Author’s Note: If you (like Cori) are an auditory learner, please check out our short recording of the interview where Cori discusses ILL and OER, along with some advice she’s learned while on her path as an online student and librarian.
Cori Schmidtbauer knows firsthand the difficulties that online students face. Born and raised in California, she earned her Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree online through San Jose State University. Since October 2016, she has been the eLearning Librarian in Ottenheimer Library at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she is also earning her Master of Education in Learning Systems Technology degree online.
As the eLearning Librarian, Cori is interested in making the lives of online students easier. With collaboration from a colleague, she conducted a survey in Fall 2016 to assess online students’ awareness of library services and resources that are available to them. It turns out that many students were not aware of certain services, such as Interlibrary Loan (ILL).
What is an Interlibrary Loan (ILL)?
“An interlibrary loan is a service that we offer to our students… [it is] the borrowing and lending of materials between libraries, and so if we do not own something here at Ottenheimer then we can request it from somewhere else – a different library, and that library can be local, within the town, within the state, within the country, or internationally as well.
But we do have other sources for those who do not live locally or maybe live next to another university and are taking classes here at UA Little Rock. It’s called ARKLink, and [students] can request to have a special card [mailed] to them, and that will allow them to physically visit a university or college library within that ARKLink consortium and check out the materials.”
Open Educational Resources
Cori is also involved in the Open Educational Resources (OER) Task Force at UA Little Rock. The task force consists of people from Ottenheimer Library, eLearning, Scholarly and Technology Resources, and Student Affairs. Their goal includes trying to find alternative materials and resources that are open and freely accessible.
“We’ve been trying to encourage our instructors here to use those materials in their classes, and especially if they are [teaching] online classes, because students in online classes are virtual – digital. Why do they need a physical book? So that has been one of the goals, and we recently did a little mini grant as an incentive for instructors to encourage them to use this. The grant was kind of modeled after UA Fayetteville and they had a great success with that.”
[For information on the 2017 UA Little Rock mini grant award winners, check out https://ualr.edu/library/2017/05/31/oer-mini-grant-award-winner/]Any advice for online students?
“You really have to know yourself first. What are you able to do, and what will your personal or work life allow you to do? You know you’re capable of going above and beyond, but does your personal and professional circumstance allow you to do that?
Number one – You have to be able to manage yourself and your time, because nobody’s going to do it for you. You’re going to have different types of instructors who have different teaching styles. Knowing ourselves – what learning styles do we have? I’m an audio/visual person … if there are no visuals then I prefer audio and listening. You know, in my experience though, many instructors in online classes will provide an audio recording of a lecture with a Power Point – so you still get that audio sensory learning there.
Second piece advice I would have is don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to communicate with your instructor or with your peers … because that communication is key. And if you have a question, and especially if there is an open discussion board that you can post that question to … you may not be the only person with that question. If you’re confused, other people may be confused. If you know the answer – to help somebody out – feel free to help your classmate out.”
To see some of the videos that Cori has produced and curated, visit http://researchguides.ualr.edu/video_tutorials.
For more information on ILL, please visit http://researchguides.ualr.edu/illand for more information on OER, please visit http://researchguides.ualr.edu/oer.