Integrating digital libraries with virtual learning environments

About this site

This set of resources was produced by CERLIM and CSALT under the auspices of the LinkER project. It is intended to be of use to people in UK institutions of further and higher education who have responsibility for managing and enabling the integration of digital libraries and virtual learning environments.

The site was originally developed to be of interest to people working on DiVLE projects. It is intended to be a collection of resources of value to the wider HE/FE community, especially those dealing with issues concerning digital library integration with VLEs.

Note for the LinkER team, people associated with DivLE and other interested readers.

In selecting and organising the resources, we have:

had in mind that the people most likely to use these resources will be working in a multidisciplinary project team or task group, drawn from the institution's library service, information systems service and educational development service together with members of academic/teaching staff
aimed to draw on lessons learned by DivLE projects during the period 2002-3
supplemented this with other resources we have found on the web or in the literature focussed on particularly problematic but also future-oriented issue areas.

We have not spent effort on the visual design of the site. We have focussed efforts on structure, content and usability. Your feedback would be most welcome.

Key issues and the selection of the resources on this site

Summarising experience of DiVLE projects to date, and combining this with other information sources, we take the following to be key issues for institutional project teams/task groups working in this area:

Project management issues

Staffing/forming the task group
Understanding the state of the art
User requirements; involving users (academics, students and others)
Project planning and execution; realistic timescales; access to users; the academic year
Monitoring and evaluation
Deliverables
Dissemination/contact with the wider community

Stakeholder issues

Project partners
Academics and students
Accessibility for staff and students with disabilities
Cross-cultural communication within multidisciplinary task groups

Usability/functionality issues

Seamless, one-stop access
All library functions online
Individualisation for the learner
Flexibility for the teacher
Universal accessibility
Ease of use

Learning and teaching issues

Use of resources by staff
VLEs and distance learning
Other stakeholders - pedagogical and organisational interests in tension

Technical issues

Resource description
Open URLs
Embedding 3rd party services
Openness of VLE platforms
Cross-searching
Access management
Non-standard resource types

Use of these materials

Materials on this site were produced by CERLIM and CSALT under the auspices of the JISC-funded LinkER project. Materials on this site may be used freely for non-commercial purposes provided that the source is acknowledged. They may be copied provided that this note is included in the copied materials. NB that this authorisation does NOT apply to materials on other sites, to which we have provided links.

LinkER - Linking Digital Libraries and Virtual Learning Environments: Evaluation and Review - is a ten-month project being undertaken by the Centre for Research in Library & Information Management (CERLIM) at the Manchester Metropolitan University and the Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology (CSALT) at Lancaster University. Details of the project,s work and copies of published reports are available at the main LinkER website.