VOL. 10, No. 2, 57-72
In the late 1980s, the University of Alaska committed itself to providing rural students with an opportunity to earn a baccalaureate degree via distance education. Shortly thereafter, the University of Alaska Fairbanks established a core undergraduate curriculum in which library and information literacy was included as an essential component, the intent being to help students establish a base upon which more specialized knowledge and skills could be built. Recent and ongoing technological advances have revolutionized access to information and provided distance education students with unique opportunities for conducting research, as well as affording them greater participation in the academic experience. This article reviews the literature on library services and instruction for distance education students, describes the development of the core course for distance education students, and looks at the first year of implementation.
Vers la fin des années quatre-vingts, la University of Alaska s'est engagée à offrir aux étudiants des régions rurales la possibilité d'obtenir un baccalauréat à distance. Peu après, la University of Alaska à Fairbanks mettait sur pied un programme d'études de premier cycle de base comprenant des cours d'informatique et de techniques de recherche obligatoires auxquels on pouvait ajouter des connaissances et des aptitudes plus spécialisées. Les progrès technologiques des dernières années ont révolutionné l'accès à l'information et donné aux étudiants en éducation à distance des possibilités uniques de recherche et de participation plus active à la vie universitaire. Cet article fait le bilan des publications sur les services de bibliothèque et les cours disponibles aux étudiants à distance, décrit le processus d'élaboration des cours de base et examine le déroulement de la première année du programme.
Distance education was developed to meet the educational needs of a diverse and geographically scattered population. Moore (1990) defines distance education as that which “consists of all arrangements for providing instruction through print or electronic communications media to persons engaged in planned learning in a place or time different from that of the instructor or instructors.” Burge, Snow, and Howard (1989) expand the definition of distance to include psychological, economic, or cultural separation. Issues and challenges in providing library support for this diverse population have a long history documented in the literature. As early as 1931 (Joint Committee on Cooperation, 1931), librarians and educators were discussing models for library co-operation in providing library services and materials to distance education students. Despite the many and varied discussions, distance education programs do not always provide adequate library support and their students commonly depend upon local library resources to complete research assignments (Breivik & Gee, 1989).
Recently, discussions of library support have been intertwined with the philosophy that distance education students must also acquire information literacy skills in preparation for lifelong learning. Howard (1983) states that individuals earning a degree via distance education should graduate with the ability to continue learning independently of course work, and that this ability “is dependent upon acquiring skills in library use and knowledge of information resources.” In his study for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Boyer (1987) asserts that bibliographic instruction and the use of library resources are an essential part of the university experience. Correspondingly, Appavoo (1985) affirms that the philosophy of post-secondary education is “in part, to graduate individuals with the ability to learn outside the formal framework of courses” and that the challenge for librarians involved in distance education is to ensure that students acquire the library research skills for continued independent learning. This philosophy is shared by Kascus and Aquilar (1988) who emphasize the necessity for distance education students to “assume a share of the responsibility for their own learning process” to “become independent self-directed learners.” How may distance education students learn to become independent self-directed learners and information literate when, according to one survey (Dodds, Lawrence, & Guiton, 1984), they perceive limited library access to be a significant disadvantage? In another survey (Burge, Snow, & Howard, 1989), distance students’ responses showed low expectations and inadequate knowledge of library services, yet it also reflected opinions that placed high value on information literacy skills.
Recent and ongoing technological advances have revolutionized library access to the point of making geographic location irrelevant. Eastern Oregon State College provides remote access to their OPAC and CD-ROM databases as well as e-mail and interlibrary loan capabilities, in part to equalize academic support for distance education students (Cutright, 1993). Importantly, however, Cutright noted that other than problems associated with innovative technology, the need for literacy information training and instruction was found to be significant and ongoing. Similarly, a study of campus computing user needs performed at Messiah College showed that the majority of users had only a very basic level competency, leading to their conclusion that user information literacy level must be upgraded. As a result, the priorities at Messiah focused on “offer[ing] a strong set of basic services that address such issues as information literacy, basic computing skills, and the use of research tools” (Harris, 1994). In a similar vein, the libraries at Arizona State University West recently surveyed non-traditional students for their opinions and library use patterns. This survey detailed very low use of remote access capabilities and, when considered with other survey data, demonstrated a need to teach information skills, as well as a need to market current methods of access (Hammond, 1994).
