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| John Lowery |
Special Libraries Association Launches CLICK
University
In December 2004, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and Elsevier
announced their partnership to support creation of SLA’s online university. To
help launch the university and significantly advance professional development
opportunities for SLA’s over 12,000 members, Elsevier made a one-time gift to
the SLA Campaign for Professional Development. Recently Library Connect team
member Daria DeCooman caught up with John Lowery, SLA’s director of
professional development, for an update on what’s happening with the
university.
LC: When is the university launching?
John Lowery: The launch is happening at the SLA Annual Conference this
year in Toronto. We’re having a launch celebration on June 6, and the
university opens then for business.
LC: Have other information organizations
created similar online learning ventures?
Lowery: As far as I know, there is no other library organization that
has an online learning community. There certainly isn’t any other online
university created by or supported by a library association.
LC: So you’re making history.
Lowery: Yes, John Regazzi brought that up when he met with us and gave
us Elsevier’s donation. We’re at the forefront of professional development.
We’re going where no information organization has gone before.
LC: How did the university come into being?
Lowery: It really started in 2003, when Janice Lachance our executive
director and I were hired. During her first meeting with SLA members, she
identified that members needed more learning experiences but faced barriers,
such as travel and regional locations of classrooms.
Janice’s idea was the same as mine, that an online learning community would
help SLA members. We decided to determine if that was the way to go.
In 2004, it became obvious an online community would be the way forward.
During the SLA Annual Conference in Nashville we presented a prototype of our
online university and had a good response. So we put together a proposal, and
in October the SLA board saw our presentation and what we were planning to do
and approved it.
LC: Can you speak some more about why SLA
decided to take on this role?
Lowery: The three primary values we promote are innovation and
learning, networking and advocacy. For innovation and learning, the launch of
the online university takes us forward giant strides.
LC: Please describe the university’s
offerings.
Lowery: We decided an online university would help us meet our members’
diverse needs. Through the university, our members will be able to sign up
with one of our partners and take advanced degrees. They also will be able to
persue courses and seminars and get certificates. Or, they’ll be able to go to
the library and — through one of our information partners — look something up.
LC: Who are the partners?
Lowery: Right now, Drexel University and Syracuse University. We are
developing a partnership with WISE (Web-enabled Information Science
Education). Syracuse and the University of Illinois won an IMLS grant to form
a consortium of universities to establish collaborative learning online and
WISE resulted. It involves 12 universities sharing online courses and
students. Through WISE, a student can take a course at any participating
university and receive credit. WISE is also launching at our conference this
June. Once WISE develops online offerings, we’ll immediately have 12 partners.
LC: So, if I were to enroll in SLA’s
online university, I could get an MLIS or MLS from Drexel or Syracuse?
Lowery: That’s true. You would go through our portal and, after
identifying yourself as an SLA member, apply to become a Drexel or Syracuse
student and pursue a degree. And you’d receive a discount on tuition.
LC: Can you explain more about the
university’s offerings and talk about its learning management system?
Lowery: Learn.com, the learning management system, forms the
university’s underpinnings. They’ll be hosting the university. Beyond securing
partnerships, we have purchased libraries of courses in office applications,
professional development, personal development and business fundamentals.
These courses will be available through our site. And we’re going to do
something else a little unusual. We’ll partner with individuals already
offering online courses, and they’ll become more or less adjunct faculty with
SLA. The first person on board is Leslie Harris, a copyright law expert.
She’ll make available courses on copyright law and digital licensing issues.
LC: Isn’t there something catchy about the
university’s name?
Lowery: CLICK University is the name for our online university, and
we’ve secured clickuniversity.com as the URL. CLICK stands for Continuous
Learning to Improve Career Knowledge. Coming up with ‘CLICK’ was arduous. We
had a committee and went through iterations and got feedback, and then one day
John Crosby, SLA's associate executive director for marketing and
communications, and I were sitting around talking in Alexandria and it came to
us. It clicked. CLICK has a nice sound and everybody immediately knows it has
something to with clicking a mouse or clicking on.
LC: Is this a dream come true for you?
Lowery: I came to SLA with the idea of doing this, but I’m surprised at
how fast it’s come together. This is a testament to how innovative an
organization SLA is, and to Janice’s leadership and how at SLA all our
projects involve teamwork.
LC: Long-term, what do you see for the
university?
Lowery: When we launch we hope to have as robust as possible a
university site, but it’s only the beginning. Regarding online education in
general, it’s a matter of one to two years before it becomes the preferred
manner of education. The paradigm was that it was just as good, but now it’s
gone beyond that. It’s become better. A better way to learn than sitting in
the classroom, taking notes, trying to go back and remember what was said. The
success stories are obvious, and we look forward to CLICK University joining
the ranks of online learning success stories.
LC: Can you tell us a bit about how
Elsevier’s support is contributing to the university?
Lowery: Elsevier is our only founding partner for the university. The
donation amounted to about half of the cost of our contract with Learn.com —
providing the learning management system. But beyond that cost there have been
other start-up costs — purchasing course libraries, marketing and so on. It’s
appropriate to say Elsevier’s donation has contributed significantly to our
ability to get the university started.
Our board agreed to fund the whole Learn.com purchase. So the money from
Elsevier has allowed us to do other things needed to launch the university.
The donation’s proven very useful.
LC: How will SLA maintain funding for the
university in the future?
Lowery: At our annual conference in 2004 we launched the SLA Campaign
for Professional Development. SLA members are making donations and our goal is
to raise a million dollars. The campaign is ongoing and important to our aim
to become a leader in professional development among information science
organizations.
LC: Thank you for speaking with us.
Lowery: You’re welcome.
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