It's Academic

LMS and Library Database Integration

June 22, 2022

One constant in libraries is the fewer barriers you place between users and some resource the more users will take advantage of that resource. That’s why libraries use technologies like ip authentication, single sign on, and responsive websites to make our collections more convenient for our patrons.

Another tool that’s available to libraries is using LTI integrations to make library databases available within a learning management system. LTI stands for Learning Tools Interoperability. LTI is an open standard that allows different pieces of software to communicate with a learning management system. The LTI standard is supported by all major LMS: Blackboard, D2L, Canvas, and many others. Using an LTI to integrate library databases into an LMS enables faculty to search those databases and quickly link to their resources within their online courses. For example, my Library has a subscription to Films on Demand, an online video streaming database, our integration of this database enables faculty to seamlessly embed videos into their online courses. Of course, there are other ways to do this, but for faculty uncomfortable using things like embed code, the LTI is a much better option. Since an LMS is already password protected, anything embedded using an LTI requires no login from students.

With online classes so common today the LMS has become “the college” as far as many students are concerned. The LMS is the digital campus through which students interact with everything that the university offers. As such, it’s a good idea for libraries to see that their services are as present in the LMS as possible. That could be a link to the library website or the ability for faculty to access library resources directly inside their course pages.

Most major database providers will have excellent documentation on how to setup an integration between their products and common learning management systems. The process can be easily completed in a few days in most cases. I highly recommend libraries explore this option.

Affordable Learning PA Summit 2022 Call For Proposals

June 15, 2022

by Darren G. Poley

The Affordable Learning PA Steering Committee invites you to submit a proposal for the fourth annual Affordable Learning Summit. The Affordable Learning Summit is an opportunity for librarians, faculty, and others to collaborate on building a network dedicated to making higher education in Pennsylvania more accessible and affordable.

The theme for this year’s Summit is Infrastructure for Affordability. Opportunities include panels, individual presentations, virtual posters, pre-recorded lightning talks, roundtables/networking (breakout rooms with moderators), or other format suitable for a fully virtual conference environment.

The Steering Committee welcomes proposals on aspects of open and affordable education activities across these themes:

Theme	Suggested Topics
Building Networks	Communities of Practice Faculty Partnerships Engaging Students OER Advocacy Organizations Campus Connections: bookstore, student success offices, learning technology
Constructing OER	Publishing and Creating OER Copyright Digital Repositories Authoring Tools ILS Integration
Blueprints for Assessment	Financial Learning Satisfaction Learning Outcomes Programmatic Accessibility
Pedagogy Frameworks	Open Pedagogy Interactive Course Materials Renewable Assignments
Miscellaneous Building Materials	Zero Cost Materials Designing OER for accessibility

This year’s ALPA Summit will be held virtually from August 9th-August 10th. The deadline for submissions is Thursday June 30th. Notifications for accepted proposals will be delivered by July 15. The date, time, and format of proposed presentations will be confirmed through conversation with the presenters during the week of July 25th.

Please click here to submit your proposal.

If you have additional questions about submitting your proposal, or about the ALPA Summit in general, please contact alpa-summit@palci.org

(Link not working? Find the proposal submission form here: https://forms.gle/bP8WNRpn8QtDNaEJ7)

Recordings of recent Connect & Communicate sessions available

June 6, 2022

by Adam Balcziunas

Recordings of the two most recent Connect & Communicate sessions are available on our YouTube channel. Thank you to everyone who joined us live, and special thanks to our presenters.

In April, Allyson Wind of East Stroudsburg University presented “Promoting Inclusion in the Academic Library with a CILLS Program Internship.”

In May, Ashoo Kumar, Sandy Morgart, Eric Novotny, and Dan Peters from Penn State University Libraries presented “Microfilm Enters the Digital Age: A Big Evolution for a Microformat.”

Bucknell University Digital Scholarship Conference Call for Proposals

June 2, 2022

by Alex K.

Bucknell University invites librarians and their colleagues to submit a proposal to present at this year’s digital scholarship conference. Please see the call for proposals below.

Converging Paths: Digital Scholarship, Social Justice, and Intersecting Communities

Digital scholarship has often been rooted in the academy, although many of our projects seek to uncover community histories, lives, and events. In this year’s Bucknell University Digital Scholarship Conference (October 18-20, 2022; the event will be fully virtual), we seek to address the question: What are the paths through which digital scholarship intersects with communities and social justice?

The questions we pose to participants as jumping off points for proposals include, but are not limited to:

How does digital scholarship help us challenge dominant narratives and ideologies?
Whose voices can be elevated, uncovered, and reclaimed through digital scholarship?
How do we bridge the gap and promote engagement between the academy and community through digital scholarship?
What does it mean to collaborate on and produce digital scholarship projects with communities beyond our own, and what ethical responsibilities do we share?
How can we learn from and build on our experiences to sustain digital scholarship projects?

#BUDSC22 is committed to expanding the definition of digital scholarship to be more inclusive across diverse communities, both inside and outside of academia. The conference will bring together a broad community of practitioners — faculty, researchers, students, librarians, educational technologists, administrators, and others — collaborating on digital scholarship through research, teaching, and community engagement.

Submissions may take the form of interactive presentations, project demonstrations, digital posters (pre-recorded), panel presentations, work-in-progress sessions, workshops, or other creative formats.

We look forward to building on the success of our past conferences, in which we came together to discuss challenges, share working models, reflect on projects, and inspire new avenues for actively including students in scholarly pursuits. Want to learn more? Check out video highlights from our past conferences or search our archived sessions.

Submission Link: https://tinyurl.com/BUDSC22Proposal

Submission Deadline: July 15, 2022

Notification By: August 15, 2022

Conference Website: https://budsc.scholar.bucknell.edu/

Questions? Please contact the BUDSC planning committee at: budsc@bucknell.edu

Using MLA professional competencies to help support scholarly activity of clinical staff

May 25, 2022

by mabogino1

One of the most intriguing tasks that I have as a clinical and reference librarian at hospital library in which I work, is the work of supporting the scholarly activities of our clinical staff.

As I have learned this support comes in many different roles such as providing poster creation and design help for our nurse residency groups or conducting and maintaining author publication lists for our clinical and resident staff or simply answering reference questions in support of publication.

The goal of supporting these scholarly activities within the clinical setting is to ensure that the library is supporting the evidenced based medicine practice that ensures the best quality of care for our patients. I am proud to be a part of the team but wanted to make sure that I was supporting the team the best way that I could, so I turned to the Medical Library Association’s Professional Competencies (https://www.mlanet.org/page/test-competencies ) to ensure that I was on the right track.

I realized that I was meeting the competence of Health information professionalism by seeking out assistance through the collaborative work of the MLA communities(https://www.mlanet.org/page/special-interest-groups-landing-page) and their listserv emails list serves and by utilizing the competency itself to guide my work.

The competencies of supporting evidenced based practice and research, instruction and instructional design as well as the competency for leadership and management were helpful in providing guidance for managing the marketing to the various clinical groups and the implementation of the processes used to provide training to the nursing residency groups and in the fine tuning of the existing author publication reporting procedure.

Utilizing the Medical Library Association’s Professional Competencies assisted me and strengthened by abilities to support the information needs and provide the right information services to support the scholarly activity of my clinical staff.