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CHABOT
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What Distance Education Instructors Need to Know About Library Services
1. Remember to Place Items on
Reserves Ahead of Time
If you want copies of textbooks and
other course materials from the class available at the Library, the instructor
needs to place the items on Reserves. Come to the Library with the
materials, fill out your request, and we will have the materials available in
our Reserves section. At the moment, Chabot College Library is unable to
support electronic reserves, however if you place copyrighted material that's
ONLY available in your Blackboard course (i.e. only available for your class to
see), it is considered fair use.
2. Link to the Library Web Page
Please link to the Library web page and direct students to
look at our pages instead of Blackboard’s “External Web Resources.” The
Library provides access to premium subscription
databases that contain magazine, journal, and newspaper articles online
(most in full text). In addition, pages such as the
Resources by Subject and the
Online Reference Shelf pages contain links to sites selected by librarians. The
databases and selected sites are especially suitable for community college
students, especially here at Chabot. Pages also include tutorials and
instructional handouts that can especially be useful.
3. Be Sure to Let Students Know How
They Can Get Into Our Databases
All of our library subscription databases are available off
campus and are accessible via student's User ID and a password consisting of the
first two letters of their first name, first two letters of their last name, and
the last two digits of their User ID number. We have a link that describes this
process to them and it's posted on the Library home page:
http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/abby/dbsoffcampus.html
. There are alternative methods to get into the EbscoHost and ProQuest
databases that the Library cannot place on a publicly accessible web page, but
the librarians can give to the distance ed instructor to post on their
blackboard sites.
Instructors should clarify to students the difference between passwords for
getting into Blackboard and getting into databases. As many students do not
take advice and change their password for Blackboard, the students often assume
the password to both is the same, where the default password to Blackboard
contains the last four digits of the Student ID number, and the proxy server for
our databases is only the last two digits. We provide reference services via
Email and we have found that the number one problem students have had is getting
into the databases, and 90% of the time, the reason they couldn't get in was
they were entering the Blackboard default password instead of the proxy server's
password.
Also, and this can be true for Blackboard access as well as problems with
getting into our databases--the browser has to be IE Explorer 5.5 and above (for
Blackboard this is the browser they're officially "licensed" with), Netscape 7
and above, Mozilla 1.1 and above, all versions of FireFox , and all versions of
Safari. Please DISCOURAGE students from using America Online or other "pseudo"
browsers provided by ISPs--AOL, especially older versions of AOL, sometimes are
not compatible with firewalls, and not compatible with password protected or
premium licensed services.
4. When Linking to the Library or a
Database, Please Have the Link Open a New Window
We have found students confused when it comes to figuring out
where they are if the page they are looking at is in the Blackboard frame.
When students try to print on campus, they have trouble finding their print jobs
because the GoPrint reader traces the print job back to the Blackboard server
instead of the computer the student uses at the Library. Sometimes,
databases will not work through the Blackboard shell as well so when linking to
the Library or to a database such as EbscoHost, please have the link open up a
new window.
5. When Your Course Has a Research
Paper, Please be Sure to Mention the Library web site and the Library
Subscription Databases
Instructors who are not as familiar with the Library's
collection should also meet with a librarian. The librarian can inform the
instructor if there may be potential challenges for the student, depending on
the assignment. The librarian can work with you to reassure students'
success in research.
6. When Students are Using the
Public World Wide Web
With the exception of web sites instructors (or the text
book) select for students, if students are researching the public World Wide
Web, the course should include at least some type of discussion on the
importance of evaluating the information students find on the World Wide Web.
If instructors mean that students should search the library subscription
databases, they should explain to students what they are and to distinguish the
difference between the two types of resources.
7. The Computer Lab at the Library
and Assistance
The computer lab is staffed by
Melita Fogle, our instructional assistant (also the college's student Blackboard Help
person), and a staff of students. While your students will be able to use
the Lab, they need to be sure to have a Student ID card with their current
sticker of registration, which is available at Admissions & Records and in room
2361, on the second floor of building
2300. Instructional assistance in the Library's lab is limited.
Please do not assume students will get instruction to unique software products
or very unique functions that need to be performed in Microsoft products. Melita Fogle is available for help for questions
for students, especially regarding Blackboard. Melita can answer most
Blackboard questions remotely. Have your students fill out the
help request for
Blackboard (if their questions are not answered at the
Distance Education page).
Please also be aware if you are having students using specialized software
programs that they may need to go to the Lab related to your Department.
The Library is unable to contain all software products that classes may use.
Other Useful Resources
Library Staff
The directory listing of our full-time librarians, part-time
librarians and our library technicians, ready to assist you for yours or your
class's information needs.
Contact
Information
Includes phone numbers and E-Mail for questions. Answers by
Email sometimes take more than a day, so encourage your students to call when
the Library is open.
Getting Started
Some key starting points students can go to if they are just
beginning their research
Developing a Research Strategy For Your
Topic
Wonderful handout for students who are
beginning their research
Library
Subscription Databases
The Library has funds through
the college to provide premium, quality resources online, retrievable through a
Web browser! With a subscription of currently 22 databases that contain
full-text articles from over 8,000 magazines, journals, newspapers, and printed
reference resources, the College has a whole Library of materials waiting to be
retrieved online
Resources by Subject
Go to this page to find the databases, reference
books, and quality web sites that best suits yours and your classes' needs!
An alphabetical list organized by disciplines and by types of materials sought,
this index is your gateway to finding the best resources from the Library, its
databases, and selected web sites.
Class Handouts and
Library Research Guides
For some of the library
assignments, we prepare handouts on how to use databases and search the catalog,
as well as provide leads to quality web sites for particular assignments.
We also create Research Guides that give tips on searching the Library catalog
and databases, as well as links to web sites to various subject disciplines and
particular current events topics.
The Online
World: How Well Do Students Understand It?
How well do students understand the World Wide Web and
what they find from Web sites found from a search engine? Do they even
begin to understand what "book" each page they find is even coming from?
Read how some students are approaching the Web and get guidelines and how you
could approach student research assignments when it comes to them to searching
the Web. For more tips, consider using the Web Evaluation Checklist,
listed below.
Web
Evaluation Checklist
As students continue to use the Web for research,
wouldn't it be nice if students could recognize whether the materials they found
is even good or of substantive quality? Have your students fill out the
Web Evaluation checklist for the sites they find! For more information on
web page evaluation, take a look at
Evaluating
Web Sites. For information on how students are actually using online
search and how guidelines from faculty actually improved students' research with
online sources, please take a look at the article:
Effect of the Web on Undergraduate Student Citation Behavior (note: article
can only be read from an on campus computer).
MLA Style
Handout
The Library provides a "Works Cited" handout for
students in preparation of a Works Cited list, based on the MLA format.
APA Style Handout
"Works Cited" on How To Cite Articles from Databases only.
For other citation uses of the MLA, APA, and the Chicago styles to research
papers, go to
Works Cited Manuals.
New
Faculty Learning Community: Library Instruction Bibliography
http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/abby/libinstructbib.html
Presented by Carol Baumann, Norman Buchwald, and Diana
Immisch at the New Faculty Learning Community Workshop annually, this is
a bibliography of resources on guidelines for effective library assignments,
articles on students' research processes and information seeking behaviors, and
articles and sites to effective faculty/librarian collaborations and information
competency programs.