Presentation given by Jennifer Collery, College Liaison Librarian and Orientation Coordinator at University College Dublin, at the Academic and Special Libraries Annual Conference & Exhibition: the Inside Out Library - Collaboration, Inspiration, Transformation, Dublin, Ireland on Thursday, 26th February, 2015.
13. UCD Orientation Advisory
Group
• Members
Chaired by Deputy Registrar,
Teaching & Learning
Head of Students Services
Orientation Co-ordinator
College VPTLs & ADTLs
UCD Graduate Studies (nominee)
Chief Technology Officer
Director of Registry
General Services Manager
Director of Teaching & Learning
Director of UCD International
SU Education Officer
Student Advisor (nominee)
Programme Office Director
(nominee)
Library (nominee)
UCD Communications
UCD Supports for Students
Working Group
• Members
Head of Administrative Services (Chair,
Registry)
Student Desk, UCD Registry
Administrative Services, UCD Registry
Communications Officer, UCD Registry
Admissions, UCD Registry
Administrative Services, UCD Registry
Programme Office Directors Group
International Office
Library
Dean of Graduate Studies Office
IT Services
Graduate School Manager, College of
Science
Facilities Manager, UCD Estates Services
Student Adviser
UCD Residences
UCARD
Undergraduate Orientation
21. Thank you & enjoy the conference
Jenny Collery
College Liaison Librarian,UCD Library
jenny.collery@ucd.ie
Notes de l'éditeur
From the conference theme “The Inside-out library, collaboration, inspiration, transformation, I am going to focus on Collaborations. I will talk about how working with different people across UCD has enhanced our Library Orientation Programme and the University programme.
When I undertook my Graduate placement at the IMI, before entering UCD for Library and Information Studies, the Librarian, Elaine McMahon was very active about sending me on lots of library related courses. One thing that sticks in my mind about these courses is the word Networking…
…Librarians network, to run a good library, no matter what institution you need to be able to form strong collaborative relationships, you need to Network, you need a library champion, you need to make Connections.
This all struck the fear of god into me. Immediately previous to starting on the path to life in libraries, I had been working as a technical writer, which entailed just me and the computer and creating an eLearning script, with the odd design meeting.
So, nine years on, after setting up an OA Library system, beginning the set-up of the UCD Institutional Repository, and finally working as a liaison for the last six year, and I get it now.
Connections and people in institutions or across them, really do help you leverage the services you or your service is offering. They also help to position yourself, the skills you offer and the potential ones you can develop by working with others.
In UCD New Student Orientation is strongly linked to retention and engagement efforts. So it is core to what the University does. It ensures the university offers a quality educational experience to students. It also helps to secure the revenue streams attached to each student enrolled.
With about 6,000 new undergraduate students all coming in for their first Week of college in the first week of September, there is a lot of University activity across campus. In a way Library Orientation is clamouring to get air space in the melee of academic, procedural, and of course the usual student excitement that goes along with starting in third level.
To demonstrate, we are competing things like an “Iron Stomach challenge, Pizza Eating Competition” Free Cinema, and Fencing, multicultural food events, or the dean of a School explaining exactly what they need to do to get through their first year in university. You can imagine, getting student attention is challenging.
I began leading UCD Library Orientation after the Orientation of September 2012. Since then I have been through two through two academic cycles of Orientation.
In UCD Library our main aim for the students is to number one, get them into the library, and number two, get them to a point where they know something of what is available, and how to find out more, whether it is facilities, services, books, online resources or the staff that can help them through their education….
Our third aim is to work with those planning University Orientation to ensure we are embedding in activities, rather than competing against.
The dense cross-hatch of student orientation activity described earlier can really be worked with, and we do. I have learned that best way to work with it is through people inside and outside of the library.
There is a team of 8 people, from across the Library from Outreach, Client Services (akin to Reader services), Facilities, and design staff, who work on Orientation from about April onwards for the coming year. Each person on the team takes a lead role on a section of the campaign and works with others in the Library to deliver this for September/October.
These people are key to doing the work necessary to manage Orientation, co-ordinating support from across the library to meet student need and coming up with the inspiration and strategies we focus on each year.
The first year I ran Orientation, my colleague, Diarmuid Stokes who had run it for two years previously, gave me the very good advice to initiate contact with the University Student Advisor team as early as possible.
A team of eleven Student Advisers look after personal, social and practical aspects for all students attending UCD, with a focus on first year. Along with the administrative staff in the schools, this team locally co-ordinate the Orientation timetable for programmes. Making personal contact with each student adviser as early on as February made a huge difference. Some were very keen to include the Library in timetables, others needed convincing, and some were restricted by school policy in what space they could afford.
I garnered a lot of “informal/soft” information on how Orientation really operated in the University, who the key people are, and where the pressure points might arise between units. Precious when you are trying to ensure your own unit has space.
