Peeling Apart the Layers: Library Services to Online Education Consortia

Universities and colleges have been forming online education consortia as one of many methods to better serve their students while reigning in the rising costs of higher education. While libraries’ responses to these consortia vary, there are trends in the methods and standards being used. This paper reviews some of the literature published about library services in online education consortia, evaluates a selection of interstate and intrastate online education consortia, and provides information about the beginning stages of a library service model in a new online education consortium—Concordia Online Education. Because Concordia Online Education is new, the library services across the partner schools are not yet fully defined, nor are they an official part of the consortial agreement. By taking into account the information from the literature and the websites, we’ve been able to begin a foundation to frame our collaboration with partner schools and develop recommendations for how to move forward. Higher education has been tackling the conundrum of educating more students with less funding by forming online education consortia. These consortia lower many of their operating costs due to shared sourcing, along with the use of technology. Libraries’ responses to online education consortia vary depending on available resources and services. In all cases, libraries strive to meet the “access entitlement principle” from the Standards for Distance Learning Library Services: Every student, faculty member, administrator, staff member, or any other member of an institution of higher education, is entitled to the library services and resources of that institution, including direct communication with the appropriate library personnel, regardless of where enrolled or where located in affiliation with the institution. (Association of College & Research Libraries, 2008) What Are Online Education Consortia? The phrase online education consortia often comes with different meanings for different stakeholders. To some, such consortia are collaborative groups that share best practices and training opportunities, and for others, they are shared service entities. In State U Online, Fishman (2013) breaks down the types of online education consortia into five “steps” based on services provided to students: 1) “clearinghouse,” 2) “shared contracts,” 3) “shared student services,” 4) “shared and articulated credentials,” and 5) “shared credentials beyond state borders” (p. 9). These steps take a consortium from:  A base level of providing a gateway to courses taught by institutions in the consortium.  To a second level of pooling funds to share costs of licensing and contracts.  To a third level of sharing point‐of‐contact support services, such as advising, etc.  To a fourth level of providing a method for “easy transfer of credit among institutions and shared credentialing.”  Finally, to a fifth level, where the institutions in the consortium provide the resources and services from the previous steps “and allow students to move freely beyond state borders” (Fishman, 2013, p. 9). When reviewing the literature about online education consortia and examining the websites of a selection of interstate and intrastate consortia, these “steps” work well as definitions to determine the service levels provided by each consortium. The “steps” also provide a lens for viewing libraries’ roles within the consortia. For example, a consortium at the base level has little to no evidence of library involvement in a centralized capacity. Whereas, a consortium at the third level of “shared student services” may Copyright of this contribution remains in the name of the author(s). http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284315633 498 Charleston Conference Proceedings 2014 potentially have more collaboration between the libraries at the participating institutions. Libraries Roles in Online Education: From Individual Institutions to Consortia In Standards for Distance Learning Library Services, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL, 2008) provides in‐depth recommendations and best practices for how libraries should serve distance learning students and online education programs. Such services “must be equivalent to those provided for students and faculty in traditional campus settings” (ACRL, 2008). The ACRL (2008) goes on to specify the importance of “direct human access” for online students and faculty, emphasizing the need for librarians to be actively involved “through instruction, interaction, and intervention . . . in the provision of library services and in facilitating successful use of library resources.” At the same time, libraries don’t provide these online services in a vacuum. We provide better services when we collaborate with other departments who serve online students, such as teaching faculty, instructional designers, and student services. The ACRL (2008) recognizes this need for collaboration in its recommendation to “involve library and other personnel in all stages of the detailed analysis of planning, developing, evaluating, and adding or changing of the distance learning programs.” The ACRL goes on to recommend that librarians become active “in the curriculum development process and in course planning for distance learning” while also communicating with faculty, administration, and related community members. These standards are also applicable to libraries’ roles in online education consortia because the ACRL (2008) places the responsibility of library service provision on the institution that enrolls students “in its courses, unless an equitable agreement for otherwise providing these materials has been made.” Many libraries in online education consortia follow this model of the “home institution . . . provid[ing] access to library resources,” such as the Web‐based Information Science Education (WISE) consortium (Montague and Pluzhenskaia, 2007, p. 38). Interstate Online Education Consortia When evaluating the websites of several interstate online education consortia, only one out of eight consortia listed information about library services on its website. The Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (Great Plains IDEA, 2012) states that “students will have access to the online library system of their home institution. Students may receive access to library resources at the teaching institution if the instructor expects students to utilize such resources.” Adams and Cassner (2010) surveyed libraries in the Great Plains IDEA consortium to determine types and levels of services provided by each library. Their survey found that most of the consortial libraries provided reference services with some type of communication, usually via email or an ask‐a‐librarian service (Adams & Cassner, 2010, pp. 420‐421). At the same time, Adams and Cassner found a disconnection in the libraries’ awareness of the Great Plains IDEA consortium as it related to online education programs occurring on their campuses. “Unfamiliarity may be partly due to the complexity of large academic organizations. The name of the consortial program may differ from the name of the administrative home department that offers courses” (Adams & Cassner, 2010, p. 423). Because the other interstate online education consortia did not list library services on their websites, it is difficult to know what the expectations are for library services in relation to online courses offered within the consortia. Further research would be needed to reach out to the libraries at the participating institutions with a survey or other research instrument. Intrastate Online Education Consortia When evaluating the websites of several intrastate online education consortia, six out of eleven consortia listed information about library services on their websites. Of those six consortia, two provide links to statewide library databases,