Charge: Desire2Learn (D2L), the UW System course management system that serves as the key component of Learn@UW, is employed widely across the UW System. Faculty utilize Learn@UW tools to develop stand-alone online courses for distance education and to create resource rich web sites to supplement campus courses.
The Council of University of Wisconsin Libraries has articulated as Strategic Direction #2 for 2005-07 the need “to advance learning and increase productivity by saving time for faculty, students, and researchers.” CUWL recognizes that a close integration of library services and resources with Learn@UW, developed through the collaboration of librarians, faculty, and instructional staff, is a key way to advance this strategic direction.
Libraries throughout the UW System are beginning to employ various strategies to provide library services, resources and ereserves to students via faculty-developed D2L courses. Additionally, the UW System D2L Integration Subcommittee and members of the UW System Learning Technology Development Council are interested in pursuing a collaborative and coordinated approach to managing library linkages with course management software. Therefore, CUWL is forming the Taskforce on Library Integration with Learn@UW to examine programs already in place in the UW System that provide library content in D2L and to recommend possible strategies that could be shared across the System to promote Library/D2L integration.
Specific tasks related to this charge include:
• Identify practices already employed by UW libraries to provide library
services and resources to students in faculty-developed D2L courses
• Identify user-identified needs regarding integration of library resources
in D2L. In this case, “users” are defined as both students who access
course content via D2L and faculty who provide that content.
• Based on models developed both in and outside of the UW, recommend technology
and/or non-technology based solutions for the UW System that will promote a
closer integration of library resources in D2L.
A final report is requested from the Task Force at the Fall 2006 CUWL Meeting.