Academic libraries play a critical role in student success initiatives. For instance, libraries can help ensure that students have easy access to course materials—and course resource lists are an ideal way to accomplish this goal.
Academic libraries play a critical role in student success initiatives. For instance, libraries can help ensure that students have easy access to course materials—and course resource lists are an ideal way to accomplish this goal.
“Course lists help us make it as easy as possible for our students to find the resources they need, when they need them, while ensuring that the resources are curated and presented in a way that is most helpful,” says Anna O’Neill, library director at the University of Southampton in England.
Expanding access to learning materials
Access to learning materials is an important factor in student success. However, a number of obstacles stand in the way, such as affordability.
The rising cost of college textbooks has created significant barriers to student success. Since the late 1970s, textbook prices have increased more than 1,000 percent. A task force at a public research university in Virginia discovered that more than a third of the university’s students hadn’t purchased a required textbook because of the cost. What’s more, 12 percent of students reported not registering for a course because of textbook costs, 8 percent had dropped a course, 7 percent had earned a poor grade because they couldn’t afford to buy course materials, and 3 percent had taken fewer courses.
Online course resource lists direct students to materials they should read for their courses, but they also help faculty and librarians work together to make instructional resources readily accessible to students.
Using a digital platform such as Talis Aspire, instructors can add books, ebooks, journal articles, websites, videos, podcasts, and other materials to their course resource lists, and they can request copyright-protected items that the library doesn’t own. Librarians are notified of these requests automatically, so they can purchase the items, secure the necessary copyrights, and/or scan the items to make digital copies available for students at no charge.
June Hedges, head of liaison and support services for University College London (UCL) Library Services, agrees that course resource lists are improving students’ access to learning materials at her institution.
“We know that if students have easy access to course materials, they’re more likely to succeed,” she observes.
As instructors are creating their course resource lists, they have the option of flagging some resources as essential to their course. UCL Library Services staff ensure that students have full digital access to all resources flagged as essential.
Boosting engagement and demonstrating the library’s value
Access is important, but so is students’ engagement with the learning materials. If students aren’t taking advantage of course resources, then they aren’t likely to succeed. Course resource lists can help solve both of these challenges, while demonstrating the library’s importance as a partner in student success.
With a course resource list platform, links to digital learning materials can be made available automatically within an institution’s learning management system (LMS), so students can easily find these items. In addition, built-in analytics help measure students’ engagement with the materials, so instructors know which items students are reading or accessing and which resources aren’t being used. Instructors can us these insights to inform their course resource lists for the following semester.
Instructors are able to suggest related materials for further reading or viewing, which encourages students to take their learning deeper. And through an integration with the library’s management software, instructors can easily find and select materials from the library’s holdings to add to their course resource lists, which helps ensure that library resources are leveraged effectively for teaching and learning.
O’Neill, who introduced Talis Aspire at Southampton and also her former institution, says course resource lists have “allowed us to improve the student experience by helping students access and engage with content, as well as streamline library processes to improve efficiency and make the most of the resources we have.”
Using course resource lists “is driving our library acquisitions,” Hedges concludes. ”It’s helping academic departments show engagement. And it’s improving the student experience.”
Find out more about the impact of resource lists. Download this free ebook "9 Ways Resource Lists Support University Strategies.”
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