The USF/COB Distance Education Project Vicki L. Gregory, Mel Pace and James Andrews University of South Florida Willamae Johnson The College of the Bahamas

Overview Introduction How the Program Operates Blackboard and Virtual Community Access to Information Conclusion

Introduction: Ms. Johnson, COB Library Director Need for an LIS master’s degree in The Bahamas Development of the Contract Recruitment of students

LIS Program in The Bahamas 13 courses delivered in 3 ways: Face-to-face Blended Total web Students will come to the USF Campus for a ten-week summer term in 2007 to complete their last 2 classes including supervised fieldwork. USF SLIS is delivering the American Library Association and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education accredited Master’s degree program to students in the Bahamas through the facilities of The College of the Bahamas.

Blackboard All SLIS classes utilize Blackboard (web course management software) to some extent. Blackboard also facilitates access to the USF Library, Registration system, and email to name just a few services.

Virtual Communities Blackboard (web-based) course site with discussion boards, email, chat, and file-sharing capability. Includes all members of a particular class SLIS Virtual Community on Blackboard Includes all SLIS students

What is a Community? People who interact to satisfy their own needs or roles People who have a shared purpose People who act within a determined set of policies and guidelines All communities shape social interaction and provide a common connectedness among members

Communities of Practice (CoP) Virtual Communities in Education Jennifer J. Preece Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability CoPs in Education or other professions Jennifer Preece -- her research focuses on online communities and social computing. The over arching question that she researches is: ‘what makes an online community successful?’ Her work provides insights about how sociability and usability are intricately connected in the evolution of online communities. Sociability is concerned with how people interact in digital social spaces. Usability is concerned with how users interact with technology across a human-computer interface. In organizations, or among professionals with similar interests or communities of practice, the members of which are isolated or at least not typically in close geographical proximity to one another, a virtual community can be the answer to an otherwise “lonely” professional existence. The virtual community can facilitate information exchange and the wide dispersal of knowledge with a built-in human perspective and relevance assessments. Facilitating learning communities at a distance requires some new approaches to the practice of managing the teaching and learning process.

The Design Announcements Documents Discussion Chat or IM Board To exchange information among students & faculty not working at the same time . To allow conversation among members not in the same geographic area Anything of Interest To the Community Members Shared Documents, forms, applications, etc.

USF Library Resources Students have full access to the electronic resources and databases at USF. Students authenticate once when they log onto Blackboard.

Full Access to USF Libraries Resources Full Access to USF Resources COB Student

Full Access to USF Libraries Resources Full Access to USF Resources WWW Browser Via a WWW browser…. COB Student

Full Access to USF Libraries Resources Full Access to USF Resources USF/Blackboard ID WWW Browser COB Student

Full Access to USF Libraries Resources Full Access to USF Resources Re-configures to USF IP address E-Z Proxy Software USF/Blackboard ID WWW Browser Our version of BlackBoard comes with a software called E-A Proxy access Rather than the traditional, cumbersome process of having students set up their own proxy acces, this software recognizes the student when she logs on to blackboard, and then reconfigures whatever IP address they are accessing the system from to one that looks like a USF IP address. Once logged on, the student then has access to all the resources at USF that students residing in FL have….. COB Student

Full Access to USF Libraries Resources Full Access to USF Resources Re-configures to USF IP address E-Z Proxy Software USF/Blackboard ID WWW Browser COB Student

Full Access to USF Libraries Resources Full Access to USF Resources E-Journals Re-configures to USF IP address E-Z Proxy Software Bibliographic Databases USF/Blackboard ID OPAC Tutorials WWW Browser …and many other resources COB Student

Conclusion First cohort successfully underway – currently in their third semester. Beginning to recruit for a second cohort to start probably in 2007. PowerPoint available at: http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~gregory/ACURIL/USFCOB.mht