Developing library and information literacy skills appears to be important for all students whether they are on or off campus, traditional, or non-traditional. Remote access to library services and electronic resources has most certainly moved distance education students closer to an equity of “the university experience.” However, the challenge of providing them with opportunities to achieve information literacy remains. Because of their isolation, it is imperative that distance education students acquire information literacy skills to “effectively access and evaluate information for problem solving and decision making” (Rader and Coons, 1992) and to carry out research assignments associated with university courses.
Alaska presents special challenges. Many distance education students in Alaska live in smaller rural communities and most rural students are Native Americans, many of whom speak Yupik Eskimo as their primary language and who retain their traditional values (West, 1992). In the Lower 48 states “rural” is commonly defined as a town of less than 2,500 people, but in Alaska rural takes on new meaning, it is defined as a village or town without road access. Since there are only 5,679 miles of road in a state with over 500,000 square miles, there is by definition a sizeable rural area to serve. Rural students typically have had limited or no access to a library and by default have had little or no opportunity to acquire library and information literacy skills. It seems that most distance education students in Alaska must grapple with almost all of the multiple definitions of “distance.”
Distance education students commonly use local library resources to conduct course related research. However, different types of libraries have different missions, which may not include support for students in higher education. Some universities with distance education programs have established library services for the delivery of materials as well as providing remote access to OPACs and other electronic resources. The Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) is no exception. Notably, in addition to providing extended campus library services for students and faculty, Rasmuson Library has established an introductory library research course designed for and delivered to distance education students by audio teleconference.
This paper discusses how the Rasmuson Library at UAF developed and taught Library Research Strategies (LS 100) and how the course was built around e-mail, document delivery and reference programs, use of local resources, and remote searching of Rasmuson’s electronic resources.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks is the state’s land-grant institution and the foremost research centre in Alaska with doctoral programs in 13 areas. Established in 1917, UAF was originally the state’s only institution of higher education. In the 1970s, four year campuses were established in Anchorage and Juneau, and community colleges were built in various locations throughout the state to create the University of Alaska system. A period of restructuring in the late 1980s changed UAF from a residential campus in Fairbanks into a statewide university unit with branch campuses, rural education centres, and research centres. When the reorganization was complete, UAF had made a commitment to offer courses and locate faculty and staff throughout the state.
In 1989 Rasmuson Library created Extended Campus Services (ECS) to meet the general academic and course-related library needs of rural UAF faculty, students, and staff. An ECS librarian provides professional reference service, interacting directly with rural constituencies to build good working relationships as well as consistency of service. A toll-free telephone number, e-mail, and staff support from interlibrary loan complete the ECS service picture.
When the university committed itself to providing rural students with the opportunity to earn a baccalaureate degree via distance education, the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library faced a triple challenge:
One solution to the triple challenge that faced the library was to marry remote access and the electronic library to the idea of teaching library and information research as a process and not a place. This may not initially appear to be a departure from other attempts to teach library and information research, customarily taught as something that happens in a library. In this case, the process was taught outside the library using electronic rather than physical access. This approach at least partially addresses Howes’ (1983) concern that “The question should not be ’how can we get library services to external students?’ but rather, ’how can external students get access to material for study?’ “ According to Rader and Coons (1992) “information literacy has at its base the new communications and information technologies that are transforming society.” They emphasize that information literacy is not limited to any specific media or format nor tied to what can be found in a library building; it is the result of a sequential and cumulative learning process that incorporates locating needed information from alternative, yet valid, sources.
