Learning and teaching support by University of Sydney Library

I have already written about the organisational structure and about the section/department for Academic Services.

The Associate Director for Academic Services is the leader for the four liaison teams. Each of the teams comprises of a manager, academic liaison librarian(s), assistant librarian(s) and a librarian graduate trainee.
The four teams support the following subjects:
Architecture, Design & Planning, Sydney College of the Arts, Conservatorium, Engineering & IT
Arts & Social Sciences, Law, Business, Education & Social Work
Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Sciences
Science, Veterinary Science, Agriculture and Environment



The Academic Liaison Librarians work with teachers and students to achieve their learning and teaching goals. They:

• Collaborate with academics on curriculum design to embed information skills development
• Deliver information skills components within units of study, either online or face-to-face
• Ensure that the Library collection supports coursework curriculums 

Among others the liaison librarians are embedded in several faculty committees, that means they meet at both research committees and learning&teaching committees.

There have been big challenges regarding the change of the roles of the Academic Liaison Librarians. In order to tackle the challenges, some of the liaison librarians were trained to become experts in a certain field; like research support, teaching or outreach (marketing).

The library has also started with so-called champion areas: research impacts, educational resources, learning experiences and analytics. Staff from across the library are working together to develop these areas.

On the webpage for Teaching Support, there are resources for four stages: Plan, Teach, Assess, and Review. For instance under stage 1 - Plan - you have the following resources/links to:

• Course proposals - library impact statement
• Unit of study readings
• Create stable links
• Plan your eLearning
• Library support advice
• University teaching support
• Copyright advice

There is Online Training for: getting started, finding information, evaluating information, managing information, and communicating information. See here: https://library.sydney.edu.au/help/online-training/
All courses, workshops or other training are integrated with the Learning Management System as much as possible.

The Manager for Information and Research Skills is under the associate director for research Services Development and I had a great meeting with Michelle. Among others she works on models/concepts for information literacy support and training, on curriculum mapping (very new thing!) and she helped developing a pedagogic approach to teaching and learning support. That means the library has developed a Research Skills Framework (adapted from the Research Skill Development Framework by Willison & O'Regan). 
See the framework here:  https://library.sydney.edu.au/help/online-training/downloads/research-skills-framework.pdf

On the basis of the framework the library has developed the necessary training/support for the six stages of the research process: Identify, Find, Evaluate, Manage, Create and Communicate.  
Under the stage "Manage" the library provides support/training for reference management, research data management, research profile management, and research project management.

If you want to know more about Curriculum Mapping, please ask me for more information (I have a print copy). The plan at University of Sydney Library is to use curriculum mapping when subjects/units/programmes will be re-designed.

Michelle also told me that some of her colleagues attended a MOOC called "Learn to teach online" that sounded very interesting.
The library has learning outcomes for every course/workshop. And they use a template for all classes, as well as for the planning of classes/lessons.
They use Sharepoint to share all their teaching materials, videos, PowerPoints etc. (it was fantastic to see this structured database!!!).
They have also started to observe each other when teaching in order to learn more from each other. And they record almost all teaching, so you can look at the video or listen to the podcast later on. here you have one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhLAtEyiqSY&feature=youtu.be

Also very interesting is that they have a so-called Instruction Design & eLearning Journal Club once a month. That means they choose an interesting article about course design or e-learning and discuss or analyse it. What a great idea!