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The JISC Attitudinal Survey 2008: Head and Senior Learning and Librarian Staff enlightens on what librarians think the future holds for them and libraries. Excerpt:

In a data-rich future, senior academic librarians believe that managing and promoting e-Resources and e-Content will be their main challenges. These are the conclusions of a newly published JISC survey of 300 key library and Learning Resource Centre (LRC) staff across 284 HE and FE institutions. The findings complement those of SCONUL’s recent ‘Top Concerns 2008’ research.

The shift away from print to a dependence on e-Resources raises questions such as how to manage the volume of material, how users can access it and how libraries and LRCs can provide or promote such resources. It also highlights financial issues such as potential funding sources for the increasing amounts of new technology, electronic materials and subscriptions likely to be needed by the learning institutions of the future.

JISC’s Attitudinal Survey, conducted by the JISC Monitoring Unit at the University of Kent, covered content, licensing, digitization and communication issues. Key Findings:

• Keeping abreast of and incorporating new technologies, pressure on space, information skills and literacy and access management are key challenges facing academic libraries
• The digitization of in-house resources is going on, but few institutions have an overall digitization strategy
• 25% of HE libraries were involved in the inter-institution procurement of collections during the last year, with 12% digitizing collections collaboratively
• Around one third agreed that academic libraries/LRCs could use social networking opportunities to engage students with their services but most were unsure especially in HE

      

Ope Knowledge Foundation announced in its blog the forthcoming workshop on “Finding and Re-using Open Scientific Resources” to be held in London on November 8, 2008. A snippet from the wiki page:

This informal, hands-on workshop will focus on finding and re-using open scientific resources - including public domain data, open access journal articles, and open educational materials. We will look at existing tools for discovering open material, metadata standards for relevant material in different domains, and how researchers go about looking for the material they need.

In addition to focused discussions about legal and technological aspects of re-use, open scientific resources will be documented and tagged on CKAN [Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network], a registry of knowledge resources.

Details of the workshop are as follows:

• When: Saturday 8th November 2008, 1100-1600
• Where: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald Street, London, WC1N 3QS. (See map.)
• Wiki: http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenScience/Workshop
• Participation: Attendance is free. If you are planning to come along please add your name to the participants list, or email us (info at the okfn domain).

      

The International Journal of Learning, Volume 15, Number 7, published an article entitled “Designing Open Educational Resources through Knowledge Maps to enhance Meaningful Learning.” The article is authored by Dr. Alexandra Okada, a researcher in Knowledge Mapping, and Teresa Connolly, an OER lecturer. Abstract:

This paper demonstrates some pedagogical strategies for developing Open Educational Resources (OERs) using the knowledge mapping tool Compendium. It also describes applications of Knowledge Maps to facilitate meaningful learning by focusing on specific OER examples. The study centres on the OpenLearn project, a large scale online environment that makes a selection of higher education learning resources freely available via the internet. OpenLearn, which is supported by William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, was launched in October 2006 and in the two year period of its existence has released over 8,100 learning hours of the OU’s distance learning resources for free access and modification by learners and educators under the Creative Commons license. OpenLearn also offers three knowledge media tools: Compendium (knowledge mapping software), MSG (instant messaging application with geolocation maps) and FM (web-based video-conferencing application). Compendium is a software tool for visual thinking, used to connect ideas, concepts, arguments, websites and documents. There are numerous examples of OERs that have been developed and delivered by institutions across the world, for example, MIT, Rice, Utah State, Core, Paris Tech, JOCW. They present a wide variety of learning materials in terms of styles as well as differing subject content. Many such offerings are based upon original lecture notes, hand-outs and other related papers used in face-to-face teaching. Openlearn OERs, however, are reconstructed from original self study distance learning materials developed at the Open University and from a vast academic catalogue of materials. Samples of these “units” comprise a variety of formats: text, images, audio and video. In this study, our findings illustrate the benefits of sharing some OER content through knowledge maps, the possibility of condensing high volumes of information, accessing resources in a more attractive way, visualising connections between diverse learning materials, connecting new ideas to familiar references, organising thinking and gaining new insights into subject specific content.

      

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Public Library of Science (PLoS) notes that 100 organizations from over 20 countries have joined to commemorate Open Access Day for the first time on October 14, 2008.

Open Access Day will help to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access, including recent mandates and emerging policies, within the international higher education community and the general public.

History: Open Access Day was inspired by the National Day of Action on February 15th, 2007, led by Students for FreeCulture with support from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. This year, the same partners have joined forces with the Public Library of Science, the open-access scientific and medical online publisher.

      

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