Minutes from the ALPS LINK Meeting

February 12, 2008

Langara College

Present: Gordon, Heather, Katherine, Liza, Patti

1. Exciting opening note:

It seems librarians have been continuing to upload LO even after the fall contest ended. Also they have used the rating system.

2. Next Promotion Campaign:

A wild and crazy brainstorming session was held, with terrific ideas bouncing off the walls like balls in a pinball machine.

 

The spring '08 campaign will centred on developing a "learning object wish list". We will ask librarians to submit suggestions for the LO they wish they had, or the ones they are planning to develop as summer projects. We will gather suggestions and then put the list back out to the community. The hope is:

• (
• one librarian's need will be met by a LO someone else has already developed   
• OR
• librarians' needs will overlap, and then cross-institutional teams will self-evolve and create these LO
• ) AND (
• all resulting LO will be shared via LINK
• )

 

Question: who should they send the ideas to? And/or put them directly on the Wiki?

 

The fall '08 campaign will ask librarians to nominate other peoples' LO for inclusion in LINK. We hope to make use of the AskAway listserv, since it is through that service that many librarians have been exposed to great pages at other libraries' websites.

 

A tentative idea for the spring '09 campaign: focus on LINK as a means for developing a professional portfolio of instructional materials. Possible tie-in with SLAIS Instructional Lib'n course?

Action items:

• Gordon to update the LO uploading contest powerpoint with links to the objects
• Katherine to have the completed ppt file put on the ALPS site
• Gordon to write a brief piece for the Yodeler on the contest (deadline Feb. 19)
• Heather to write a Yodeler piece on personal story using LINK - prelude to future more developed piece on using LINK to host professional portfolio (deadline Feb. 19)
• Patti to write Yodeler piece on the "LO wish list" campaign (deadline Feb. 19)
• Gordon to do a draft of the first LINK newsletter (covering the contest awards, wish list campaign)
• and everyone to check it
• Gordon to send out the newsletter on the ALPS listserv
• and everyone to ask their respective local champs to forward to colleagues
• Gordon to write draft of newsletter #2 ("wish list" list, recent uploads, see us at BCLA and WILU, teaser for fall campaign) for sending out in late March
• Katherine to ask for a few minutes at the ALPS meeting at BCLA to discuss "wish list" campaign, fall campaign
• Gordon to talk to Sunni about using the AskAway listserv to promote the fall campaign

3. ALPS Award:

It was agreed that we should arrange to have LINK nominated for the ALPS Award.

Action Item: Patti to seek a suitable nominator.

4. Technical update:

Gordon gave a technical update. The site meter is in place on the Portal, and ticking steadily. No word yet on when ANTS will be harvested into SOL*R. The suggestion has been put to Scott that each LO "landing page" have a stable URL listed.

Action Item: Gordon to ask Scott for an "email this item to a friend" button on the landing page.

5. Miscellanous news:

(a) LINK was highlighted in the recent SOL*R newsletter as a model of cooperation between SOL*R and a specific community of LO developers.

(b) The BCLA session on learning objects, including Gordon speaking on LINK, will be repeated at the WILU conference a month later in Kelowna.

(c) The ART project, to develop a set of WebCT modules on information literacy and academic skills, is steaming ahead. A designer is currently working on revisions to modules 1-4 (already available in LINK) and modules 5-6 are in development.

6. Other business:

A question was asked about pursuing further cooperation and liaison work with ANTS, CORIL, and other similar repositories. This is highly desirable, and there will be an opportunity for this when the planned multi-repository harvester gets off the ground.

7. Next meeting: Tuesday, April 8, at Langara College