Since access to a computer with a modem was a requirement for course registration, an existing advantage for implementation of LS 100 was the established presence of computers in rural Alaska. Apple computers had already been heavily integrated into public school programs and UAF Rural Education Centres have made PCs available for their students. Unlike the early 1970s, when there may have been only one telephone in a village (usually in the village store), most families now have telephones in their homes. And, unlike the early 1970s, when data communications were expensive and unreliable, the major telephone carrier in Alaska (Alascom) has established a packet switching network (AlaskaNet), which provides inexpensive and reliable telephone access for 45 communities statewide. Remote access to Rasmuson Library’s electronic resources played a key role in teaching LS 100 and in students’ understanding of standard library resources and research strategies.
How do you teach information literacy skills to students who may not be familiar with the library as a concept or a place? Writing the textbook proved to be sufficiently difficult to delay course delivery for an academic year. It was necessary to determine first how individuals who had not seen or used a library could learn basic library research concepts and then how the process might be translated into accessing locally available resources as well as traditional library resources through a variety of methods. After a great deal of thought and many discussions with colleagues and rural faculty, the textbook organization was developed somewhat differently from the original conceptual design (West, 1991). The finalized textbook structure is as follows:
As previously stated, a significant number of UAF’s distance education students are Native Americans. Sociolinguists have theorized that Native Americans have an aversion to the written record because it places a barrier between experience and truth (Brandt, 1981). Using this theory to guide design of the textbook, an attempt was made to use real examples whenever possible, thus using experience to guide learning from the written document. One example used to illustrate the nature of information referred to a young man who had gone to fish camp. Most students in rural Alaska will immediately recognize the informational context of fish camps. Although the brief example lacked many facts, some missing data could be supplied from personal experiences, leading to the recognition that more information was needed. This pattern was followed throughout the development of the textbook. It was considered vital that familiar situations and contexts be used to teach processes, tools, and unfamiliar vocabulary.
Other concepts were also introduced to students in a familiar context. For example, similarities between a library catalogue and a catalogue from L. L. Bean were identified to demonstrate the elements necessary in using a catalogue to locate information. Both the library and the L. L. Bean catalogues use tools and organization that enable a user to locate one item among many. The L. L. Bean application provided immediate recognition since many Alaskans ordered from a catalogue at one time or another. Controlled vocabulary was explained by working with the Yellow Pages. It was thought that understanding how the Yellow Pages use subject headings and See references, an inexperienced researcher may then more easily understand how a controlled vocabulary such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings can be used to conduct searches of library databases. These analogies worked so well that they are now commonly used to teach Library and Information Research (LS 101) for on-campus students.
Before the course began, it was determined that roughly 40% of LS 100 students had access to local libraries whose collections were generally inadequate to support college level courses. The remaining 60% of students taking the course had no physical library access at all. Difficulties faced by distance education students in Alaska become very clear after visiting the rural campus in Dillingham, a fishing town located on Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska. Dillingham’s Bristol Bay Campus is a typical rural campus serving students from 32 villages in an area of approximately 55,000 square miles. It receives no budget support for a library program and, therefore, the library consists mostly of out-of-date textbooks donated by students, faculty, and members of the community. The campus director is able to purchase only a small selection of current reference books each year. Other rural library scenarios may be much better but some are much worse than those described above. This level of library support is inadequate for students living in Dillingham, much less for those students located in the 32 villages served by Bristol Bay Campus. It was exactly this type of situation that LS 100 was designed to address.
There was some concern about teaching a normally “hands on” course by audio teleconference, but it was hoped that the general nature of distance education students would contribute to their successful completion of LS 100. Some characteristics of distance education students are sufficiently different to warrant a new approach to solving their information needs. Off-campus students are more likely to be highly motivated adults working on a degree or taking classes for personal satisfaction. Moreover, adult students’ research projects are significantly different in that they tend to be more interdisciplinary and, therefore, more complex (Howard, 1983). Feasley (1983) indicates that distance education students are generally looking for information to help them deal with specific life situations such as health care, finances, and job-related training, as well as their own intellectual curiosity. They have a wide variety of skills and experiences and probably work full-time and take classes part-time. In addition, because of their maturity, distance education students would more likely understand the long-term value of library research skills and strategies and, therefore, have the motivation to complete the course successfully.
