Slides with notes used to support a keynote at the UKSG FE event 'Resourcing a rich and varied curriculum' at The King's Fund, London, on 30 November 2016. Event information at http://www.uksg.org/event/FE301116.

1. »Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/wikipedia-books-encyclopedia-
1802614/
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2. »You will have your own ideas about what ‘the project’ means in your context
e.g.
› Equipping the learner with the essentials to complete assignments and gain their
qualification
› Providing the teacher with resources their learners can use for independent learning to
complement classroom learning
› Equipping the learner with skills and confidence to take them through to employment and
life beyond college? For some learners they will be in college to gain skills to live
independently.
› Many – possibly most/all of you - will be preparing access students for higher education and
providing library services to degree level.
› However you define the scope of your learning resources service or library, I think it’s vital to
remember that resourcing is about more than just having the right materials, it’s also about
people delivering a service that can bring that material to life and overcome barriers that
learners or staff may face in adopting it for their study or teaching.
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3. »Image source: Pixabay
»How do you recognise a digital learner?
»No one size fits all
»Arguably all today’s learners today are digital – digital technology surrounds
them and all are impacted and influenced by digital, even when are excluded or
make a conscious choice not to use it
»Jisc Digital Student project https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/digital-student
has produced great material and resources the libraries and learning resource
services have many natural synergies with.
»The digital student tracker project will help FE and HE understand better their
learners engagement with digital technology and while digital learning
resources and library services may not be an explicit component, there is a great
opportunity to find points of overlap.
»Digital isn’t the only thing that defines a learner, but digital technology is much
higher on college agendas than it was even a few years ago.
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4. »New generations of senior managers are beginning to engage with the
issues and deepen their understanding of what effective use of digital
technology looks like
› acting as a catalyst for change
› as an enabler, helping people to do things they couldn’t do before, or do them
better
› Importance of working with senior managers - learning resource service and its
potential is not always well understood. In our Jisc conversations with leaders and
managers I see the opportunity to highlight the work learning resources services
do to enrich the curriculum and help learners succeed.
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5. »Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/tablet-hands-keep-books-
computer-1632908/
»Sourcing content for further education is challenged by e.g.
»Much content aimed at the wrong levels (e.g. too childish, too academic)
»Shortage of content perceived to be “good quality” e.g. not sufficiently engaging, requiring
too much adaptation, presenting technical barriers
E-books for FE now extended with new English and Maths GCSEs
Relaunch of HairdressingTraining geared to curriculum, mobile-friendly
Let’s not forget the resources that have been on offer for some time such asVogue Archive,
Primal Pictures and Digimap for Colleges – finding a new generation of enthusiasts.
»Types of resources have expanded in a short time:
»Textbooks
»Magazines, news, reference sources
»Academic publications (journals, books)
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6. »Teaching and learning materials, courseware
»Apps
»Multimedia content
»Social media
»OER – still somewhat niche but worth keeping an eye on
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7. »Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/needle-in-a-haystack-needle-
haystack-1752846/
»Having a mass of content is good, but of limited use if learners and staff are
unable to discover what they need, to incorporate it into their work.
»All libraries are grappling with how to maximise discoverability.
»Different organisations are finding varying degrees of success using discovery
layers to provide a Google style search interface for their resources, yet the
traditional opac is still finding a role and many colleges continue to work with
long-established library systems which were designed for non-digital
workflows.
»We can no longer assume that learners - or staff - will discover learning
resources through systematic use of library channels – if they ever did. Search
and discovery behaviour is a lot more complex and interesting than that!
»Recent studies in HE have revealed that academics are now starting to exhibit
some discovery behaviours similar to their students.
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8. »I am not aware of any research into the discovery behaviour of further
education learners and staff – it would make fascinating reading and
perhaps more research would be useful in this area.
