Administrators have been involved with developing budgets, lobbying for funds, and identifying other needed resources. I should remind you that all of these tasks have been taken on by librarians already on staff who have complete and full job descriptions. There has not been permanent hiring in the libraries to address the UWired projects. UWired takes many forms, but for the Libraries represents the pinacle of our efforts to involve librarians with faculty and students and to bring information literacy education into the curriculum. In addition, we have an active user education program with many components.
Course related instruction is widely available in the many campus libraries.
Course integrated instruction is provided in select instances, especially at our branch campuses where the student population is smaller programs fewer, and librarians have been involved with program development. Since UWired is many initiatives, not a monolithic project, each project has presented different challenges, successes and areas for further development. Overall, I would say that when it works, UWired does allow students enhanced access to faculty, faculty access to students, and student access to each other, which improves the sense of community in a course and on campus. Conversely, when used inappropriately technology can be a tremendous barrier to learning. I would say that UWired has avoided any significant inappropriate uses, but the effort to define that line and explore the implications of technology for teaching and learning is the jist of UWired.