1. Connecting with first-year students:
online and in person
Evelyn Smith, Help Desk Co-ordinator
Jennifer Thiessen, Liaison Librarian
Elizabeth Yates, Liaison/Scholarly Communication Librarian
James A. Gibson Library, Brock University,
St. Catharines, ON, Canada
April 8, 2014

2. A bit about ...
Brock University

3. Learning
outcomes:
> it’s all about
partnerships

4. Personal Librarian pilot: We aimed high …

5. PL survey results: April 2014

6. They
used our
services!

7. Personal Librarian

8. Who: 191 1st year Health Sciences students
“We integrate and apply knowledge from biosciences, social sciences, statistical sciences,
and the humanities to understand health, broadly defined, of individuals, communities,
and societies.”
Program streams:
• Medical Sciences
• Public Health
• Child Health
• Biomedical Sciences
• Community Health
https://www.brocku.ca/applied-health-sciences/academic-departments/health-sciences

9. How: partnerships
1. Faculty of Applied Health Sciences/Department of Health
Sciences:
-list of student names, emails & majors
-endorsement
2. University Marketing & Communications
3. Office of the University Secretariat > Privacy Co-ordinator

10. Marketing & Communications
Problem: how do you send personalized
email messages to hundreds of students,
track their responses AND comply with
privacy regulations?
Solution: ask the pros!

11. • Email marketing platform > tracks opens, links clicked
• Brock marketing dept. gave us account
• Process:
• Set up subscriber list > students
• Create campaigns > October welcome, December exams, January
welcome back, April exams + survey
• Attach list to campaign and hit send!

12. Active Campaign dashboard

13. Active Campaign message

14. Campaign
report

15. A bit about privacy
• Managed by Office of University Secretariat
• Must comply with provincial Freedom of Information and
Protection of Privacy Act
• Privacy Impact Assessment:
• Must consider risks, retention, disposal of personal info (students’ names
& emails)

16. PL best practices
• Clearly explain program what PLs are & how they can help
• Messages should be personalized (photo?) and informal
• Align strategic content and timing e.g. exam resources in April
• Consider both email capabilities of both sender & recipient
• Expect @ 10 % response rate
• Consider setting up F2F meet & greet

17. Next steps
• Continue survey evaluation & respond to feedback
• Plan for PL Part 2:
• Whole Faculty?
• Different department?
• Create an Active Campaign PL template > easier to create messages
• Partnerships:
• Registrar’s Office > integrate PL program into SmartStart?
• Student Learning Services?

18. Some warm fuzzies 
It is helpful to hear
about the specific
resources that are
available because I
would not know what
they are without the
librarians telling me.

19. Advantage Plus:
Online Learning to
Build Research
and Writing Skills
"Unredeemed Fury Badge(r)" by Giulia Forsythe

20. What is Advantage Plus?
• online
• self-directed modules
• concept-driven video tutorials
• interactive formative assessment
• summative quiz
Boomer by Giulia Forsythe
The first completely free online information
literacy program at Brock University for building
research and writing skills.

21. What do students think? Lots of helpful
research tips which
will help you succeed
in university.
Easy to
understand and
very informative!
Learned lots of
stuff I did not
know before!
Great for
first year
students.
It was a very easy to
follow program with
insightful tips.
Great for help
with citing and
finding helpful
resources!
I wish I had this
in first year!

22. Why Advantage +?
• Grew out of in-person library workshop series for first-year
students (originally called Smart Start Library)
• In-person attendance steadily declining
• University-wide push for online learning
• Library desire for collaboration with university partners
• Opportunity for students to receive specialized online library
instruction

23. Working together
• Library E-Learning Team, Library Systems, Student
Development Centre (writing and learning services), Career
Services, Centre for Pedagogical Innovation
• Our influences
• Library e-learning framework
• E-Learning Team’s Best Practices for E-Learning document
• Peer-review and editing of scripts for videos; documented learning
objectives

24. Some of our goals…
• Interactive
Formative assessment activities after each video
Videos short and sweet
• Accessible
Videos are captioned
• Work with what we have
Repurpose and tweak existing content

25. The details
• Module One: Prepare & Plan
• time management, writing skills, using library from off-campus
• Module Two: Search & Find
• thinking critically, improving search terms, locating info
• Module Three: Read & Write
• peer review, evaluating websites, writing skills

