2020-2021 Agenda and Minutes

October 26, 2021, 1-2 p.m.

Feedback on the PS Teams (with Bonna Boettcher, AUL for Public Services present)

Missing Public Service: Collections. How can we better integrate with collections?

Director of Instruction: Some felt that having a Director of Instruction is a good idea since it would provide continuity and the ability to build a vision for how instruction should move forward and how new/continuing instructors can be supported. In addition, it is very complex for a dynamic group to coordinate activity across CUL. It would also be good to have someone talk to the University as a whole and to see where IL, digital, and other literacies fit into the larger framework. However, we still need units to be able to support different relationships/constituencies, and perhaps the Team should stay in place for this person to check-in with. This position could look at the University and determine how we can position ourselves as an instruction unit to support IL and the student experience. Can also assist with assessment and that would be better coordinated if one person instead of the whole group.

Drawbacks with a Director: Do not want instruction to be standardized. Also, do not want someone who has a top down approach, but a person open to collaboration, transparency, and new frameworks (critical/trauma informed pedagogy). A Director requires a financial commitment. What if more authority and budget are given to this group for training and mentoring within instruction and tools to improve our teaching.

Bonna Response to Director: Director would keep track of trends in the field, and also develop an understanding of the wide range of instruction initiatives/programs that are happening at CUL. [NOTE: Missed some comments here because my internet froze.] We could follow the Andy/Access Services model, where he has gotten to know the individuals involved and brings their strengths together. We would also need an advisory/strategy group. The Director would meet with the unit coordinators to help set priorities. Perhaps they can talk with people/units (a listening tour) to see about needed resources do you need, answer questions, and inform their projects.

Current Team Feedback: What authority do we have? We share ideas but what can we do with those, and do we have the authority to make it happen? How do we expand the discussions across CUL? We only have a finite amount of time to dedicate to the Team, and it takes a back seat. You could hire more people to unburden those on the committee. If this work is important, then should there be some active discussion and consideration about freeing up time from regular responsibilities to do this work. Do you look at subteams or projects differently? Meet more frequently and bring in others from outside the group to get things accomplished.

Bonna to Response Team: Not sure if the current charge captures a mission, ways to think about goals, and mechanisms for accomplishing. Where can we learn from each other and understand what is happening in units, and where are things that we are better off at the CUL level. Big assessment piece; we collect all kinds of data and need to do things with it. How are we connecting the dots with all the unit instruction, and then to the University? How are we bringing all of that back and making the connections clearer at CUL?

Next Steps/Other Suggestions: What are the goals for the Instruction Team? This might dictate the best structure/strategy. Is the goal to create the most meaningful instruction across the units? Is the goal a more systematic integration within the University curriculum? Hard to answer until we know what we are trying to achieve. Do wonder if we can start with a community of practice? Bringing new things to the forefront; reading, discussing, and applying in the classroom. We want to move forward and take our place as experts in various literacies and intentionally position our programs in a way that faculty see value. What are the underlying threshold concepts that we want to be teaching? There used to be a peer teaching/mentoring program, really interested in doing that again. How do we approach more interdisciplinary instruction?

Bonna Question (Capacity): How would you free up time for ongoing and active work around instruction? What does that look like?

Team Answer: Part of this is wrapped up in current job roles. Will this work align with unit work? Be additional? Gut answer is maybe 10 hours a week.

Bonna Question (Primary/Secondary): How would RAD/traditional instruction work together and interact?

Team Answer: Look at this as how do we get the materials together and put them in the same room at the same time (logistics). Would like to see people teaching across collections more often. Joan is taking over the CCC and will have more subteams to engage with. Want more opportunities to teach collaboratively and not see ourselves as one or the other. Do you teach students how to use a finding aid? Different instruction areas for students.

Website Feedback: Recently looked at CUL website for research tips and instruction. Site hasn’t changed over time, and students will never read the content. Where would that fall? Mann does that internally but who takes charge of instructional content on CUL website? How do we get the site regularly reviewed? We have so many people who need the site (need to define the target audiences for the site).

Sept 21, 2021
1-2pm
Present: Ashley, Christina, Mel, You Lee, Chris, Marsha, Nina, Sarah

Agenda/Minutes

• Welcome to our new members! Sarah, Business; Marsha, Fine Arts, Music, Africana
• Brief overview of the committee: who we are, what we do, how we function
• Discussing questions sent from Bonna re: future planning/reimagining of public service teams

• Next month: Discussion with Bonna, revisit annual goals 

June 23, 2021
10-11 am
Present: Ashley, Rachel, Lenora, Christina, Mel, You Lee,

Agenda/Minutes

CUL Instruction Overview - sharing unit instruction programs with team

• Rachel presented an overview of instruction at the Business, Engineering, & Entrepreneurship Libraries

Topics of discussion

• Are research consultations instructional? In some cases this is where a lot of instruction occurs due to the number of resources and complexity involved.
• How to find a common approach to instruction (vision) among multiple units
• Further discussion of proposed goals

May 26, 2021
10-11 am
Present: Lenora, Christina, Ashley, Mel, Chris, You Lee, Nina, Lynn, Marcie, Kelly

Agenda/Minutes

March 24, 2021
10-11 am
Zoom: https://cornell.zoom.us/j/6806168667?pwd=YW1zSXNZb0dPNGRmVEN3QnNLZThWZz09
Present: Ashley, Lenora, You Lee, Lynn, Nina, Chris, Rachel, Christina, Marcie

Agenda/Minutes

Report-out from recent discussions concerning CUL instruction assessment (Ashley)

• Based on Mel's survey about CLIQ, considering a paired down version, but accompanied by skills-based assessment
• Bonna is encouraging the Instruction Team to come up with recommendations
• Ideas for a starting place
  • Look at tutorials that have been created during virtual teaching and consider having these available in a single location as tools/resources for other instructors
  • Have opportunity for instructors to come together and compare current assessment efforts

Team structure and subteams (all)

• Should we reconsider our subteam structure to accommodate larger-scale projects? Changes in assessment for CUL might be too much for a 2-3 person subteam
• Consider a project-based model (or is this actually similar to the subteams?)
• As with LibGuides subteam, help can be added from people outside of the Team

Future initiatives (all)

• Look at some recent systematic reviews to see what other libraries consider core competencies for instruction
• Learn more about what instruction is happening in CUL and what support/resources would be helpful from the Instruction Team
  • 1-1 interviews, maybe conducted by unit reps, to gather information
  • And/or town hall for easier fact-finding and to allow people to hear each other's ideas
• Consider more opportunities for interaction about different types of instruction
  • ex. primary source literacy / RAD instruction
  • how to introduce LC and problems of system
  • maybe have rotation of sharing unit instruction activity at meetings
  • Consider asking for time on O&E forums to present on instruction initiatives

February 24, 2021
10-11 am
Zoom: https://cornell.zoom.us/j/6806168667?pwd=YW1zSXNZb0dPNGRmVEN3QnNLZThWZz09
Present: Ashley, Lenora, You Lee, Lynn, Nina, Mel, Chris, Rachel, Christina, Laurent

Agenda/Minutes

Get Started Orientation Sessions

• Two sessions were taught in early February, total attendees: 17 (similar to number at in-person sessions taught in January 2020)

Goals for 2021-22

• Public Service Team leads asked to share prospective goals for the upcoming year (2021-2022) at a meeting on March 15.
• Possible ideas:
  • Instructional videos to accompany the "Introduction to Library Research" page on the CUL site We may want to remove this! I floated the idea, but I didn't sense any buy-in from others, so it may be best to remove from the list of ideas – Lynn
  • Videos that demonstrate common practices for creating accessible LibGuides from the start and updating LibGuide accessibility LibGuide (both could involve collaborating with Kevin and Darcy) 
  • Revise CLIQ/Devise new assessment strategies for CUL instruction, working with instructors and administration to set guidelines for what would be most helpful for them 
  • Create a checklist for new library instructors
  • Continue to lead discussion-based programming on topics of relevance to CUL instructors and informed by university and library priorities (article discussions and end-of-semester event(s))
  • Inclusive teaching principles and practices to be intertwined with many of the goals above (include on new instructor checklist, create programming/events that center inclusive pedagogy, continue focus on accessibility, etc.)

Joint end-of-semester of event w/ Liaison Steering

• Ashley talked to Alison Shea about co-sponsoring an event with Liaison Steering. Thought so far is that a casual, drop-in event in/around mid-May, 1.5-2 hours, holding space open for liaisons and instructors to share current practices that they have been involved in. 

New instructor checklist 

• Lenora sent a Google doc (← link; restricted access, ask for permission if you can't open it) just as a start. Can pursue this in the coming year as it might be a longer term project

Libguides, next steps

• See goals above

Unit updates

• Nothing specific, but general consensus that online teaching is time consuming and we are mostly eager to get back into the physical classroom (when it is safe to do so)!

• Develop a categorization system for the Convene CUL Workshop calendar.
  • Not extremely time-sensitive, Nina will pull some documentation and share
• Generate a checklist and primer for new library instructors at CUL
  • Start a Google Doc where we can all share our thoughts on what would be important to include (Lenora will create and send out)

Looking ahead-  new goals, membership, incoming chair

• New goals - start thinking about new goals in time for Coordinated Call, possibly April, in order to have something to share with potential new members
• Membership - Currently fully "staffed"!
• Incoming Chair - Hold off replacing Incoming Chair until July, will then be on a regular 12 month

Ideas for End-of-Semester event w/ Liaison Steering

• One possibility could be a journal club, reading an instruction/liaison-related article and discussing (could also have Programming subteam set this up over the course of the Spring semester)
• Forum on unit's approaches/models used to promote instruction services (and/or liaison services)
• Instruction showcase
• Guest speaker(s)

Subteam updates

• Leadership/Information Literacy Subteam - 
• Assessment Subteam - Survey sent out to CUL-Instructors on experience with CLIQ. 24 responses received by Monday, now closed. Team will now look at that. There were a few respondents that volunteered to look at/think about assessment going forward.
• Programming Subteam - Possible reading discussion. Taking suggestions for articles. Lenora will send out a note asking for ideas. The group also discussed End-of-semester and other programming ideas, including the rescheduling of the Inclusive Teaching workshop. Ashley will talk to Alison about these and circle back to the group.
• LibGuides Subteam - Worked on LibGuide accessibility through Fall. Have achieved 95% compliance! Checking on compliance is continuing every Friday and if there are re-published guides that aren't accessible the guide author will be notified. For Spring, want to create training materials that will allow us to maintain that level. Idea being that they would be self-paced modules with short videos. Unlikely to be totally done by end of annual cycle, but make some progress. 
• Outreach & Communications Subteam - Chris and Ashley will get together to talk about some possibilities and capacity.

1. New team leadership and introductions for new members
   1. Jeremy Cusker is 2020-2021 team lead
   2. Ashley Shea is incoming lead
   3. Welcome to Kelly, Laurent, and Marcie, who are new to the team, and to Chris Miller who is returning after a few years
2. Subteam membership, agendas for subteams
   1. LibGuides: Lynn, Jeremy, Marcie, Nina, Camille
   2. Assessment: Mel, Laurent
   3. Outreach: Chris, Ashley
   4. Programming: Lenora, Kelly
   5. Subteams should find time to meet between full team meetings and select a member as a subteam lead. Review preliminary goals (which have been approved for carrying over into FY21), and notify Jeremy of proposed changes or additions. See annual report for FY20 completed goals and activities, as well as FY21 preliminary goals (also pasted below).

   6. Preliminary Goals for 2020-2021

      LibGuides

      • The LibGuides subteam will continue to help LibGuides creators and unit libraries make their new and existing guides compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) requirements by the October 2020 deadline through training and the promulgation of guidance.
      • The LibGuides subteam will investigate the issue with linking/mapping guides to Canvas that appears to involve some Freshmen Writing Seminar course naming conventions and will promote this option with guide authors for the Fall semester.

      Assessment

      • Consult with CUL administrators and Assessment & Planning to determine the type of instruction assessment data required for reporting needs and recommended for broader program planning.
      • Obtain feedback from CUL instructors about how they currently assess their classroom teaching and use that information to guide decision making related to the CLIQ and other assessment initiatives.
      • Report CLIQ results from the five years that it was administered.

      Outreach and Communication

      • Develop a categorization system for the Convene CUL Workshop calendar.

      Programming

      • Lead discussion-based programming on topics of relevance to CUL instructors and informed by university and library priorities.
      • Facilitate and promote engagement with the Center for Teaching Innovation’s “Teaching and Learning in a Diverse Classroom” course content within CUL.

      Collaborative

      • Generate a checklist and primer for new library instructors at CUL.
       
3. Alternative future meeting times
   1. Jeremy will review survey results from team members and announce the standing meeting time by email
   2. Update: new meeting time is 4th Wednesdays from 10:30-11:30
4. Guest: Reanna Esmail gave demo of LibWizard + Piktochart for possible orientation and/or instruction use
   1. Sample tutorials: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/librarytutorials
5. Guests: Gaby Casto-Gessner and Linda Miller, presented findings of spring 2020 online instruction survey
   1. Will follow up by email for help from the Instruction Team about ways to clarify options in CountIt in order to have a more accurate picture of remote instruction activity going forward
6. Other Business
   1. Online Orientation
      1. Hoping to have 2-3 synchronous workshops; still waiting for information about dates/times.
      2. Jeremy and Chris will work on communication to solicit volunteers to teach
      3. Chris and Lynn are working on translating the Get Started with Research workshop content into Canvas modules
   2. Next Meeting is Wednesday, August 26 at 10:30