Semester is Winding Down

There is only 3 weeks left until the end of the semester and the nine-monthers are off. (We have a mixed staff of 9 and 12 month contract). Therefore, all projects must come to a good conclusion - fast.

• Set up my facebook account to join a FYE Librarian group, but then learned how to post an event on for my Madden Xbox Tournament.
  
• Started a new relationship with the Journalism program on campus. Presented at their Journalism Bootcamp. (Got a nice T-Shirt!)
• Weeding Reference with my collegue (Russian Dictionaries anyone?)
• Just started serving as a Library Mentor for the McNairs Scholar program and have had two consultations already.
• The publicity committee I chair is getting ready to archives the year in photos, work on storing that metadata, printing out the photos, exploring Flickr as a photo gallery option, putting together a graduating student worker thingy, and working with producers of CBC to get permission to do a library event around one of their shows.
  

Tuesday Blahs

So today, I had to read my lecture info and complete assignments for a mini online session that our Southeast Online office offers. It prepares faculty to teach online (on my list of future projects) but I also wanted to see if it addresses linking to library resources.

Met with a collegue and classroom faculty to brainstorm how to sequence info lit classes in the department of communication and how to add multimedia elements for courses taught at our satellite centers and then how we can use the Course Management System on campus to create activities with automatic feedback.

Did the last of three session for an online workshop of Chickering's 7 Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education over lunch. Showed some student assistants how online conferencing works in the process.

Tried to find a student on facebook and myspace that wants to do a library gaming night. He wasn't there! (I'm surprised :O!)

Talked with department head about new brain teaser games we will have on the main floor and talked about different items that need to be adjusted and programs affected by our new 4th Floor Quiet Zone.

Tried to figure out how to best weed a section of reference with my partner. What rules will we use to a section that is mostly dictionaries? Do all foreign language dictionaries belong in reference? Had another collegue run a list for us to help us when we meet this afternoon to do the weeding. We'll meet right after the library wide meeting.

Printed out conference summary letter so I can get my funds, need to turn in expense report.

Followed up with another collegue about NSSE and senior student exit surveys.
Somewhere in there I am going to adjust my microphone levels to create a camtasia clip for an online tutorial thingy I do with business law students.

ACRL vs EDUCASE

I had the absolute pleasure of going to EDUCAUSE in October. It was super high-tech, high-energy, high-volume, you name it, they had it. However, it felt good to get back to my roots at ACRL National this weekend.

The big difference between the two as I see is it; ACRL is warm and EDUCAUSE is cold. For example, before a session begins at ACRL neighbors are talking to each other and asking what institution they are from. At EDUCAUSE people wanted to be near a plug for their laptop or have more space around them for their technical gadgets.

I have a pile of info from ACRL (lots from the Poster Sessions) that I need to wade through, but yesterday I taught four classes, had a morning meeting, an afternoon research consultation and had to jet off to my grad school class at nigh. Today was a meeting with the Dean of Graduate studies, an online workshop about Chickerings 7 principles and then an afternoon of catching up with email and tracking down difference offices on campus to start some outreach programs.

Turnitin.com - High School Woes

I have done a faculty development session on Turnitin.com and a collegue has done several. Lots of questions come up from faculty and copyright is a big issues since student submissions become part of a large pool that turnitin.com uses to find plagiarizers. Last I checked students had to click on a button saying its okay when they submit.

Two kids in California high school are suing. They claim they had copyright and told turnitin.com not to archive their paper. As the Washington post article says - Turnitin.com have very much won their legal battles on the college campus.

Article from Washington Post