Virtual Worlds: Learning and Teaching in a Digital Age

Tomorrow is another lunchtime seminar, this time on Enriching VLE Courses with Library Content. The lunchtime seminars are open to interested participants from other universities, not just Heriot-Watt.

The librarians Marion Kennedy and Catherine Ure will introduce the Library VLE Toolkit – a resource for VISION instructors. An overview of the Toolkit is given and a practical application of the Toolkit in enhancing the student’s learning experience is demonstrated.

The Toolkit’s aims are outlined and the main content areas described (Library Integration, Resource Discovery and Copyright). The Resource Discovery section highlights the availability of ready-made learning materials for re-use or re-purposing in VISION courses and the Copyright section offers advice and answers to FAQ’s on using third party materials in VISION courses.

A fuller discussion of the Library Integration section explains the benefits of integrating library materials in VISION courses. The library offers a large pool of electronic materials, including 5000+ journals, electronic encyclopaedias and databases, all of which can be integrated to provide content and learning materials. The broad range of library materials is described as is their role in enhancing the learning and teaching experience by:

• providing a large pool of copyright cleared materials
• allowing the creation of dynamic reading lists
• diverting students from Google and encouraging the use of quality resources and search tools.

This is followed by a practical example of using the Toolkit to create a dynamic reading list, with a demonstration of creating links to the following resources from a reading list:

• individual catalogue records for books and journals – enabling students to check the availability of a item, find its location and place a request if its out on loan
• full-text journal articles using persistent URLs – allowing students to open journal-based reading materials in VISION using links which are less transient or liable to change than those dependent on a search session or a publishers location.

Finally, some future developments are discussed touching on the possibilities offered by the introduction of e-books and the Copyright Licensing Agency scanning licence (if signed). Both these initiatives will increase the availability of electronic texts for use in VISION and will offer further possibilities for enriching VISION courses with library content.

Please book online, we have still some free places.