The textbook was designed to introduce students to standard library resources and strategies as well as to guide them into their community, and to help them recognize and investigate local information resources such as the local health centre, post office, cooperative extension, hardware store, gas station, and so forth. Frick’s (1992) analysis of library instruction supports this general design, expressing the idea that
If bibliographic instruction is significant, it is significant when it develops a user astute and flexible in information gathering. An intelligent approach to information involves the ability to apply learning obtained in one area to fresh problems, and to bring the skills of critical thinking to the process of information gathering.
This approach to textbook design is supported in a study of tribal community college libraries (Metoyer-Duran, 1992), which states that tribal culture en-courages forms of information literacy by “historically acknowledging the importance of print and nonprint, school- and community-based, and primary and secondary information sources.” One tribal college president stated that “information literacy makes legitimate the idea that seeking infor-mation about issues, ideas, or concepts that concern Indians need not come from books alone; the information may come from many difference sources.”
In addition to non-library information resources a good portion of the course was necessarily set up around remote access to Rasmuson Library’s databases. Developing basic computer skills became essential to completing the course. Some students were already experts with e-mail and other types of computing. They had already acquired the skills to handle dial-in, sign-on, and database searching. For others, however, dialling in was a considerable challenge requiring many telephone calls between instructor and student. Once students had acquired a basic level of computing skill, requesting specific library materials through Rasmuson Library’s materials delivery program became a relatively simple process using e-mail or the Extended Campus Services’ (ECS) toll-free telephone number. The ECS librarian and ILL staff generally responded to students’ reference and information requests within a 48-72 hour time-line. Students enthusiastically supported the sharing of e-mail IDs among class members, encouraging the sharing of information and experiences. This sharing, in turn, created a kind of peer tutoring network, thereby providing the interaction that is especially valuable to distance education students studying under somewhat isolated conditions. E-mail and fax have proven to be an efficient combination for quick communication and exchange of class assignments between students and instructor.
From fall 1988 through spring 1990, there were 15,548 distance education students enrolled in audioconferenced courses throughout Alaska who accessed their classes via the Alaska Teleconference Network (ATN). ATN enables instructors and students to dial-in to a toll-free number where network operators make the necessary connections. Many audioconference classes are taught after 5 p.m. so that adult students who work during the day may participate. Classes are also held at this time to take advantage of lowered evening telephone rates.
Audioconference technology is not itself revolutionary, and it is widely used to teach distance education courses. However, in Alaska statewide telephone utilities present overwhelming problems. Long distance telephone connections to the Lower 48 states or even to Europe can be better than those in-state. Occasionally, it is poor local telephone lines that have prevented students from completing the course on time. These kinds of technical difficulties may be overcome by audio/video recordings of class sessions or by telephoning individual students-an ameliorative step that is more easily accomplished for classes with smaller rather than larger enrolments.
Teaching library and research skills by audioconference is different from teaching similar material in a typical classroom setting. Prior teaching experience is extremely helpful, but it simply does not prepare one for teaching students who cannot be seen. Using a variety of methods to involve students in class and making individual contact during class is essential. Most importantly, teaching library research skills and strategies by audioconference requires an instructor who is flexible, patient, and open to creative problem solving.
The introductory class meeting can provide the opportunity for class members to introduce themselves and to share some of their thoughts about the class. The instructor can review class requirements and determine the quality of each student’s computing access, equipment, and experience. Polling class members at the beginning of each class works very well, breaks the ice, and gets students talking about questions associated with class work and assignments. A brief discussion of the latest weather disaster or local political scandal usually breaks the ice further and helps build a rapport usually taken for granted in a standard classroom setting. It is important to remember that these students are relatively isolated and are very likely to be the only person in a given location taking the course. Breaking up the lecture every few minutes with questions directed at specific individuals helps to maintain students’ interest and encourages participation. Quite often students experience similar problems and sharing them helps not only to alleviate feelings of isolation but also to generate possible solutions. It is not unusual for students to offer advice to each other during the class and then to continue the discussion later by e-mail.
