My fall semester is coming to a close. I taught three graduate classes this semester: Digital Libraries; Creating, Managing & Preserving Digital Assets; and Business Resources & Strategic Intelligence. You may not realize that I used to do competitive intelligence research, so that last class really is in my area of expertise.
I always enjoy teaching Creating, Managing & Preserving Digital Assets, which I teach online (not in the classroom). The class introduces students to all of the areas that they would need to be concerned with when involved in a digitization program. The class is a real eye-opener for them. The students blogged this semester as they have for several semesters in this class.
Digital Libraries introduces them to the concept and reality of digital libraries. It really complements the class is Creating, Managing and Preserving Digital Assets, and some students take both classes at the same time. This semester, the students build a digital library on digital libraries using SharePoint. (Did we really create digital library? Ah...)
The third class I taught had several differences from the other two: it was a campus (face-to-face) class, it was not a library science class (most students were from our information management program), most of the students were not from the U.S., and it was a hands-on class. I've taught this class twice this calendar year and I've both times have had students research Fortune 1000 companies. The companies and their industries provide a reason for the students to learn a variety of resources and gain experience in reporting on what they have found.
Each class has its ah-ha moments, when students "get it". For the students that are learning about digitization, an early ah-ha is when they realize that digitization is much more than the conversion process. In digital libraries, the students have a huge ah-ha with the definition of a digital library. In business resources, the ah-ha is around the high quality resources that are available through our libraries.
My ah-ha is that every day is exciting. No, not scandalously exciting, but exciting nonetheless.
How are your days?
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