Online Learning Institute
Course Description: Workflow Analysis 201 (Summer 2018 Course Dates: April 30 – May 25, 2018)
Live Sessions happening on Tuesdays @ 2:00PM Eastern
Instructors: Heather Weltin, Chris Sisak, and Kurt Munson
Two-hundred level courses are designed to dig deeper into specific areas of resource sharing workflows. Success in these courses happens when students are able to implement the course materials, presentations, and resources to new or current projects and/or workflows in their own libraries. These courses are targeted toward those who have a solid understanding of resource sharing as a library service and are responsible for workflows beyond the day to day processing.
The Online Learning Institute’s Workflow Analysis Course will increase students’ knowledge of tools and technologies that can be implemented to improve repetitive standard ILL processes for both staff and patron users. This course will also focus on how to conduct workflow analysis for your ILL department and give hands-on experience applicable to your own resource sharing unit. Successful completion of this course includes weekly attendance at 3 out of 4 live sessions and completion of a final project.
Students will learn:
- How to identify key areas within ILL processes where quick assessments can be made.
- How to implement improvements identified by quick assessments.
- Tools and technologies available to help improve workflows with automation.
- How to effectively communicate with non ILL partners, such as IT and Administration.
- Best practices for testing identified workflow changes.
Success:
- Students have designed a new workflow based on discussions in class.
- Students will have been exposed to assessment tools for evaluating workflow changes.
- Students have presented new workflow.
- During the course, opportunity to collaborate with other students through discussions and sharing insights on workflow analysis.
Prior to the start of the course, students enrolled in Workflow Analysis will need to identify a workflow in their ILL operation for analysis. Once registered, students will receive an email detailing the assignments and their scheduling for the course.
Expected Time Commitment:
Students can expect to spend approximately between 2 and 3 hours a week on each course. Time spent will be applied to readings, videos, course discussions, and a synchronous session each week.
Engagement: Course engagement includes readings, quizzes, videos, and other resources to support students’ development with each course topic. The most valuable aspect of each course is the opportunity to participate in course discussions with colleagues. Students’ success will heavily weigh on these discussion participations. Each discussion will be facilitated by instructors and prompted with new questions/topics each week.
Completion: Completion of each course will be measured by participation in 3 out of 4 synchronous sessions, successful completion of each week’s quiz, and engagement with the course registrants through discussion boards mentioned above.
Technology: The required technology to successfully complete an Online Learning Institute course includes access to the internet and a computer with microphone/speakers (i.e. headset for session participation). If a headset is unavailable, students may telephone in to the live sessions.