1. The USF/COB Distance Education Project
Vicki L. Gregory, Mel Pace
and James Andrews
University of South Florida
Willamae Johnson
The College of the Bahamas

2. Overview Introduction How the Program Operates
Blackboard and Virtual Community
Access to Information
Conclusion

3. Introduction: Ms. Johnson, COB Library Director
Need for an LIS master’s degree in The Bahamas
Development of the Contract
Recruitment of students

4. LIS Program in The Bahamas
13 courses delivered in 3 ways:
Face-to-face
Blended
Total web
Students will come to the USF Campus for a ten-week summer term in 2007 to complete their last 2 classes including supervised fieldwork.
USF SLIS is delivering the American Library Association and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education accredited Master’s degree program to students in the Bahamas through the facilities of The College of the Bahamas.

5. Blackboard
All SLIS classes utilize Blackboard (web course management software) to some extent.
Blackboard also facilitates access to the USF Library, Registration system, and to name just a few services.

9. Virtual Communities
Blackboard (web-based) course site with discussion boards, , chat, and file-sharing capability.
Includes all members of a particular class
SLIS Virtual Community on Blackboard
Includes all SLIS students

10. What is a Community?
People who interact to satisfy their own needs or roles
People who have a shared purpose
People who act within a determined set of policies and guidelines
All communities shape social interaction and provide a common connectedness among members

11. Communities of Practice (CoP)
Virtual Communities in Education
Jennifer J. Preece
Online Communities: Designing Usability,
Supporting Sociability
CoPs in Education or other professions
Jennifer Preece -- her research focuses on online communities and social computing. The over arching question that she researches is: ‘what makes an online community successful?’ Her work provides insights about how sociability and usability are intricately connected in the evolution of online communities. Sociability is concerned with how people interact in digital social spaces. Usability is concerned with how users interact with technology across a human-computer interface.
In organizations, or among professionals with similar interests or communities of practice, the members of which are isolated or at least not typically in close geographical proximity to one another, a virtual community can be the answer to an otherwise “lonely” professional existence. The virtual community can facilitate information exchange and the wide dispersal of knowledge with a built-in human perspective and relevance assessments.
Facilitating learning communities at a distance requires some new approaches to the practice of managing the teaching and learning process.

13. The Design Announcements Documents Discussion Chat or IM Board
To exchange
information
among
students &
faculty
not working
at the same
time .
To allow
conversation
among
members
not in the
same
geographic
area
Anything of
Interest
To the
Community
Members
Shared
Documents, forms, applications, etc.

14. USF Library Resources
Students have full access to the electronic resources and databases at USF.
Students authenticate once when they log onto Blackboard.

15. Full Access to USF Libraries Resources
Full Access to USF Resources
COB Student

16. Full Access to USF Libraries Resources
Full Access to USF Resources
WWW Browser
Via a WWW browser….
COB Student

17. Full Access to USF Libraries Resources
Full Access to USF Resources
USF/Blackboard ID
WWW Browser
COB Student

18. Full Access to USF Libraries Resources
Full Access to USF Resources
Re-configures to USF IP address
E-Z Proxy Software
USF/Blackboard ID
WWW Browser
Our version of BlackBoard comes with a software called E-A Proxy access
Rather than the traditional, cumbersome process of having students set up their own proxy acces,
this software recognizes the student when she logs on to blackboard, and then reconfigures whatever IP address they are accessing the system from to one that looks like a USF IP address.
Once logged on, the student then has access to all the resources at USF that students residing in FL have…..
COB Student

19. Full Access to USF Libraries Resources
Full Access to USF Resources
Re-configures to USF IP address
E-Z Proxy Software
USF/Blackboard ID
WWW Browser
COB Student

20. Full Access to USF Libraries Resources
Full Access to USF Resources
E-Journals
Re-configures to USF IP address
E-Z Proxy Software
Bibliographic
Databases
USF/Blackboard ID
OPAC
Tutorials
WWW Browser
…and many other
resources
COB Student

26. Conclusion
First cohort successfully underway – currently in their third semester.
Beginning to recruit for a second cohort to start probably in 2007.
PowerPoint available at: