No Donuts, No Doors: Building and Hosting a Virtual Open House Nykol Eystad - Manager, Liaison & Outreach Susan Stekel – Manager, Information Literacy & Instruction Walden University

Agenda Walden University, Online Libraries, and Outreach Planning: goals and challenges Execution Assessment Lessons learned Takeaways

Walden University Susan

Who we are Walden University is entirely online Students around the world 50,000 students Mostly working professionals, adult learners Degrees: Bachelors through Doctoral + certificates Library staff: 22 Librarians 13 student-facing Library Website = Library

The Library:

Challenges of Outreach/Communications No central campus or library building Library is linked in portal and in course rooms, but hard to “stand out” How do we communicate with students? Student Communications department – ONE PERSON! Email – it’s easy to ignore Efforts to handle outreach/communications in house Newsletters Social media

Open House Planning

Why? Fun, social, friendly, stress-free Showcase the library as a strong resource Introduce students to the Library There are REAL people here!

Uncharted territory Professional Literature search Land based Google Search Watch us sit around a boardroom table Walden event New student Orientation model Live and recorded

Brainstorming & Vision Start of the academic year Available to anyone Current Walden community Future Walden community Event duration Time zones/Timing Communication Plan – Enrollment Advisors, Academic Advisors, Social Media, Newsletters

Decisions Week long fun! Synchronous and asynchronous How will people register? Fun vs instruction Online event that isn’t a webinar Incentives

Open House Execution

8GB!! Making it happen Created Open House web page Posted to library home page Communication reality Pushed to marketing Prize ordering & centralizing 8GB!!

Asynchronous Events Scavenger hunt – LibWizard form designed to get people to explore the website  Hidden Treasures Treasure placement Fabulous prizes

Synchronous Events Library Trivia Game Interactive quiz game – 5:00pm Stump the Librarian Participants attempted to stump our librarians with their questions – 1:00pm & 5:00pm One of These Things is not Like the Other Participants tried to identify the fake resource from the real resources – 1:30pm & 8:30pm Talkin’ Traveling Trivia with Taylor Participants view a short video clip to identify where it was filmed; then they were asked trivia questions about the location – 6:00pm

Fabulous Prize Distribution Filter all the entries Email small prize winners Glorious online randomized drawing 8GB!! Nykol

Open House Assessment

Open House Page Traffic

Hidden Treasure: Link placed on our Library Skills page

Hidden Treasure: Fake library staff Susan

Hidden Treasure: Link placed on our Get Help page

Hidden Treasure: Image placed on Find an Exact Article page Susan

Scavenger Hunt question

Synchronous events Library Trivia Game: 9 attendees (1 was staff) Talkin’ Travelin’ Trivia with Taylor Leigh: 3 attendees One of These Things is Not Like the Other: Afternoon session: 6 attendees (1 was staff) Evening session: 4 attendees Stump the Librarian: Took place in Zoom (1 staff)

Lessons Learned

What did we find out? Synchronous activities, not popular Asynchronous worked great The dread scavenger hunt works well in an online setting! A week is sweet Prize challenges* Prize language is tricky** *The first 12 people to find a treasure will win a prize, limit one prize per person. Hidden treasures entries will continue to be accepted after all prizes have been awarded and will be entered into the grand prize Kindle** drawing. Limit to eight entries per person. **There will be a drawing for the grand prize of a Kindle. One Kindle drawing entry per person for each event or activity completed, limit to eight entries per person.

Take Aways

Do it at your library Consider adding a virtual open house even with a physical library Incorporate your website and online resources into open house (especially asynchronous exploration activities) Identify your partners and stakeholders (Marketing? Legal? Technology? Academic departments?) Divvy up work load and responsibility (e.g. Someone to assess scavenger hunts; someone to manage prizes, etc) Donuts are always good – and in a virtual open house, you can eat them all yourself. Susan

Questions Nykol.eystad@mail.waldenu.edu Susan.stekel@mail.waldenu.edu