LEEP, WISE, CPLA, MOOC: Expanding Access to Library and Information Science Education

Smith, Linda

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/78068 Copy

Description

Title

LEEP, WISE, CPLA, MOOC: Expanding Access to Library and Information Science Education

Author(s)

Smith, Linda

Issue Date

2015-04-11

Keyword(s)

Library and information science education

Abstract

The conclusion of the GSLIS Program Presentation prepared in 2011 for review by the American Library Association Committee on Accreditation notes that GSLIS has embraced the University of Illinois’s ideals of Excellence, Innovation, and Access (http://webdocs.lis.illinois.edu/accreditation/CONCLUSION.pdf). Since the online option of the MS program was launched in summer 1996, LEEP has been a key part of achieving those ideals. Focusing on access, as of 2011, 1067 students had earned their degrees online. These students would not otherwise have been able to earn a degree from Illinois. Focusing on one example of innovation, GSLIS co-founded the WISE (Web-based Information Science Education) consortium (http://www.wiseeducation.org/) in 2004 to increase access to specialized courses across institutional boundaries. WISE+ was initiated in 2006 to expand the consortium to include professional library organizations. From the beginning research has been a part of our efforts to investigate online teaching and learning in order to ensure a level of excellence online comparable to what our on-campus students expect in their face-to-face courses and residential experience. This presentation will present highlights of completed research and reflections on trends in online education for the first professional degree as well as for continuing professional development. The author has been an LIS educator for almost 38 years—the first 20 years in face-to-face classrooms and the next 18 years online. Examples of research and publications that will be drawn on include: 1) Smith, Linda C.; Lastra, Sarai; Robins, Jennifer. (2001). Teaching Online: Changing Models of Teaching and Learning in LEEP. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 42(4): 348-363 2) Haythornthwaite, Caroline; Kazmer, Michelle M., eds. (2004). Learning, Culture and Community in Online Education: Research and Practice. New York: Peter Lang. 3) Montague, Rae-Anne; Pluzhenskaia, Marina. (2007). Web-Based Information Science Education (WISE): Collaboration to Explore and Expand Quality in LIS Online Education. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 48(1): 36-51. 4) Kingma, B.; Nicholson, S.; Schisa, K.; Smith, L.C. (2010). WISE+ Course Development Partnerships: Collaboration, Innovation, & Sustainability. IFLA Satellite Meeting, 8-9 August, Swedish School of Library and Information Science. http://conf.euclid-lis.eu/index.php/IFLA2010/IFLA2010/paper/view/7. 5) Smith, Linda. C. (2011). President’s Page [discussing online education in ASIS&T]. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 37(4). http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-11/AprMay11_PresidentsPage.html While schools of library and information science pioneered online education, it is becoming a much more widely available format for continuing professional development, from WebJunction Webinars (http://www.webjunction.org/events/webjunction.html), to ALA’s wide range of online learning offerings (http://www.ala.org/onlinelearning/), to MOOCs such as the course on Metadata: Organizing and Discovering Information offered on the Coursera platform (https://www.coursera.org/course/metadata), GSLIS has partnered with ALA-APA to offer short courses as part of the Certified Public Library Administrator (CPLA) program (http://www.lis.illinois.edu/academics/cpd/CPLA). It is hoped that this presentation will stimulate discussion among participants: where do we go from here in online education for the master’s degree and beyond?

Series/Report Name or Number

Proceedings of the 2015 Symposium on LIS Education

Type of Resource

• text
• other

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78068

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Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)

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