gossmand's blog

Present: Matt H, Matt B, Bob E, Lynnette, Carsten, Larry, Matt H, Eddy, Jennifer S, Jennifer R, Diane

• Welcome to Carsten – Carsten Earl began in LIS as Help Desk Lead on Monday, April 15.
• LIS Student Worker Google Group – Jennifer and Jennifer proposed the idea of having a Google Group for all of the LIS student workers, to keep them informed of LIS happenings and upcoming events. LIS students may subscribe to the LIS Blog and are receiving information that way currently.

Headline of the Week: Change to What?

Very early in my career IBM began holding department and area meetings on “change.” Information was presented about how the status quo was unsustainable. Statistics and evidence were presented to help staff understand the dynamics of the environment and the nature of competition. These meetings were generally effective at getting some folks fired up and motivated to be part of “change.”

Usually there was a second part that focused specifically on the nature of change itself and the nature of people as they consider change. Change is hard.

Headline of the Week: Stanford U. and edX will Jointly Build Open-Source Software to Deliver MOOCs

News and conversations on MOOCs continue. The hype is rampant and the term is so overloaded that it would not be surprising to soon see key participants invent new language to characterize their offerings and to describe their value distancing themselves from MOOCs. Those in the fray are struggling to communicate their unique value and differentiate themselves from the others – even as the juries remain out on the premise. That said, the topic should not be dismissed out of hand.

Present: Matt H, Matt B, Bob E, Larry, Matt H, Eddy, Jennifer S, Jennifer R, Ryan, Diane

• Laptop/Phone Charging Stations – A suggestion was received in November to provide charging stations in the library for PCs, Macs, and phones. Larry shared various options and we discussed them. Mac and PC power adapters for charging purposes are now available for check out in the library at the Circulation Desk. Also, increasingly, newer phones and other devices can be charged through a computer lab machine if you have a USB cable that fits your device.

Carsten Earl will join LIS as Help Desk Lead. His first day will be Monday, April 15th. Please join me in welcoming Carsten to LIS.

Special thanks to our recruiting team: Adam, Marcia, Eddy, Paul, Matt Hughes, and Matt Baumann for their work evaluating candidates and conducting interviews.

We are hosting a finalist on-campus interview for the LIS Help Desk Lead position on Wednesday, March 27th. Faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend the group presentation for Carsten Earl which is scheduled for 10:00-10:45am Wednesday, March 27, in Hovde Lounge.

Headline of the Week: Digital Technology Helping the Liberal Arts?

The Midwest Regional Educause conference was held in Chicago Monday through Wednesday (March 18-20, 2013) this week. The ACM IT and Library Leaders meeting was scheduled to leverage those attending Educause for a meeting Wednesday afternoon.

It is always encouraging and inspiring to get to know others with similar concerns and additional ideas and points of view and alternative perspectives.

Present: Matt H, Matt B, Bob E, Matt H, Eddy, Jennifer S, Jennifer R, Diane

• LIS Summer Faculty Workshop – We are accepting applications for the Summer Faculty Workshop entitled, “Enhancing Student Learning Through Information Literacy and Technology” which is scheduled for June 3 through June 6 this summer (Monday through Thursday).

Headline of the Week: MOOCs as On-Ramp/Demand Relief for Students (that start in California)

A very interesting leap occurred this week along the MOOC maturity vector. Proposed legislation in California (Senate Bill 520) would require California’s state colleges and universities (University of California, California State University and California’s community colleges) to accept credits earned via a subset of MOOCs. Presumably they would be a set of MOOCs whose quality had been vetted a priori by a faculty council, targeting current scarce general-education courses.

Headline of the Week: What if Employers Change What They Value?

One of my favorite professors is Clayton Christensen. He is at Harvard Business School. Clayton has popularized the term “disruptive innovation” in a series of books beginning with “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. He was interviewed by Mark Suster, an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist and blogger.