S2.1.4

=Students are provided with lists of starting points for using library facilities rather than pre-defined and complete reading lists. =

Evidence
Students’ expectations of access to library materials are commensurate with technology developments. As Stubley (2005) notes ‘increasingly when students have course content delivered online via the VLE, they will naturally expect that the bulk of their supporting reading should be made available in precisely this same way’ (p. 125). A ‘new partnership’ between library and academic departments is needed to address this situation, in which ‘the most important factor is the dialogue….If large-scale ownership and interest can be engendered, the chances of success are improved, even when this falls short of the creation of departmental policies’ (p. 131). Stubley comments on the need to enable learner’s to negotiate the enormous global information resource in ways that support different pedagogical approaches. He also notes that the increasing availability of full text electronic access to journals is opening potential for even more resources to be made directly available to students.

Resources
The primary focus for institutions, according to (SIEL draft March 2010) is to anticipate the needs of the students. Improving post-secondary student e-learning and retention involves putting mechanisms in place to assist with communicating student and institutional expectations prior to the student’s first e-learning experience. Understanding best practice for student induction, undertaking self-assessment to evaluate institutional e-learning induction practices, and preparing first-year students for e-learning all during the early weeks of their first course. The SIEL report details in a matrix how all this can be done.