Core Instructional Technologies Interest Group

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  • 1.  incentive for student participation in enagement apps

    Posted Aug 03, 2022 11:43 AM
    Our campus is quickly moving toward student engagement apps to track learning activities and experiences offered on campus.  The app lets students record things like attendance at guest lectures, participation in research festivals, leadership in campus service organizations, etc.  It also lets students earn digital badges if they complete a defined path of activities.  Many departments are using the activity completion statistics to demonstrate effectiveness or to keep track of required learning components.

    Our library wants to be part of the engagement app, but we are struggling with how to include library-related objectives in a way that will encourage students to do them.  With other departments, this is less of a problem.  For example, our School of Business already required students to complete certain activities to be accepted in the majors program.  Majors have to do the activities, and the app simply lets the department keep track of progress.  Our honors college requires students to participate in things like study abroad or to enroll in a list of approved colloquiums.  The students do these things as part of their honors contract.  The library, however, has no "requirements".  Any workshop, research exercise, or activity list we devise would probably be met with very low participation because students have no immediate incentive to do them.  While I would like to think that learning is its own reward, I have to admit through experience that busy students will not think so.

    Do any of you have a similar campus badging or engagement system that the library is part of?  How do you make the activities "have teeth" or attach sufficient benefits that you get enough participation to make it worth the library's effort?

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    Laura Baker
    Librarian -- User Experience and Assessment
    Abilene Christian University Library
    221 Brown Library / ACU Box 29208
    Abilene, TX  79699-9208

    bakerl@acu.edu
    phone: (325) 674-2477
    fax:   (325) 674-2202
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  • 2.  RE: incentive for student participation in enagement apps

    Posted Aug 23, 2022 12:36 PM
    Hi Laura! We don't use a badging system but in my library we are embedded in the business school and have many touch points where students are required to attend library workshops throughout their undergrad program. For our grad programs, we don't have that yet but do work closely with the program directors to be part of the students' orientations and then invite them to our workshops throughout the year. It works fairly well and students attend as they can depending on point of need and schedules.

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    Melissa Johnson
    Instructional Design Librarian
    Southern Methodist University
    She/Her/Hers
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