By: Victoria Raish
One of the strategic action teams for the 2019 year is looking at embedded librarianship specifically within World Campus courses. There is embedded librarianship happening all over Penn State so narrowing it to the World Campus context gave us a clear focus from which to build our work as a strategic action team. The team consists of Emily Mross, Rachel Perry, Stephen Woods, Kat Phillips, Jeff Knapp, Dolores Fidishun, Lori Lysiak, and Victoria Raish.
Everyone on the team has some experience being embedded in some capacity for either World Campus courses or other courses. The motivation behind forming the team is that we all faced similar challenges, concerns, and successes in embedding for an extended period of time in online courses. These include:
• Creating valuable and meaningful learning objects
• Balancing scale with quality and relationship building
• Ensuring full web accessibility of resources created
• Adding embedded librarianship to a portfolio of services while still maintaining other responsibilities
• Discussing impact from boutique-type practices in documentation
• Assessing the quality and value of interactions with librarians
As a team, we have so far identified four main stakeholder groups with an investment in embedded librarianship and formed subgroups to tackle relevant information and questions with each of these stakeholder groups. These group subgroups are librarians, participants (embedded librarians), administration/heads, and instructional designers and faculty. From a holistic perspective, the decisions made as a team have the potential to impact the perceptions and involvement of each of these groups in an embedded librarian environment. Thus, you might see a request for participation with some focus groups or quick questions to guide
our work!
One of the amazing things about Penn State is the vast amount of resources and expertise we have for our students. Embedded librarianship is one way that this is accomplished for World
Campus students. As our group continues to do work we hope to generate more conversation and understanding over what is involved in this type of work and where you might find the value and impact.
If you have any questions or input on what the group is doing make sure to contact me at victoria@psu.edu!