Hybrid advisory service for the entire BA and teacher training program

Event type: Library introduction in the context of tutorials
Organisation: Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Funding period: 01.04.2023 to 31.03.2024
Short title: Hybrid counselling service

Extract from the funding application: "Students should always be able to acquire the respective sub-skills for scientific information and literature research in the course of their studies when they need and apply them directly. To this end, the library introduction was further developed."

Orientation of the teaching lab

Until now, library introductions for BA degree programmes in Sociology and Political Science as well as the teacher training programme in Social Sciences were held as one-off 90-minute face-to-face courses in the first semester. These events had to cover a lot of content in a short space of time, which left little room for practical experimentation and often contained information that was only needed later in the degree programme. In order to remedy these deficits, it was decided to develop the library introductions into a course-related, primarily online-based counselling service.

Positive experience was gained from the pandemic-related switch to online introductions in summer semester 2020. The aim of the further development is to continuously support students in their literature research, which is essential for their seminar papers and presentations.

A new teaching concept has been developed that makes all the necessary information and tools easily accessible to students. The advantages of the online format include flexible course organisation, permanent availability and the inclusion of students who are unable to attend the university regularly due to health reasons or caring responsibilities.

Review and results

The project enabled the development of new formats such as OpenOlat, online consultation sessions and intensive tutor training. Self-tests, how-to videos, texts and infographics were created within OpenOlat. The library introduction was reformed and expanded, successfully transferred to a hybrid learning environment and supplemented with topics such as artificial intelligence.

Library staff were able to strengthen their expertise in the development of new formats. An exchange was held with subject managers and students about content, formats and timing in order to improve the counselling components.

Modules 1 and 2 of the OpenOlat course (4 modules are planned) address many project objectives. The course content was prepared in such a way that the students were able to learn the advantages and disadvantages of different search tools and the importance of the right search terms by trying out and analysing the search results together. It became apparent that practical learning is particularly important for this content, which was not given enough consideration in previous introductory courses.

Tips from lecturers for lecturers

The exchange with the students (course participants and student assistants/tutors) made possible by the project made it possible to incorporate their perceptions much better into the presentation of the course content. In the course of the project, the special features of online courses in OpenOlat became very clear, and strategies and forms could be developed to prepare the teaching content as optimally as possible for online self-study. This form of teaching was new territory for the library staff. The project offered a unique opportunity to realise this. Without funding, it would not have been possible to realise such a project in this form as part of normal library work.