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9. »Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/by-wlodek-old-close-hack-
closed-428549/
»Discoverability in turn is of limited benefit if the learner or staff cannot access
the end product – e.g. full text - because they face barriers such as login
problems. Often this is down to the college not having access management in
place (‘single sign on’) and relying heavily on a combination of IP authentication
and manually-generated passwords.
»We know that learning resources and library staff continue to face difficulties in
making access to online resources as seamless as possible, on and off campus.
By bringing relevant managers together we can help them see each other’s
point of view and work with the IT department where necessary to reduce some
of the barriers on the infrastructure side.
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10. »Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/accessibility-tactile-floor-
autonomy-1536170/
»Barriers to access can increase if learners have a disability, which may or may
not be visible.
»Colleges have traditionally been extremely good at accommodating learners
with diverse needs and we’ve worked a lot with the specialist colleges to
understand the needs and potential of disabled learners in relation to
technology. A key message which we are still working to get across to new
generations of staff is that digital resources and services which are inclusive can
benefit all and create efficiencies which help the whole college.
»It might be useful to know that my accessibility and inclusion colleagues have
been working closely with university librarians and publishers to increase
understanding of what it takes to make e-books accessible.This stands to
benefit users of e-books wherever they are. It’s all about designing out the
barriers and focussing on the experience of the learner or student.
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11. »Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/love-heart-romance-color-
pattern-1100256/
»Engagement is not just about promotion and marketing, pushing out.
»Resources need to “belong” in people’s practice and find a home – whether they
are digital or other media
»Working with teachers is paramount
»Increasingly, libraries are involving learners as collaborators in digital learning.
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12. Importance of data including resource usage data to inform planning along with
other sources of intelligence, and influence decision making and fund allocation.
Note growing interest from some colleges in JUSP (Jisc Usage Statistics Portal)
where they take a larger range of HE-related titles. JUSP is included in colleges’
Jisc membership https://www.jisc.ac.uk/journal-usage-statistics-portal
Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/measure-yardstick-tape-ruler-
1509707/
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13. »A greater focus on a digital curriculum throws into sharp relief the need to work
on the digital capabilities of learners and students, but also those of staff. And
not just the teaching staff but also managers and – importantly – the staff who
support them.
»Resourcing is not just about ‘stuff’ it’s about people providing knowledge and
skills, and it’s about getting the right mix of capabilities.
»College learning resources staff are a great asset in that they combine such a
diverse range of skills.
»“Traditional” librarian skills need refreshing, refocussing and combining with
additional skills/roles to resource the digital learner
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14. »Image source: Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/book-exposition-composition-
poland-436507/
»E-books for FE – including English and Maths
»Hairdressing training relaunch
»Primal Pictures
»Digimap for Colleges
»Vogue Archive
»Importance of mapping to curriculum needs and community consultation
»Library services new page
»As well as the FE specific content there are other Jisc collections with appeal to
FE
› HE in FE agreements
› MediaPlus
› Journal Archives…
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15. »Store project
»Subject specialist support
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16. »Image source: Pixabay
»Top tip - know where you want to go but be flexible
»Use your expert knowledge of what good resources look like - make your voice
heard
»Network (and make a business case for doing so)
»Work as openly as possible and collaborate
»Tap into available support and advocacy – NBCILIP FE advocacy initiative
»Keep being a digital learner – lots of free ways to do this e.g.
› 12 apps of Christmas
› Twitter chats
› Free webinars e.g. UKSG
› Jisc Digifest 2017 https://www.jisc.ac.uk/digifest
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17. »Good to see E-books for FE list well used
»HE in FE agreements – summary coming up
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20. »If you would like an opportunity to have a chat about how I and my colleagues
can support you on some of the issues we’ll be looking at today, as part of your
college’s membership and in terms of additional support/training, do drop me a
line.
»Today is a great opportunity for us all to learn a lot from each other.
»I would encourage you to make the most of this day and any future
opportunities you get - through UKSG and Jisc - to build your network and share
and develop your practice.
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