Distance Learning: Information Access and Services for Virtual Users

The demand for and technology needed to create effective distance learning programs are increasing at a breakneck pace. Is your institution keeping up?

As educators, information professionals are faced with the challenge of providing Web-based library instructional materials in a time of ever-changing technologies. This book will help you address that daunting challenge, examining ways to assess user needs, to develop and offer well-thought-out information literacy courses, to employ appropriate teaching methodologies, and to determine the effectiveness of existing information literacy programs.

With Distance Learning: Information Access and Services for Virtual Users, you will examine:

• the evolution and significance of asynchronous learning networks (ALN) and various issues in ALN, including cost, faculty and technology requirements, the nature of the learning community, social presence, and collaborative environment
• virtual reference services, including electronic journals, subject directories, the invisible Web, and search engines
• the criteria for evaluating search results
• the role played by consortia and cooperative efforts in facilitating user access to library resources
• a review of selected literature addressing user characteristics and service/staff issues involved in providing information support for distance education
• the strategies, technologies, and pedagogical issues surrounding the development of Web-based library instruction toolsincludes Web page design, copyright issues, Web site maintenance, and usability
• the award-winning online information literacy course developed at Ulster County Community College in New Yorkits development, course modules, and administrative challenges
• the library support services provided to distance learning students in the SUNY Plattsburg Telenursing Program
• the influence of cultural factors on interactions within and perceptions of distance education

Hemalata Iyer, PhD, is Associate Professor at the School of Information Science and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York. Her academic interests focus on structuring and representing information, user behavior, Web-based instructional technology, cognitive aspects of retrieval, including applications of WordNet to information retrieval. Her book, Classificatory Structures: Concepts, Relations, and Representations, examines knowledge structures from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. She is also Editor of the book Electronic Resources: Use and User Behavior. Dr. Iyer teaches courses at the master’s level and is also a full faculty member in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Information Science. In addition to her teaching and research, she served for several years as the U.S. Regional Coordinator for the International Society for Knowledge Organization.