Words taken from Oxenbury & Rosen’s We’re going on a bear hunt (1997)
In the first year, where I met resistance or a barrier, I took the approach of negotiating as far as I could, then moving on if things were not resolved. I knew I would be working on Orientation for at least one more year (it is a rotating post in the Library). In these situations, data was my friend. I ensured that we keep detailed statistics on engagement for all programmes. This meant for the second year I was able to point to low engagement for those programmes that did not embed the Library in Orientation planning. This gave the student adviser/programme administrators something to work with and present to their schools. It was also essential to have the statistics proving positive engagement to validate our approach and show students were coming to the Library as part of their Orientation, a first step in their education.
A practical example of how positive these relationships were can be seen in the numbers of students taking part in a Peer Mentor led Library Visit over the past four years. These visits were made possible by working with the Student Advisor team. Information from peers can often have a stronger impact on behaviour and attitudes (Topping, 1996). Using the Peer mentors should place the library as an important resource in the minds of students.
As you can see there has been a huge rise in engagement, and having these statistics to point to are invaluable, when reporting both internally and externally. Getting this number of students to visit the library in Orientation week would not be possible without working with the student adviser team.
So, I guess I am saying both relationships and data are my friend for Orientation.
Two other key collaborations were representing the Library on two UCD-wide Orientation Committee.
UCD has a multitude of layers, units and networks, so getting something off the ground, like Orientation, that needs to be a consistent experience for students requires these cross-unit committees.
The first group is the UCD Advisory Group, 2014 led by our Deputy Registrar, UCD Teaching & Learning, Professor Bairbre Redmond, a strategic group whose main functions include overseeing and agree high-level arrangements cross-University arrangements, coordinate academic and social elements of Orientation, and to “To consult and advise on the extension of effective engagement-focused events, both academic and social, during the first year for incoming students”
The last being what I would see as the core of this committee.
Secondly, I sit on the UCD Supports for Students Working Group, 2014 led by Rachel Harrison, Head of Administrative Services under the auspices of the Director of Registry – a more operational level group that continues to meet through the year. The main function of this group is “to allow for networking and liaising amongst colleagues who support students as part of their daily activities especially at key points throughout the academic year such as preparations for the start of term” [including University Orientation].
It is a key group to be a member of because there are a lot of people on it who run the day-to-day practicalities of Orientation, so if you want something done, want to link in with what is happening, often these will be the people applying whatever policies are agreed.
Group consists of Academic and professional colleagues with the aim of creating a workplan for the Orientation Period.
The advantages of being on these committees are
Form personal connections with people who make decisions about Orientation and running it day to day (making it easier to make a phone call, arrange something casually)
Raise awareness of what the library does, and make sure we are embedded with the yearly plan of activities for Orientation (not clashing with any major events) etc.
Taking up the theme of this conference, making sure we are viewed as something other than a “building with books” where students just “know” what to do. They are forums to show innovations such as our Virtual Tour, our App, our social media presence.
Branding
Registry manage the majority of contacts with undergraduate students before they enter the university and have a dedicated micro-site and digital magazine for new students. We are able use some of the branding and ensure the “look and feel” of our promotional materials are consistent and recognisable as related to Orientation to the students. By making a personal contact with someone I was able to ensure that our website, social networking and key events were all on the key, Incoming students webpage, and have a whole section on the Online New Student Diary.
2. Welcome Talks
We struggle every year with some programme to get a space in the welcome talks to new students. Being on the committee enabled me to negotiate with the Head of Teaching and Learning in a school about that lack of space for that particular cohort. She sits above those organising the welcomes, so once I spoke to her, she agreed to allow for space and my job was done. This didn’t even have to be dealt with at a committee meeting, I was able to speak with her privately afterwards. Just getting her face to face, rather than having to send emails or phone had a much bigger impact.
3. Unified hashtag
Taking up of a unified Orientation hashtag, #HelloUCD, suggested by my colleague, Emily Doherty. A simple idea, but there was loads of engagement with the students on this, even before they entered the University. The committee was very positive to its adoption afterwards, as they could really see how people engaged with it and how UCD was profiled and “talked up” in the social media domain. We looked good for being the ones to suggest it.
They are just three practical examples, as you can imagine there were many others.
We collaborated with UCD Media Services on the development of a virtual tour. Niall and Vincent suggested we use the proprietary software, Krpano to create interactive 360 degree panoramas of the space and then embed in Adobe Captivate. At the end of the day, it worked well. I had received training from Media services previously on eLearning software Captivate and Articulate, and had I had a good working relationship with them when developing eLearning tutorials.
The result was the James Joyce Library Virtual Tour, which works well and we have had success with. It needs more promotion. Since working on this, I have also been asked to speak at a UCD EdTecx Talks event this March in UCD. This invitation would not have happened without the eLearning and virtual joint project with Media Services (which I could do a whole separate talk on).
I’d like to acknowledge that I have missed out speaking about working with lots of other units, such as our International office, Mature Student Writing Academy, the Access students, School of Social Justice and more. Also, Orientation is very much a team effort in UCD Library, so people really are key to the success.
To link back to the conference them theme, I would say that Orientation has been collaborative and inspired – I would not go as far as to say transformed, perhaps not quite necessary as yet, or just further in the future.
Personally, I have found it hugely beneficial to find out more about how the university works, and see how the library and I as a professional can contribute to planning for Orientation and the actual events and activities made available to students. I feel extended after the experience. Who knows what Orientation 2015 will bring?