvictoria to stay posted on the latest online learning news.

My office is in Outreach but feel free to introduce yourself and request a meeting with me if you have something to talk about! I am in the library a lot and can also video chat with Commonwealth Campus folks. As a matter of fact, I wrote this in the Knowledge Commons!

– submitted by Torrie Raish