26. Try it out!
• http://bit.ly/brocklibraryadvantage

27. Module 2.2
Improve your
search terms
UDLEs
1. c. Ability to gather, review,
evaluate and interpret info
2. Understands methods of
enquiry or creative activity
ACRL
2. ACCESS: constructs,
implements, refines
effectively-designed search
strategies
4. USE: uses info effectively
Module 2.5
What are
databases…
UDLEs
1.c. ability to gather,
review, evaluate and
interpret info
ACRL
1. KNOW: defines and
articulates need for
info; identifies types
and sources of info
needed
2. ACCESS: constructs,
implements, refines
search strategies
Module 2.6 How
to use Google
Scholar
UDLEs
1.c. Ability to gather,
review, evaluate and
interpret info
2. Understands methods of
enquiry or creative activity
ACRL
1. KNOW: defines and
articulates need for info;
identifies types and sources
2. ACCESS: constructs,
implements, refines search
strategies
3. EVALUATE: articulates and
applies initial criteria for
evaluating both the
information
Mapping
modules to
standards
For more information on standards:
http://brocklibrary1styearpersonallibrarian.wordpress.com

28. Challenges
• initially only available in LMS (Sakai)
• students had to join; faculty had to ask to have Adv+ added
• at first, modules were separate from quizzes so students had to go
back and forth
Successes
• SoftChalk Cloud made A+ available to all Brock students; enabled us
to group modules and quizzes together
• Collaboration improved campus relationships; allowed us to reach a
broader audience; enabled us to offer incentive of record of
completion on transcript

29. By the numbers…
• To date:
• Embedded in 42 individual
course sites
• 1600+ students completed A+
• Embedded in 13 first year
courses
• For credit or optional
• Student survey Welch Hall by Brock University

30. What do faculty think?
• Much harder to get large-scale faculty feedback
• Anecdotally: they like it
• “I've had nothing but positive response about this program”
• “…met my expectations”
• Adv+ “increased quality and also held them more accountable
for their work”

31. Next Steps
• Continue to promote Advantage Plus
• Liaison librarians, library staff, campus partners
• A mini “commercial” plays on monitors across campus
• Integrate into first year courses
• Update and refresh content
• Explore possibility of developing similar package for other user
groups (e.g. graduate students?)

32. Thanks to the
E-Learning Team:
Colleen MacKinnon
Laurie Morrison
Monica Rettig
Denise Smith

33. Smart Start
Expo 2013
Photo: Elizabeth Yates, 2013
“Experience & Explore”

34. A Little About this Award-Winning Program
Register for your courses
Meet other first-year students
Receive information about financing your education
Tour our beautiful campus
Learn about academic success options
Familiarize yourself with the Brock community
Take your photo for your Brock Card

35. Library Role #1
Training Smart Start Leaders
• Smart Start Leaders are selected for their
dynamism, and engagement to the
University.
• Undergo rigorous training in May
• Representatives from the Library present
on our services, facilities and resources.
• We do the presenting, but, these
“ambassadors” often teach us and
provide invaluable feedback.
Four of our 2013 Smart Start Leaders

36. Library Role #2– Smart Start Expo
“Experience & Explore, Expo 2013”
• Held over 32 days from
late June to early August
• What we offered
• Key themes we aimed to
get across
• Observations

37. Quantitatively …
• 4000 Smart Start
participants over
the course of 32
days.
• 800 visited the
Library table.
• 21 Campus services
represented at the
Expo.
• 96.6% of attendees
indicated they
learned more about
academic resources
& services on
Campus.

38. Success …
• Partnering with Smart Start gave us an “almost” captive
audience;
• Was almost free (save for the candy and some printed
materials);
• Portrayed the Library and Library staff as approachable, fun
and non-threatening – which paid dividends @ O-Week and into
the term.
• Note: anecdotally only. Data to prove it? This coming year hopefully.

39. Challenges …
• Living within our means = not having iPads to award to contest
winners or t. shirts to give out to everyone who stops by;
• To many attendees, the Library = the hard slog of research and
essay writing – not the fun of the off-campus groups, the student
pub or the athletic teams & facilities;
• Smart Start leaders, while engaged high achievers, were in the
dark about what the Library had to offer – e.g. you should be on
Twitter and Facebook …
• Lack of awareness of Library services and resources could be seen as a
failure to communicate our offerings, however, we see the above as an
Opportunity, rather than a failure.

40. Future Implications …
• Will we participate again? Yes!
• Track Smart Start students through the term when they seek
help at any of our service desks or with their Liaison Librarian;
• To establish a correlation between making a summer connection and
help-seeking behavior.

41. We’ve talked about ...
• Extending library’s potential by building strategic partnerships
• Finding others on campus who want to engage with first-year
students and enhance their university experience
• Working virtually & F@F expands potential for student
engagement

42. http://brocklibrary1styearpersonallibrarian.wordpress.com
esmith@brocku.ca
jthiessen@brocku.ca
eyates@brocku.ca