LS 100 has been taught on four separate occasions by two library faculty. Forty-eight students have completed the course. On average, class popu-lations were over 90% female and were comprised of approximately 40% Alaskan natives. Standardized Student Opinion Instruments (SOI) with anonymous individual comment sheets were administered to students through the UAF Center for Distance Education and analysis was performed by the University of Washington Office of Educational Assessment. Regrettably, students’ response rate was very low. However, those students who did respond reported that they had gained an understanding of basic library research concepts and an increased skill level in remote electronic access to library resources. During a recent course offering a class LISTSERV was used to promote communication among students and to provide a conduit for student feedback to the instructor. One student in particular expressed her delight in reaching a level of self-confidence that enabled her to share her expertise with other students in her village. Based upon student SOIs, personal comment sheets, direct verbal feedback, and LISTSERV communications, LS 100 students report feeling more self-reliant and confident in locating, identifying, and accessing information.
The course textbook tested out positively for a first field experience and course organization worked well in sequence to build upon students’ previous experience and knowledge. Both instructors found that students needed a great deal of personal reassurance and support as they learned electronic dial-in and online searching strategies. Phone logs kept by both instructors show one to four calls made per student per week. Problems with course content were few. However, students did encounter difficulties caused by lack of familiarity with their own software and/or hardware, a lack of experience with remote dial-up procedures, and the unreliability of some local telephone lines. Moreover, students who did not own a PC found access to computing equipment problematic, as computers located in the school, library, or other public facilities usually had limited hours of availability and competitive use.
Ultimately, it was determined that the class lecture format should be given less emphasis and that peer tutoring could be a significant factor in students’ successful course completion. Establishing an e-mail link and a class LISTSERV for purposes of peer tutoring and communication allows distance education students to share successes and failures with each other, similar to the way on-campus students share their class experiences.
Distance education will continue to grow and the commitment to providing library materials, access, and instruction for distance education students must follow suit. Although this study is based upon a relatively small student sample, it provides a baseline from which to develop a richer and perhaps a more dynamic curriculum. In future course offerings, assessments should not solely be based upon student SOIs, personal comment sheets, verbal feedback, and the instructors’ observations. Provision should be made for a more precise definition of and means of measuring student success such as pre- and post-tests or follow-up surveys of how LS 100 students have used course content in other courses or self-education efforts.
LS 100 has changed little over the four years it has been taught except to incorporate some internet resource and access issues. It has, however, begun a gradual process by which distance education students can acquire information literacy skills. The rapid pace of technological change and the development of the internet have had a profound effect on libraries and the information gathering process and, therefore, on this library research course. The instructors agree that the course should be reassessed for content and method of delivery before it is offered again. Currently, LS 100 is offered by audioconference and as a correspondence course, which may be finished over a year, a semester, or in one concentrated weekend. Discussions about offering the course over the internet have been exciting but somewhat tentative, as the problems related to electronic access that LS 100 students have experienced remain unresolved. A greater reliance on the internet or online access is not yet a solution for many distance education students in Alaska.
It appears clear that we need to educate students in fundamental library research strategies and skills (Weiss, 1994) while integrating current information retrieval options (Gratch, 1988). Technology has uniquely altered the issue of access to information, a particularly significant advance for distance education students. Electronic access to library systems and databases, the availability of e-mail, and easily accessible menu driven gateways to internet resources have provided distance education students new opportunities for conducting library and information research, as well as affording them greater participation in the academic experience.
Diane E. Ruess & Sharon M. West
Elmer E. Rasmuson Library
P.O. Box 756805
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6805
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Diane E. Ruess is the Head of the IMPACT Department, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Sharon M. West is the Director of Libraries and Information Technology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK.
Both authors have taught LS 100, Library and Information Strategies, the core curriculum course for distance education students.