Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

Problems and concerns
Overall, the project had relatively few problems, although the staff did
acknowledge that there was a steep learning curve in the development
process. The Library also concluded that it found the CourseGenie
software problematic and decided that in future it would prepare
materials in HTML from scratch as this was easier. It also found that the
Viewlets were restrictive, and was looking at using a different type of
software to record from the screen.
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Figure 6.6
A screenshot of Olivia delivered by Imperial’s VLE:
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Case studies and practical examples
Future developments
The development of Olivia at Imperial has been heralded as a success
and library staff are planning a number of developments for the next
academic year. For example, it has been agreed that the discussion tool
will be used in the course for the next year. The Library is also planning
to expand the referencing unit to become a Plagiarism and Referencing
Module. The materials developed in Olivia were intended to be
customisable for other subject disciplines and a course for agricultural
and biological sciences is planned next.
More significantly, the course has been awarded an internal Teaching
and Learning Grant to develop more online courses. These grants are
usually given out to academic departments at Imperial and this is the first
time the Library has been awarded a teaching grant. Staff are extremely
pleased as this is excellent for raising the profile of the Library and
demonstrating that it makes a valuable contribution to teaching.
Using electronic journal resources: a
practical guide
Electronic journals are perhaps one of the easiest and most valuable
library resources that can be integrated into a virtual learning
environment. In higher education, the vast majority of academic
disciplines rely on journals as a means of scholarly communication and
students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels need access to
this material. In many instances teaching staff have designated readings,
i.e. lists they expect students to complete, perhaps before attending a
class or seminar. At the same time, many academic libraries now have a
growing collection of electronic journals, for which they pay increasingly
large subscriptions. It is therefore imperative that the library fully
exploits these resources. Consequently, linking to journal resources from
the VLE makes sense for both teachers and librarians. Licences rather
than copyright law governs the use of e-journals, therefore in all
instances librarians should check carefully the specific terms and
conditions that govern use at their institution. However, electronic
journal providers are increasingly realising the value of allowing their
content to be used in this way and make provision for this both legally
in the licensing agreement and practically by providing linking advice.
This section is a practical guide to using electronic journal resources,
based on the instructions developed at the London School of Economics
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Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment
and Political Science for creating links to widely used e-journal
aggregator services. While the range of titles and list of providers will
vary across institutions, as we have seen in Chapter 5, the concept of
linking is becoming increasingly standardised, using OpenURL and the
Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The guide is aimed at librarians, to serve
as a basis for designing their own e-journal linking guide. It may also be
of value to course designers or academic staff; however, the full listing of
electronic journals available at your institution will need to be
investigated. The stable links can then be pasted into online reading lists
of some form. More information about online reading lists is available
in Case study 2.