The 76-page study profiles the efforts of four higher education institutions to teach information literacy online: the University of Missouri, Columbia; Indiana University, Bloomington; the University of Washington, and the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, which jointly serves the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University.
The report was written by Emilee Mathews who became interested in online learning after developing and teaching an online course through Indiana University’s Information and Library Science Department in 2018 and is now engaged in transforming this course into an open educational resource. Mathews is currently the Fine Arts Library Supervisor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
For each of the organizations profiled in the report, Ms. Mathews interviews one of the major players in online librarianship and describes their efforts. focusing particularly but not exclusively on issues related to retention, assessment, technology, pedagogy and equitable and inclusive teaching and learning practices. Mathews emphasizes the unique challenges of librarianship in an online context, discussing the sometimes student-isolating online teaching environment and how online librarianship can help to overcome it and also confront other specific challenges.
Some of the report’s many highlights are:
The introduction of experiential learning into the University of Missouri’s online LIS program
Indiana University Libraries work with an online instructional design and development team as well as a systemwide office of online education to develop a tutorial module for online course instructors.
The integration of a dedicated librarian promoting information literacy into the University of Washington’s adult and professional education online social sciences degree program.
The introduction of means at the Phoenix biomedical campus to help healthcare students to better understand how their current or potential patients acquire medical information and their views of it.
In addition to the profiles, Mathews discusses the general state of online education and online librarianship, through a literature review and personal commentary.