U of T’s Personal Librarian program eases the university transition for first-year students

The library program offers personalized help to more than 6,200 students in two faculties.

By RYLEY WHITE | August 16, 2016 

 

Using the library is a daunting task for many first-year students. That’s why University of Toronto has established Personal Librarian, a program that pairs first-years with a librarian.

“As a personal librarian, I think of myself as a facilitator between the student and the library, and library resources,” says communications librarian Jesse Carliner. He compares the volunteer role to that of an adviser: he answers students’ questions, helps with citations and works through additional issues with students either by email or one-on-one.

Building off of similar programs like those at Yale and Drexel universities, U of T launched a pilot in 2012. According to student engagement librarian Heather Buchansky, that year 1,000 students were connected to 10 librarian-volunteers. As of 2015, personal librarians reached out to all first-year students in the faculties of arts and science, and of applied science and engineering – more than 6,200 students were contacted by one of 49 personal librarians. About eight to 10 percent of students contacted will participate, says Ms. Buchansky. Read more...

Student engagement librarian Heather Buchansky helps a student. Photo courtesy of the University of Toronto.

 

7 Classrooms: library as pedagogical incubator - The Ubiquitous Librarian - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Three years ago we had two classrooms in our library. They looked like this:

The former “training-based” classrooms at VT Library. Photo: R. Miller

These were suitable for training-based instruction but our program
has evolved. Librarians wanted to be able to reach more students (larger
class sizes) as well as utilize many different teaching methods.

We’re
upgrading both rooms this summer.

read more...

College Degrees, Designed by the Numbers - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

College Degrees, Designed by the Numbers - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Marc Parry

Illustration by Randy Lyhus for The Chronicle

Campuses are places of intuition and serendipity: A professor senses confusion on a student's face and repeats his point; a student majors in psychology after a roommate takes a course; two freshmen meet on the quad and eventually become husband and wife.
Now imagine hard data substituting for happenstance.
As Katye Allisone, a freshman at Arizona State University, hunkers down in a computer lab for an 8:35 a.m. math class, the Web-based course watches her back. Answers, scores, pace, click paths—it hoovers up information, like Google. But rather than personalizing search results, data shape Ms. Allisone's class according to her understanding of the material.
With 72,000 students, Arizona State is both the country's largest public university and a hotbed of data-driven experiments. One core effort is a degree-monitoring system that keeps tabs on how students are doing in their majors. Stray off-course and you may have to switch fields.  [Read MORE...]

Related articles

• American higher education must reinvent itself
• College Degrees, Designed by the Numbers
• College Degrees, Designed by the Numbers
• Chronicle of Higher Education: Using scholarships more strategically, intentionally, effectively
• Infographic Provides Data On College Students' Technology Habits
• American Public University Director of Course Design to Present Ideas for Leveraging Digital Media at Chronicle of Higher Education E-Seminar
• Will Higher Education Be Able To Meet Our Needs in 20 Years? Bain & Company Suggests "No"
• Sal Khan Comments On #MTT2k In Chronicle of Higher Education