Empowering future-ready learners with future-focused course material
The University Library will be showcasing how we can partner with teaching academics to co-design bespoke learning solutions for students, at the Festival of Learning and Teaching.
The theme for October’s event for this year’s Festival of Learning and Teaching is “Future-focused Curriculum: Fit for a new University”. The Learning Support Team alongside Tom Crichton, Open Textbook Coordinator, are presenting on the ways in which the University Library can equitably empower future-ready learners with future-focused course material.
The University Library is currently strengthening partnerships with teaching and professional staff to deliver a range of services including our digital curriculum support service and open textbook pilot. These curriculum support offerings are in their initial stages, as part of our plan to create more dynamic partnerships with teaching staff as we aim to strengthen our future-focused, student-centered services.
Our Digital Curriculum Support Service enables teaching staff to make an appointment with the Learning Support Team to get assistance in refreshing course reading lists. This includes analysing a current reading list, providing data on current usage and engagement, and finding newer, alternative course reading material with a focus on open educational resources, open access research and non-traditional resources like videos, podcasts, and our innovative digital collections. Our model fosters collaboration with teaching staff as subject matter experts and aims to connect them with our diverse scholarly collections and resources.
In addition to subscription resources, the University Library is also embracing the movement towards open educational resources. If you don’t already know, open educational resources (OER) are educational materials that are openly licensed and designed for use and reuse in teaching and learning. They can include everything from textbooks, course content and lectures to videos, images and question banks. The flexibility and adaptability of OER allows educators to tailor materials to meet teaching and student needs, far more than existing textbook options that are often expensive or have restrictive usage licences. We have gained valuable experience helping teaching staff to find suitable OER to replace their traditionally licenced and restrictive textbooks through our Open Textbook Pilot this year and hope to continue this service next year.
If readers take one thing away from this blog post, we would be happy if it was simply that the University Library is your partner in learning and teaching. While the Library is a service provider, and we certainly love lending a helping hand (no pun intended), we can also partner with teaching staff to co-design solutions. In addition to sourcing course readings material, we can also assist with embedding information literacy skills into MyUni courses, share online modules, and deliver workshops for all year levels.
Here are some links to useful resources:
- University Library Learning and Teaching Principles
- University Library Teaching Support Framework
- University Library Course Readings
- Course Readings Quick Reference Guide
- Open Educational Resources
If you would like to get in contact with the Library to discuss refreshing your course reading list, replacing a textbook or to collaborate on creating curriculum content or a workshop, please email liaisonlibs@adelaide.edu.au.