On January 31st, Dave Shumaker and I will be giving a talk on MOOCs and academic libraries at the annual CUA Library and Information Science Symposium. Our abstract:
At its core, embedded librarianship means superseding the traditional, standalone, transactional model of library service with information and knowledge services that are integrated into the curriculum and founded on strong relationships with students and instructional staff. The introduction of massively open online courses would seem to threaten our ability to build and sustain these relationships — or does it? This briefing identifies how academic librarians can use the principles of embedded librarianship to play an important role in evolving online education.
We’ll be presenting during the afternoon breakout sessions (1:45-3:00pm). I’m grateful to Professor Shumaker for giving me the opportunity to co-present and build off his presentation to the Amigos Library Council this past November.
When we started doing the research for his last webinar in late summer, I said emphatically that MOOCs were a trend: shortly thereafter, Udacity altered its entire business model. Out of the mouths of babes: check out this great article from FastCompany’s December 13/January 14 issue about Sebastian Thrun walking back from MOOCs in a big way. (I believe my exact words were that “a lot of these companies seem like a gambit to test content delivery systems so these companies can bid on contracts with the UC/CSU system. Didn’t UCSD SJSU’s experiment with offering MOOCs for credit have an abysmally low pass rate? There’s the writing on the wall.”)
So, to recap: MOOCs, embedded librarianship, librarians as your trusty companions through the ups and downs of the Gartner Hype Cycle.
$20 gets you lunch and admission to some cool posters and solid morning breakout sessions.
There are still a few tickets left so register today. It is totally going to sell out.